Oppo R9s review: An important step forward

Oppo makes some small but important steps forward with its latest handset bound for Asia.

Without making much of a splash in the west, Oppo has found itself towards the top of the list of smartphone manufacturers. While the top two, Samsung and Apple, are still a ways out, Oppo is now a constant presence around the number four spot, and that’s no small achievement.

Like many other phone makers from China, we’ve seen significant improvements from Oppo in several key areas with recent devices. The latest, the Oppo R9s, is now launching outside China for the first time and represents another step forward, albeit a subtle one.

To look at from the front, the R9s looks just like the F1s and F1 Plus we’ve encountered most recently from Oppo. There is a design language and it has been stuck with throughout 2016. Be that a good thing or a bad thing depends on your outlook. It’s not as if its an ugly phone though, that’s for sure.

We’ve got the same metal back and sides we’ve seen before with the almost same home button on the front flanked by a pair of capacitive ones. I say almost because for the R9s, the home button isn’t actually a button. It’ll still take you to the home screen and it still houses the fingerprint scanner, but it’s just a touch now rather than a press.

In fact, it’s probably the best fingerprint scanner I’ve ever used on any phone on any platform.

Oppo has been putting excellent fingerprint scanners into its phones of late and the R9s is no exception. In fact, it’s probably the best fingerprint scanner I’ve ever used on any phone on any platform. It is lightning fast and so far, extremely accurate. If it fails or you scan a wrong finger, you’ll get a vibrate, but given there’s no longer a button the R9s is a single-touch operation. And that means you’ve unlocked your phone before you can blink.

One other notable and pleasing feature on the outside is the antenna lines. Oppo has gone for an arrangement of three extremely thin lines over one much thicker one top and bottom and it makes a difference. The Rose Gold back of our unit isn’t being interrupted by a nasty white line, instead gently touched by a series of fine ones that don’t stand out nearly as much. I like it.

Otherwise it’s business as usual. It’s slim, it’s light, it has a very nice looking 1080p 5.5-inch AMOLED display and it has a Micro-USB port on the bottom. Oppo hasn’t yet gone to USB-C with its VOOC flash charging, and at the back end of 2016 it is mildly disappointing. There’s also a headphone jack, because you have to remind people that these still exist, apparently.

The hardware isn’t at all surprising, really. I’ve used most of Oppo’s main phones for 2016 and every time the hardware has been on point. Sleek form, great build quality, attractive design. Job done.

Where Oppo generally disappoints is in the same place other Chinese companies do, and that’s when you turn it on.

Oppo finally moves to Marshmallow as 2016 is about to leave us.

What you’re greeted with is something that still looks more like iOS or Xiaomi’s MIUI than regular Android. Color OS is Oppo’s own custom build and it’s still on version 3.0 for the R9s. While the appearance will split opinions, it does at least perform well and nothing appears broken. There is a comprehensive theme store to change up how it all looks if you don’t like what you find, but there’s going to be a lot of white and a lot of pastel colors wherever you go.

The biggest change here is that finally Oppo has moved on to Android 6.0 Marshmallow. This is going to be an area of concern probably more outside China than within, but it just can’t keep taking a year to get on in this case even the previous version of Android. Expecting Nougat would have been a stretch, but at least Lollipop has finally been left in the dumpster.

The arrival of Marshmallow doesn’t mean you can use Android Pay with it, though, in supported markets. Because there’s no NFC. But at least you get all the other benefits associated with Marshmallow, so there’s that.

Camera wise, Oppo continues to pursue the perfect selfie. On the back is a 16MP camera, the same resolution as the one on the front. The camera app associated with both is fairly simple and speedy to use. Both cameras focus and snap in a flash, and produce very nice pictures. The front camera isn’t any better or worse than the F1 Plus or the F1s, but that’s fine. It takes great selfies, if that’s important to you.

I’ve only been using this phone for a few days now but I’ve been able to get a decent feel for battery life and so far it’s pretty good. The Snapdragon 625 and 1080p display combination seems to assist fairly frugal drain in regular situations, but at least with the VOOC flash charging you know you’ll be able to top up in a hurry.

What the R9s marks is another step towards Oppo making a truly great phone. It looks nice, it performs well, doesn’t cost a heap and isn’t as far behind on software as some of its predecessors. There are some mild annoyances, like no USB-C when the world is moving that way and no NFC for people in places that can use tap-to-pay, but on the whole it’s a job well done.

Oppo gets it right where it’ll matter for more of the average consumers. By stuffing in a pair of good cameras, 64GB of storage with a microSD slot as well and providing software that at least works smoothly and without too much in the way of hair-pulling moments.

As we reach the end of 2016, Oppo has delivered a phone that can compete with those around it. What we want to see in 2017 is another push forward without waiting until November to get there.

From the Editor’s Desk: OnePlus 3T, brand experience, and phones as a gateway drug

OnePlus has an unconventional approach to selling phones — and that’s because phones are just an entry point.

Until recently, I’ve watched the OnePlus phenomenon from the outside. The brand’s earlier efforts didn’t really sway me, and I was turned off by the numerous (and well-documented) PR blunders. This year, with the OnePlus 3, the company finally grew up, with a great phone at a great price and basically no drama or associated bullshit.

But the overall strategy for OnePlus wasn’t entirely clear to me until I received the brand’s latest offering, the OnePlus 3T, this past week.

