Ever since Huawei teamed up with photographic legend Leica to create the P9 in 2016, the collaboration has been constantly redefining what's possible with a smartphone camera.
So why would this year's P-Series device be any different?...
For those of you not overly familiar with the Huawei brand, there are two flagship lines; the P-Series, generally launched early in the year and the Mate-Series, usually available closer to Christmas. While the Mates focus more on sheer power and performance, the P-Series is all about style and taking great photos.
Last year's P20 Pro was the first phone to feature a tri-lens rear-facing camera - a groundbreaking feature many other manufacturers were unable to emulate, even by the end of the year. This triple-threat camera wasn't just a gimmick, it produced some of the best pictures ever taken with a phone.
So perhaps no massive surprise to find 2019's P30 Pro sporting an extra camera again. Yes, the "Leica Quad Camera System" has added a Time-Of-Flight (TOF) sensor to the array - it's the little one just below the flash there. As I've often admitted, I'm no photographer, but apparently TOF lenses measure depth. This helps the P30 Pro figure out what's in the foreground and what's in the background and it means very fine details like strands of hair won't be lost to background blur in portrait shots. But that's far from this quad-cam's greatest trick.
Apart from the 20MP Ultra Wide Angle Lens, (great for landscapes and stadium shots) we're dealing with a 40MP Super Sensing Camera as well as a SuperZoom Lens. That may sound like a lot of "super." But in this case, it's not just overhyped ad-speak.
By using a periscope-like form factor that bends long distance images down inside the phone for extra optical zoom, the P30 Pro can produce sharp, detailed images at 10x magnification - twice that of pretty much any other phone around. If you're prepared to lose a little quality and you've got a steady hand, digital zoom will take you right in to 50x. This literally makes it possible to pick out objects in the distance you can't even see with the naked eye.
And if that hasn't got your attention, Huawei has thrown out traditional colour sensing rules and rewritten them so the P30 Pro can see in the dark.
I know that all sounds like a commercial, but you have to see the results to believe them. Rather than using Red, Green and Blue light, the RYYB Huawei Super Sensor looks for Red, Yellow and Blue instead. Once again, this means you can take photos of things you can't even see. By way of a quick demonstration, here's a shot I just snapped in a dark wardrobe - no light on at all...
Okay, terrible composition - but come on; amazing colour and detail in near darkness.
The best thing about these four lenses is the P30 Pro brings them all together to give you the best image possible. This is thanks mostly to the same magical Kirin 980 Octa-core processor that made the Mate 20 Pro last year's most powerful phone. It takes a lot of grunt to turn dusk into day - but that is essentially what Night Mode does. Not that you need to choose Night Mode. My wardrobe picture was literally me taking the phone out of my pocket, pointing and shooting.
There are plenty of modes though; Light Painting, Slow-Mo, Underwater to name a few.
If you really want to go crazy, open up the Pro settings and knock yourself out. It's like having a bag full of different cameras and lenses. A very big bag.
It's actually hard to get your head around; the two things phone cameras just can't do - decent zoom and great low-light performance - this camera does.
So by comparison, the selfie camera was a bit... meh. It's still a powerhouse - 32MP is huge and it also performs well in low light. But unlike many other phones on the market it's only a single lens configuration, albeit in a very small central notch at the top of the display. While you can still achieve a split-focus, bokeh effect on your self portraits, it's nowhere near as precise as portraits taken with the TOF-assisted rear-facing array. Edge details can end up quite indistinct, especially if you push the filters and beauty effects a step too far. If it's a really important selfie, I'd hand the camera to someone else and get them to take it.
Or maybe it just seems a bit average because the rear camera is so fabulous.
But let's not forget, this isn't just a photo machine. The P30 Pro is a top-of-the-line smartphone and it belongs at the very top of the line. It does all the high-end tricks we've quickly come to expect; IP68 water and dust resistant, wireless charging, an impressive 8GB of RAM and a huge 256GB of storage space.
The aforementioned Huawei Kirin 980 CPU is one of the best available and has this device absolutely purring. Operation is slick and smooth and thanks partly to the workload being split between the dual neural processors, battery life is quite simply off the scale. While the 4200mAh battery is the same size as the Mate 20 Pro's from last year, I believe the performance is even better on this phone. As you can imagine, I typically use my phone quite a bit on a daily basis - browsing, streaming, connected to bluetooth accessories - and yet it's not unusual for me to go to bed with more than 70% battery life still showing. I'm not kidding.
