Over the years, Oppo has used its F series to deliver durable and design-heavy smartphones, and the recently launched F29 Pro is no exception. But in an increasingly cluttered market with lots of options catering to different users, is Oppo’s durability-first approach still a game changer? Well, I’ve been using the F29 Pro on and off for over a month – here’s how it fared in the real world.
Unboxing and design: Stylish and comfortable
Upon opening the F29 Pro‘s white and grey box, you are greeted with the device itself, a silicone case with a slight pattern, an 80W adapter, a USB Type A to Type C cable, some paperwork and a SIM ejector tool.
The F29 Pro certainly looks good, with the tried and tested circular camera module at the back, a fine gradient design and a matte finish that prevents fingerprints from showing and shows its best when light shines on it. The back and frame are both made of plastic, and the phone itself is pretty easy to hold with its curved edges and ergonomic design, weighing just 180 grams and measuring 7.6 mm in thickness.
The front of the phone has a flat screen with a hole at the top for the camera. The volume rockers and power button are both on the right, while the dual SIM card slot is at the bottom.
Like most other phones in this price range, Oppo has given the F29 Pro IP68 + IP69 water resistance, which means that the phone can withstand being submerged in 1.5 metres of water for up to 30 minutes, along with hot/cold water jets from any direction.
Display: Good enough
The F29 Pro features a 6.67-inch Full HD+ AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate and 2100 nits of peak brightness with Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 protection on top.
The display itself doesn’t leave much room for complain, with the panel delivering punchy and vibrant colours and the AMOLED panel ensuring deep blacks that comes in handy during dark scenes. In bright sunlight, the phone performs reasonably well with text being legibile it isn’t something to boast about.
The AMOLED panel is paired with a dual stereo speaker setup with support for 300% volume boost. The speakers get decently loud and are good for most day to day tasks like listening to music or even watching music but turning the software boost on does result in a bit of loss in sound quality.
Software: Feature-rich yet bloated
The F29 Pro runs on Oppo’s ColorOS 15 based on Android 15 with two years of promised OS updates and three years of security patches.
In case this is your first time with ColorOS, let me simplify things for you. The UI is very similar to the experience you get on realme UI or Oxygen OS with a similar feature rich and functional interface. However, the UI on F29 Pro is also highly cluttered with a lot of bloatwares (pre-installed third and first party apps), Hot apps, Hot games and ads loaded throughout the UI.
If you can get past all of that, there’s a lot to like about the UI as well, starting with some of the same AI features that we have previously seen on the OnePlus 13 and even the Nord 4 like AI screen translate, AI voice translate, AI Summary, AI eraser, AI reflection remover, and AI clarity enhancer. Worth noting here that all of these features require an internet connection to run.
Parting thoughts on AI: I personally believe that most AI features on smartphones are nothing more than gimmicks (barring AI eraser) but if there are some of these features that may come in handy during day to day life it is mostly found on Oxygen OS/ColorOS or Samsung’s One UI.
Processor:
Oppo F29 Pro runs on the MediaTek Dimensity 7300 Energy processor with options for 8/12GB of LPDDR4X RAM and 128/256GB UFS 3.1 storage. Like I said in my Infinix Note 50x Review, do not trust the suffix attached by MediaTek to this series, it is the same Dimensity 7300 processor which we have seen in plenty of phones in the past.
And in case you aren’t aware, this isn’t a bad processor at all . In fact, it is in general considered to be very good SoC for conducting day to day tasks and even a bit of casual gaming but don’t stretch your hopes beyond that.
In terms of benchmarks, the phone gets a score of 6,94,595 on Antutu. On Geekbench 6, it received a single core score of 1012 and a multi core score of 2955.
If you are looking for comparisons, the Dimensity 7300 is nowhere to the flagship grade Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 (Poco F6 and iQOO Neo 10R) or Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3 (OnePlus Nord 4) or even a mid-range Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 (OnePlus Nord CE 4) in terms of performance.
Camera: Mixed bag
The F29 Pro features a 50MP primary camera and a 2MP secondary shooter. Sadly, there is no ultra-wide or telephoto lens. On the front, you are greeted with a 16MP shooter.
To be completely honest, I didn’t have much hopes from the camera department of this phone and happy to report here that I was left pleasantly surprised. The primary shooter captures eye pleasing shots in good lighting conditions with plenty of detailed, excellent dynamic range and accurate skin tones. The night time portraits could be a hit or a miss with the details sometimes going for a toss under extremely dark conditions. Moreover, the sensor prefers warmer colours during portraits artificial lights, which could lead to images that may look good but not very colour accurate.
As for the front sensor, it is par for the price with the ability to capture good looking shots in day light conditions but details going for a toss in the low light. One thing to note here is that much like many other Oppo phones in the past, the F29 Pro tends to brighten the skin tones a little bit (despite all effects turned off) which is amply visible during night time selfies.
Verdict
Priced at ₹27,999 for the base variant (8GB RAM/128GB storage), the Oppo F29 Pro doesn’t seem designed for online-first buyers. Instead, it’s targeted at those who still prefer walking into a store, where prices tend to be slightly higher. The phone gets the basics right—a minimalistic yet appealing design, a flat AMOLED panel, a massive 6,000mAh battery, an IP rating for water resistance, and reliable cameras.
That said, its underwhelming processor for the price—along with the absence of telephoto and ultra-wide cameras, and an ad-heavy (though feature-rich) software experience—could be off-putting for some users.
