OPPO has started the year by announcing its new R1C smart phone. In terms of product line up, the R series has always been their slim and sleek offering where its R5 is currently their thinnest offering at 4.85mm. For the new R1C, it carries a couple of similarities with the R5 but the screen is a notch down with a 5″ HD 720p display and it is thicker but still reasonably slim at 6.85mm.
The OPPO R1C is priced at 2,499 CNY (about RM1,454) and it is available in either white and blue colours. The back of the R1C comes with a diamond mirror finish which reflects from various angles. Powering the device is 1.5GHz Octa-Core Snapdragon 615 processor with 2GB of RAM and it also comes with 16GB of storage. Like the OPPO N3, there’s a secondary SIM slot which also doubles up as a microSD if needed.
For imaging, it gets a familar 13MP Sony IMX214 main camera with assisted flash while selfies are taken by a 5MP shooter. Battery life of the R1C should be better than the R5 as it gets a much larger 2,420mAh capacity battery. Since it is thicker than the R5, the R1C also gets a dedicated 3.5mm headphone jack. Out of the box, it runs on Android 4.4 with its newer Color OS 2.0.1 UI on top.
It is going on sale in China on 20th January at 10AM and so far there’s no word of its international availability overseas. The OPPO R1C looks like a potential competitor for Samsung’s Galaxy A series with its unibody design with metal frames. As comparison, the Galaxy A5 is priced at RM1,199 while its larger Galaxy A7 that’s even slimmer at 6.3mm is expected to be priced at RM1,499.