What's more, even if you do manage to run the battery down, the SuperCharge 40W charger will have this phone up and running faster than just about anything else out there.
The only thing that tends to be a real drain is the reverse wireless charging feature, which we first saw on the Mate 20 Pro. It's pretty slow and takes a lot of juice to do - and is a bit curious given Huawei doesn't have any wirelessly charged accessories available in New Zealand. So it's more of a gimmick than a tool - which is probably why it's so complicated to access the feature via the Settings menu. (There's no straightforward shortcut)
Two slightly more useful gimmicks are the concealed phone speaker and the in-screen fingerprint sensor - both contributing to the P30 Pro's incredible screen-to-body ratio. The behind-screen speaker works perfectly well and I've had no trouble hearing my calls. Unfortunately it is not used as a second speaker when playing audio, only the single, downward facing speaker is. It's loud, but no stereo effects on this device - unless you're wearing headphones.
The fingerprint sensor was a massive relief. I've used quite a few in-screen sensors now and all of them sucked - till now. The P30 Pro's sensor works almost as consistently and as quickly as the old-school rear-mounted, physical sensors we used to have. You know, back in the old days. A year ago. Just as well Huawei has figured this tech out because the face unlock is not so hot. Unlike the Mate 20 Pro, there's no 3D sensor, which may be why it's nowhere near as effective. It unlocks fast enough when it recognises you, but it only seems to work at exactly the right distance and it doesn't work at all in the dark.
So without any speakers, sensors or buttons cluttering things up, the front of this phone really is all screen - a big screen. 6.47 inches to be exact. Curiously, Huawei only went with an FHD+ OLED display, a bit of downgrade compared to the 2K screen on the Mate 20 Pro or even 4K options on some other phones. This makes no difference to me as I would argue 2 and 4K screens are just overkill on a handset - even one with a screen this big. I think it looks great and most people wouldn't be able to spot the difference unless they were comparing devices side by side.
Which is something I definitely recommend you do, by the way. If you're not already a Huawei convert, I think you might be surprised how responsively the P30 Pro performs and in Black, Breathing Crystal or Aurora, the all glass, curved finish is certainly eye-catching.
To summarise, not only is the P30 Pro an outstanding flagship device, it takes photos no other phone can. All for under $1500? Bargain.
Click here for more information and pricing on the Huawei P30 Pro.
The race to the top of the smart phone market is fierce indeed.
The moment one company announces a new feature or design innovation, suddenly all its competitors are doing it too - sometimes even better.
By the end of 2018, Samsung had a little bit of catching up to do. I'd argue after several years leading the pack, some other players have been beating them to market with a few new tricks.
So what does the latest Galaxy have to offer?...
This year marks the 10th anniversary of Samsung's Galaxy range and to celebrate, not only do we have an S10 and a larger S10+, but for the first time Samsung is also offering a slightly pared down (in size, specs and price) S10e.
I'll be reviewing the S10+ here because it's the one with all the bells and whistles... and it's the one they sent me. Not that I'm complaining. The S10+ is one of the highest specced phones available. Even the base model comes with a whopping 8GB of RAM and 128GB of on board storage - choose the ceramic white model and you can go right up to 12GB / 1TB - the first smart phone to ever offer that much space for your pics, vids and games.
I'm not quite sure what 12GB of RAM can do that the 8GB on my device can't, because I can assure you, combined with its extremely quick CPU, the S10+ is lightning fast - a notable step-up from last year's devices. This is probably due in part to the latest Android O.S. and the all new Samsung interface, simply named, "One."
Simplicity is indeed the key here; Samsung has dramatically stripped back the user experience and come up with perhaps the most easy-to-use and intuitive U.I. I've ever come across on an Android phone. Yes, there are the usual number of new and exciting features added on, but you don't have to jump through any complicated hoops to use them - in fact, some of the S10+'s new tricks work without you having to lift a finger.
