Oppo R15 Pro vs. Nokia 8.1: Which Is The Best Mid-Range Smartphone?

You are looking for a phone to upgrade your old one and you only have a limited budget? Don’t worry as there are still a ton of choices in the mid-range segment for you to choose in India. The two notable candidates are the Nokia 8.1 and Oppo R15 Pro. These two devices are in similar price ranges, packed with interesting features. Dual rear camera setup, powerful hardware specs and notched displays making them be very solid choices for people who want to spend around Rs. 25,000 for a phone.

Design and display

Nokia 8.1

Both of the phone makers opt for similar designs on their handsets as they both have a notched bezel-less display, a glass panel on the rear and an aluminum frame on their sides. They also both have a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor, sitting just above their dual camera setups. They are quite comfortable to hold on hand with a weight of 180g.

They also both come with NFC and a headphone jack. But while the Oppo R15 Pro is water resistant, the Nokia 8.1 doesn’t have that same feature. However, while the Nokia handset has a USB-C port, the Oppo R15 Pro comes with a traditional micro-USB port.

Oppo R15 Pro

The Oppo R15 Pro sports a Super AMOLED 6.28-inch Full-HD+ display with a 2,280 x 1,080 pixels resolution. This is undoubtedly an advantage of the Oppo phone as the Nokia one only comes with an IPS LCD though it still has a large 6.18-inch Full-HD+ display with the same resolution as the Oppo R15 Pro. While the Oppo device has a better display, the Nokia 8.1’s display has HDR 10 support.

Hardware and software

The Oppo R15 Pro is powered by a 2.2GHz octa-core Snapdragon 660 SoC, coupled with an Adreno 512 GPU. That said, the Nokia 8.1 comes with a more powerful Snapdragon 710 SoC but it is only coupled with an Adreno 616 GPU. Oppo offers the R15 Pro in a single variant with 6GB RAM and 128GB of storage. The Nokia 8.1 is also available with a single option with 4GB RAM and 64GB storage, but it is expected to come in another model with 6GB RAM and 128GB storage soon.

In the software department, it just comes to your own decision between stock Android or custom ROMs. The reason is that while the Nokia 8.1 runs a near-stock Android 9 Pie as it is a part of the Android One programme, the Oppo R15 Pro comes with ColorOS 5.0 on top of the Android 8.1 Oreo. The Nokia 8.1 only comes with vanilla iteration and new additions that Google adds on the Android 9 Pie such as Adaptive Battery, gesture navigation, easier text selection, and Digital Wellbeing.

The customized ColorOS 5.0 is packed with some additional traits like a RAM cleaner, power management settings, and multitasking features as well. Both of the camera apps on the Nokia and Oppo handsets are self-made with some AI-powered features.

Battery and Camera

The rear camera system of the R15 Pro comprises of 16MP and 20MP sensors, both of which come with an aperture of f/1.7 which is good for taking photos in low-light conditions. The Nokia handset, on the other hand, features a 12MP main sensor with an aperture of f/2.0 and a 13MP sensor. On the front, both of the devices have a 20MP selfie camera with an aperture of f/2.0 with features such as a beauty mode, scene detection and more.

On the battery aspect, the Oppo phone is backed by a 3,430 mAh battery while the Nokia handset is powered by a battery with a similar capacity of 3,500 mAh. Both of them comes with support fast charging but the Oppo R15 Pro has the Oppo’s VOOC Flash Charge tech which is claimed to be faster than the standard fast charge tech.

Verdicts:

It is hard to tell which phone is clearly better than the other. With a large OLED display and an advanced dual camera on the rear, the Oppo R15 Pro’s price is Rs. 25,990. On the other hand, the Nokia 8.1 is powered by a more powerful hardware specs and near-stock Android 9 Pie. However, it is priced at a slightly higher price, Rs. 26,999. So it isn’t easy to choose between these two, but they are both surely a very solid choice in the mid-range segment.