OPPO UK Launch

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Last night Rapid Reviews UK was lucky enough to be invited to the UK launch event of the global mobile phone company OPPO. Held in Tower Bridge, there was a keynote from Terence Tan (Executive Director of Sales, OPPO UK) who outlined the recent developments for OPPO and then there was a chance to get a small hands-on with some phones.

For those of you who don’t know about OPPO, let me share some details of them with you. They are the 4th biggest mobile technology brands in the world. They currently have over 400,000 stores globally in more than 35 markets. They continue to combine technology with design in the production of their mobiles. As Terence Tan said at the event ‘Phones are portals to new experiences’.

OPPO has been focussing on global expansion as they bring their product to new markets. So far events in the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and France alongside the UK launch are just the start. Three different smartphones will be brought to the UK for everyone to get their hands on. The RX17 Pro & Neo and the OPPO Find X. OPPO will be partnering with Carphone Warehouse as the main retail outlet to pick up one of these phones.

The entry-level phone is the RX17 Neo which comes with a price tag of £319. For this you get a sleek design, hidden fingerprint unlock, waterdrop screen, a 25MP AI front camera and a powerful operating system. The Neo has a beautiful 3D gradient design which gives it a dynamic colour range as you move it around.

Next up is the RX17 Pro with a £549 price tag. With a similar feel to the Neo, the Pro has a 91.5% screen ratio with Corning Gorilla Glass 6. You will also find the Pro has Pro Smart Aperture which will help give more evident night shots as well as the 25MP AI Beauty Camera to help you take that perfect selfie. The big difference though between the Neo and Pro is the inclusion of the SuperVOOC Flash Charge with the Pro. They’ve said that this will help you achieve a 40% charge in 10 minutes!

Finally, you have the flagship phone, the OPPO Find X at £799. There is a standard edition of this phone as well as a Lamborghini Special edition, another OPPO partner. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any Lamborghini’s at the event or was the phone a bright green. With a panoramic arc screen and a 93.8% screen ratio, you won’t see much-wasted space on this phone. Add in 3D face recognition and the 25MP AI-enhanced 3D camera, and you have the OPPO Find X.

What was cool on the X model is the stealth 3D cameras that remain hidden until you need them. When you open the camera on the phone, it will pop up from the phone. I was assured that it would automatically close if you dropped the phone but didn’t feel like testing that.

What was noticeable about all the phones was their feel. All 3 had a sleek design and looked great but what I liked was how good they felt when holding one. I never got the impression that I am going to bend this phone or that I should be delicate with it.

OPPO also discussed their hopes for 5G access for their phone series, so this could play an interesting role in their success. They had already had some success in a test run but never gave too much away.

All my time with the phones was at this closed launch event so without filling them up with real-world stuff its hard to say if they will perform as great as they looked. However, from my quick time feeling and navigating the phones I wouldn’t be surprised if the users will receive them.