OPPO F3 Plus Review: Super-Sized Selfie Expert

OPPO F3 Plus Review: Super-Sized Selfie Expert

Reclaiming the Selfie Crown

OPPO launched their last Selfie Expert back in August of 2016 and, since then, we’ve seen a couple of other brands step up to the plate and release their own version of a selfie-centric smartphone. After enduring weeks of teaser posts on social media, OPPO has released the newest member of their F series of smartphones, the OPPO F3 Plus, and we’ve already managed to score time with it to give you our full review. Is the super-sized OPPO F3 Plus worth it? Let’s find out.

OPPO F3 Plus Specifications

  • Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 processor
  • 4GB of RAM
  • Adreno 510 GPU
  • 6-inch Full HD IPS Display, 1920×1080 resolution, 361ppi
  • 64GB of Expandable Storage
  • 16-megapixel rear camera, PDAF, f/1.7 aperture, LED flash
  • 16-megapixel main front camera, f/2.0 aperture
  • 8-megapixel secondary front camera 120-degree wide-angle lens
  • 4G, LTE
  • Dual SIM (Hybrid Tray)
  • Wi-Fi, Bluetooth
  • GPS, A-GPS
  • Fingerprint Scanner
  • 4000mAh battery with VOOC Flash Charge
  • Android 6.0 Marshmallow with ColorOS v.3

The Biggest Selfie Expert Yet

In terms of design, not much has changed for the OPPO F3 Plus. It’s got the same unibody metal design with curved edges and rounded corners and, of course, the plain white front-face of the device. This makes the OPPO F3 Plus kind of blend in with the other smartphones coming from other Chinese brands, but it’s easy to spot in a crowd due to its size. 

If you recall, the OPPO F1 Plus had a display of 5.5-inches; making the biggest change to the device its dimensions, due to its now massive 6-inch display. Most of the team at Unbox have massive mitts for hands and, yet, we still found the phone to be a tad unwieldy for one-handed use and a little troublesome to fit in our pants pockets.

Flip the phone over on its back and you’ll see that the OPPO F3 Plus actually resembles the OPPO R9s with the three lines for antenna bands instead of a solid strip that we see on most phones.

While a lot of design elements remain the same from previous iterations of OPPO’s smartphones, it’s nice to see that their build quality hasn’t changed. Because of the unibody design of their phones, there isn’t any flex or play with its chassis and there are no gaps in between the seams that you see.

A Quick Tour of the Device

Since we’re going straight to the full review for the OPPO F3 Plus, let’s take a tour around the smartphone before we continue on. On the right of the device, you’ll see its power button and the SIM card tray above it. It’s actually a hybrid SIM tray that supports either two nano-sized SIM cards or one SIM and a micro SD card. Moving on over to the left of the OPPO F3 Plus is its volume rocker.

On the bottom of the phone is the speaker grille, micro USB port, and the 3.5mm audio jack.

You’ll find a 16-megapixel camera on the upper left-hand side of the back of the OPPO F3 Plus with its LED flash beside it. Flip the phone over to its front and you’ll see its massive 6-inch display with the array of cameras on top of it and on its chin is its home button that doubles up as a fingerprint scanner, which is accurate and unlocks the phone quickly. You can’t press down on the button itself and it behaves more like the one found on the iPhone 7.

Great for Consuming Content

While the display of the F3 Plus makes for a larger phone that you’ll have to operate with two hands most of the time, it’s great for consuming content. After all, who doesn’t like browsing through their Facebook feed or watching videos on a bigger screen? The 6-inch Full HD IPS display on the device has great colors and viewing angles with a fair amount of legibility when you’re outdoors. The speaker on-board the F3 Plus is no slouch either. You may not be getting your audio fix in stereo, but there’s a certain richness and clarity to the output of its lone speaker.

A Huge Step Up in Performance

With the bump up in screen size and its dimensions, OPPO has also upgraded the internals of the OPPO F3 Plus. The OPPO F1s had a MediaTek 6750 at its core and, now with the OPPO F3 Plus, the Chinese company has gone with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 652 processor that has been paired with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of expandable storage. It’s been a great daily driver in the past few days we’ve had it with nary a hiccup when we’ve asked it to jump to and from the usual suite of apps we have on our phones.

