Oppo A77: Plans | Pricing | Specs

Where to buy

That's exactly what Oppo offers with phones like the Oppo A77. By applying the same design principles that have made the iPhone so iconic while paring back select features to keep costs low, the Oppo A77 delivers an Apple-like experience at a price better suited to the average smartphone buyer.

Design

• Takes more than a few pages from Apple's design book
• Combines the look and feel of the iPhone 7 with the flexibility of an Android handset

• Read more on the Oppo A77's design

  There's no mistaking the inspiration behind the A77's design. From the rose-gold hue of its curved metal body to its slim profile and minimised bezels, it is very clearly gunning for fans of the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. Its solid construction gives it a similar premium sheen to Apple's pricier devices as does the fact it's only a svelte 7.3mm thick.

  For its display, the Oppo A77 takes cues from the larger iPhone 7 Plus. Like the 7 Plus, it features a 5.5-inch screen with a resolution of 1920 x 1080. The A77 also incorporates Gorilla Glass 5 into its screen for additional protection against scratches, bumps and other forms of unintended contact damage.

  The similarities to Apple's seventh-generation iPhone extend below the display as well. The Oppo A77 integrates a fingerprint sensor into its Home button just as the iPhone 7 does, allowing you to lock the phone more securely than with a simple PIN and prevent anyone who does get their hands on your phone from authorising payments through digital stores like Google Play.

  Where the Oppo A77 really doubles down on delivering an iPhone-like experience is with its custom ColorOS 3.0 interface. Built on top of Android 6.0, the proprietary system software redesigns Android to look and behave more like iOS by streamlining basic functions and getting rid of the app drawer in favour of displaying all apps on the Home screen. This does mean diving into deeper system settings and customising certain aspects of the A77 can be a little more convoluted than on stock Android, but it provides an experience closer to the "it just works" nature of iOS.

  The Oppo A77 doesn't completely neglect its Android roots. While it packs a respectable 64GB of internal storage out of the box, you can expand this by as much as 128GB via the A77's microSD card slot. You don't have to worry about throwing away your wired headphones, either, as the A77 includes a 3.5mm audio jack along with Bluetooth support for wireless headsets.

  Another neat feature the Oppo A77 has over the iPhone 7 is support for two SIM cards. This is particularly handy if you want to use the A77 as both your work phone and your personal phone, or if you want to take advantage of the cheaper international rates of one mobile provider while also enjoying the larger data caps of another mobile provider.

Camera

• Packs a strong selfie game thanks to a 16MP front-facing camera
• Plenty of novice-friendly features such as auto-focus, anti-shake and a Beautify mode

• Read more on the Oppo A77's camera

  If you're a self-confessed selfie fanatic, the Oppo A77 has you well and truly sorted. Where most smartphones prioritise the quality of their traditional rear-facing cameras over their front-facing counterparts, the A77 puts the selfie cam in the spotlight by equipping it with a 16MP sensor and an f/2.0 aperture lens. That's a potent combination, especially for low-light photography. That's not all, either, as Oppo's "Beautify" mode provides a range of post-processing effects for enhancing your selfies, including blemish reduction and a bokeh depth-of-field effect to help you stand out from the world around you.

  While its primary focus is on high-quality selfies, the Oppo A77 is plenty capable for taking regular shots, too. Its rear-facing camera packs a 13MP sensor with an f/2.2 aperture lens along with a solid range of modes and features to help amateur photographers capture decent shots. These include phase-detection auto-focus for clearer photos when the subject is in motion, an anti-shake technique that analyses image data from before and after you press the shutter button to create the sharpest photo and an Ultra HD mode that combines multiple photos shot in quick succession into a single 50MP image.

  The Oppo A77 caters to the more experienced photographers out there, too, offering an expert mode that enables fine-tuning settings like focus, ISO, shutter speed and white balance.

Performance

• Mid-range hardware should be totally adequate for the average user
• 4GB of RAM is especially nice at this price point

• Read more on the Oppo A77's performance

  For the most part, the Oppo A77 manages to keep pace with the capabilities of its Apple-branded contemporaries. Performance is the only area where it falls a little behind, though this is largely due to the fact that Apple is able to tune its software to make the most of its hardware – something that manufacturers of Android handsets cannot do.

  Nevertheless, the A77 is a well-equipped smartphone for its mid-range price. Its eight-core MediaTek MT6750T processor is a decent chip often used as a lower-cost substitute for the popular Qualcomm Snapdragon 625. The MT6750T isn't quite as powerful as its Snapdragon cohort, but it's still more than capable of snappy performance in most apps and a considerable number of 3D games. The inclusion of 4GB of RAM is a big plus, too, as it provides enough headroom for multi-tasking without horrendous slowdown.

Battery

• Under typical use, a single charge should easily see you through a full day

• Read more on the Oppo A77's battery

  As nice as big screens and powerful processors are, they often come at the expense of battery life. To account for this, phones like the Oppo A77 typically need large batteries in the neighbourhood of 3,000mAh or more. The A77 checks this box with its 3,200mAh battery. Given we've seen phones like the Motorola G5 Plus and Oppo's own R9s prove that pairing a 3,000mAh battery with a Snapdragon 625 processor is a recipe for easy all-day battery life, it's a safe bet that the A77's larger battery and less-powerful processor will have no trouble taking you from sunrise to sunset on a single charge.

Pricing and availability

• Price: ~$400
• Where to buy: eBay

Specifications

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