Most impressively for me, after using the device for a week now, I haven't yet changed the default launcher over to my preferred Nova setup. That's never happened before. Firstly, the home screen rotates from portrait to landscape as all home screens should, but hardly ever do. This is critical for the S10+ as this year Samsung has stretched the display aspect out even further, to 19:9 - which makes for a very wide screen indeed when you're holding it sideways. That's more than enough space for all your icons and widgets, especially with the rest of your apps tucked neatly away in their drawer and the new option of removing any on-screen navigation buttons completely in favour of customisable gestures. I found these worked brilliantly and I never want to see another button cluttering up my screen ever again.
The next thing I usually fiddle with is the theme. I like things dark. If there's an option for white text on a black background, that's usually my go-to. Once again, the S10+ makes this easy, with Night Mode accessible straight from the pull-down menu of quick settings. This activates a much easier-on-the-eye black background everywhere you go, from Settings to Email to Messages. I love it.
My next standard tweak is the keyboard. I'm a Swiftkey user and all my predictions and preferences are stored in the cloud. Once again, the default keyboard that pops up on the S10+ is so quick to learn, I simply haven't needed to change... although, I might when I have a spare few minutes as I do prefer the option of arrow keys and turning off emoji suggestions.
I don't know if those things are things you're looking for in a phone, but they're things I've always wanted and now I have them I'm a very happy boy indeed.
But those are little things. There are some majors to mention too.
Not only is the screen bigger than ever, at 6.44", the "Infinity-O" display has been winning awards left, right and centre for it's unmatched clarity and performance. And that's before you get to the "punch-hole" camera, a dual-lens selfie-cam in the top right-hand corner. Of the screen. Yep, no notch or tear drop for the S10+ - Samsung has literally poked a hole in the corner of the display to provide the maximum screen-to-body ratio possible. This seems like a pretty good idea when you're using the phone in portrait, but when you're watching video content or gaming, having a hole in the corner is a little distracting at first, although I was surprised how quickly I got used to ignoring it - a bit like the scoreboard graphic when watching a sports match on TV.
As I said, it's a dual-lens selfie camera, which means a lot more options - especially when it comes to wider angle group selfies. The S10+ also sports a three lens camera on the back, adding an ultra-wide angle option. Again, this really makes the most of the long, skinny display, as you can now take shots as wide as your natural point of view. (In fact, it's 123 degrees - that's actually wider than you can see!) Practically what this means is those shots of sunsets, landscapes and rainbows now look like what you thought they looked like - not just a bit of scenery in the distance.
You can quickly swap between wide, ultra-wide and telephoto lenses and there's yet another new option called "Shot Suggestion" which literally helps you compose your picture and level the camera before you click your pic. This phone takes way better photos than I do, believe me. Just as well, because if you're in "Instagram" mode, you can now post straight to your timeline.
Sometimes phone makers give us features we didn't ask for. I feel like last year's iris detection was one of those. Sure, maybe it kept your phone super secure, but you had to look at it just the right way to make it work. Samsung has ditched it now the facial recognition on the S10+ is so good. This is terrific news because iris detection only worked in portrait, this year's face unlock works both ways and it's very fast.
Just as well, because the in-screen fingerprint sensor isn't great. I've tried these on a few phones now and to be honest, none of them have blown me away. Unlike the optical sensor most other manufacturers use, Samsung has gone with an Ultrasonic scanner, which of course they claim is more reliable and should work even if the screen is wet. Unfortunately, I found I just couldn't unlock the phone this way a bit too often for my liking, even after re-registering my print. Although fingerprints have been proven to be vastly more secure than faces (especially given the S10+ face unlock isn't 3D), I'll take convenience over security every time.
When it comes to battery performance, it's a complicated good news/bad news/great news/average news story. Samsung was one of the wireless charging pioneers and I've been enjoying this feature on their devices for years. The S10+ has a 4100mHa battery which is the biggest Samsung has ever packed into a phone. The latest Samsung wireless chargers will top it up nice and fast. That's all good. And yet... depending on how I used the phone I was either super impressed by the battery life, or a little disappointed. It sounds a bit obvious, but lots of screen time certainly led to big drains - bigger than I was expecting. Downloading and transferring large files also seemed to cause the percentage to drop. On the other hand, if I just used the phone "normally" there'd still be well over half a battery's worth of juice left by bedtime. In Samsung's defense, I admit I've been using a pre-release review unit and this inconsistent performance may not be a factor in the genuine retail models.
