In the last few years Oppo has gone from being just another Chinese OEM to one of the biggest smartphone manufacturers in the world. In their home country of China, according to some market research agencies, it even tops the list of the biggest phone companies.
The Oppo F3 is the younger brother of the Oppo F3 Plus, which we reviewed a few weeks ago and it features a dual camera setup at the front that comes with a wide angle lens for group selfies.
Does the Oppo F3 have what it takes to compete in the ultra-competitive mid-range segment of the market? Is it a well rounded smartphone or just a one trick pony? Let's find out!
Design
The smartphone features a metal unibody design, which while unoriginal, looks quite premium. The smartphone looks quite generic with shades of the iPhone and a multitude of other Chinese smartphones.
The back is made of metal with the Oppo logo in the middle, the 13MP rear camera with flash at the top right and the regulatory information at the bottom. There are two antenna lines running across the two ends of the rear panel which have a shiny metallic finish.
The front is an all-glass affair with a capacitive home button flanked by capacitive keys for back and multi-tasking. The fingerprint reader is embedded in the home button and is quite responsive and accurate. The fact that the home button cannot be used to unlock the smartphone if you have not set up the fingerprint scanner is quite un-intuitive.
The smartphone is nice and compact and quite easy to hold in the hand for a device with a 5.5-inch display. However, the smartphone is also quite light. A bit more heft or weight would have made it feel more reassuring in the hand. The metal rear panel also feels like it is metal-plated rather than metal all the way through.
While the side bezels are minimal, the top and bottom bezels are quite huge. The left edge of the smartphone houses the volume keys while on the right we find the power button and the SIM slot.
The single loudspeaker at the bottom edge of the phone is quite shrill and tiny and gets distorted at high volumes. In this price bracket a stereo speaker is a rarity and it is no surprise then that the F3 too is missing it.
Unlike most smartphones out there, the Oppo F3 does not come with a Hybrid SIM slot and has separate sections for both SIMs and the microSD card slot. This is a great move in my opinion and one that should be adopted by all smartphone OEM's.
Display
The Oppo F3 Plus comes with a 5.5-inch fullHD IPS LCD display which comes with its own set of pros and cons. One one hand it has good viewing angles and adequate brightness levels but on the other it suffers from poor contrast and shows somewhat dull colours.
The display appears a bit dull and colors are not as vivid and vibrant as I would have liked. The blacks are also not very deep and inky. A 1080p resolution strikes a perfect compromise between battery life and usability and is sharp enough for daily use. Another win for the Oppo F3's display is the inclusion of an 'Eye Protect Mode' which basically acts as a blue light filter for the display and helps alleviate eye strain at night.
One big problem I faced with the Oppo F3 Plus also applies to its younger brother. The light for the capacitive keys cannot be turned off and the brightness of the buttons cannot be adjusted in any way which is very annoying in the dark. This also dilutes the effect of the eye protect mode, as even though the display is dim, the capacitive key's lights blare at you at night like a truck approaching you with its lights at full beam.
Hardware and performance
On the specifications front, the Oppo F3 has its fair share of both hits and misses. It comes with the octa-core MediaTek MT6750T processor clocked at 1.5GHz paired with the Mali T860MP2 GPU, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of internal storage which can be expanded via a microSD card (of up to 256GB) and a decent 3,200mAh battery.
On a positive note, the Oppo F3 handles day-to-day tasks like web browsing, using social media apps, and scrolling through photos fairly well. RAM management on the other hand is a bit iffy, with the smartphone having to reload tabs in Chrome and applications like YouTube and Facebook occasionally.
The MediaTek MT6750 processor is the weakest link in the Oppo F3's arsenal. The CPU struggles quite a bit when it comes to even remotely intensive tasks. During my week plus of usage, the smartphone tended to slow down quite a bit whilst having more than a few applications open in the background, browsing Facebook for more than 15-20 minutes and having more than 15 tabs open in Chrome.
On the gaming front, the device runs casual games like Subway surfers and Temple Run 2 with ease, although heavy titles like Modern Combat 2 and Call Of Duty: Heroes did suffer from dropped frames and lags.
