Optus Mobile Review ALDI Mobile Review Amaysim Mobile Review Belong Mobile Review Circles.Life Review Vodafone Mobile Review Woolworths Mobile Review Felix Mobile Review Best iPhone Plans Best Family Mobile Plans Best Budget Smartphones Best Prepaid Plans Best SIM-Only Plans Best Plans For Kids And Teens Best Cheap Mobile Plans Telstra vs Optus Mobile Optus NBN Review Belong NBN Review Vodafone NBN Review Superloop NBN Review Aussie BB NBN Review iiNet NBN Review MyRepublic NBN Review TPG NBN Review Best NBN Satellite Plans Best NBN Alternatives Best NBN Providers Best Home Wireless Plans What is a Good NBN Speed? Test NBN Speed How to speed up your internet Optus vs Telstra Broadband ExpressVPN Review CyberGhost VPN Review NordVPN Review PureVPN Review Norton Secure VPN Review IPVanish VPN Review Windscribe VPN Review Hotspot Shield VPN Review Best cheap VPN services Best VPN for streaming Best VPNs for gaming What is a VPN? VPNs for ad-blocking So, what does that extra $50 get you? Though the A54 5G and the A74 5G are essentially the same device, upgrading to the A74 5G does give you a few extra goodies. First up, it’s got double the internal storage of the A54 5G (128GB vs just 64GB), which means your happy snaps, Netflix downloads and apps won’t fill up your phone nearly as fast. Next, there’s an extra 2GB of RAM in the A74 5G, which we’ll go into more detail later, but basically, it offers faster performance. Finally, the A74 5G also comes with 18W fast charging, allowing it to be fully charged in almost half the time it takes to charge the A54 5G. Only the OPPO A54 5G is available on a plan as well as outright through most tech retailers. Check out the most popular A54 5G plans below. You’ll find the SIM card port and volume buttons on the left side, fingerprint scanner/standby button on the right, with a 3.5mm headphone jack, USB-C charging port and speakers on the bottom. Around back, it’s a pretty simple design, punctuated by the quad-lens rear camera hub - more on that a bit later. One thing I did find was that of the three colourways, the Fluid Black and Fantastic Purple were both so glossy that they were almost impossible to keep clear of fingerprints. The Space Silver A74 5G variant, on the other hand, had a much more practical matte finish. Look, at this price range, I didn’t have the highest of expectations. I knew neither was going to measure up to my iPhone 12 Mini, but I was still pleasantly surprised to see just how capable the camera was. It’s not great in low light, but not the worst I’ve ever seen. Here are a couple of sample snaps I took during my time with both. By no means are they on par with expensive flagships, but they’re pretty decent considering the $399 and $449 RRPs. What really sets the two models apart is RAM. Though the A74 5G has only 2GB more than its cheaper sibling, those 2GB make a whole lot of difference. Where the A74 5G was just about zippy enough to keep up with my app-jumping, short-attention-span ways, the A54 5G struggled a little. Not enough to render it completely unusable, but just enough to make it annoyingly sluggish at times. Aside from that, both phones have largely identical features, including NFC for wireless payments, two fast and accurate options for biometric security (fingerprint and facial recognition), the humble 3.5mm headphone jack and dual SIM support. For those who opt for the A74 5G, you’ll also get speedier 18W fast charging, which should refuel it in a little over half the time it would take to charge the A54 5G, which supports standard 10W charging only. Unsurprisingly, given their affordability, neither device supports wireless charging. In fact, the new OPPO Find X3 Pro is the only OPPO phone with wireless charging support. Both phones are worth their price tag, but I reckon the A74 5G is hard to beat.