What does work well is the device-to-device wireless charging - allowing you to use the S10+ as a charger itself. The most practical use for this is topping up the Galaxy Buds many customers received free with their pre-ordered device. You simply activate device-to-device charging from your pull-down menu, flip the phone over, plonk the Galaxy Buds case on the back and they're charging. Unsurprisingly, it's nowhere near as quick as plugging the buds directly into a fast charger, but way more convenient.
I'll finish the way I usually start... how does this thing actually look? Well, it's all glass and curved edges of course - that's what we've come to expect from Samsung Galaxies. In fact, I'm sure this is their slipperiest phone yet. The 128GB S10+ comes in Prism Black, Prism White and Prism Green - the "Prism" effect is sort of holographic - hard to describe and quite unique. The 512GB and 1TB models come in any colour you like as long as it's Ceramic White. Yup, white is the new black, baby. Get used to it.
Whichever variant you go for, you won't be disappointed. Samsung has been doing this for a decade now and they know what they're doing. The S10+ is powerful, easy to use, has a fantastic 5-lens camera array and even charges its own accessories like the Galaxy Buds and Galaxy Watch. Quite simply, it's the best phone money can buy... for now. After all, it's only March.
Click here for more information on the Samsung Galaxy S10+
It's been a couple of years since I last reviewed a Huawei Y-series handset. At the time I was incredibly impressed with the high level of performance being offered by such a low-priced device. This year's Y7 Pro is still budget friendly and still worth every penny...
At $349, the Huawei Y7 Pro 2019 isn't the cheapest phone in town... but I'm pretty sure most phones a hundred dollars cheaper are about two-hundred dollars worse. They're likely to have sub-standard cameras, slow, clumsy performance and an inferior build quality. Oh - and probably pretty bad battery life too.
The Y7 Pro is nothing like those phones.
For starters, it's very big. The 6.26" display puts it right up there with the flagship Pro and Plus models from most leading manufacturers. Just as we began to see from a few devices at the end of 2018, wide slot-like notches at the top of the screen are now old fashioned - the Y7 Pro has only a tiny "Dewdrop" bite from around the front facing camera - barely noticeable in most circumstances and leaving plenty of room for on-screen notifications on either side.
While other lower priced handsets will stick with a metal or even plastic casing, the Y7 Pro sports a very classy, ceramic-feel, curved back which is certainly extremely comfortable in the hand and looks amazing in Midnight Black. It's not as slippery as some other glass-covered devices which is good, because the size of the Y7 Pro makes one-handed operation slightly challenging.
Luckily, there is a one handed U.I. mode, which is easily activated with a diagonal swipe from whichever corner your thumb is reaching from (ie: right or left-handed).
In fact, there are plenty of settings and tweaks like that built into the EMUI 8.2 operating system which are often left off handsets at this end of the price range.
It's also unusual for a sub-$400 phone to offer a face unlock option - but the Y7 Pro does and like other Huawei devices with this feature, you can set it to recognise you automatically, as soon as you raise the phone to your face, unlocking straight to your home screen without touching a button.
That's fantastic... except it doesn't work quite as well as it does on some of Huawei's upper level devices. It's not particularly fast and I found it struggled in poor light. This sluggish performance is exacerbated by the lack of a fingerprint sensor, so the only backup if your face isn't recognised is a good old 6 figure pin, which seems annoyingly slow and cumbersome by comparison. Sadly, the Y7 Pro's facial recognition is just not reliable enough or fast enough to be the only unlock option, but without a fingerprint sensor, you're stuck with it.
On the bright side, the camera performance is a real standout. As I've mentioned, usually cameras are the first big compromise to get the price down on a phone, but I found the selfies in particular to be clear and colourful, with plenty of effects and customisations available. Shots taken with the dual-lens rear-facing camera were also very sharp, although I found the interface a little unusual. I'm used to using "portrait mode" or "live focus" to achieve the blurred background or bokeh effect. On the Y7 Pro that setting is called, "aperture" - which is strange because that usually means how much light you're letting into the shot, not how blurry you want the background to be. The important thing is, it worked a treat and there was quite a wide range of blur to be adjusted.
