Most phones top out at two days of battery in a 5000mAh phone. The Oppo A5 5G goes for distance with a 6000mAh battery.
Phones sure have become big over the past few years, and it seems like the era of the small phone is behind us. In fact these days, if you want something deliberately compact, you’re probably looking at a foldable clamshell mobile, which is invariably a big phone inside of a compact case designed to fold shut. Handy.
There’s a good reason why so many phones are so sizeable, and it’s not just because we love viewing big screens: the battery. The bigger the screen, the bigger the battery, and so mobile makers have responded to battery complaints by making bigger phones with equally bigger batteries.
For a while, those battery sizes topped out at 5000mAh, a decent amount that would almost always guarantee two days of life in a phone under a thousand dollars. Maybe.
With the latest push, however, mobile makers are packing in even more battery, evident from Oppo’s newbie, the A5 5G.
A $299 mobile, the A5 5G features a 6.67 inch screen like its sibling in the A5 Pro 5G, but also manages to include an even bigger battery. While the A5 Pro offers a 5800mAh battery, the A5 5G standard tops out at 6000mAh, suggesting more battery life is possible, even from an extra 200 milliamps.
That massive 6000mAh size has Oppo suggesting as much as 22 hours of voice calls and nearly 19 hours of YouTube streaming is possible, with a staggering 21 days of standby time. You’re unlikely to leave your phone unused for three weeks, but the fact that it’s possible is very interesting all the same.
The phone also gets a 50 megapixel main camera and a 2 megapixel portrait camera — that’s basically one camera for use with portrait control — plus IP68 water resistance and some improvements to durability.
However, the caveats are clearly the processor and memory. With a MediaTek Dimensity 6300 chip and 4GB RAM, the Oppo A5 5G isn’t a high-speed phone, but rather something clearly focused on the mid-range. The HD+ screen res screams that, too., but could aid the battery life, and may explain the long life.
That said, the price could be just about right, with the unlocked handset selling for $299 in Australia across the country now.
