If there’s anything that the youth loves more than social media, it’s clicking selfies. The selfie obsession has reached a fever pitch, so much, so that each time you walk into a public spot, you’ll find yourself surrounded by hundreds of pout faces and smirks. Understanding this obsession, Oppo has been releasing its phones in “F-lineup” that the company titles for being the selfie experts. Stepping up this selfie game, Oppo has launched the very new dual selfie camera phone, the Oppo F3 Plus. This phone has dual selfies cameras and lot’s more. Let’s find out what else this phone is offering other than the wide angle selfies.
Key Specs of Oppo F3 Plus:
- 6-inch IPS LCD display, 1080 x 1920 pixels, 367 ppi, Corning Gorilla Glass 5
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 653; Octa-core processor, Adreno 510
- 4GB RAM/ 64GB internal
- Rear Camera: 16 MP, f/1.7, dual phase detection autofocus, OIS, dual tone LED flash
- Front Camera: Dual 16 MP, f/2.0 + 8 MP (120°), 1/3″ sensor size
- ColorOS 3.0 (Android 6.0 Marshmallow)
- Hybrid DualSIM/microSD card slot (up to 256GB)
- Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, WiFi Direct, hotspot, Bluetooth 4.1
- Sensors: Fingerprint (front-mounted), accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass
- 4000 mAh battery; Fast battery charging: (VOOC Flash Charge)
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Oppo F3 Plus Price in Nepal: Rs. 54,990
Design:
The design of the Oppo F3 Plus seems to be inspired from that of Oppo R9s since it boosts the same metal-clad design with strip antenna bands on the back and chamfered lines along the front edges.
The phone looks intriguing from the front that has a huge display and thin borders. The device with rounded edges and curved back with smooth finish gives a premium feeling as soon as it lands on your palm. At the time of my review, I found it to be a little slippery. All in all, this is a well-built phone with bigger dimensions that more frequently asks you to use it with two hands instead of one.
On the right, it has the power button and the volume rockers are placed on the left. But I wouldn’t say they are well-placed since you have to really stretch your fingers to reach those buttons. These buttons are pretty tactile and give a nice feedback. On the bottom of the phone, are the loudspeaker, microUSB charging port, mic and the 3.5mm headphone jack. Below the display, are the capacitive buttons and in between them is placed the home button that doubles as a fingerprint sensor. The sensor is pretty fast and accurate.
Display:
The phone comes with a big 6-inch display that comes with the resolution of 1920*1080 pixels. The display with 367ppi isn’t the sharpest but still, the color reproduction and viewing angles are noticeably impressive.
It’s an LCD display that just looks as saturated as the OLED ones. Well, if the display with saturated colors falls in your liking, then this display won’t disappoint you. However, the phone doesn’t come with any display tuning options other than an option to filter the blue color, which can be disappointing to many. Unlike many other phone displays, this display was easy to look at even in direct sunlight. The display is protected with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 and it does have a good touch response.
Performance:
Under the hood, the Oppo F3 Plus is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 653 which is the “Pro” version of the Snapdragon 652 that is claimed to be 10% more powerful than its predecessors. This OctaCore processor is backed by Adreno 510 GPU and is coupled with 4GB of RAM. Hence, the device is snappy fast and the performance was never an issue at the time of my review. The app loading and switching times were noticeably fast and the phone performed quite well even while playing graphics intensive games. But at times, the upper portion of the phone gets hot but that didn’t affect the performance of the phone. The phone offers 64GB of internal storage that is expandable up to 256GB.
Higher is Better
Software/UI:
This device boots on Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow with Color OS 3.0 layered on top of it. The interface is exactly like that of any other Oppo phones. So, it’ll take time lesser time for IOS users than stock android users to get used to this interface. Other than that, the inclusion of tricks like swiping from the left or right bottom edge to the center of the phone for one hand usability seemed pretty handy. But there are times when the UI pushed me away, for instance, there are two different panels for quick settings and notifications. Just to take a peek at your notifications you’ve to follow two steps, swipe down the status bar and then swipe right to reach the notification panel. That is simply just clumsy.
