OPPO A74 5G - 6GB RAM and 128GB +Extendable Storage SIM Free Smartphone (6.5' Screen, 5000 mAh Battery, 48MP Quad Camera, 90Hz Refresh Rate) - Fluid Black

I was looking for a new phone to replace my s5 samsung ,apps stopped working as its old ,i was very weary about getting a brand i have never heard of so i did a little googling and it looks like its quite a popular make .So i thought ,lets give it a go and damn ,what a fantastic little phone (its quite big actually).its never let me down so far ,battery life is excellent , 3-4 days without a charge and its still got 30 odd % battery .apps are snappy to start ,very happy .If your on the look out for a cheap phone that does all the stuff big name ones do ,this is the one !

Looking for a replacement for my Huawei P20 Pro thought I'd give this a try. The phone I bought is a OPPO A74 5G - 6GB RAM and 128GB, not the dearest or highest spec in the Oppo range but seemed good value at the £249 I paid (I believe it is only £229 now).Had it about 6 months now, and I'm VERY impressed with it. It was very easy to set up, and has worked well without any issues. The battery life is AMAZING, my Huawei P20 Pro rarely lasted a day on a full charge, this one always has 60% remaining at the end of the day (with heavy usage and bluetooth on 100% of the time). Charging is quick, and the charging lead connects to the phone first time, every time with no messing about (All my Huawei phones have been fiddly on this).The 5G is a bonus.I don't think the camera is as good as the Huawei P20, but not far off.Build quality is really good for a £250 phone.

Like: good and the delivery was perfect.Dislike: The phone came without a charger, just only USB cable.

Excellent phone for this price. Would buy again.

On unboxing this the first thing that blew me away was the back of the phone and this liquid finish to the colour. In some lights you get silver and as the angle shifts it changes to black. It's a great effect and much more interesting than the standard flat colours. However it is a major fingerprint magnet!The phone comes with a clear case to protect from small bumps and to show off the back of the phone. In terms of overall protection this case is basic. It will protect from scrapes but I wouldn't want to drop my phone from any height.Also it appears they have pre-included a screen protector! This is excellent as firstly it saves you having to buy one and secondly as it has been factory fitted there are no air bubbles. Again, is it the best quality 9H tempered glass screen protector? I doubt it, but it's good to have some extra level of protection out the box.Also included are some headphones and a headphone jack (located on the bottom of the phone). The headphones are what you would expect, they work and quality is passable, but you'll want to use your own if you have them.As for the phone... this could be the bargain of the smartphone world. You are getting 6GB of RAM which should keep things speedy, 128GB of storage (further expandable) and a 90HZ screen. There is though one major compromise with it but more on that later...SETUPAs easy as ever with Android. Switch it on and follow the prompts. You can then copy over data/apps from your previous phone (though I'd ensure you have a fresh cloud backup before doing that). You can also then setup either Passcode, Fingerprint or Face Unlock functions. The face unlock works well even wearing glasses and with eyes closed, though you have to still press the side button and then swipe up. ColorOS is new to me so it'll take some time getting used to this Oppo version of Android but it looks good and is reasonably intuitive.CALL QUALITYYes this is still a phone. Call quality is good and I experienced no issues either hearing or being heard.SCREENColours are good and everything looks sharp and clear. Performance is very snappy and you can scroll through pages and content easily and it's all smooth thanks to the 90hz refresh rate though in day to day use I don't think it makes that bigger difference. You can change this down to 60 HZ in settings if you wish.SPEAKERSThis is the compromise I'm afraid. This is where things go a bit badly for the phone. There is only one speaker on the bottom of the phone and it sounds terrible. No bass and super treble I would not want to watch or listen to anything through them. Better to use your headphones for media content.CAMERACamera quality is generally very good and the interface is pretty user friendly. Video Resolution is only 1080P which is a shame given 4K should now be the norm. The Camera has an "Expert" setting for full adjustment of white balance ISO etc which is great if you know what you are doing. Or if not, leave it in Auto and snap away. With HDR on auto, pictures do look colour boosted rather than natural but detailing is very good and I can't complain.I love the Macro lense function for super close ups. These look great without any tampering but if you do subsequently zoom into them you will start to see noise in the image.I feel it also worth mentioning that there is an AI function which if I'm honest scared me as it lets you adjust your face for selfies and not in an "outlandish, crazy fun" way. This is more in a "concerned for the body conscious" sort of way. You can adjust your face to be Smoother, Thinner, Bigger Eyes, Smaller Nose, Chin Adjustment, Smaller Face. The adjustment levels are all subtle, but there's something quite dark about the ability to perform digital plastic surgery in my opinion.CONCLUSIONSOverall then if you are after a budget smartphone, this is a winner. Yes you compromise on the speakers, but the rest of the package is so well judged from the internals to the aesthetics. Throw in headphones, 5G compatibility, a screen protector and a case and you have a great all round package.

As it is beginning to show its age, I decided to upgrade from my Huawei P40 Lite to this phone.The first big difference is that the A74 5G uses a fully featured Google Play equipped version of Android 11, while my old P40 uses the open version of Android. For anyone living under a rock for the last couple of years, the US started putting various companies from China, including Huawei, on their list of companies that US companies cannot do business with and this included Google. The P40 was one of the first phones to not have any Google stuff on it though I did sideload Google Maps to allow Waze to work.The second big difference is that the P40 is a 4G/LTE phone while the Oppo is a 5G phone.Now bear in mind that prior to buying the P40, I had bought one of the RealMe range and was absolutely disappointed with it. I still have it but it was used for very little as I moved to the P40. Well, the Oppo exhibits some of the same issues, though not exactly the same.One of the things that my mobile is used for is as a tethering hotspot for when I am working. My shift lasts for about 8 and a half hours. The Oppo, however, complains right through the shift - if the main Wifi is off then it sends a large error message. At some point during the shift, it will also compain about keeping the tethering hotspot switched on for too long. The best performance I ever got was that the phone was left with 20% charge left after a quiet shift though what I normally do is to add a power bank to stop the phone discharging too quickly. In comparison, my P40 never had less than 48% left in the battery after a busy shift.And of course, shifting back to a Google infested platform meant that I had to deal with so many bits of Google corporate spyware and that these have now been locked in to the point that you can't even disable them! The phone insisted on using the Chrome based browser though I have managed to change this to Firefox for some of the apps. It was something I never had to worry about with the P40 though a down side there was with the number of third party apps that refused to work without Google Play installed.Then there is the "Colorful" front end. Yes, this is a damn sight closer to a vanilla Android experience than EMUI ever was but at the same time, Oppo have made a point of shifting various settings around and, in a few cases, renaming and repurposing them which can really confuse people.No, this doesn't deserve a five star review. It is marginally better than the RealMe I bought a while back but the 5G doesn't seem, as things are at present, to give me any real improvement over my P40 and the battery life is abysmal.As a side note, I noticed that you cannot buy a decent AMOLED display phone with 5G including a headphone jack. What's that about?!?