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This is where the Oppo R7 Plus should come into its own – and with an eight-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor and 3GB of RAM, you'd hope so, too. So I was disappointed that the Geekbench 3 scores were lower than I'd hoped for. It averaged 2987 in the multi-core tests, falling far short of the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 (4975), although that can be forgiven due the difference in price and calibre of component.
Less acceptable was the performance dip in comparison to the OnePlus 2, which averaged 4795. The OnePlus 2 scored higher thanks to its more powerful Snapdragon 810 processor and extra gigabyte of RAM – 4GB as opposed to the R7 Plus's 3GB. Given that the OnePlus 2 and R7 Plus are in roughly the same neighbourhood in terms of price, it's a serious shame.
The relative lack in performance wasn't something I ever noticed when using the handset, though. It runs Real Racing 3 as smoothly as you like, with all the reflections and trackside detail you can ask for, and there's no drag or dip in performance when navigating any part of the R7 Plus's interface.
The only time it noticeably drags its heels is when shooting photos in Ultra HD mode, where you have to wait a couple of seconds after pressing the shutter button, but as that's not intended to be a quick-snap method of photography I didn't really mind. The nips and tucks Oppo has made to Android in ColorOS really do make a difference.
Battery life is no cause for concern either – despite busy days where I relied on the phone for email, internet, entertainment for my commute, music for working out to and games for my daughter, I never found I'd drained it by the end of the day. Streaming a 90-minute HD movie consumed 19% of the battery. As mentioned earlier, if you do find yourself bottoming-out the battery, a five-minute charge is more than enough to give you an hour or two of extra life.
Camera
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The Oppo R7 Plus uses clever interpolation trickery (Oppo calls it Pure Image) to produce photos at resolutions of 52 megapixels in Ultra HD mode from its 13-megapixel Sony camera. It does this to enable you to crop into areas of a photo you like – an after-the-fact digital zoom, if you will – or just capture more detail in your regular images, and the results are decent.
It does produce slightly underexposed images, and there's no way of tweaking the brightness levels or contrast in the native photos app, but the difference in detail between the normal shots and the Ultra HD ones is noticeable.
Click here for the full-resolution image
Click here for the full-resolution image
Click here for the full-resolution image
If Ultra HD isn't for you – and the processing time after pressing the shutter button means it's not suitable for all situations – there are plenty of other bells and whistles to play with. Aside from the usual HDR and long-exposure modes, you can choose to shoot in raw, create double exposures, create animated GIFs and even add filter effects to make your selfies more glamourous.
If moving pictures are your thing, you can shoot at 1080, 720 or even in slow motion. Whatever you're capturing, the laser-assisted autofocus is a massive benefit, enabling you to focus on your subject quickly, and adjust the focus just as rapidly if required.