While I was extremely satisfied with the pictures I took, I did have an issue with how fast the cameras worked. For some reason Huawei uses Qualcomm Snapdragon processors in its Y-series phones instead of its own Kirin chips. This is a shame because I've found the Kirin CPU's generally provide a much faster, smoother performance. The Y7 Pro also runs just 3GB of RAM, which is definitely starting to lean towards the low side these days. Don't get me wrong, in most circumstances I had no performance issues whatsoever - downloading, browsing, streaming all functioned seamlessly. Even bluetooth connectivity was a breeze compared to issues I've had with other devices in the past. But certainly the camera was rather slow to open, to focus and then to shoot. Probably not the best option to capture a split-second crossing of a finish line.
One other little quibble is storage space. The Y7 Pro has 32GB of internal storage, but an extremely large chunk of that is taken up with the operating system, leaving less than 20GB to play with. A couple of years ago, that would have seemed like a lot, but not so much these days. However, the sim tray is also a microSD tray - two sim slots and space for more memory.
Perhaps the Y7 Pro's niftiest trick is its massive battery life. The 4000mAh battery isn't the biggest out there, but it's close. I've reviewed a few phones with a two-day charge life lately, but most of them do it by closing down a lot of the apps you want to keep running in the background. I didn't have that issue with the Y7 Pro - notifications from my home security app, my exercise app... everything kept chugging along nicely.
In short, unless you're a high-end gamer, or you're dependent on flagship features like wireless charging, water resistance or tri-lens cameras, there's really no reason to spend more than $349. The Y7 Pro doesn't feel like a price-tag compromise - instead it's a genuine pleasure to use.
Click here for more information on the Huawei Y7 Pro 2019.
From not even selling phones in New Zealand just a couple of years ago, OPPO now seems to be releasing a new handset every 5 minutes.
2018 saw an unprecedented selection of models catering to every price bracket. Where does the first OPPO device for 2019 fit in?...
As you can see from the picture above, there's absolutely nothing "budget" about the way the OPPO AX7 looks. Available in Glaze Blue and the slightly unfortunately named, Glaring Gold, OPPO describes the finish as a "sheet and grating" pattern. I have no idea what that means, other than it gives it an almost woodgrain-like appearance from certain angles. It's pretty cool, anyway. For some reason, there's an unusual copper/gold surround to the rear-facing dual lens camera and flash module. It's unusual, but quite classy. The handset has a premium feel to it all round.
The AX7 is certainly at the larger end of the scale - mostly because of its 6.2inch screen size. I was surprised to discover the screen-to-body ratio is as low as 88.4% - really, it seems like the front of the phone is all screen - especially when you take into account the very small waterdrop notch for the forward-facing camera. These tiny not-notches started appearing on some flagship devices at the end of last year and is a clear sign the short-lived days of the much more intrusive iPhone-style notch are pretty much over.
The advantage of a massive phone, other than heaps of display real estate for browsing, streaming and gaming, is you can bung an equally massive battery inside. The AX7 sports a 4230mAh battery. This is actually more battery than I know what to do with. As you can imagine, I'm a moderately heavy user of my devices, especially given I get up at 3AM to go to work. That's a lot to expect from a smartphone battery and yet by the time I get to bed, most days I've struggled to get through one third of the available charge. Very impressive.
Unfortunately, as we've seen with previous OPPO devices, part of the reason they can achieve such incredible power savings is due to some overly-aggressive software optimisation. OPPO isn't the only manufacturer out there guilty of turning off too many background apps without asking, but that doesn't mean it's necessary. Annoyingly, even when you manage to find the magic setting that tells the AX7 not to turn a particular app off, a lot of the time, it still does.
Most frustratingly of all, the AX7 still uses a microUSB charging cable instead of the much more user-friendly USB Type-C. Now that other phones in this price range have switched, it's time OPPO did too.
Back on the plus side, the AX7 packs in a surprising amount of processing power for a $399 phone. You get a Qualcomm Snapdragon 450 chip, 4GB of RAM and 64GB of on-board storage. These are by no means high-end specs by 2019 standards, but those numbers are still plenty impressive for the price. What's more, you get a dual-sim tray as well as a microSD compartment to expand your memory.
Certainly I found the AX7's performance to be very smooth and reasonably quick. I'm not a huge fan of the ColorOS 5.2 interface, but it's based on the very recent Android 8.1 O.S. and I didn't come across any major glitches or problems.
