The way these phones are being promoted, the word camera on a smartphone can be easily related to the phones from the two brands, OPPO and Vivo. As you already know, OPPO had launched the F3 Plus earlier in the month of March. And now, the OPPO F3, which they call is the compact version of the OPPO F3 Plus is official and packs some things similar that the company would mention as the USP. You already know that the F3 Plus had the dual-lens selfie camera combination and one of the lenses is a wide-angle one.
Having used the device for a good time, I am certainly convinced that the phone rocks a solid build and the cameras have enough to be appreciated for the quality of captures, but is that it? Let’s check out how the device fares in the other aspects.
Check out the Oppo F3 Plus Review
OPPO F3 Specifications
- 5.5-inch full HD display (401 PPI pixel density) and Corning Gorilla Glass 5 on the top.
- Powered by MediaTek MT6750T and Mali-T860MP2 GPU
- 13 MP, f/2.2 rear camera
- 16 MP f/2.0 + 8 MP f/2.4 wide-angle selfie camera
- 64GB internal storage with 4GB of RAM. Expandable up to 256GB
- Dual Nano SIM with dedicated MicroSD card slot
- Front mounted Fingerprint scanner
- 3200 mAh non-removable battery
Moving on to the review, I’m gonna start off with each and every aspect of the phone that you are interested to know.
Build, Form factor
The design is similar to what you see on the F3 Plus except for the only one (top and bottom) antenna lines that are there on the F3. The device’s got that premium feel with the metal unibody that it has got. The finishing is neat with the curvy sides which also helps in gripping of the device in your hand.
The buttons and everything stays the same as on the F3 Plus. The speaker, micro USB charging port, the mic, 3.5mm jack on the bottom and on the top, it only has the secondary noise cancellation mic. The power button and volume rockers stay on the right and the left respectively.
The buttons when pressed give very good feedback and the more I press them, the more I like it. Overall, I love holding it in my hand without that case they provided in the box. But, make sure to put down the safety if you are opting out of the case or instead you can get another case from the market.
On the front is the dual-lens selfie camera which, as they say, are for the selfie and one for the group selfie. Just beside them are the secondary speaker and the proximity sensor. The fingerprint sensor is on the bottom middle which they claim to have improvised and it works pretty quick.
So, design wise, I loved the phone as it is for the curved sides which give that good grip and feel in the hand.
OS, Features
If you don’t know already, the OPPO F3 runs on the ColorOS that is the best known for the camera part. It is very smooth and not very complex with many tweaks to be done with. I loved it even though I had some issues with it. There are issues with the notification bar where I didn’t find any setting to enable the notification icons for the apps. And yeah, as they say, it mostly replicates the iOS.
For the bloatware, there is not much included except the WPS Office. There is stock Google apps package pre-installed to the system except for Google Keep which comes pre-installed but not within the system. Talking about other features, it has some gesture features which are indeed useful if you don’t want your battery eaten away.
I loved the inbuilt clone apps setting which creates a duplicate of the app that you want such as WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, and any other social apps that you want to sign into your second account.
Unlike some other phones with the fingerprint sensor, you can lock the apps of your preference and you can unlock them with your fingerprints. I personally liked it, because not many other phones offer this pre-installed.
The sad part is that the phone still runs on Android 6.0 with ColorOS V3.0. Hopefully, at least the security patch level is of March 5, 2017. As it runs on the custom OS, it’s hard to expect any update anytime soon but it’s all good if you don’t care about the Android version and all.
Display
The F3 has the full HD display on the 5.5-inch screen protected by the latest Corning Gorilla Glass 5, thanks to the MT6750T chipset. With a 401 PPI, the colors and the brightness levels are pretty decent and I find it attractive to watch anything on this screen. Even under the bright sun, you can slide it into full brightness and there won’t be any difficulty for you to read something.
