Oppo F33 Pro 5G was recently launched in India with a unique design. Here’s our review.
Here's Our Review of the Oppo F33 Pro 5G
Oppo's F series is a unique lineup, which sits right in the middle of the gaming-focused budget K series and the photography-focused mid-range Reno lineup. One would like to believe the company would try to pack the best of both worlds into its F series models to create the Goldilocks zone for a mid-range handset, offering a mix of decent on-demand performance and equally good cameras. However, this year, Oppo has seemingly decided to take a new route for its new handsets. The company appears to be focusing on bringing radical designs, just like we recently saw with the Oppo K series.
Similarly, the new Oppo F33 Pro 5G, which was recently launched in India at a starting price of Rs. Rs. 37,999 for the base 8GB + 128GB RAM and storage configuration, came into the Indian market with a unique design philosophy. However, rising component prices seem to have forced the company to cut corners, particularly in performance.
Oppo has bet big on design with the F33 Pro 5G. The smartphone looks different and draws gazes wherever you take it, whether you're in the metro or a restaurant. The rectangular deco, which appears slightly inspired by the iPhone 17 Pro's design, has its own unique identity. The slightly protruding deco at the top of the rear panel is made of a clear glass-like material. The Oppo F33 Pro 5G is offered in three colour options, and I got to use the Misty Forest shade, which, in my opinion, is the best among the lot. The layered design of trees and shrubs has been beautifully placed, creating an imagery of a valley in Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, or Ooty.
The shades of blue are calming and relaxing. The gradient finish is the last piece of the puzzle, providing proper depth perception for the entire scene. Moreover, when the light hits the back panel from different angles, each shade of blue behaves differently. The deco also features a dual-LED setup, housed in a ring. I felt a bit cheated when I realised there are just two LEDs inside, and that it is not a ring light per se.
Oppo F33 Pro 5G has a unique camera module
However, the design is quite polarising and might not be everyone's cup of tea, mostly because of the unusual camera island. But if you like it, you will eventually come to love it, too. The design has grown on me as well, and I have started to appreciate it more. While you will either hate it or love it, you can definitely not ignore it.
It also features a flat frame finished in silver. The flat power button and volume controls are tactile and look premium. The Oppo F33 Pro 5G is also great for one-handed operation, with the physical buttons within reach. However, you might have to stretch a bit to reach the top-left of the screen.
The Oppo F33 Pro is well-equipped in the display department. The smartphone maker ships the phone with an impressive flat AMOLED display, measuring 6.57 inches diagonally. It offers Full-HD+ (1,080 × 2,372 pixels) resolution, which is on par with the competition. But a higher-resolution screen, in my opinion, would have given the handset a sharper edge over others.
Oppo F33 Pro 5G has a bright enough display for outdoor viewing
However, the colour reproduction on the screen surprised me. I played 8K-resolution test videos on the Oppo F33 Pro 5G, and I was impressed by how well-distinguished the different shades of colours were. The panel ships with support for 1.07 billion colours and a 100 percent DCI-P3 colour gamut, and that is what the handset is using to its advantage perfectly.
The AMOLED display on the Oppo F33 Pro 5G also delivers up to 1,400 nits of peak brightness. Besides the technicalities and numbers, it is a bright enough panel, which can be easily viewed under direct sunlight. The display also gets AGC DT-STAR D+ protection, along with a preinstalled screen guard.
Oppo F33 Pro 5G's display is decent for content consumption
I watched hours of content on YouTube and Instagram without ever feeling tired. The deeper blacks while watching shows and movies on Netflix really uplift the viewing experience. I watched a few episodes of The Big Bang Theory and the first half of Dil Chahta Hai, and the content appeared mostly sharp.
On top of this, the adaptive refresh rate at 120Hz also made scrolling through websites and swiping through the app drawer breezy.
Most budget and mid-range smartphones have this widely reported problem: bloatware and unnecessary ads. OEMs found a new revenue stream a long time ago, initially seen as a convenience but gradually transformed into an annoyance. The Oppo F33 Pro 5G also comes with the same issues.
Oppo F33 Pro 5G ships with the new ColorOS 16
From popular apps and games, including Snapchat, Truecaller, Kotak811 mobile banking app, ChatGPT, Super Billiards, and Candy Crush, to apps and games I have never heard of even as a tech reviewer, like FinShell Pay, Worm family, Bubble Popo!, Collect Ball, and Block Blast!, Oppo decided to ship the F33 Pro 5G with all of them preloaded. Similarly, ads from random, never-heard-of-websites also show up in the phone's notifications section at random moments.
Except for this, other aspects of ColorOS 16, which is based on Android 16, are well designed. The UI is intuitive, with slick animations and smooth transitions. The colourful and vivid design elements never seem jarring or out of place, to offer an overall decent experience.
Oppo decided to equip its new F series phone with a lesser-known MediaTek chipset. The Dimensity 6360 Max chip, which is built on a 6nm process, often feels underpowered. However, the phone rarely gets bogged down in day-to-day usage. It can handle multiple tasks at once. For example, I decided to edit a video, keep multiple apps open in the background, download updates from the Google Play Store, and have eight tabs open in Google Chrome simultaneously.
Oppo F33 Pro 5G has decent performance
Surprisingly, the Oppo F33 Pro 5G did not feel out of breath. But things take a turn for the worse when you try to render a long-duration video and push its limits by opening more than 15 active tabs in Google Chrome. The phone suddenly starts throwing fits and resisting. However, this was an unusual scenario that would rarely happen. One can easily shoot, edit, and upload Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts without any hiccups.