It’s the first OnePlus phone I’ve used for any length of time, so it was my introduction to OxygenOS and the OnePlus brand. In itself, it’s a great product, and I mostly agree with what Andrew Martonik says in his review. (I’ll have a second opinion piece coming later this week.) More revealingly, though, the 3T reviewer kit also contained a full loadout of OnePlus accessories and gear — a case, t-shirt, OnePlus Bullets earbuds and a OnePlus-branded leather messenger bag (plus luggage tag). Each one is available to purchase from OnePlus — this isn’t just a one-off deal to try and impress the media. (Although admittedly, impressing fickle and cynical bloggers is surely part of it.)

Each item, including the phone, comes with a card bearing a message for the customer, opening with “Friend,” and signed off with “Never Settle.” The card bundled with the phone has a personal message from co-founder Carl Pei, bearing his signature.

This says a lot about the growth of OnePlus as a brand, and hints at how it might make the bulk of its profit further down the line. The company has admitted that it makes very little profit on sales of phones like the OnePlus One, 2 and 3. That’s no surprise when you’re shipping devices with cutting-edge specs around the $400 mark.

A really good $400 smartphone can lure you towards other branded stuff that’s way more profitable for OnePlus.

But look at the accessories and gear sections of OnePlus’s store. It’s packed with much higher-margin items like branded power banks, earbuds and chargers, not to mention bags and clothing. By ensuring every customer feels like they belong to the OnePlus family, they’re more likely to fork out for more expensive accessories either at the point of purchase, or further down the line. (The 3T has a OnePlus Community app preloaded, which plays into that strategy.)

In the case of Dash Charge, OnePlus’s proprietary fast charging standard, it requires OnePlus’s own cable as well as its own wall plug. If you lose the one in the box, or need a spare, the only place to get that is directly from the manufacturer. And you can bet the margins there are pretty high too.

Other manufacturers with larger global businesses to support do this too, of course. (Together with higher upfront prices for their phones.) But OnePlus, as a smaller company, could basically use its phones as a gateway drug to introduce consumers to the brand — a brand which, as it happens, now sells a bunch of other stuff.

With that in mind, it’s fascinating to see OnePlus branching out into audio products and apparel, which represents another side of the OnePlus brand experience. “We would like to thank you for supporting us through purchasing OnePlus Gear,” the card with the OnePlus messenger bag reads, “If you love our products and what we stand for, please help us spread the word.”

In case you were wondering, the leather messenger bag given to reviewers alongside the 3T is pretty nice. The quality is high, the OnePlus branding is subtle — and you’d absolutely expect that in a product that sells for £90 in the UK, or $99 in the U.S.

In sending all this stuff to reviewers, OnePlus immerses them not just in the phone but in the much more important brand experience we’ve touched on above. Because nurturing its brand, and slowly but surely branching out into product categories with higher margins, seems to be what’ll fuel OnePlus’s profitability in the future.

Really, the phone is just there to get you interested. And when you buy it, you too are part of the family.

Friend, Never Settle.

Other odds and ends on a working Sunday:

• While we’re talking OnePlus 3T, it’s a shame the company wasn’t able to have Nougat ready in time to launch the new phone. (Marshmallow feels kinda old after a month with the Pixel That’s really the biggest caveat right now. At least it’ll be going away in the next month, with a update to 7.0 for both the 3 and 3T expected before the year’s end.
• We’re expecting finalized firmware for the Huawei Mate 9 pretty soon. So far everyone who has a review unit is running a non-final build. Like I said in my review, the main thing (besides trivial bugs) that needs fixing is low-light camera performance. Hopefully Huawei can tune things up. In every other respect this is a really promising phone.
• I’ve been messing around with Nougat on the Galaxy S7 edge this past week too. A lot is still in flux, and Samsung is building this release out based on user feedback, which is great. The new, lighter, brigher UI is sure to figure prominently in the Galaxy S8, so we’re likely getting a sneak peek at what’s ahead here.
• Some guy called Phil Nickinson has just launched his new thing. Get your fill of Phil over at Modern Dad. What is Modern Dad? Watch a video and find out!

That’s it for this week. Happy Thanksgiving weekend to everyone in the U.S., and happy Cyber Monday / Cyber Weekend / Where Did All My Money Go Weekend to everyone else!

BMW reportedly unveils an i3 redesign in 2017

BMW might not be waiting for the distant future to step up its electric car plans. Welt sources claim that the automaker plans the 2017 launch of a redesigned i3 that promises both practical and cosmetic improvements. You should see a new battery that significantly extends the range of the car beyond its recently increased 186-mile (with range extending motor) cap. It’s not clear how much further you’ll drive, but the difference will be “noticeable” — just not as big a leap as the 50 percent hike from the last upgrade. In other words, it’s likely enough to cover an extra commute, or to get you to a town that’s just out of reach today.

The refresh also promises a new look for the “front and rear…” or a new car, really. There aren’t any clues as to what this means, but the current i3’s design has been polarizing, to say the least. While it certainly screams “I’m an EV,” its boxy, busy appearance is in sharp contrast to the slicker looks of not only conventional BMWs, but Tesla’s upcoming Model 3. A redesign might be crucial simply to attract buyers put off by the existing styling.

Both improvements are welcome, although the i3 may face tough competition even with these refinements. Tesla is already promising a minimum 214 miles per charge on the Model 3, and the Chevy Bolt can muster 238 miles. BMW’s Klaus Frölich tells Welt that he doesn’t think of range as the be-all, end-all factor in an EV, but it’s still important enough at this stage that the company can’t afford to fall short of its rivals.

Via: Reuters

Source: Welt (translated)