The Oppo A53 is an affordable Android smartphone with surprisingly complete specifications and a large battery. Is this the best budget phone of the moment? Computer! Total tested the device and you catch up in this Oppo A53 review.
Oppo A53
MSRP € 179, –
Colors Black and green
OS Android 10
Screen 6.5 inch LCD (1600 x 720, 90 Hz)
Processor 1.8 GHz octacore (Snapdragon 460)
RAM 4GB
Storage 64GB (expandable)
Battery 5,000 mAh
Camera 13, 2 and 2 megapixels (rear), 8 megapixels (front)
Connectivity 4G (LTE), Bluetooth 5.0, WiFi, GPS, NFC
Format 16.4 x 7.5 x 0.84 cm
Weight 186 grams
Other Headphone port
Website www.oppo.com/en 8 Score 80 
- Pros
- Design
- Complete specifications
- Updates until the end of 2022
- Long battery life
- Negatives
- Major ColorOS peel
- Screen quality
- Cameras are of limited use
Oppo sells the A53 for about 179 euros in the colors black and light green. I received that last performance. Good to know: there is also an Oppo A53s for sale. It costs 189 euros and differs in one area: it has 128 GB of storage space, compared to 64 GB in the A53.
Design
The Oppo A53 is made of plastic and feels solid. Although the back is smooth and shows fingerprints, you can fix this by using a case. The device has a huge 5000 mAh battery, but at 186 grams it is lighter than I expected. The design is nice and complete, with an NFC chip (for contactless pin in shops), a USB-C port and a headphone connection. There is a good fingerprint scanner on the back.
Screen
The 6.5 inch screen leaves a mixed impression. You have to operate the smartphone with two hands and look at a less sharp display. This is due to the relatively low HD resolution. Some competing smartphones have a sharper Full HD screen. The screen of the Oppo A53 also looks fine. The refresh rate is at 90 Hz (ninety times per second) higher than usual (60 Hz) in this price segment. Because the screen refreshes itself more often, the image looks smoother. You will notice this when reading text, switching between apps and playing optimized games.
Still, the higher refresh rate is not fully reflected. The processor used is not the fastest and therefore the screen looks a bit less smooth than on the OnePlus 7 Pro, an expensive smartphone with a 90 Hz display.
Hardware
The Oppo A53 has a Snapdragon 460 processor, which is fortunately fast enough to run popular apps. WhatsApp, Instagram and news apps have hardly any hiccups and switching between apps goes smoothly. This is partly due to the 4 GB RAM – common in this price range. The storage memory is also of a common size with 64 GB and is sufficient to store many apps, photos and other media. Do you think 64 GB is not enough for you? You can increase the memory with a micro-SD card or – my advice – spend two tens more and buy the Oppo A53s with 128 GB of memory.
The selfie camera of the Oppo A53 is in a hole in the screen and works properly. Three camera lenses are placed on the back. That sounds more impressive than it is. The 13 megapixel main camera shoots great photos and videos, but don’t expect miracles. The usefulness of the 2 megapixel macro camera is limited because the resolution is so low. Close-up photos, for example of a flower or insect, have blurry eyes and show less realistic colors. The 2 megapixel depth sensor can blur the background in photos for a portrait effect. This works nicely.
Long battery life
The Oppo A53 makes more of an impression with its large 5000 mAh battery. Add to that an energy-efficient processor and an HD screen and you end up with a battery life of two days. It’s nice not to have to worry about an almost empty battery. The box contains an 18 Watt charger that charges the battery from 0 to 30 percent in half an hour. A full charge takes almost 2.5 hours.
Software and updates
Oppo supplies the A53 with Android 10 and guarantees complete updates for two years. You are therefore assured of regular security updates until October 2022 and can count on Android 11 and 12. That is a nice certainty. Competitors like Nokia and Samsung offer a similar update policy, while a brand like Motorola only makes one Android update available.
The Oppo ColorOS shell over Android is not my favorite, but it gets better every year. It is now version 7.2, which adds some more apps and visually adjusts a few things. Version 11 will be released in 2021 (together with the Android 11 update) and it looks calmer and more logical.
Conclusion: buy Oppo A53?
The Oppo A53 is a friendly-priced smartphone with a solid design, complete specifications and updates until the end of 2022. The cameras and screen are not very impressive, but good enough. The long battery life is pleasant. If you are looking for a smartphone under 200 euros, you can certainly consider the Oppo A53. Bold alternatives are the Xiaomi Redmi Note 9, OnePlus Nord N100 and Motorola Moto G8 Power.
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