As a quick primer, the OPPO A78 5G is the direct follow-up to last year’s A77, launching with a new backplate design and some odd downgrades, but is largely the same as the latter in many aspects. The A78 sports the same 1612×720 6.56-inch LCD display with a 90Hz refresh rate and 600 nits peak brightness, protected by Panda glass. It is equipped with stereo speakers, a side-mounted fingerprint scanner, and is IPX4 water resistant. The new phone strangely runs on the lower-end MediaTek Dimensity 700 chipset, compared to its predecessor’s Dimensity 810. OPPO is only offering a single configuration of 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, but the phone also has a dedicated microSD card slot for storage expansion. The OPPO A78 features a two-camera setup made up of a 50MP main lens and a 2MP depth sensor, with an 8MP selfie camera up front. The company says that its Ultra-Clear Image feature uses software algorithms to upscale the resolution of images to 108MP. Powering the mid-range smartphone is a sizeable 5,000mAh battery, the same capacity as the A77, with 33W SUPERVOOC charging that OPPO claims can fully charge the device in 67 minutes. As for connectivity, the A78 supports 5G, dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.3, NFC, and is fitted with an audio jack. The OPPO A78 ships with ColorOS 13 based on Android 13, available in Glowing Black and Glowing Purple which both promise to be fingerprint-free due to the rear’s matte finish. The phone is available for RM1099 through OPPO’s Lazada and Shopee shops starting from 14 January. (Source: OPPO press release)