Oppo A5 5G Review: Tough Cuts

Best Prices Today: Oppo A5 5G

An awful lot of people just want a phone that does all the basics competently for as little expenditure as possible. The pricing sweet spot for such a phone is deeply subjective, but for my money, it’s around the £200 mark.

This is where the Samsung Galaxy A16 5G, the Moto G56, and the Poco M7 Pro 5G all live. Now it’s where the Oppo A5 5G lives, too.

At just £179, Oppo’s new budget phone undercuts those rivals a smidgen on price, and it also offers a couple of standout features when it comes to its build and stamina. But does it get the balance of price-to-performance right?

Design & Build

• Aurora Green and Mist White options
• IP65 and MIL-STD 810H military-grade shock resistance
• Plastic, but solid

Give that it’s a cheap phone with a correspondingly ’cheap’ plastic back, the Oppo A5 5G is surprisingly hefty, weighing in at 194g. There are a couple of reasons for that, and both are positives.

One is simply that it’s packed with a huge 6000mAh battery, which we’ll discuss soon enough. The other reason is more relevant to this section.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

Oppo has built the A5 5G to last. That means both IP65 water and dust resistance and MIL-STD 810H military-grade shock resistance – two things that are far from common in the sub-£200 category.

In order to achieve that additional level of robustness, Oppo says that it has used a “high-strength alloy frame” and double tempered glass. It might look and feel like a cheap phone, but it’s evidently built of sterner stuff.

It’s not an unpleasant phone to behold. Its frosted finish is easy enough on the eye – at least in the Aurora Green model I was sent – and also nicely resistant to greasy fingerprints. I’m not a huge fan of the reflective camera surround, but at least it’s a reasonably fresh touch.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

My least favourite part of the Oppo A5 5G’s design is also an inevitable one – its large display bezels and huge chin. It tells you straight from the off that this is a cheap phone. Still, at least the front camera is a hole punch, rather than the old fashioned teardrop design of the Samsung Galaxy A16 5G.

Another cheap inclusion is a power button-based fingerprint sensor – though that’s a fairly normal provision at this end of the market. It’s reliable enough, if a little sluggish at times.

Screen & speakers

• 6.67-inch LCD, not AMOLED
• Only 720p
• Mono speaker

Cheap phones are all about compromise, but I fear Oppo has cut too deep with the A5 5G’s display.

It’s a good size at 6.67 inches, and it packs a fluid 120Hz refresh rate, not to mention a decent top brightness (in typical usage) of 850nits.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

That’s about where the good news ends, however. Oppo has used an LCD panel, which means that it lacks the vibrant colours, deep inky blacks, and rich contrast of the Samsung Galaxy A16 5G and the Poco M7 Pro 5G.

Perhaps even more problematic than that is the use of a mere 1604 x 720 resolution. Call it 720p, call it HD+. The end result is the same: a panel that simply isn’t up to scratch in rendering media with sufficiently sharpness.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

You might not notice in general navigation, but it’s clear whenever you jump into a web page, view a photo, or attempt to stream a decent-quality video.

An altogether underwhelming audiovisual offering is finished off with the provision of a weedy mono speaker on the bottom of the phone. It’s loud and clear – which a presposterous Ultra Volume Mode that supposedly pushes volume up to 300% (whatever that means) – but very top-heavy, and obviously lacks a sense of spaciousness.

Specs & Performance

• MediaTek Dimensity 6300 chipset
• 4GB RAM and 128GB storage
• 128GB of storage, plus microSDXC

The Oppo A5 5G runs on MediaTek’s Dimensity 6300 chipset, backed by a mere 4GB of RAM. It’s a decidedly modest component, and it results in predictably low-end benchmark results.

Indeed, the Oppo A5 5G falls below the Samsung Galaxy A16 5G, the Moto G55, and the Poco M7 Pro in Geekbench 6 multi-core terms.

It does better in our usual suite of GFX Bench GPU tests, but there’s a very obvious reason for that. These tests all measure on-screen GPU performance, and the Oppo A5 5G is the only phone of the four with a low-res 720p display.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

Pushing way fewer pixels around screen places significantly less strain on the GPU – ergo the bolstered benchmark results.

When gaming, the Oppo A5 5G GPU’s true capabilities are exposed. It can run Genshin Impact, but even on the lowest settings, it’s far from a smooth experience. We wouldn’t necessarily expect more from a sub-£200 phone, but it’s worth pointing out nonetheless.

There’s 128GB of storage as standard, and you also get a microSDXC slot for expansion purposes.

Oppo A5 5G benchmarks

Camera

• 50Mp main rear camera
• No ultrawide or telephoto
• 2Mp depth sensor
• 8Mp selfie camera

Oppo has only given its latest budget phone two rear sensors, and only one of those is an actual camera. There’s a 50MP f/1.8 main camera (sans OIS), and a 2MP depth sensor.

This means that, unlike the Samsung Galaxy A16 5G and the Motorola Moto G55 (but like the Poco M7 Pro), the Oppo A5 5G lacks a dedicated ultrawide camera.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

I’d count this as a negative point, but not a very big one. Ultrawide cameras are invariably the weak point of any smartphone camera set-up, and that applies even more strongly to the cheap phone sector, where they’re often borderline unusable.

In fact, if omitting such a shoddy secondary sensor enabled the Oppo A5 5G’s main camera to receive a boost, I’d be all for it. Sadly, that’s not what has happened here.

To be clear, the shots I took with the Oppo A5 5G weren’t a total write-off. But they barely rise above just-about-adequate status, and then only in optimal conditions.

