Getting noticed in a busy place like the smartphone market is no easy feat, but Oppo's decision to go after the selfie-loving crowd is one that seems to be paying off so far. Granted, technological gems like VOOC fast charging have likely played a part too, but it's no accident that the Selfie Experts are the most popular Oppo phones in our database.
Hardly a surprise then that the Oppo F3 and F3 Plus follow the same strategy. A 16MP rear / 8MP dual selfie setup is these guys' claim to fame. The 6-inch F3 Plus that's about to keep us busy for a good while is quite a big bloke but, other than that, we don't yet know how it differs from its sibling.
Back in March, Oppo made both handsets official, and the focus was entirely on the Plus version. All we were told about the regular F3 is that it would sport a 5.5-inch display - no word on stuff like the chipset, battery or even screen resolution. The gaps will likely be filled soon enough, but for now let's focus on the F3 Plus and the quick rundown.
Oppo F3 Plus key features:
- Body: Aluminum unibody, Gorilla Glass 5 front, 163.6 x 80.8 x 7.4 mm, 185 g
- Screen: 6.0 inches, IPS LCD with 1080 x 1920 pixels resolution (367 ppi)
- Chipset: Qualcomm MSM8976 Pro Snapdragon 653 octa-core CPU (4x1.95 GHz Cortex-A72 & 4x1.44 GHz Cortex-A53), Adreno 510
- Memory: 4GB of RAM plus 64GB storage; microSD slot (hybrid)
- Camera: 16 MP, f/1.7, 1/2.8" sensor size camera with phase detection autofocus, OIS and dual-LED (dual tone) flash
- Selfie cam: Dual 16 MP + 8 MP 120-degree, f/2.0, 1/3" sensor size
- OS: ColorOS 3.0, running on top of Android 6.0 Marshmallow
- Battery: 4000 mAh Li-Ion (sealed); VOOC Flash Charge
- Connectivity: Dual-SIM (Nano-SIM, dual stand-by); LTE-A (2CA) Cat6 300/50 Mbps; Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac; Bluetooth v4.1, A2DP, LE;
- Misc: Front-mounted fingerprint reader
Oppo F3 Plus main shortcomings:
- Non-removable battery
- No FM radio
- Older Micro USB connector and USB 2.0 interface
- No NFC
- ColorOS 3.0 still runs on Android Marshmallow
The Oppo F lineup started small. The original Oppo F1 selfie expert came as a compact (well, five inches nonetheless) budget option. It was followed by the much more ambitious F1 Plusthat scored big time at the domestic box office, despite costing nearly twice as much at $450. Finally, the F1s settled in between to eventually become the most popular handset in the family.
And while they say you shouldn't fix what isn't broken, Oppo decided to tinker with the second generation. The F3 Plus comes to take the lead, in a bid perhaps to show that the company feels much more at home in the upper market segment. With a Snapdragon 653 and a generous 4GB of RAM, the new phablet certainly sounds intriguing - and not only in imaging terms.
Dual cameras dramatically changed smartphone photography and placing a pair of lenses at the front - not just the rear - may as well be the new fad. We'll know soon enough if the Oppo F3 Plus benefits, and how.
The Oppo F3 Plus ships in a fairly sizable, mostly white box. Besides the size, necessitated by the large phone itself, there is nothing really lavish or excessive about the packaging, which is probably smart. At the end of the day, it's just going to end up in a closet somewhere.
The box itself uses a two-piece assembly. Though it is entirely made out of cardboard, it is pretty sturdy and comes complete with a soft-touch finish.
Inside, you get mostly cardboard as well. Only the cradle that actually holds the F3 Plus is made of plastic. It actually doubles as one of the sides of a box, housing a few leaflets, an ejector pin and a complementary rubber case.
You also get a VOOC fast wall chargers It is rated at 5V@2A and 5V@4A. The VOOC charging is arguably the best around, but it uses a few extra pins on top of the standard USB layout, so you need the green-colored cable for it to work.