The smartphone also tended to exhibit lags every now and then while typing using the default Oppo Touchpal keyboard. The 64GB of internal storage is very generous and the icing on the cake is the fact that it can be expanded via a microSD card.
Software
The Oppo F3 runs on Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow with Oppo's Color OS custom UI skin on top. Color OS is a fairly functional skin which does get the job done but is just not as refined, polished or optimised as Stock Android or other well made skins such as OnePlus's Oxygen OS.
While navigating through basic UI elements is snappy and seamless, first-party applications like the dialer, messages and contacts take an extra millisecond or two to open up which adds up in the long run and becomes slightly frustrating.
While the side bezels are minimal, the top and bottom bezels are quite huge. The left edge of the smartphone houses the volume keys while on the right we find the power button and the SIM slot.
Even though core applications are a bit laggy, they are designed well and are easy to use. The smartphone also comes with support for certain gestures such as double tapping to unlock the screen, drawing an O to start the camera and so on which work rather well.
The notification shade is split into two screens - one showing your actual notifications and one displaying the quick toggles for Wi-Fi, 4G and so on. This arrangement feels a bit un-intuitive as it makes the everyday task of seeing your notifications a two-step process.
There are also a lot of redundant applications on board - two different apps for Music, Photos, Browser and so on (Oppo's own and Google's versions of the same). On a positive note, third party bloat is minimal.
The lack of an app drawer , the blatant iOS 'inspirations' scattered throughout the UI and the unintuitive notification shade all contribute to an software experience that feels a bit unpolished and unoriginal.
Cameras
The Oppo F3 comes with dual cameras at the front - a 16MP primary sensor with an aperture of f/2.0 and a 8MP wide-angle lens with an aperture of f/2.4. On the back, there is a 13MP camera with an aperture of f/2.2.
The rear camera is a disappointment - images produced are soft and lack detailing. The level of noise in low-light shots is quite high and images tend to have a watercolor like effect to them.
The smartphone really struggles with focusing - especially when it comes to taking macro shots and shots with a great contrast between the brightest and darkest areas. Images taken in well-lit situations have good colour reproduction and contrast but again suffer from a fair bit of noise.
The front camera on the other hand is quite impressive. Images produced in well-lit situations are crisp and vivid and clearly a step above the front cameras of other smartphones at this price range. Low-light performance is also surprisingly good. Shots are are well-exposed and are relatively sharp. Noise is prevalent, but not to a an extent that makes the image unusable.
Switching between the portrait and wide-angle lenses is extremely simple - at the touch of a button. However, the process does take a fair amount of time. The fact that there is a perceptible drop in quality when switching from the main sensor to the wide-angle sensor is a bit disappointing. But overall, the F3 boasts of impressive selfie camera with features that will most likely make its users very happy.
Battery
While its bigger brother, the Oppo F3 Plus truly excelled when it came to battery life, the F3 on the other hand barely scrapes through a day's use on a single charge.
The device is powered by a decent 3,200mAh battery which comes with support for Oppo's VOOC flash charge technology. In the 8 days I used the Oppo F3 as my daily driver, the smartphone did last me throughout the day, but just barely. By the end of the day, I usually had around 5-8 per cent of battery left.
While these are not great numbers by any means, in a day and age where many smartphones give up the ghost by around 6pm, they are not bad either. As my usage is pretty heavy, a lighter workload might fetch you better numbers.
Verdict
For someone looking for a selfie focused device, the Oppo F3 makes for a great, if cautioned buy. While the smartphone comes with a very impressive dual front camera setup, decent battery life and above average looks, the rear camera is mediocre, the display is washed out, the UI is unpolished and the processor is weak.
Options like the Moto G5 Plus offer a more well rounded package for considerably less money. However, the appeal of the smartphone is in its dual front camera setup, which most of the competition lacks.
Thus, for those looking for a smartphone with great front cameras at a relatively affordable price, the Oppo F3 is the way to go. For others however, who want a well rounded package, the competition offers better options.
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