Ultimately, any OPPO phone lives or dies by its camera quality and once again, the AX7 stacks up pretty well. While the full range of A.I. settings offered by more expensive devices aren't included here, I found images from both front and rear cameras to be very clear and crisp. Colours tended towards the dull side, but that's preferable to the unrealistic over-saturation you often find on other phones. There is some A.I. built into the beauty settings - and this comes into play not just with the 16MP selfie cam, but also when you set the dual-lens rear camera to Portrait Mode. The split focus bokeh effect for both these options is pretty full-on, but I have to admit, it looks great more often than not.
There are a couple of cute tricks thrown in too; plenty of AR stickers to make your pics look as silly as possible and a very efficient face unlock which works reliably and quickly - even in the dark.
At $399, the AX7 definitely delivers. It looks great, feels solid, has better-than-average camera capabilities but most significantly, if you're looking for incredible battery life, there aren't many other phones out there as long-lasting as this one.
Click here for more information on the OPPO AX7.
Recently, Xiaomi opened its first Mi Store in the Oceania region, right here in New Zealand.
There was a lot of publicity around the Mi Home electric scooter - which does look pretty amazing - and as a result they sold out almost straight away.
But the other big impact of Mi opening its bright orange doors at Sylvia Park is now we have access to a whole new range of phones...
The Redmi Note 5 is full of surprises, even for a phone junkie like me.
At first it's hard to know what to expect from the Note 5, especially since I haven't reviewed a Xiaomi-manufactured device before. Also available in a powder blue, the black version I have takes minimalist design almost to an extreme. From the matte-finish metal back cover to the reinforced shock-absorbing corners of the device, this phone is really black. Even the transparent case included in the box is tinted black. The Redmi Note 5 is almost the complete opposite of some of the gaudy, multicoloured devices we've seen on show throughout the year.
It's a solid piece of kit, quite weighty in the hand. Unusually, the seams, joins and edges are all slightly raised - almost as if to create a tactile experience that suggests industrial usability rather than something that'll slip out of your hand onto the floor.
The large, 5.99inch display seems even bigger than it is, due to sizable bezels top and bottom. The top bezel holds a speaker, the selfie camera and a selfie-light - the bottom one doesn't hold anything so I guess it's just for aesthetic balance.
The bottom edge of the Note 5 is the main physical clue about which part of the phone market it slots into; just the single downward-firing speaker, a real live, physical earphone jack (soon to be extinct I think) and most telling of all, a microUSB port - very old-fashioned at this end of 2018.
So it might not scream style and elegance, but once you fire the Note 5 up, functionality rules supreme. The Snapdragon 636 octacore processor, combined with a respectable 4GB of RAM really keeps this phone flying along with very few pauses, jumps or stutters.
As this was my first experience with the MIUI 9 operating system, I decided to jump in head first, get rid of the buttons off the display and learn the Redmi range of gestures. I actually found this to be very intuitive on the whole, my only real frustration coming when scrolling through photos; the go-back gesture is a swipe from the side of the screen - easily confused with a swipe to the next picture. It's a muscle memory thing, I guess.
Not every phone handles split screen functionality well, if it offers it at all. The Redmi Note 5 makes it easy. It's stable and the screen is certainly big enough to handle it. In fact, the screen is great for all kinds of content - browsing, video whatever.
The cameras were the other big surprise for me. A 15MP + 5MP dual camera on the back combined with a 13MP selfie-cam. No, theses won't win any photography awards up against the big brand flagships, but the low light performance was actually not too shabby - especially from the front-facing camera due to its own built-in selfie light. There are a good selection of beauty settings too, quite customisable compared to many other phones I've tried. I'm still not actually beautiful at the end of it, but a bit closer than usual.
Battery life is the hero feature of this phone. There aren't too many others around with a massive 4000mAh battery like this. Yes the charging cable is old-fashioned, but you'll get a couple of days use out of this phone easy.
At just $398.99, the Redmi Note 5 is priced at the lower end of the mid-range market, but it has the features and performance of a handset at the upper end of that same market. I think that makes it a very good buy.
Click here for more information and pricing on the Redmi Note 5.
If 2018 taught us anything about the New Zealand smart phone market, it was there's always room for one more.
After a relatively low-key kick-off last year, OPPO seems to be going from strength to strength, even if most kiwis have still never heard of them.
Now there's another premium OPPO phone available, at a less than premium price...
When you review a lot of phones, you get picky. Most of them are pretty good these days but there are some that really stand out. I often ask myself the question, "Would I be happy to keep using this phone post-review, as my every-day handset?"
