The word ‘Selfie’ has become an integral part of every human being’s life. Irrespective of how busy a person is in his life, he’ll definitely make time for capturing a selfie. Such is the craze for Selfies these days.
To cope with the ongoing trend in the crowded smartphone market is not a small thing, but Chinese brands such as Oppo and Vivo are doing an excellent job in this area. And it’s paying off big time for both the companies.
Vivo has gone one step ahead and introduced world’s first dual selfie camera smartphone, and Oppo followed suit by embedding dual cameras on the front of the Oppo F3 Plus. Both these devices cost above Rs. 25,000.
Well, if you’re a selfie lover and are not able to pick one amongst them; here comes the Oppo F3 priced at Rs. 19,990. It has the same camera setup as its elder sibling. Oppo invited us to experience the launch of the new selfie expert Oppo F3, and I got some time to play around with the phone. Here are my first impressions of the same.
Design and Display: Looks Similar to the Oppo F1s
There’s no denying the fact that Oppo F3 is the watered down version of the Oppo F3 Plus, sans the design. The Oppo F3 looks like the last year’s Oppo F1s with a single antenna band design, whereas the F3 Plus has a unique three line antenna band design at the back.
From the front though, it looks like the F3 Plus but comes with a smaller 5.5-inch display. The device weighs 153 grams, but I felt the device extremely light in hands, thanks to Oppo’s engineering team here for evenly distributing the weight. The phone has a 5.5-inch Full HD display with a resolution of 1080 x 1920 pixels, carrying a pixel density of 401 PPI. In my brief period with the device, I did not notice any issues, and the viewing angles were decent as well.
Hardware: Mediocre chip is a major letdown
The Oppo F3 is powered by a MediaTek MT6750T SoC, clubbed with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. The MediaTek chip used on the phone is a dated one, but it gets the job done as we have seen the same chip on Vivo V5 and V5s.
The device has connectivity options such as 4G LTE, VoLTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, and USB OTG. It runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow based Color OS. Don’t expect any software updates from Oppo as the Oppo F1s is still stuck with Android Lollipop.
The Oppo F3 is armed with a 3200mAh battery with Oppo’s VOOC charging technology onboard. All the apps opened without any issues, and the user interface was fluid as well, but the chip will inevitably struggle with intensive usage.
Camera: Brings the dual camera tech to Rs. 20,000 price bracket
As I mentioned earlier, the Oppo F3 has the same camera setup as the Oppo F3 Plus. It has dual cameras on the front, which aren’t identical as they differ in terms of resolution and field of view. The standard RGB sensor has a resolution of 16MP, whereas the secondary one has a resolution of 8MP, which is a wide-angle sensor.
Oppo claims that the 8MP wide-angle sensor is apt for capturing group selfies as it takes images of 120-degree. The standard 16MP sensor has the capability to capture pictures of 76.4-degree.
The Oppo F3 also comes with a 13MP rear camera with f/2.2 aperture, phase detection autofocus (PDAF), and dual-tone LED flash.
As Oppo promises, the wide-angle camera on the device captures images with great depth-of-view, but the only letdown is you can’t use this camera with third-party camera apps such as VSCO Cam, Snapchat, etc.
The system built camera app comes with an expert mode for the rear camera and beautify 4.0, bokeh modes for decent selfies.
Verdict: A treat for selfie-lovers and justifies
Oppo has been betting big on the selfie department since 2011, and it’s been part of several firsts in that area. With the Oppo F3, the company is looking to steal the market, and it also said at the event that an excess of 100 million young users are using Oppo devices across the globe.
That said, the F3 is priced at Rs. 19,990 in India and will be up for sale from May 13 via both offline and online markets. If it weren’t for the mediocre chip, the device justifies the asking price, and it’s a treat for selfie lovers.