Last but not least, hidden away underneath the cable are a pair of earbuds, fairly decent ones at that.
Oppo F3 Plus 360-degree spin
Oppo hasn't really changed about the design for the "F" series lately. Things have been mostly the same since the F1 Plus brought in the rounded corners aesthetic.
That's not necessarily a bad thing - matte metal finish with an unibody construction and polished champhers along the edges give the device plenty of premium feel. It's becoming the default formula these days, so the F3 Plus has a bit of a generic look, but we certainly wouldn't blame it for being ugly or cheap-looking.
Oppo went a little more creative on the back, with its new "Six-String" antenna design. It doesn't necessarily blend in more than the plastic inlays of most competitors, but it certainly looks better.
An arguably more important part of the overall looks, the reasonably slim bezels around the display, keep the F3 Plus within the reasonable 163.6 x 80.8 x 7.4mm. It's not a Galaxy S8 type of bezel-banishing but it's a good job for the price range.
The weight comes in at 185 grams - a hefty device for sure, but you can't expect much lighter with a 6-inch screen.
Hardware overview
With a screen to body ration of around 75.1%, the F3 Plus outshines both the F1s (71%) and F1 Plus (73.9%). Sadly, it's an LCD panel, rather than an AMOLED one in this case.
Nice thing bezels on the F3 Plus
The three phones have almost identical functional elements distribution except for the secondary front camera that the F3 Plys brings. Oppo fitted the 8MP + 16 MP modules right next to the earpiece, on the left.
Two cameras at the front
Below the screen the F3 Plus has a touch sensitive home key. You can't actually press it, but you can use it to unlock your phone through the always-on fingerprint reader.
The reader seems a bit slower and less accurate than previous Oppo units we have reviewed. That is to say, it is dependable enough, but not really the best in the market. Oppo hypes up its "hydrophobic membrane" that should improve accuracy when your hands are moist, but we couldn't really detect any improvement over the R9s in that aspect.
Standard Oppo control scheme
The Home key is flanked by two more capacitive keys - the App switcher and Back keys. They are dimly backlit- so much so that they can be hard to see on the white front (used for both the Gold and Rose Gold editions). Eventually muscle memory takes over and you don't even look at them, but it can be confusing at first if you're coming from a phone where these keys are reversed.
Moving to the sides of the phone, we find the volume rocker on the left, and the right is shared by the power button and dual nanoSIM card tray. It is hybrid, so you can opt for a microSD card instead of a second SIM.
Side bezels
The top of the F3 Plus is pretty clean, only housing a secondary noise-cancelling microphone.
Top and bottom of the F3 Plus
The bottom, on the other hand, is quite busy. There is the main microphone and the microUSB 2.0 port (with VOOC fast charge support), flanked by a 3.5mm headphone jack and the loudspeaker grill. Sadly, there's no upgrade to Type-C or USB 3.0 this time around, and no fancy stereo setup either.
On the metal back of the F3 Plus there is another 16MP camera, but this one has a bigger sensor (1/2.8" vs. 1/3." for the front) and a much brighter aperture (f/1.7 vs. f/2.0). And this is no ordinary 16MP sensor either, but a Sony IMX398 with Dual Pixel autofocus. Just like the one on the Oppo R9s. We'll see how it does in the camera section.
Clean back side
The camera protrudes from the back - just a small circle around the main lens, less than you might expect on a phone this thin. Next to it is a dual-tone LED flash - an upgrade over the single LED on the R9s.
The Oppo F3 Plus suffers from a bland overall design - from a distance, it can be confused for a number of other smartphones (not just Android ones, if you know what we mean). However, the built quality is great and the in-hand feel is commendable. This is not a stand-out phone, just a very well made one, and we think this will be enough for many. Just remember- it's still a 6-inch phablet, so you need pretty big hands and the desire for some regular thumb stretching.
