OPPO released a new edition of the entry-level A16 without any fanfare. The A16s, a mild refresh of the A16, and a successor to the Oppo A15s. The handset made its debut in the Netherlands. And it should be headed to more markets soon, possibly including Pakistan, where the A16 series has yet to arrive.
Oppo A16s is essentially an Oppo A16 but with support for NFC payments. To review, we're looking at a 6.52" notched display. It's an IPS LCD that delivers a 720P resolution and fills a 20:9 aspect ratio. No current-gen features — a high refresh rate and responsive touch sampling — are offered either.
Flip the Oppo A16s over to find a plastic shell and a camera island in the shape of a rectangle. The backplate comes in Crystal Black and Pearl Blue shades, both generic paint jobs. We find a side-facing thumbprint reader etched into the frame that doubles as the power button.
The camera system of the new Oppo mobile for 2021 is made of three rear-facing lenses and one front camera. The triple camera array features a 13MP f/2.2 lens, a 2MP macro camera, and a 2MP portrait sensor. An 8MP camera is housed inside the notch. It's a standard entry-level camera layout.
It's all powered by the MediaTek Helio G35 (an old-gen low performance 4G chip) and a 5000 mAh battery. No fast-charging support to be seen here — a feature that has become commonplace even in new entry-level Chinese phones. You get 4GB of memory and 64GB of expandable internal storage.
ColorOS11, based on Android 11, runs on the Oppo A16s right out of the box. The base edition starts from 149 Euros (~ Rs. 28,700.)