Oppo F3 first impressions: With its dual-selfie cameras and great price, this smartphone might just be a winner

After great success with its F1 Plus model, Oppo came back with a bang with launch of the Oppo F3 Plus . The Oppo F3 Plus was a great smartphone, was packed to the brim with features and also went big with hardware all a mid-range price tag of Rs 30,990 which was a little over the legendary **Oppo F1 Plus** models Rs 26,990 launch price. The F3 Plus was big, and in my review I also pointed out how it may have been a little too big to handle. Oppo’s answer to the same comes a few months later with the launch of the smaller Oppo F3, one that comes with slightly under powered chipset (in comparison to the F3 Plus) but packs in a similar camera setup as its bigger sibling. At Rs 19,990, does it really warrant that price tag? Let’s find out.

Build and Design The design remains true to Oppo’s ongoing design philosophy. It is far from the polished metal body of the F3 Plus and features a design with a plastic, glass and metal mix.  The 2.5D Glass on the front gives it a premium appearance, while the metal back plate feels cool to touch when held in the hand. The plastic bits on this mid-range selfie smartphone are limited to the overall frame that surround the display and the buttons and at the top and bottom panels on the back. Only the area with the Oppo branding and other markings is made of metal.  Overall, the metal gives a certain heft, and does not make the phone look cheap by any means. The fingerprint reader as with all Oppo devices, thankfully sits on the front below the display. Display Oppo with the mid-range F3 has stuck to a 5.5-inch Full HD display which was as big as the one on last year’s F1 Plus model. The display is protected by Cornings Gorilla Glass 5 and features 2.5D curves on the edges giving the smartphone a premium look and feel.  This is a good move since the competition which includes the Moto G5 series, and offerings from ZTE, Lenovo and Xiaomi do come with metal bodies and Full HD displays. The display looks sharp and a bit saturated for my liking. But will take a deep dive into it in the full review. Chipset, Storage and RAM The Oppo F3 features a MediaTek 6750 octa-core chipset clocked at 1.5GHz. While the chipset may not be powerful in terms of performance, it is not a power hog and will sip on very little power from the battery which should deliver some good figures when it comes to battery life. There’s 4GB RAM and 64GB of internal storage that can be expanded using a microSD card slot. Talking about card slots, there’s a dual SIM set up here with space for two nano SIMs and one SD card. All three can be used simultaneously. OS and Software The Oppo F3 oddly packs in Android 6.0 Marshmallow. While Nougat is gradually becoming mainstream, we could expect Oppo to deliver an update soon. The handset features ColourOS 3.0 for the skinning and it keeps things refreshed and animated for the user with plenty of customisations. Camera This is indeed the highlight of the Oppo F3 apart from its smaller size. The device features a slightly different set up compared to the F3 Plus model and offers a 13MP camera on the rear while the front facing unit gets a dual camera setup with one 16MP unit and an 8MP unit.  The 16MP unit and the 8MP unit work independently and offer a standard selfie mode, and a wide angle selfie mode. The wide-angle selfie mode, is pretty wide and offers a 120 degree wide-angle lens. Indeed, like on the F3 Plus, users can finally get rid of that selfie stick as the mode delivers a much wider view letting in more of the scenery or people in the viewfinder for that perfect selfie. Battery and Connectivity The battery unit is sealed in. And Vivo offers a 3,200mAh unit inside, which coupled with the low powered chipset, should offer some incredible battery life. As for connectivity you get 4G LTE, dual-SIM support, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, 3.5 mm audio jack, and a microUSB port at the bottom.

Verdict and price The new offering from Oppo certainly fill in the gap for users who wanted a slight smaller selfie smartphone from the company. While the F3 Plus goes big on everything, the F3 is a much humbler offering that due to its size and well-balanced hardware with dual selfie cameras will find younger buyers.  Priced at Rs 19,990, the metal-clad selfie machine with a dual selfie camera at the moment looks capable. But read more in our review before you take the leap. The device will go on pre-order from today till 12 May with the first sale scheduled for 13 May 2017.