Display
Stretching to 6 inches, the Oppo F3 Plus display is quite formidable- even in a market that's warming up more and more to phablets each day
With a resolution of 1080 x 1920 pixels, the panel has a pixel density of about 367 ppi - not bad, but also no chart-topper. The same goes for brightness. At 509 nits, it is above average, but again, nothing to phone home about.
Contrast is quite alright too and the viewing angles are, as you'd expect from an IPS panel, nicely wide.
| Display test | 100% brightness | ||
| Black, cd/m2 | White, cd/m2 | ||
| 0.00 | 351 | ∞ | |
| 0.45 | 420 | 933 | |
| 0.343 | 509 | 1485 | |
| 0 | 447 | ∞ | |
| 0.00 | 352 | ∞ | |
| 0.46 | 500 | 1094 | |
| 0.41 | 665 | 1622 | |
| 0.346 | 471 | 1361 | |
| 0.43 | 475 | 1097 | |
| 0.59 | 628 | 1064 | |
| 0.59 | 566 | 966 | |
| 0.50 | 531 | 1071 | |
| 0.512 | 537 | 1049 | |
| 0.46 | 449 | 976 | |
| 0.007 | 450 | 64286 | |
| 0.43 | 513 | 1196 | |
| 0 | 425 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 533 | ∞ | |
| 0.00 | 422 | ∞ | |
| 0.00 | 625 | ∞ | |
| 0.46 | 424 | 922 | |
| 0.005 | 341 | 68200 | |
| 0.44 | 637 | 1448 | |
| 0.322 | 484 | 1503 | |
Sunlight legibility is quite good. We've seen Oppo phones do even better, but those were using AMOLED panels.
Color accuracy is not really a strong suit on the F3 Plus. The display has sort of a purplish tint to it. Blues, purples and cyans are way off, with a deltaE of around 8, measured against sRGB. Overall, we measured an average deltaE of 7.8 and a maximum deviation of 13.3. Sadly, if you don't like the particular tint on the screen you can't really do anything about it, as Oppo doesn't have a screen adjustment setting.
Battery life
A bigger body brings a larger battery, and the F3 Plus is no exception. Its sealed-in pack is rated at 4,000 mAh, quite an improvement over the 3,075 mAh of the F1s and the 2,850 mAh on the F1 Plus. It also matches the Oppo R9s - the other 6-incher by the company.
The two giants also share the Snapdragon 653 chip - an upper mid-range Qualcomm offer. It's a very capable chipset but all accounts, but not really battery efficienc, as it's built on a 28nm process. Still, the F3 Plus is doing alright - scoring 79 hours in out standard endurance test.
3G talk time and video playback appear to be particularly good. Less than optimal standby behavior is what drags the overall score down a bit.
Charging on the F3 Plus is very fast, thanks to the VOOC charging support. Not only does it top up the battery fast, but VOOC also doesn't cause excessive heating. The only real downside is that VOOC is not compliant with regular USB cables, so you need to use both a supported cable and charger to get it working.
In our experience, VOOC managed to charge the F3 Plus from 0% (or as close as it would go before shutting down) to around 58% in just 30 minutes.
ColorOS 3.0 features a few power-saving techniques that are enabled by default, so you may notice the phone often takes up the initiative of killing background apps for you. If that causes issues, you can exempt specific apps from this behavior. We found it too aggressive to our taste and had to disable it for a few apps.
Connectivity
The Snapdragon 653 is a pretty modern chip and as such, Qualcomm cut no corners in the connectivity department. It has an X9 LTE modem on board, which can deliver LTE-A (2CA) Cat6 speeds of up to 300 Mbps downstream and 50 Mbps up.
You also get LTE on both SIM slots on the F3 Plus.
In terms of local connectivity, there is a dual-band Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac module. Also, Bluetooth v4.1, and a versatile GPS receiver, with support for A-GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, and Galileo. NFC is one notable omission. Also, you are only stuck with slower USB 2.0 transfer speeds through the USB port. OTG is supported, although you have to explicitly enable it through the settings menu.
