Editor rating: 3.5/5 In 2022, most brands are offering 4G and 5G versions of their most popular smartphone lines. Xiaomi did that with its Redmi Note series, Realme did that with its number series and OPPO is doing the same with its F-series phones. That’s right. Recently OPPO announced its F21 Pro in both 4G and 5G configurations. We recently reviewed the OPPO F21 Pro 5G and now it’s time to review the 4G edition. Should you buy the OPPO F21 Pro 4G? Let’s find out in our detailed review: Display Performance Battery Camera
OPPO F21 Pro review: Design
The OPPO F21 Pro looks distinctive, and it’s clearly an advantage the F21 Pro has over the competition. In a sea of shimmering rear panel phones, the OPPO F21 Pro flaunts a Sunset Orange colour back layered with faux leather ensuring distinctive and premium looks. It feels excellent to touch and resists smudge marks.
Price and availabilityUnboxingDesignDisplayPerformanceCameraBattery lifeShould you buy it?
OPPO F21 Pro 4G Price & Availability
The OPPO F21 Pro comes in only one 128GB storage variant: 8GB RAM+128GB storage- Rs 22,999 The OPPO F21 Pro is offered in two colour options – Cosmic Black and Sunset Orange.
OPPO F21 Pro Unboxing
OPPO F21 Pro was delivered to us in a blue-coloured box containing the usual contents. Here’s the complete list of what you will find inside the OPPO F21 Pro Pro retail box:
OPPO F21 Pro handset USB-A to USB-C cable33W wall adapter Protective caseDocumentationSIM elector tool
There is a rectangular camera module sitting at the top left corner in silver and black paint job housing three lenses, and an LED flash. The camera module side frame has LED light all around which OPPO uses as a notification light and prefers to address as Orbit light. It blinks in different colours when you get a call or a notification or when you plug the device in for charging. The facia of the Oppo F21 Pro 4G is dominated by a screen that has a punch hole cutout at the top left corner for a selfie camera. There’s hardly any bezel around the screen. Coming to sides, the F21 Pro gets flat edges which makes it less ergonomic compared to curved edge phones. Having said that, OPPO has done well to ensure the phone is lightweight measuring only 175 grams. It is one of the slimmest phones in its price bracket at the time of writing this review. Frankly, I am quite satisfied with the OPPO F21 Pro’s appealing aesthetics. It is functional, eye-catching, and super convenient to carry around.
OPPO F21 Pro review: Display
The 4G edition of the Oppo F21 Pro also houses a 6.4-inch full-HD+ AMOLED display. True to its characteristics, the AMOLED panel used in the F21 Pro 4G delivers perfect blacks and vivid colours. While that’s good, it fell short of the competition when it comes to screen refresh rate. It’s a 90Hz refresh rate panel that offers a good experience but if you compare it with a 120hz panel you will feel the difference. The level of brightness on offer here is decent. The OPPO phone can achieve 800nits of peak brightness which makes it visible under direct sunlight. OPPO has ensured that the F21 Pro 4G has the essential Widevine L1 DRM certification so that users can stream the best possible quality content on their phone. Strangely, Netflix was not available for the F21 Pro on PlayStore. Other popular apps such as Disney+ Hotstar and Voot were available and worked fine. I managed to watch HD content on these OTT platforms.
OPPO F21 Pro review: Performance & Software
For this review, we tested the OPPO F21 Pro top-end variant offering 8GB of LPDDR4X memory and up to 128GB of internal storage. It rocks a Qualcomm SoC called – Snapdragon 680 platform to handle all the workload. It’s not the most powerful chipset in its class. Usually, you will find it in phones priced under Rs 20,000 while platforms like Snapdragon 778G, Snapdragon 695, and MediaTek Dimensity 920 dominate the Sub 25K space. having said that, the SD680 SoC handles everyday workload with ease. We performed our regular daily activities on the phone ith managed to handle them. Yes, it took a few nanoseconds extra as compared to phones with better SoCs in the segment. If you look at the synthetic benchmark scores, you will notice similar findings. Here’s a quick chart for benchmark scores: As far as gaming performance is concerned, we managed to play popular titles like BGMI at medium settings but for best results, we would recommend you to use smooth graphics and medium frame rates. If you are into multitasking, it would be wise to keep your expectations in check. In terms of software, the OPPO F21 Pro comes running on Android 12-based ColorOS 12 Skin out of the box. OPPO has made improvements but there is still some distance to cover before OPPO perfects it. There is still pre-installed bloatware on board which one may uninstall as per their own will. In terms of features, OPPO has loaded it left-right, and centre. The custom skill offers features like air gestures where you can scroll through content on apps or answer calls without touching the phone. Its list of features also includes a screen translator which works in more than a hundred languages.
OPPO F21 Pro Camera review
The OPPO F21 Pro camera set-up includes three sensors at the back and one at the front. The rear camera setup includes a primary 64MP wide-angle shooter with an f/1.7 aperture and a couple of 2MP sensors for macro and monochrome shots. The aforementioned camera hardware delivers decent shots with a decent about of sharpness. Like most OPPO cameras here too colours have a tad more zeal than my liking. The primary rear camera also displays a good dynamic range as it manages to capture different colour shades without getting confused. While the primary sensor delivers quality images in good lighting conditions, its struggles with low light. When light is dull, the images tend to appear noisy without much detail. Lack of OIS further dents its case. Overall, I would say the OPPO F21 Pro camera is a capable shooter for daytime photography.
OPPO F21 Pro 4G Review: Battery
The OPPO F21 Pro packs an average size 4,500mAh cell which is not the biggest in the class but I am quite pleased with its performance. It manages to last a day for me while being constantly connected to the internet. Battery life depends a lot on the user’s usage so if you are not a heavy user like me you can easily squeeze out more standby time than me. To refill the juice, OPPO bundles a 33W charger within the box. It took me about an hour and thirty minutes to fully refill the battery from a dead state.
Review verdict: Should you buy OPPO F21 Pro 4G?
The Oppo F21 Pro 4G is a phone that woos you with its sophisticated looks thanks to its faux leather back and boxy design. The AMOLED screen on the front also helps its case. In other likeable things, you will be impressed by battery performance. The camera also doesn’t disappoint and is at par with the competition available in its price bracket. My only concern is the Snapdragon 680. It’s a capable chipset but falls short in performance if pushed hard. If you are someone who only occasionally indulges in taxing tasks on their phone in that case you may consider this good-looking phone. If you are into gaming, it’s better to consider other options.
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