OPPO A37 Unboxing, First Impressions

The OPPO A37 was first announced back in June and was able to reach the Philippine shores just this month. It’s one of OPPO’s iPhone look-a-like handsets packing average internals and camera-centric features. Here’s our unboxing and initial impressions of the device.

What’s commendable about OPPO is how presentable their packaging is. The A37 comes in a good-looking box and is neatly arranged along with its accessories. This includes the following: a clear silicone case, quick start guide, warranty booklet, earphones, travel charger, microUSB cable, and an ejector pin.

Going to the phone, it has a 5-inch IPS LCD with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels or about 294ppi of pixel density. The display is topped by a 2.5D scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass 4. Also beneath the glass are the 5MP selfie camera, earpiece, a couple of sensors, and three unlit capacitive keys for navigation.

On the right side, there’s the power/lock button and the card tray for two nano-SIM cards and a microSD card. Each card has a dedicated slot, meaning you can enjoy two networks and expand storage at the same time.

While on the right is just the volume rocker. The position of the buttons is quite similar to the iPhone 6/6s and is easily reachable by either the index finger or the thumb depending on your handling.

The top side of the device only has 3.5mm headphone jack and nothing else.

The bottom end of the phone has the micro-USB port in between loudspeaker grilles. Although, don’t be fooled by thinking it’s a two speaker setup as the audio only fires on the right. The microphone is hiding in the holes on the left.

Going to the back, we have a smooth plastic shell imprinted with a shiny OPPO logo.  The main 8MP camera with its LED flash is positioned at the top-right corner. A mimic of the antenna bands of aluminum phones is also crafted here.

Internally, there’s a 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 quad-core processor ticking with an Adreno 306. It’s got 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage, as mentioned earlier, expandable via a microSD card. It supports 4G LTE where available and has a Hi-Fi audio processor inside as well for clearer listening.

What’s running on the A37 is Color OS 3.0 which is based from the already dated Android 5.1 Lollipop. It’s skinned to be similar to iOS but there’s a theme store if you’re not into that. If it not obvious yet, the OPPO A37 seems to be positioned as a poor man’s iPhone but despite that, it’s not even that cheap considering its internals.

OPPO A37 specs:
5-inch IPS LCD display @ 1280 x 720 pixels, 294ppi
2.5D Corning Gorilla Glass 4
1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 quad-core CPU
Adreno 306 GPU
2GB RAM
16GB internal storage
microSD card slot (dedicated, up to 128GB)
8MP 1/3.2-inch sensor AF rear camera w/ LED flash
5MP front camera w/ screen flash
Dual-SIM
4G LTE
WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n
Bluetooth 4.0
GPS, A-GPS
FM Radio
Dirac HD Hi-Fi sound
2,630mAH battery
Android 5.1 Lollipop (ColorOS 3.0)
143.1 x 71 x 7.7 mm
136 g

It’s got a price tag of Php8,990 which is quite pricey for something like this. We’ll be taking the OPPO A37 for a spin in the coming weeks to come up with a full review. If you have questions for the device or anything you wish to see about it, just comment down below and we’ll try to accommodate. Stay tuned!