You also get a good old 3.5mm audio jack on the bottom of the Oppo F3 Plus - yay for that.
16MP Shooter with Dual Pixel autofocus
The F3 Plus' main showpiece might be the pair of selfie shooters, but it's no slouch in the main camera department either. Just like its R9s sibling, the Oppo F3 Plus uses a Sony IMX398 sensor. with Dual Pixel autofocus (which you may have heard of from the Samsung Galaxy S7 and S8).
Dual Pixel is a type of phase detection autofocus, but the major difference is scale - Dual Pixel has several times more focus points. This makes it both more accurate and faster. Oppo claims about 40% improvement in autofocus speed over a regular Phase Detection AF setup. While, we can't confirm the exact numbers, there is definitely a noticeable difference.
Similarities with Samsung flagships don't end there. the camera on the F3 Plus features a very bright f/1.7 aperture that lets plenty of light onto the 1/2.8" sensor (60% more than a f/2.2 aperture would). Finally, the F3 Plus has OIS, and if you are okay with cropped out viewfinder, EIS.
Sadly Oppo hasn't done much to improve its camera app. Most settings are on the left, while different modes can be selected on the right next to the shutter key. Strangely, the left-hand side also has a few additional modes that didn't find a spot in the right carousel.
Oppo F3 Plus camera interface
There are a few settings, including location tagging and guidelines, separated out in their own menu in the phone's settings. There is a total lack of any clear resolution control for stills. All you get is a choice of aspects, between the standard 4:3 one, 1:1 and 16:9. Nowhere is it stated just how much the last two crop the sensor.
Expert mode is available for those seeking more manual controls. It comes with a handy horizon level and can change most settings on the primary camera (this mode doesn't work on the selfie cam). The shutter speed control is quite coarse, good mostly for very low-light shooting - it starts at 1s and increments at full stops to a maximum of 16s. Manual focus adjustment is present as well.
Expert mode
Easier to use are the GIF and Double Exposure modes. The first creates a low-res, low-FPS animated file that has the advantage of being easy to share. The second is a well-known photography trick that can lead to very creative effects in capable hands. A Time lapse mode is available too, but that's locked to a 10:1 ratio - 10 seconds of shooting for 1 second of video.
Thankfully, there is a dedicated video mode and a proper viewfinder to go along with it. We do find it particularly frustrating that there is no way to control EIS. We would have loved to get rid of it while shooting with a tripod, but were forced to deal with severe cropping in 1080p mode.
Dedicated video mode
The Oppo camera software definitely needs some work to make it more consistent and provide some extra controls. But at least photo quality is rather good.
The Oppo F3 Plus produces images with nicely saturated catures and good contrast. We don't mind the slight yellow tint, as dynamic range is quite good and there are no signs of edge softness. Pixel-level examination reveals somewhat clumsy processing - it tends to smear most of the fine detail while still leaving noise in the image. The sharpening is a tad too strong for our liking too, producing some artifacts.
Oppo F3 Plus samples
The HDR mode has an Auto setting, but occasionally it won't kick in when needed so you need to force it. At least it won't turn when it's not needed and ruin the contrast on some of your shots.
HDR Off • HDR On • HDR Auto • HDR Off • HDR On • HDR Auto • HDR Off • HDR On • HDR Auto
HDR Off • HDR On • HDR Off • HDR On • HDR Off • HDR On
We tried out the low-light shooting skills of the Oppo F3 Plus too. The heavy-handed noise reduction lets it down a bit, but you can create usable hand-held shots even at night. We would recommend snapping several shots so you can pick out the best one, though.
Low light samples
Moving onto Panorama mode, the Oppo F3 Plus camera captures very detailed, high-resolution images (about 2,500px tall). Pixel peeping reveals a level of detail similar to still shots and no stitching issues (aside from fast-moving cars). The dynamic range here is quite impressive, as the camera preserved plenty of detail.