I also put the Oppo F33 Pro 5G through multiple tests on different benchmarking platforms. The difference between the results was stark but not surprising when compared with competitors. I pitted the phone against the newly launched Samsung Galaxy A37, which is slightly more expensive than Oppo's offering. The Samsung handset outperformed the F33 Pro 5G on most tests. You can check the results in the table below.
| Benchmark | Oppo F33 Pro 5G | Samsung Galaxy A37 |
|---|---|---|
| Display Resolution | Full-HD+ | Full-HD+ |
| Chipset | MediaTek Dimensity 6360 Max (6nm) | Exynos 1480 |
| AnTuTu v11.1.1 | 6,44,677 | 10,62,726 |
| Geekbench 6 CPU Single Core | 782 | 1,139 |
| Geekbench 6 CPU Multi Core | 1,987 | 3,430 |
| Geekbench 6 GPU | 1,430 | 4,033 |
| Geekbench AI Single Precision | 543 | 1,045 |
| Geekbench AI Half Precision | 931 | 1,875 |
| Geekbench AI Quantized | 1,074 | 2,373 |
| PCMark Work Performance 3.0 | 9,032 | 13,364 |
| 3DM Wild Life | 1,300 | 3,978 |
| 3DM Steel Nomad Light | 145 | 479 |
Like other handsets in this price bracket, the Oppo F33 Pro 5G is great at handling lightweight arcade games. I played Temple Run 2 and Subway Surfers for half an hour each on the phone, and rarely experienced any frame drops, except once when I was downloading an app while playing. Moving on to more popular titles, the Oppo F33 Pro 5G also ran Call of Duty Mobile (COD-M) and Asphalt Legends with ease, though only on medium graphics.
After 30 minutes of gaming, the Oppo F33 Pro 5G does get warm, but does not throttle. It leverages its SuperCool vapour chamber (VC) cooling system, featuring a 4,289 sq mm heat-dissipation area, helping it avoid overheating. If you play for even longer durations, for example, an hour, the handset maintains relatively lower temperatures, never becoming too hot to handle.
The Oppo F33 Pro 5G features a dual rear camera system, led by a 50-megapixel primary sensor. The main camera uses an OV50D40 sensor with an f/1.8 aperture, a 76-degree field of view, and autofocus. It is a fine shooter that captures sharp, vivid images. On a gloomy day, the phone can capture slightly undersaturated but still-decent-looking images.
Oppo F33 Pro 5G features a dual camera system
In portrait mode, the handset gets the job done, but the separation between the subject and the background lacks the much-needed clarity, and the borders around the subject often appear softer than I would have preferred. It offers 10x digital zoom, but it starts to lose clarity beyond 2x, with the 5x and 10x settings appearing completely blurred.
Oppo F33 Pro 5G camera performance
Oppo F33 Pro 5G portrait mode
Under a bright, clear sky, camera performance improves greatly, and this is where the true test of skin tones occurs. The Oppo F33 Pro 5G proves its mettle on sunny days, delivering slightly flushed yet nearly accurate skin tones. It captures wheatish and brighter skin tones quite well, but might falter when pointed towards a darker shade.
On the videography front, the Oppo F33 Pro 5G can record 1080p video at up to 60 fps. The phone delivers well, capturing good-looking videos that might even look decent on YouTube with a little post-production magic. However, they are not as stable as one would like. Hence, getting a gimbal would be the best way to move forward if you're planning to shoot vlogs with the handset. Moreover, the onboard microphones perform well and are capable of recording clear audio on the go.
Oppo F33 Pro 5G night-time camera performance
Coming to its front-facing camera, here the Oppo F33 Pro 5G is significantly different from its counterpart. The handset boasts a 50-megapixel (f/2.0) selfie shooter that performs well at what it is meant to do. It can deliver crisp wide-angle shots, helping you capture most of your surroundings or easily take a group photo of 5 people. However, the problem of undersaturated images continues here.
Overall, the Oppo F33 Pro 5G offers a well-rounded camera experience, but at its price, I wanted it to deliver more with better sensors and image processing.
The Oppo F33 Pro 5G stands tall in its segment thanks to its 7,000mAh battery. The phone fulfils most of the company's promises on this particular front. In my day-to-day testing, the phone could easily last more than half a day with casual use, including a few hours of watching YouTube videos, scrolling through Reels on Instagram, reading articles online, and playing a few games. The brightness was set to auto throughout my testing, except for a few exceptions.
Oppo F33 Pro 5G offers a long battery life
In PC Mark's battery performance test, the Oppo F33 Pro 5G lasted 17 hours and 43 minutes, which is on par with the competition, while some Realme and OnePlus phones beat it by a few hours. However, when you run out of juice, the phone wakes up quickly and is ready to move, thanks to the 80W SuperVOOC charging adapter included in the box. Its battery charged from 0 percent to 53 percent in 30 minutes, from 53 percent to 88 percent in an hour, while taking about one hour and 20 minutes to go from 0 to 100 percent.
The Oppo F33 Pro 5G is currently on pre-order in India at Rs. 37,999 for the base RAM and storage configuration. It is overall a decent handset, but at the same time, it is far from value-for-money. However, looking at its competition, the Oppo F series handset is the only model to have dared to break away from predefined, market-tested designs.
If you like the attention it attracts, the Oppo F33 Pro 5G is one of the top contenders in the category. However, the OnePlus Nord 6 and the Samsung Galaxy A37 are significantly better devices than Oppo's handset, with OnePlus relying heavily on performance and battery, while Samsung takes advantage of its higher brand value and superior software experience.
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