Oppo has always had some impressive looking smartphones but ever since it entered the Indian market in 2014, it hasn’t been able to impress consumers due to its impractical pricing. The company did however launch its new F series recently in India which focus on providing a good photography experience. The first handset in the category is the F1 which the company claims to be a ‘Selfie Expert’ and comes with a price tag of Rs. 15,990, which doesn’t sound so bad.
The handset has an appealing uni-body matte metal finish at the back which curves onto the edges like a casing, giving it a premium feel, but that’s until you look at the front. The front is an all glass finish which is quite glossy and somehow gives an outdated look. Ergonomically the F1 fits very well in the hand and it isn’t bulky either thanks to the 7.3mm thickness. The display is nicely balanced offering punchy colors, excellent brightness and wide viewing angles but the HD (720p) resolution on the 5-inch panel feels less as one can easily get a full HD (1080p) resolution at this price. You do get Gorilla Glass 4 protection though, which is always good to have for extra protection.
If we look at the specifications, the smartphone definitely sounds worthy of price. You get a Snapdragon 616 octa-processor with 3GB of RAM that delivers plenty of power. There is 16GB of inbuilt storage which can be expanded further with a microSD card, a 2,500mAH battery which lasts all day and supports 4G LTE and can accommodate two SIM cards as well. Overall the performance is impressive, there are no signs of lag and multitasking feels like a breeze. Oppo has improved its custom Android layer, Color OS 2.1 running on Android 5.1 Lollipop, making it lighter and more efficient. Probably the only issue is the inbuilt power saving features which automatically puts some apps on standby if they aren’t used for a long time. There were instances when messaging apps like WhatsApp and Hike were on standby and the messages popped up only when the apps were opened.
The highlight if the handset is the camera capabilities. Oppo has used an 8MP front camera wit f/2.0 aperture and a wide-angle lens and a 13MP snapper at the back with an f/2.2 aperture. In bright light, both the cameras seemed to perform really good producing natural colors and sharp details. Indoors and low light aren’t handled well as there is visible noise loss in details. The camera app offers some interesting features including Screen flash, which converts the F1's entire display into a camera flash when taking selfies (just like the iPhone), a double exposure mode which lets you two pictures and automatically overlay one on top of the other and also a RAW mode to save all the details so that one can post-processing images easily. All of them work fairly good and there are some other camera features like ultra HD, beautify, filters, panorama, HDR, GIF and slow shutter. The cameras on the Oppo F1 are good but aren’t impressive as the company claims them to be.
Smooth performance, a balanced design package and a noble pair of cameras. The Oppo F1 is one of the best handsets from the company, but there are some impressive phones out there that can give the F1 a tough competition. One can also go for the OnePlus X, the Moto X Play or the Asus Zenfone Selfie.
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