Oppo A40m Review: Honest Budget Phone That Doesn’t Stretch the Wallet — Or Impress

Oppo A40m: a straightforward budget phone

Oppo’s A40m arrives as an unpretentious budget handset. Priced at a recommended 159 euros and found as low as 129 euros at times, its chief selling point is simply affordability.

It handles everyday tasks well enough, but it is hard to recommend for power users or anyone chasing strong value for money. Even with a low price tag, the compromises Oppo made leave the A40m behind many rivals.

Where this phone sits in the market

Tech coverage tends to focus on flagship devices or at least midrange models that push new features. That makes sense: those phones move the needle. Entry-level phones bring new features much later and rarely introduce meaningful innovation.

When manufacturers race to hit low price points, they trim features across the board. The A40m is a good example: it’s competent but unremarkable, and its main advantage is you can buy one without a major dent in your bank account.

Specs and core hardware

The A40m runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 6S chipset and sports a 6.67-inch LCD with a 90 Hz refresh rate and 1604 x 720 resolution.

On the back there’s a 50-megapixel main camera plus an auxiliary supporting sensor. The front camera is a 5-megapixel unit.

Memory, connectivity, battery and extras

The phone ships with 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage, expandable via microSD. It does not support 5G and is limited to 4G networks.

Battery capacity is 5,100 mAh with 45W SUPERVOOC charging. The handset has IPX4 splash resistance, measures 165.77 x 76.08 x 7.68 mm and weighs 186 grams.

One remaining practical perk: a 3.5 mm headphone jack, which is increasingly rare at this price point.

Competition and value

At around 150 euros the A40m largely competes with discounted higher-tier phones and used devices. Frequently you can find a 300-euro phone at half price that offers superior hardware compared with the A40m. Used phones in this bracket often provide a better price-to-performance ratio.

New models in the same rough price range include the HMD Pulse Pro, Honor 200 Smart 5G, and Honor 90 Lite 5G. Oppo also sells a lower-spec A40 model with 128 GB storage and 4 GB RAM at a 129-euro list price, sometimes discounted to about 100 euros.

If you can stretch the budget toward 200 euros, you unlock a much larger pool of devices that outclass the A40m. In the low-end segment, an extra few tens of euros typically translate to noticeably better specs.

Box contents and final notes

Oppo has trimmed even the box contents: the A40m ships without a charger, including only a USB-A to USB-C cable. The display does come with a preinstalled screen protector.