Oppo welcomed a new selfie expert to its camera smartphone family on Wednesday, adding more competition to the premium phone market in India. Oppo F1s offers a superior camera experience, which is in line with its popular F series smartphones and the company's primary focus. At the launch event in Mumbai's J.W.Marriot, we experienced the handset in its full glory.
Oppo F1s reminded us of the Oppo F1 and also had some qualities of the popular F1 Plus, but at an attractive price.
The selfie camera, which was the main highlight and the talking point of the F1s, didn't seize to impress. The new selfie expert comes in Oppo's signature packaging and includes a charger, microUSB cable and a pair of headphones. It is priced at Rs. 17,990, which makes it a mid-range smartphone in the highly competitive Indian market.
There isn't much to talk about the F1s' design as it is a reminiscent of the previous F series smartphones. But the F1s has sharper looks, which is possibly because of the aesthetic rear look. The design of the front area is identical to the former F1 and F1 Plus. It has a physical home button, which integrates a fingerprint sensor, and the selfie camera, speaker and proximity sensor at the top. The bezels are slim, which gives it a refined look.
On the rear, the F1s has the company's logo in the centre and the camera module with LED flash on the top left. The handset is quite handy and the rounded corners offers a good grip, making it a delight to hold, which can be said about the other Oppo phones as well. The lock and power button sits on the right alongside a dual SIM card tray, which has a dedicated slot for microSD card. On the left side, we find the volume controls, which are well within reach.
Besides the impressive design of the F1s, the camera is all that steals the show. The front camera has a 16-megapixel lens, which uses ISOCELL technology, and has an aperture of f/2.0 and a 78.1 degree wide-angle view. With this configuration, the results are going to be thrilling. During our hands-on experience of the F1s, we tested the Beautify 4.0, among other features such as the selfie panorama and built-in filters, and we must give in to Oppo's work of art in that area.
The rear camera has a 13-megapixel lens with a 1/3-inch sensor and a large F2.2 aperture, PDAF and ultra-fast focus speeds. We tested the rear camera as well, and the results were quite impressive. We are yet to test the camera under challenging lighting conditions, which will be a part of our review in the upcoming days.
During our hands-on the F1s, we managed to set up the fingerprints for security and accuracy and the speed at which it recognised was thrilling. But premium budget smartphones that are priced much lower than the F1s such as Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 and LeEco Le 2 also offer biometric security with similar accuracy and speed. However, it is good to see Oppo choosing top-of-the-line specs even for its mid-range smartphone.
Oppo F1s features a 5.5-inch HD IPS screen, which is quite disappointing as most budget phones have jumped the gun to Full HD resolution. Even with HD resolution, there isn't anything to complain about as the F1s' display has balanced and vibrant colours with good viewing angles.
Overall, Oppo F1s is certainly a safe buy for those who are looking to upgrade to a new smartphone. In terms of performance, we did not find any lags or issues with the phone, but we are yet to test the F1s under extreme conditions. The ColorOS 3.0, which runs on Android 5.1 Lollipop, makes the overall user experience better and does not make us miss the Android Marshmallow upgrade. It offers interesting features such as power saving mode, privacy protection mode, integrated virus scanner, long screenshots and eye protection feature.
Oppo F1s comes with a 3,075mAh battery, which is likely to last a full day with mixed usage (don't forget to check out the findings in our full review). Unlike most smartphones in the market, Oppo offers a dedicated microSD card slot along with dual SIM slots, defying the new trend of hybrid slots. There is 32GB onboard storage to save all your important files, photos and videos, but you can add up to 128GB through microSD cards.
