We have it on good authority that the OPPO A83 — basically a lower-specced OPPO F5 — will be launching in the Philippines soon. Like “end of January” soon.

(Update, January 20, 6 p.m.: It’s confirmed! The OPPO A83 will be unveiled in the Philippines on January 26.)

SEE ALSO: OPPO F5 review: An all-improved selfie expert

We at Revü asked our source about the A83’s availability in the country because we had a hunch that the handset will be offered here. First, the device was unveiled in India yesterday, January 17. Usually, what comes out in the fastest-growing smartphone market also makes its way to the Philippines.

Second, Vivo dropped the price of the V7 from P14,990 (approximately $296) to P12,990 ($256). The Chinese OEM making its baseline 18:9 offering more agreeable made us think that it could be preparing for something more affordable from the competition. Or perhaps, like OPPO, Vivo is in the final stages of launching an even cheaper product with an extra-wide screen, too.

READ ALSO: 7 18:9 phone alternatives to the ASUS ZenFone Max Plus (M1)

Regardless, expect the ownership of an 18:9 phone to drop further — and sooner rather than later. For the record, the OPPO A83 will run you ¥1,399 (P10,680 or $214) in China. We reckon it will cost somewhere between P10,000 and P12,000 when it becomes available to us. 

For the money, you get a 5.7-inch LCD display running at 720 x 1,440, coupled with a MediaTek MT6763T processor coupled with 3GB or 4GB of RAM and 32GB of expandable storage.

The OPPO A83 has the ability to recognize more than 200 feature points on a user’s face.

The back-facing camera is 13 megapixels, while the front camera has an 8-megapixel sensor powered by a built-in artificial-intelligence technology and beautify algorithm. The latter also uses face-recognition tech to unlock the A83 hands-free, similar to other OPPO and Vivo models that came out in 2018 and the year before.

SEE ALSO: Complete specs of the OPPO A83

Given the modest specifications, the 3,180mAh battery should be enough to last through a full day of mixed use.

Things sure are getting heated in the midrange category. And we can’t wait for OPPO Philippines to officially announce the A83.

Video you may want to watch: OPPO F5 preview

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Alora Uy Guerrero

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Editor-in-chief: Alora Uy Guerrero has 22 years of experience as an editor for print and digital publications such as Yahoo. She took time off journalism to manage OPPO’s digital-marketing campaigns. When not busy with her babies, she’s working on Revü, a passion project — or probably traveling or obsessing over her favorite bands, movies, TV shows, and basketball teams.