Shooting on a sunny (but cloudy) day, I was instantly struck by how the camera struggled to handled highlights, blowing them out. Colours look reasonably natural, but there’s a slightly flat, over-processed look to many of the images.

Zooming in even to 2x exposes the weakness of that main sensor, with noise encroaching as soon as you crop in.

There’s a night mode here, buried in the More menu, but it’s not fit for purpose. With no OIS, and a small (albeit unspecified) sensor, the shots I take with moderate street lighting came out extremely muddy and grainy.

There’s an 8MP front camera, which renders reasonably natural-looking selfies – albeit with a noticeable lack of sharpness and a tendency of blown out highlights.

Video only extends to 1080p at 30fps, but that’s a standard provision in the sub-£200 category.

Battery Life & Charging

• Huge 6000mAh battery
• 45W wired charging support
• No charger in box

By far the stand-out spec with the Oppo A5 5G is its battery. None of the aforementioned budget phone rivals can get anywhere near the 6000mAh cell provided here.

It’s a brute force approach to stamina, but it’s an effective one – especially combined with Oppo’s particular optimisation special sauce. In our usual PC Mark battery test, the phone achieved a score of 19 hours 7 minutes.

That’s almost 9 hours longer than the Samsung Galaxy A16 5G, and almost 6 hours longer than the Moto G55. The Poco M7 Pro gets a lot close, but even then it falls about 50 minutes short.

this is a phone that can last you well beyond the hallowed two-day mark

Jon Mundy / Foundry

With a low-power processor on board and (more importantly) that undemanding 720p display, this is a phone that can last you well beyond the hallowed two-day mark.

The charging provision isn’t terrible at up to 45W, though you’ll need to provide that charger yourself, preferably one that uses Oppo’s SuperVooc standard.

I had a Vivo 120W charger to hand, which tends to play nicely with Oppo (until fairly recently, both brands were owned by BBK Electronics), and it achieved a 42% charge from empty in 30 minutes.

Software & Apps

• Android 15
• ColorOS 15
• Tested for 48-Month Fluency

The Oppo A5 5G comes with the company’s custom ColorOS 15 UI on top of Android 15.

ColorOS isn’t my favourite Android skin, but it’s one of the better heavily tweaked examples. While I prefer my UIs to be closer to Google’s Pixel experience (I’m not sure that ‘stock’ quite applies any more), Oppo’s approach is always fast and customisable.

Bloatware, as always, is the biggest issue here. There are non-optional pre-installs of Netflix, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, Amazon, Spotify, and Temu. You also get a folder of ‘Must Play’ games that really aren’t, and a More Apps folder with yet more third-party apps you probably don’t want or need.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

With this being a budget phone, it’s no surprise that Oppo has pared its AI provision back from even the mid-range Oppo Reno 13 5G. The Photos app still has an AI Editor, which can enhance clarity, erase background elements, remove reflections and the like – all of which are AI features that work in the cloud.

There’s also Oppo’s own AI Studio app that can create brief animated snippets, AI portraits and the like – again using the cloud rather than the phone’s limited processor.

But you won’t find any real-time AI translation or transcription tools here.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

Oppo doesn’t reveal any particular software update promise with the phone, which leads me to assume it’s not especially extensive. What it does proffer is that it has tested the phone for “48-Month Fluency”, ensuring it’ll still feel fluid in four years time.

That suggests a degree of support for that period, without full-on confirming it.

Price & Availability

The Oppo A5 5G is available to buy now directly from the Oppo UK store for £179.

You’ll also find it at top third-party retailers such as Currys and Amazon, both of which were selling the phone at a discounted price at the time of writing.

There’s just the one model to choose from with 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, though as discussed, there are two colours to choose from.

We haven’t seen the Oppo A5 5G being offered anywhere on contract, but at this price, it’s really custom-made to be bought up front for a SIM-only plan.

At this price, the Oppo A5 5G undercuts the Samsung Galaxy A16 5G, the Motorola Moto G56, and the Poco M7 Pro 5G by £20. It can still be considered a direct competitor, however.

Each of those rivals bests the Oppo on display quality and performance, while the Samsung and the Motorola also give you a dedicated ultra-wide camera. However, none can match the Oppo’s IP rating, nor its huge 6000mAh battery.

Check out our list of the best budget phones for our current top 10 choices.

Should you buy the Oppo A5 5G?

The Oppo A5 5G offers a tempting value proposition at £179, undercutting several high-profile rivals by about 10%.

It also comes with the tempting offer of a huge 6000mAh battery, which could conceivably last you into a third day of usage. It’s a well-built phone, too, with a decent level of water and dust resistance.

However, this simply isn’t as pleasant to live with day to day as some of its key rivals. The key culprit is a 720p IPS display that simply isn’t as sharp or colourful as many of its rivals.

Performance is adequate rather than outstanding, while the camera provision is bare bones at best, and lacks a certain flexibility.

The Oppo A5 5G simply lacks the balance necessary to excel in the budget space. We’d have preferred Oppo to charge the extra £20 and give us the fully rounded experience that’s on offer elsewhere.

Specs

• Android 15
• 6.67in, HD+, LCD, 120Hz, flat display
• Side-mounted fingerprint sensor
• MediaTek Dimensity 6300
• 4GB LPDDR4X RAM
• 128GB storage
• 50Mp, f/1.8 main camera
• 2Mp depth sensor
• Up to 1080p @ 30fps rear video
• 8Mp front-facing camera
• Single speaker
• Dual-SIM
• Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
• Bluetooth 5.4
• 6000mAh battery
• 45W charging
• 165.71 x 76.24 x 7.99mm
• 194g
• Launch colours: Aurora Green, Mist White