Oppo stepping into the TV segment with the R1 and S1 TVs
Oppo is a very well-known company and it needs no introduction. In the recent past we have witnessed many such companies who were basically and just known for being a smartphone manufacturer have been on a roll to widen their horizon and step into new segments. And Oppo did just that. The company was known to be widely popular smartphone company but now they have ventured into the TV segment too and it was about time for them to be honest. They have finally launched their first-ever televisions after teasing them for a while now.
I have always been interested in gadgets be it of any kind. And so, I knew I had to at least look into the features of what is being offered in the new televisions by Oppo and by not much surprise, I did just that. Before you go any further, let me tell you this is not a review but more like what is there and what isn’t. A few things a listed down that I came across and impressed me.
To begin with, Oppo launched not just one but two variants of the TV namely, Oppo TV S1 and Oppo TV R1.
The first one is the premium one out of the two which comes in a single size; 65-inch variant with a QLED panel which is interesting while the latter one comes in two sizes; 55-inch and 65-inch. Starting from the S1 TV, it flaunts a 65-inch QLED panel with 4K resolution as mentioned before. The panel flaunts a peak brightness of 1,500 nits. And since it comes with a QLED panel, the screen supports local dimming with 210 partitions and 120Hz refresh rate which you can see on many other televisions by other brands too, so not a new feature per se. Now a viewing experience cannot be described as good until and unless it provides with a fantastic audio as well. So, for audio, Oppo went with Dynaudio that includes 18 speakers with 85W sound output. One another thing that fascinated me here was the addition of a pop-up camera for video calls. Yes, it comes with a camera.
This is what comes with the panel, now moving on to what goes inside the TV. MediaTek has lend its power to the Oppo TV that is paired with 8.5GB RAM and 128GB of internal storage along with ColorOS TV so you can browse your local streaming platforms pretty well. A few other things that are included are Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos, 8K video playback support WiFi 6 which is amazing. This TV is priced at $1,197.
Moving on to the R1, this one sports a 4K LCD panel with an LED backlight. Unlike the premium TV, this one does not support 120Hz refresh rate instead comes with MEMC. This variant is also powered by MediaTek chipset along with the support for 8K video playback and 1 second boot time which is a good addition considering this variant isn’t as premium as the former one. However, if you compare the RAM and the storage specs to the premium S1 TV, it is quite less. The R1 comes with 2GB RAM and 32GB of internal storage which is not just less but way less compared to the S1 variant.
A few other features that the TV include are HDMI 2.1, blue light certifies by TUV Rheinland (which is also included in the S1 variant as well) along with WiFi 6, 20W speakers with Dolby Audio, NFC remote control. One good addition to the TV is the Oppo Share which makes it easier to work with the TV alongside your other Oppo devices. This variant of the Oppo TV also comes with a pop-up camera, far-field microphones, and ColorOS TV operating system so that performance is going to be good no doubt about that.
As far as the price of this TV is concerned, considering the features and the specifications, it is priced much lower than the S1 at $493 for the 55-inch and $643 for the 65-inch. There is undoubtedly a vast difference between the prices of both the TV variants and if you are restrained by a budget, the R1 would be a better choice. What do you think?
