BTTR is independent, but when you purchase through links on our site, we may earn a commission. Find out more.
The Oppo A79 5G continues Oppo’s trend to release a smartphone model for every budget, fine-tuning that balance between cost and performance.
While the A98 5G we reviewed last year firmly sat in the mid-range with its $649 RRP, the A79 5G is a lot more wallet friendly at just $369.
While there is definitely a performance dip thanks to the less powerful processor and its simpler camera array, I feel that this model is a much better balance for the price conscious.
You still get a large 5,000mAh battery and SUPERVOOC fast charging, but at a much more affordable price point.
It’s a nicely designed, decent performing handset that is impressively affordable. If you need to replace your smartphone on a budget, then this is a good, affordable option.
Oppo A79 5G review: Design
Most smartphones these days are all cut from the same cloth. You get a slab of glass surrounded by a body of metal and a few circles on the back that are the camera lenses.
But despite the fact most phones look similar, there’s still a lot of leeway between models. And it’s actually impressive just how sleek Oppo has made the A79 5G given its price.
Launched in January and measuring in at 165.6 × 76 × 7.99 mm and weighing 193 grams, the A79 5G feels solid in the hand.
It’s a little on the large side, but that extra bulk houses the 6.72-inch FHD+ display. With a 90Hz refresh rate, 2400 × 1800 resolution and 680 nits of peak brightness, the A79’s LCD screen is bright and clear.
It’s also colourful — maybe a little oversaturated by default, but according to the spec sheet can produce 16.7 million colours.
The back of the phone houses the dual camera system, which Oppo labels an “Innovative AI Camera” underneath the lenses.
I’ll dive into camera performance a bit further down the review, but for now, let’s say that the combo 50MP main camera and 2MP secondary camera take reasonable shots.
Under the hood
The MediaTek Dimensity 6020 Octa-core processor does a solid job of keeping things ticking over. The phone is responsive to commands – I wouldn’t say it’s quick necessarily, but it certainly doesn’t lag like other budget phones we’ve tested.
Also nice is the inclusion of the 33W SUPERVOOC fast charging. The phone doesn’t come with the fast-charging wall plug in the box though, but if you do have a compatible plug, you can get the phone’s 5,000 mAh battery to 100% in next to no time.
The phone offers 128 GB of storage and 4 GB RAM, though you can use some unused ROM space to boost the RAM performance if required.
The phone comes preloaded with ColorOS, which acts as a skin over Android 13. While it’s slick and performs well, I do hate the fact the phone comes preloaded with a number of crappy apps and games.
You can delete them, but why should you have to?
Oppo A79 5G review: Performance
What I really liked about the Oppo A79 5G when I started using it was its responsiveness. Mentally, I had prepared myself for a sluggish device based on nothing more than the $369 asking price.
So it was a truly pleasant surprise to see that the A79 5G can actually do things. It’s not quick by any stretch of the imagination, but it also doesn’t lag.
Browsing the web via Chrome or scrolling through the deadening heartlessness of social media happens when you want it, without any real delays.
Even games play pretty well on the A79. I opened up Fallout Shelter on the phone and got way too engrossed with building out my shelter because the game ran perfectly fine on the phone.
The screen also helps on this front. Considering it’s only a FHD+ display, the A79’s screen pumps out both colours and brightness.
It’s easy to read in full midday sunlight, and that helps with all aspects of the device, like framing photos and playing games.
Benchmark performance
When it comes to benchmarks, the A79 does pretty well. Here’s how it stacks up against last year’s Oppo A98 5G, as well as the Samsung Galaxy A54 5G for CPU performance:
Single-core:
Multi-core
The GPU performance is also reasonable, tracking against those same devices:
Vulkan Compute
As you can see, despite the fact it sits at about half the price of the A98 5G, the A79 5G sits reasonably close to it on the Geekbench 6 benchmark front.
Camera performance
The A79’s dual camera array is perfectly fine for a device at this price tier. I took the phone for a trip to Sydney Harbour and while the sun was shining, the images looked a little flat.
In high contrast situations, like taking a photo in shade out into the sunshine, the phone can’t deliver a high dynamic range image in the same way a premium device like the iPhone 15 Pro or Samsung Galaxy S24 could.
The phone does offer a portrait mode, which uses the second 2MP camera to help create that nice bokeh-like background blur. It doesn’t stop the highlights from blowing out ever so slightly, but overall the images look good enough to share on social media without fear of reprisal.
The selfie camera is also decent without being exceptional.
Battery performance
5,000 mAh is plenty of battery, and I found that I could get through the day without too much of an issue with standard use.
Even on days I spent a bit more time playing Mighty DOOM, the battery life managed to survive the day.
The A79 5G does also feature the 33W SUPERVOOC fast charging technology, which promises to charge your device to 51% from flat in just 30 minutes. I didn’t get to test this feature, though, as there is no wall charger in the box.
In order to enjoy SUPERVOOC charging, you’ll need to pick up an additional wall adapter.
That said, when I tested the feature on the A98, I was definitely impressed at the speed of charging. 33W SUPERVOOC should fully charge the device from flat in 65 minutes.
Oppo A79 5G review: Verdict
As a budget phone, the Oppo A79 5G is never going to win any premium phone awards.
But Oppo has done something quite remarkable here in creating a phone that offers similar performance to devices that cost twice as much.
It balances that trade off between performance versus price as well as I’ve ever seen. You get a great screen, strong battery life, a snappy interface and a decent camera.
Oppo even throws in SUPERVOOC charging support, though you’ll have to pay extra to actually use it.
If I was disappointed by anything, it was the camera performance. Not that the images are bad, but they simply don’t capture the scene as well as more premium phones.
This is an ideal replacement for a broken device, a great first phone for the kids, or even just a secondary work phone.
Buy the Oppo A79 5G online
Oppo supplied the A79 5G for this review.
