Design and Build Quality
The F3 Plus sports a unibody construction made from aluminium alloy, giving it a premium feel and look. The front side of the phone is occupied by bezel; barely any on the sides but pretty thick on both upper and lower parts. Capacitive buttons flank the home/fingerprint sensor. The sensor reads almost instantaneously, and is always spot on.
The right side of the phone only has the Power/Lock Button, and the hybrid card tray slot which accepts either two nano SIMs or one nano and an SD card. On the left is the volume rocker. The 3.5mm audio jack, micro-USB port, and the loudspeaker crowd the bottom part. The top part does not contain any ports. The overall finish isn’t slippery, giving a more secure grip, and the rear is pretty resistant from fingerprint marks. To be honest, it reminds me of the iPhone 6+, which is not exactly a bad thing.
Despite its size, OPPO made it easy to hold. Rounded corners and just the right weight makes it a joy to use. I have used it for prolonged sessions, either for reading documents or playing games, but my hands don’t feel fatigued afterwards. OPPO designed the unit in a way that it’s not too heavy despite its size. This phone may prove to be a bit bulky for people with small hands, and may leave a noticeable bulge when put inside your pocket, but that is to be expected for a phone of this size, right?
Display and Audio
The impressive 6-inch, Full HD display is probably the main selling point of the F3 Plus. It also features an IPS LCD panel, so the viewing angles are impressive. Furthermore, it is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5, leaving you worry-free from accidentally scratching this phone’s outstanding screen. If you are the type to watch stuff on their phones or play graphically stunning games, you are in for a treat.
Pixel density is only 367ppi, which is a bit lower than F3’s 401ppi. But such decrease is understandable since larger displays because the pixels are to be spread across a much larger area.
A noteworthy observation with the F3 Plus is that the display tends to be oversaturated at times. Some people may like, some might not. I belong to the latter. I am a hobbyist photographer, and I like my colors as natural as possible. As I was cataloging my photos in Adobe Lightroom for mobile, I had to remind myself to not desaturate my shots since it will appear differently on other devices.
As for the loudspeakers, IT IS LOUD. Loud but clear and crisp. The output, even at maximum volume, remained clean. There seems to be no distortion, no sibilance whatsoever. The proprietary music player is very clean and simple, in line with the overall minimalistic UI of the phone. Take note that this phone does not have an FM radio. Personally, I feel that it’s an important, if not mandatory feature of any phone.
Camera
The camera in this phone is amazing. OPPO made sure that the camera hardware won’t go to waste since the app itself is a joy to use. It is very responsive and intuitive, making snapshots easier. It also features manual control over the camera, called “Expert Mode”. Unfortunately, it does not provide control over the aperture. But it does the job pretty well.
The F3 Plus has a dual front-facing camera system – a regular 16MP camera and a wide angle 8MP camera. Both having f/2.0 aperture, which is good enough for dim environments. The wide angle selfie camera is very good, having 120 degrees of FOV, making group photos easier.
The rear camera is a 16MP shooter with an aperture of f/1.7 and has Dual Phase Detection Autofocus (PDAF). It focuses quickly, rarely missing my intended subject or experiencing “AF Hunt”.
It also has Dual-Tone LED Flash for a much more natural looking flashed photos. Less of that washed-out, pale look. It also supports up to 4K video recording.
OS and UI
The F3 Plus runs ColorOS 3, based on Android 6.0. It takes cue from Apple’s iOS; minimalist, clean, very fast. Well, it is almost a bit too clean. I would have loved to see more customization options in the quick settings dropdown menu.
The unit has 64GB internal storage, the OS and other built-in apps should be taken into consideration. But fortunately, there is still a lot of free space available for the user since the phone is mostly free from bloatware.
Performance
The F3 Plus is driven by Snapdragon 653 (Qualcomm MSM8976 Pro Octa-core), which runs at a max clock speed of 1.9GHz. Paired with 4GB of RAM, it handles multitasking effectively. As for the graphics aspect, it is powered by the Adreno 510. Gaming is very enjoyable in the F3 Plus. Stunning display coupled with good processors, it handles heavy titles with flying colors.
I won’t be providing synthetic benchmarks since that can easily be googled, but I can say that in real life tasks, the F3 Plus is a winner. Compressing/decompressing files, rendering photos, loading game levels, everything is done swiftly.
Lastly, is has a whopping 4,000mAh battery inside, perfect for long days. It also supports OPPO’s VOOC Technology, making charging times extremely fast. Zero to 50% in just a bit over half an hour.
My only gripe here is that the phone tends to run a little warm after several minutes of heavy gaming. Maybe because of the metal construction plus the slim design, the component heat transfers directly to the back and is immediately noticeable.
Conclusion
I will definitely recommend this phone to anyone looking for a phone with a stunning display without going to the tablet route. It definitely has serious power, both its chipset and battery. The camera is amazing, the screen is vibrant, and the overall design is impressive. I am hoping for future updates to its OS to make it truly a bang for the buck unit.
Leave Your Comments