Camera:
Oppo F3 Plus houses a 16Megapixel rear shooter with f/1.7 aperture and is accompanied by dual-tone LED flash that performs impressively well even in low light conditions. The photos look well-detailed and the color reproduction is pretty close.
The camera focuses fast and I didn’t notice any shutter lags. The camera app is straight forward with options for HDR, Ultra HD photos, and manual control. With this phone, you can take 20burst photos at a time. The primary shooter is capable of taking 4K videos at 30fps. Sadly, there isn’t any option for slo-mo videos in this camera phone.
Since it’s titled the “selfie expert”, the front dual cameras (8MP+16MP) are equally appealing as well. The 16MP unit has f2.0 aperture so the selfies from it come out detailed and bright. The second 8MP lens is a 120° wide angle one that lets you pack all your friends in one selfie. Hence, this selfie expert is suitable for taking selfies with the wider field of view. However, the photos taken using wide angle lens seem to have lots of grains in non-ideal lighting condition. There are options to shoot selfie time-lapse and panoramas as well. Like other Oppo phones, this too comes with beauty mode for the enhancement of the selfies. There are different options to apply filters and watermarks while taking the photo. Moreover, you can also take double exposure selfies from this phone.
Connectivity:
For Connectivity, the phone comes with hybrid dual SIM slot, which means, you can either use two SIMS or one SIM and one microSD card. Wi-Fi networks and mobile data were stable. I didn’t notice any call drops throughout my usage. The call quality was excellent, so was the audio coming out from 3.5mm headphone jack.
Battery:
The phone packs in 4000mAh battery that will easily last for a whole day even with heavy usage. Plus, the phone comes with VOOC fast charger that charged the phone impressively fast. I started charging the phone from 0% and it got charged up to 49% in 30mins and 89% in one hour. It took the phone 1hour and 31minutes to get fully charged.
Verdict:
Hence, the Oppo F3 plus, a capable camera phone, easily justifies its title of selfie expert. Other impressive features of this phone are its snappy fast fingerprint sensor and sound rich loudspeaker. However, Oppo could have made the phone a little more future proof by the inclusion of Android 7 Nougat and USB type C. Plus, the Snapdragon 653 is a powerful processor but isn’t as powerful as Snapdragon 821 that is powering the device of the same price range.
What I liked about Oppo F3 Plus (PROS):
- Obviously, the first thing that easily impressed me is its dual selfie cameras. The 16MP unit on the front takes great selfies and performs well while video calling even in low light. The wide-angle 8MP selfie unit gave the sensation as if I was taking photos and videos not from a phone but from an action-cam.
- The rear primary shooter easily addressed my mobile photography needs.
- The display is bright and vivid and the white balance was on point.
- The fingerprint scanner was snappy fast.
What I disliked about Oppo F3 Plus (CONS):
- It’s 2017 and the phone neither comes with the Android 7 Nougat nor a USB Type-C.
- It’s not like the Snapdragon 653 isn’t that powerful but it certainly isn’t as powerful as the Snapdragon 821 that is being used in a device that is available in the same price range.
If you are not impressed by Oppo F3 Plus, here are other devices that you might wanna consider:
Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro
Priced at Rs. 59,990, the Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro sports a 6-inch 1080P AMOLED display with 2.5D curved glass. It houses a 16MP, f/1.9 rear and 16MP,f/1.9 front cameras. The phone is powered by Snapdragon 653 processor, 6GB RAM, and 4000mAh battery. The device runs on Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow and is expected to get Nougat update very soon.
OnePlus 3T
Priced at Rs. 54,990, the OnePlus 3T sports a 5.5-inch 1080P Optic AMOLED display protected with Corning Gorilla Glass 4. It houses a 16MP, f/2.0 rear and 16MP,f/2.0 front cameras. The phone is powered by Snapdragon 821 processor, 6GB RAM, and 3400mAh battery. The device runs on Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow and is upgradable to Android 7.0 Nougat.
