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The smartphones I handle on an everyday basis have left me with a permanent pain in the left hand — that’s how heavy and large they tend to be. The Oppo F17 Pro happily instantly contrasts with the majority of devices in that regard.
It’s surprisingly light and slim and if it’s got one thing going for it, it’s that the phone is easy to hold. That’s despite a 4,000mAh battery. If all you do is make a lot of calls, do some light checking of email and browsing and take the occasional photo, the F17 Pro might well suit. But then, at ₹22,990, it had better be good for more than that.
The F17 Pro is the more advanced of a series of two recently launched phones from Oppo. The back is plastic and feels it, but on the other hand, an interesting two-tone pattern has been used to make it stand out in the crowd. The ‘Magic Blue’ variant is the most distinctive of the lot, the other options being Metallic White and Matte Black.
The fairly bright blue back curves into a purple-pink on the sides in an unusual take on back panels. Four cameras sit in a glinting square. All this is supposed to appeal to young people who apparently require some flaunt and flash. There’s a standard case in the box, but you may not need it, specially since it’ll make a nice slim phone feel thicker. The F17 Pro has even retained the headphone jack in its slim body.
Pill-box cutout
On the front, the display has a pretty noticeable pill-box cutout for two front cameras. If you can un-notice it, the 6.43 inch screen itself is really very nice because it happens to be the AMOLED type and has great colours and contrasts. It’s responsive enough, but don’t expect any special refresh rate here.
As we creep up to 90Hz and 120Hz refresh rates, the screen on this phone stays at 60Hz. The phone uses a MediaTek Helio P95 processor, which isn’t a wildly popular choice. It’s been boosted up with 8GB RAM and 128GB storage so it doesn’t feel slow or laggy though gamers aren’t recommending it for high-end performance, if that’s what you’re intending to buy it for. It’s more suited to the basics, except that the price isn’t as competitive when you look at what else is around.
The software on this phone is Android 10 and ColorOS 7.2 which comes with some new air gestures. Mostly it’s that you can pick up a call by holding your hand over the phone.
Six cameras
There are six cameras on the F17 Pro, quite in tune with how companies are just piling on the lenses. In the end, most people just use one primary lens. That, on this phone, is a 48MP with the usual 8MP ultra wide, and two 2MP monochrome lenses. The front camera is a 16MP. The whole camera set-up is strictly in the ‘OK’ category. The results are make-do pictures, with their share of fuzziness and softness when the light drops. But then, not everyone is demanding where phone images are concerned.
The 4,000mAh battery takes 55 minutes on 30W charging to be fully topped up and promises 10-hour thorough use battery life. AI is used to optimise overnight battery charging in sync with the user’s wake up time.
Price: ₹22,990
Pros: Comfortable to hold, light, interesting pattern on back for blue variant, good display, good battery life, adequate RAM and storage, retains headphone jack
Cons: Processor not the best choice, expensive for what it offers, display doesn’t support HDR 10, nothing special about the cameras
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