Out of the box, the Oppo A15 got our juices going. It’s noticeably thin and light and, with its frosted metallic back cover, it looks and feels fantastic. It was a delight to carry the A15 around for the first few days: Its form factor and design are superb, and the screen is fairly good for an entry-level phone.

Unfortunately, we did quickly run into serious limitations with processing power and RAM. As we flipped between apps, screens would take forever to appear, and trying to do more than one or two things at a time, such as listen to music while scrolling Facebook, caused the A15 to lose its way and lock up for several seconds at times. Performance became a bit unacceptable, even for a budget-priced phone.

Similarly, the cameras produced some wonderful photos with crisp detail and colour balance, but the advanced camera features (both AI and HDR) easily became confused resulting in sub-standard pictures much of the time.

This phone might work out fine as a starter phone for a pre-teen or first-time smartphone user, but its low horsepower will quickly frustrate experienced users. Good looks aren’t everything, and the inability to balance multiple mobile tasks limit this phone’s appeal.

6.52” screen, 2 GB RAM, 5 MP front/13 MP + 2 MP macro + 2 MP depth sensor rear cameras, 32 GB storage, R3 000