The OPPO R17 Pro is definitely one of those phones.
This year OPPO has released quite a few models in various price brackets and clearly the Chinese based manufacturer has shrugged off its tendency to produce Android devices that look like iPhones in favour of a more unique design ethic.
Nowhere was this more evident than with September's unprecedented Find X - the phone that boldly removed the cameras from both the front and rear panels and put them inside the phone, physically popping up when required.
Combined with other innovations like SuperVOOC Flash charging, OPPO is really starting to stand out from the crowd. Still, how many people would really be prepared to fork out almost $1500 for the Find X from OPPO, a brand with very little reputation in this country?
Well, there's a reason OPPO hovers around fourth or fifth in world phone sales; they do a lot right.
The R17 Pro is available in Emerald Green and a very eye-catching Radiant Mist - which isn't pink or purple or blue but a flowing combination of all those hues and more. Both models feature a glass encased back panel with a slightly matte finish that improves grip and helps prevent too many fingerprints.
Like the Find X before it, the R17 Pro has nicely rounded edges but is uniquely concave top and bottom, which is where you'll find the dual sim tray.
There's no earphone socket, which seems to be standard for most new high-end phones these days, as is the USB Type-C charging port. Using the included SuperVOOC Flash charger, OPPO claims you can reach 40% in just ten minutes. I tested this myself and that claim isn't quite accurate - it's better. I actually achieved 43% charge in ten minutes. Somehow the charger safely generates a massive 50watts to boost the R17 Pro in no time. This is why they've yet to change to wireless; I've been told until OPPO can make wireless charging somewhere near as fast as SuperVOOC, we'll just have to wait.
Apparently OPPO is using some new dual-cell battery technology which keeps everything safer and more efficient than ever before - certainly battery life was excellent (without being completely off the charts). As I've found with many phones these days, that's due in part to some very persistent battery optimisation shutting down apps working in the background. This usually wasn't too hard to solve from the settings menu though.
The other, almost unique physical feature of the R17 Pro is the sheer amount of screen real estate due in part to the tiny, "water drop" notch - just big enough for the selfie lens - and partly due to the in-screen fingerprint sensor. I'm sure we'll see a lot more of these in-screen sensors on next year's phones, but there aren't many around at the moment. The one on the R17 Pro worked fairly consistently - not quite as fast as a more traditional, physical sensor - but almost. It seemed a bit unreliable if my thumb was sweaty or greasy. Mind you, who wants to be poked with a sweaty, greasy thumb?
The fingerprint tech is almost redundant though, because the 3D facial recognition is so efficient. Not only will it take you instantly to your home screen, as soon as the phone comes out of your pocket - but it will do it an any lighting conditions - even pitch black, using the illumination from the R17 Pro's own screen to recognise you in the dark.
In fact, darkness really poses few problems at all for the R17 Pro - especially when it comes to photography. The tri-lens rear camera configuration has produced some of the best low light shots I've ever taken with a phone - and not just when I select Night Mode, which combines several images from each lens, then filters out any over exposure and noise. Even in auto mode, the R17 Pro's impressive AI skills kick in, combined with OPPO's OIS Optical Stabiliser Technology and produce consistently great nighttime pics.
In fact, most of the photos I've taken with this phone are pretty stellar and as usual for an OPPO device, the selfies are particularly standout.
They've tried to future-proof the R17 Pro by building in as much 3D tech as they could muster - it's fun to play around with creating 3D portraits. These render nice and quickly too - good processor speed on this phone; another mark of a high-end product.
With a 6.4inch display, this is quite a large phone, but its so slim, it remains easy to hold in one hand - especially if you use the cover included in the box, which in my case was tinted green to match the phone itself - nice touch. The screen is fashioned from the latest Corning Gorilla Glass 6 - so it should withstand a few knocks. I've found it very watchable and sensitive to touches and gestures. Color OS is certainly not my favourite operating system, but I do like some of the new features in version 5.2 like the Smart Bar you can swipe over from the side of the screen to access your favourite apps and settings.
There's no doubt about it, there's not much missing from the R17 Pro. There's no IP (water resistance rating) which seems a bit strange these days, but other than no wireless charging, I can't find much to complain about - and I can't really complain about that when you have a phone that charges in a blink of an eye and takes some of the best after-dark shots I've ever seen.