If you’re looking to game with the OPPO F3 Plus, we’re happy to report that it can handle NBA 2K17 with no issues. The game was initially set to its lowest settings but, after tweaking it a bit, we’ve found that you can push it to mostly medium without suffering through unplayable FPS drops. Oh, if you like playing Mobile Legends, you’re in the clear with that game too.

If you’re in to benchmark results, the OPPO F3 Plus scored a 92549 on Antutu Benchmark, while running the Sling Shot on 3D Mark gave it an overall score of 1487 . Our main gripe with the OPPO F3 Plus is that it still runs on Android Marshmallow when Nougat is fast becoming the norm for releases this year. Thankfully, OPPO’s ColorOS has never gotten in the way of their phones’ performance and were happy to see that it’s the same case for the OPPO F3 Plus.

How does the OPPO F3 Plus’ performance stack up against the competition? We’ve saved you some time, so check out our Head-to-Head article where we pit the OPPO F3 Plus against the Vivo V5 Plus.

A Selfie Expert Worthy of the Name

The big story with the OPPO F3 Plus is, of course, its dual front cameras but before we get to that let’s talk about the rear camera first. The three-striped antenna lines is not the only thing that the OPPO F3 Plus got from the R9s, because it also inherited its rear camera. It has a megapixel count of 16-megapixels and is equipped with dual PDAF, a Sony sensor, and an aperture size of f/1.7 which gives it a helping hand in low-light conditions but gives you nice depth of field as well.

Let’s move on to the front camera; the OPPO F series’ biggest draw. The OPPO F3 Plus has two front cameras but, unlike the one found on the Vivo V5 Plus, they don’t actually work together to be able to give you software bokeh and is more like the dual camera setup found on the Infinix S2 Pro. You have the main 16-megapixel front camera at f/2.0 and the other is an 8-megapixel camera with a wide-angle lens that’s capable of shooting a 120-degrees; meaning you can take more than just yourself in photos.

You can include the scenery or getting your family and friends to “compress” to get them into frame has been made a little easier.

While we generally prefer the 16-megapixel shooter’s output in terms of colors and contrast, the 8-megapixel camera definitely deserves praise as well. As you can see in the sample photos above, the image quality on both front cameras are great and the OPPO F3 Plus certainly deserves its moniker as a Selfie Expert.

You can check out how the OPPO F3 Plus does against the Vivo V5 Plus in our Selfie Battle between the two selfie-centric smartphones.

VOOC Flash Charge Has Got Your Back

The OPPO F3 Plus has a 4000mAh battery and, during our time with the device, that means that you’re good to last the day without plugging into a power bank or the wall; managing a time of 8 hours and 57 minutes on the PCMark battery benchmark tests.

We suggest bringing the USB wall charger and its cable with you at all times, because its VOOC flash charge capabilities can top up the phone really fast. We tested just how quick it really is and after an hour charging the F3 Plus, we’ve seen the phone go from 8% to 90%; more than enough juice to get you home and browsing through your social media feeds on the commute.

Verdict: A Big Leap from the OPPO F1s

The OPPO F3 Plus has definitely received a tremendous upgrade from the Chinese company’s previous selfie expert, the OPPO F1s. It’s new hardware makes it a capable daily driver and its front cameras would certainly make selfie aficionados happy. We’re also glad to see that OPPO has brought over the main camera of the R9s to round out the camera capabilities of the F3 Plus. The only thing that may deter people from purchasing the OPPO F3 Plus is its asking price of Php 23,990.

In case you’ve missed both our links comparing the OPPO F3 Plus to the Vivo V5 Plus, you can check out the two articles by clicking on the links below:

Head-to-head: OPPO F3 Plus VS Vivo V5 Plus
Selfie Battle: OPPO F3 Plus VS Vivo V5 Plus

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