Coming to the conclusion on the display, it’s not one of the best ones to look at, but it’s good enough for almost everyone who doesn’t have priorities on the display. And with the best in class protection by the Gorilla Glass 5 almost makes it hard to break.
Cameras
The OPPO F3 has a 13MP rear camera and 16MP + 8MP wide-angle selfie camera. If you are familiar with the name Oppo in the smartphone market since years, it’s all special about the camera all the way from the starting its market in India. Talking about it, I’ve got no special issues or any complaints with as the ColorOS has always been the best for the photography and the camera UI it has.
The rear camera has it’s own pros and cons though. Such as, it can’t perform that well in the low light, but I have managed to capture quite some good snaps from the rear camera. You know you can’t expect such a great quality with a camera with aperture f/2.2 but I gotta accept the fact that it performs fine and it’s no big deal for anyone until they are looking for some serious photography. I suggest you get the F3 Plus with the 16MP f/1.7 rear camera if you are very keen about the photography.
Finally talking about the big deal of this phone, i.e, the dual-lens selfie camera is just the same as that is on the F3 Plus. Here on the OPPO F3 and F3 Plus, the dual-lens is not for the bokeh effect but mainly for the wide-angle selfies that you can take and believe me, the wide angle selfies come out pretty awesome. I’d give a 10 out of 10 for the front camera on this one as it also quite well enough for me even in the low-light conditions. You got to check the snaps if you want to believe it.
Click to check the Camera Samples
Coming to the camera UI, it’s ColorOS and you know how the camera app in it is. I’ve got to say that it’s one of the best camera apps and I’ve used it before in some of my phones by flashing the ColorOS camera zip. In there, you have many modes such as Double exposure, Color filters, manual mode, GIF, and Ultra HD. But if you want to use the double exposure, your hands better be very stable or get it on a Tripod. In the expert mode, you have everything that you control including the shutter speed and ISO which will fetch you some beautiful snaps if used appropriately.
Battery Life
The Oppo F3 has a 3200 mAh battery which in my case worked just fine for me. I used it for a lot of browsing and a little mediocre gaming, you know, just to put the output in this. And while gaming, the phone did heat up a bit, but that can be totally neglected as it never goes beyond 39° C. Talking about video playback, I streamed a 45 min HD video and the battery just got down by 9%.
So, I must say that the battery life is pretty good on this one to keep you running throughout the day. Talking about the charging time, it does charge up fully in a little more than 2 hours even though it doesn’t support any fast charging technology. Thanks to the 5V – 2A charger that is provided.
Connectivity
The OPPO F3 has everything in the connectivity zone that an average smartphone nowadays has. It supports 4G LTE along with VoLTE which Jio uses. I have been using my Jio SIM and I never faced any issues with that. The call quality is pretty clear and nice, thanks to the Jio here. It has one of the best in-call UI and I personally liked it.
The speaker is placed where you’ll always be blocking it while playing any landscape mode games which is a little disappointing. But, rotating the device the solves this problem just fine. And the sound is loud enough for everyone to hear in an average room with few people. It also has Real Soundtrack technology which you can enable while hearing to music on your earphones or headphones. Just turn it on and feel the difference.
Verdict
The OPPO F3 is one fine piece that is available in this price segment, even though there is a tough competition it faces. It has all round attributes and one of the best selfie camera combinations for which you should consider buying it if you are a selfie freak. Furthermore, the rear camera does the job as expected and that also helps but the fact that this device doesn’t run the latest OS and the worry about updates and no support of any fast charging technology is something you cannot ignore. All the phones these days which fall into this price segment support any of the fast charging technology which this phone lacks.
So yes, if you are planning to switch to a newer phone keeping in mind that you want some pretty selfies and compromising a little bit on the performance, the OPPO F3 is a perfect phone for you. Also, keep noted that this is not suitable for anyone who plans to play some high-end rich in graphic games for a long time as you’ll be disappointed with little frame drops and lagging.
