Just days before Oppo officially announces the Oppo R7, the online Chinese retailer JD.com has put up a pre-order page that reveals the price and specs of the upcoming flagship. Over the past few months we have seen countless leaks, rumors, and official teasers of the Oppo R7 such that we practically know all the important details prior to the phones launch; it is rivaled only by the LG G4 for the crown of most leaked device so far this year. That being said it is certainly nice to have concrete information regarding the phones specifications and pricing; some of the details on JD.com corroborate what we already expect, while elaborating on or completely contradicting others.
Approximately 4 days ago a previous pre-registration listing for the Oppo R7 on JD.com revealed a price of 2?99 Yuan, suggesting a possible price range of 2,099 to 2,999. The new pre-order page lists several prices within this range that correspond to different models (see image below); 2,499, 2,799, and 2,999 Yuan, which converts to $402.27, $450.56, and $482.76. To be perfectly frank the entire page is in Chinese and Google translate was not very effective for us so we cannot be sure what differentiates these three models from one another other than their price. However, the different prices likely correspond to different storage options. Seeing as the base model will come equipped with 16GB the other two price brackets suggest there will be 32GB and 64GB versions of the device as well. All this is well and good but JD.com states these prices are merely current estimates, with official prices coming on Wednesday after its announcement, so take these with a grain of salt. However, if these prices prove to be accurate the Oppo R7 is priced very competitively based on its specs, which we will dive into next.
According to the new listing the Oppo R7 will come with specifications that are nearly on par with the upper echelon of flagships. Powering the device will not be an 800+ series Snapdragon chipset but the 64-bit octa-core snapdragon 615 running at 1.7 GHz. Despite not being an 808 or 810, the 615 is a solid CPU in its own right; it comes with all the necessary bells and whistles of a high-powered chip in 2015, it merely doesn’t match the 800 series in terms of clock speed. The GPU is also the Adreno 405, not the 430, which is typical of a 600 series Snapdragon. The device also ships with 3 GB of RAM, which should be more than enough to facilitate the Lollipop based ColourOS 2.1. Pixel peepers may lament the 5 inch 1080p display coming on the new device, though considering the somewhat small 2,320 mAh battery inside it might be best not to have a Quad HD display, which admittedly would be a bit overkill at 5 inches anyways. Smartphone camera aficionados should be pleased with the 20.7 megapixel rear camera, which greatly exceeds the 13 megapixel shooter we previously expected; hopefully the sensor, optics, and software processing are also on point.
The Oppo R7 is shaping up to be a very competitive device. We already know it has a fantastic design, great build quality, and is very thin (6.3 mm) and light (139 grams). It should ship with Lollipop out of the box or be updated very quickly given Oppo’s recent release of ColourOS 2.1. The specifications are not over the top but they are solid. If the prices listed on JD.com turn out to be accurate Oppo’s first major release of 2015 appears to be an absolute winner.