Priced under $1000, you must at least consider the R17 Pro next time you're upgrading your phone. You might not have heard of OPPO yet, but it won't be long now...
Click here for more information and pricing on the OPPO R17 Pro.
Good old trusty old brand new Nokia.
Still New Zealand's sole supplier of androidone devices.
Still dependable as ever... up to a point...
Nokia's newest is the 7.1 - which is a bit confusing because from what I can tell this device is not really a direct evolution from the Nokia 7 plus, but rather a step forward from the Nokia 6.1. Why can't they just give these phones names instead of numbers? It'd be far less confusing.
As you can see from the image above, Nokia has stuck to the unique copper highlights around the edges of the device, but unlike previous models the back is now covered in glass to show off the new "steel" colour. It's actually quite striking and will certainly stand out among other more boringly coloured phones. I really like the way this phone looks. One drawback is the glass is obviously a bit more slippery - and perhaps won't take the knocks quite as well as those previous phones either. In saying that, I have accidentally dropped it out of my pocket onto a hard wood floor with no noticeable damage done, so maybe I'm wrong. The glass does give a more premium feel - even though at $599 the Nokia 7.1 is slap bang in the middle of the now crowded mid-range market.
Like its immediate predecessors, the 7.1 features the androidone O.S., which definitely casts a magic spell over average hardware and makes it perform like the latest and greatest... for the most part.
When you look at the numbers alone, it'd be easy to pass by the 7.1 - just 3GB of RAM seems pretty low these days, especially combined with a mere 32GB of internal storage. Normally I'd shy away from any handset with less than 64GB of space, but at least you can expand up to 400GB with a microSD. Something to bear in mind because I found I was left with less than 8GB to play with once I'd installed all my favourite apps and taken just a few pics.
3GB of RAM seems risky too - but that's where androidone steps in and takes over a lot of the heavy lifting. Apps still launch fairly quickly and smoothly - video plays with no issues and the screen, while comparatively small at 5.84", is extremely clear and I watched the entire sixth season of House of Cards on a recent plane trip with no trouble at all.
Multi-tasking starts to take its toll on the underpowered processor though and I certainly struggled to keep some apps running in the background. This seems to be a common theme with many midrange devices and I find it a bit confusing because some uber-popular apps like Instagram and Messenger keep on keeping on no matter what - never missing a notification. Meanwhile, other apps just go to sleep, no matter how many times I tell the phone not to optimise them. I guess the onus is on the app developers themselves to keep their programs up to date with the latest devices - but it remains a frustration for me, anyway.
What I found even more frustrating was the camera on the 7.1. It's great - or rather, they're great - both the front and dual-lens rear-facing configurations. I actually took some very good, clear photos, in a range of lighting conditions. Only problem is, every time I use the camera, it just about crashes the phone. The camera app is painfully slow to launch, swapping between front and rear views even worse and swapping between the photos you've taken and the live view even worse. It's so confusing to be able to take great pictures, but only once the phone has thought long and hard about it.
It's a bit like making Beauden Barrett play for a high school first XV again - sure he'd be capable of some amazing rugby, but only if the rest of the team can actually give him the ball.
As much as I like the stripped-back, efficient performance of androidone, it obviously has its limits and on the Nokia 7.1., that limit is the camera app. Maybe this is something that can be sorted out with a software update down the track. That's the real advantage of androidone of course, plenty of regular updates, guaranteed.
Pleasingly, there are quite a few hardware compromises that haven't been made to fit the 7.1 into this price range. There's a fast and reliable fingerprint sensor below the camera on the back. It has a pretty good battery life and charges quickly enough. Best of all, the charging cable is USB Type-C - just like all the fancy phones. There's a notch - which seems to be almost standard by now - but it's not overbearing and it's worth it for the extra screen space at the top, especially given there's quite a lot of blank real estate at the bottom - more than enough for a Nokia logo anyway.
Perhaps the most welcome feature of all is NFC. This means, unlike many of its competitors in this price bracket, the 7.1 can tap and pay - or connect to speakers and the like with one touch. Very convenient.
At $599, I'd suggest this device is priced at the top of its market value - not because it doesn't have plenty of premium features but just because there's not always the processing power available to run them.
Click here for more information and pricing on the Nokia 7.1
