OPPO F3 Review: A selfie camera phone with great potential

OPPO launched its latest selfie-focused F3 smartphone in India on Thursday, adding yet another player to the highly-competitive space. The new "selfie expert" smartphone succeeds the OPPO F1s, which was well received in the market, and has the potential to exceed its predecessor in terms of specs and popularity.

A lot of development has been seen in the F3 smartphone as compared to the F1s. The main highlight of the F3 is its dual-selfie camera, which is same as the company's premium F3 Plus. We have spent almost a week with the F3 smartphone, and it hasn't seized to impress so far. During our time with the phone, we also noticed some areas of improvements, which we will detail up next.

Read: OPPO F3 Plus vs Vivo V5 Plus

In terms of overall specifications, OPPO F3 -- priced at Rs. 19,990 -- is clearly one of the wise choices for a premium mid-range smartphone.

Let's start with the design. OPPO F3 is a lot like the F1s in terms of looks. In fact, when placed side by side, you won't be able to tell the difference. There isn't much improvement in terms of how the F3 looks, but the F3 has certainly been perfected to fit comfortably in the hands of its users. Instead of the flat sides in the F1s, the F3 comes with curved accents that ensure a solid grip, which we found extremely helpful in single handed use.

OPPO F3's 5.5-inch display has a FHD resolution, which normally would suffice many users. But as we noticed, the handset hasn't lived up to the mark in some cases. For watching movies and viewing photos or even playing games, the F3 seems to have reasonably balanced colours and graphics, but the default theme makes the app icons look faded.

While it looks dull, there's an easy and instant fix for that. You can head over to the "Theme Store" and choose from a wide range of themes for your F3 and give it a cool, refreshing look.

Let's talk camera. It is clearly the biggest USP in the F3 smartphone and quite fairly justified. The front camera has a dual-lens setup, which is same as the one found on the premium F3 Plus. There is a 16MP Beauty camera sensor and an 8MP 120-degree wide-angle lens on the front to capture both normal and wide-angle selfies. The results are nothing short of extraordinary as it can certainly cover the entire background or accommodate a large group in a single frame.

The F3's beautify feature is as worth checking out, although it's not something new in OPPO smartphones. There's an option for users to switch between a normal selfie and a wide-angle selfie. Other standard settings and features such as HDR, Panorama, Time-Lapse and front flash add to improve your photography skills in the F3.

Group selfies looks like a strong USP for #oppof3 #SelfieExpert pic.twitter.com/MlphVQt4As

— IBTimes India Tech (@IBTimesIN_Tech) May 4, 2017

#oppof3 automatically switches to group selfie mode when the camera detects more than three people. impressive. #SelfieExpert

— IBTimes India Tech (@IBTimesIN_Tech) May 4, 2017

As for the rear camera, there's a 13MP snapper with f/2.2 aperture which is surprisingly good at shooting low-light images and capturing details during broad daylight. We have seen better camera phones that can rival the F3 smartphone, but they're usually priced at a higher range. The F3 smartphone can satisfy you with its well-balanced, mid-contrast, evenly-saturated images – which fairly justify the price tag.

OPPO F3's compact design and the impressive rear and front cameras make it a compelling choice in India. In fact, we found the device handier than the F3 Plus, and the dual camera setup is just a bonus you cannot miss in the F3.

OPPO F3 is powered by MediaTek MT6750T octa-core processor, which is paired with 4GB of RAM and has 64GB internal storage. The F3 also has a dedicated microSD card slot, which has now become obsolete in face of hybrid slots. It is a guarantee that you won't run out of storage anytime soon. The handset runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow-based ColorUI 3.0, which is pretty standard across all OPPO smartphones.

The overall user experience of the phone so far has been lag-free. The handset was capable of handling high-GPU games such as NFS: No Limits without a problem. We did not notice an uncomfortably high increase in temperature while playing games, watching movies or charging the device, which can be partly complimented to the non-metal body.

Clone apps with #oppof3 #SelfieExpert . There's new oppo AppStore for India.

— IBTimes India Tech (@IBTimesIN_Tech) May 4, 2017

Like all other OPPO phones, the F3 also has a fingerprint scanner integrated within the capacitive home button. It is snappy and accurate, which has rarely been an issue with OPPO smartphones.

Finally under the hood, the OPPO F3 sports a 3,200mAh battery and a microUSB charging slot. There's no VOOC Flash Charge integration, but in our review it took almost 90 minutes to fully charge the device from 10 percent. In terms of battery life, the F3 lasted almost 12 hours with average use of calls, messaging, browsing the internet and fair amount of music and games. However, if you are constantly on the phone playing games and watching movies all day, it's best to look for a plug point in about 6-7 hours. To help in such cases, there's also a low-power mode, which does extend the battery life by a few minutes or hours depending on your usage.

Verdict

OPPO F3 is a sensible launch, even though it comes shortly after the release of F3 Plus. For the love of big screens, the F3 Plus serves a great purpose, but the F3 has a more sensible approach towards users' daily use-case scenarios. With a good design, great camera, decent battery and performance, OPPO F3 is where your next investment won't die.