Oppo F3 Plus panorama samples
We also tried the UltraHD mode, which stacks several photos to create oversampled and upsized 36MP shots. These seem to have a lot of inherent softness to them if you look at pixel levels, but they tend to add some detail over the regular samples. There are two resolutions to choose between - 6912 x 5184 or 9216 x 6912 pixels. Here's what those look like.
Oppo F3 Plus: Normal mode • UltraHD mode
There is more pixel-peeping to be done in out photo compare tool as well.
Oppo F3 Plus in our photo compare tool
Selfie shooters
Oppo's dual-selfie implementation is pretty straight-forward. The F3 Plus doesn't offer anything fancy, like selective focus effect (portrait mode), since both shooters on the F3 Plus are fixed-focus.
If background is what you think your selfie game desperately lacks, then the Oppo F3 Plus definitely has you covered.
There is a dedicated Beauty mode as well, but you should probably steer clear of it. There are two intensity levels to adjust. One is for smoothing over blemishes, which works in a pretty awkward, face-paint fashion. Then there is a slider to add some extra "rosyness". The only problem is your cheeks aren't the only thing getting some color. In fact, the whole shot gets the red filter treatment.
Video camera
The Oppo F3 Plus shoots 2160p video with its main camera at a high 50Mbps bitrate and with 48KHz stereo audio.
Those are a lot better than on the R9s, which suffered from a weird framerate deficiency. The F3 Plus shoots at a stable 30 fps and while still visible on more uniform patches, compression artifacts are brought down to a minimum.
Our samples came out fairly detailed, with good colors and dynamic range. We had some issues with the EIS, which sometimes made the image shaky even though we shot from a tripod. Wind noise filtering isn't really great either.
1080p video capture is only available in 30fps- there's no 60fps option. Bitrate is pretty high here as well at around 22Mbps. However, the Oppo F3 Plus isn't exactly putting all that bitrate to good use. The samples seem aren't only less detailed than their 4K counterparts, which is expected, but not even as sharp as a 1080p video should be.
You can download a 2160p (11s~65MB) and a 1080p (10s~22MB) sample for closer inspecion too.
Is is also worth noting that the field of view shrinks significantly as you switch to 1080p (it already narrows for 4K, but now it's very noticeable).
Last but not least, we offer you the Oppo F3 Plus in our video compare tool. 4K and 1080p mode included.
Oppo F3 Plus in our 4K video compare tool
Oppo F3 Plus in our 1080p video compare tool
Conclusion
The Oppo F3 Plus is an interesting take on the ever-popular "upper midranger" formula. A cool one, in fact. A capable Snapdragon 653 chipset is backed by a generous helping of RAM and storage, at 4GB and 64GB respectively. Solid imaging experience is one of the highlights too, courtesy of a 16MP, OIS-enabled, Dual Pixel camera.
There are more than enough standout features for a mid-ranger, but Oppo decided to also spice things up a bit and justify the "Selfie Expert" tagline with a secondary selfie camera. Now the two front snappers lack autofocus, so we aren't quite sure it's as good as the claims from the vivo V5 Plus, but they aim to achieve different things anyway.
Yet, adding so much character has also pushed the price up a bit and the F3 Plus faces some serious competition. Does it do enough to justify a second look?
Oppo F3 Plus key test findings
- Premium materials and build quality, but design is a little played out and color options are limited. The finish feels good and doesn't gather fingerprints easily. The new antenna line design is a nice little accent.
- The standard navigation scheme with a trio of buttons still works well. The home key is not an actual button. We like that the fingerprint sensor is of the Always on type but it's not quite as fast as previous Oppo handsets.
- The 6-inch display has isn't exceptionally bright, nor does it offer impressive contrast. It does okay on both accounts though and sunlight legibility is fine too.
- The F3 Plus 4,000 mAh battery delivers 79 hours of endurance, which is decent, considering the large LCD panel and 28nm chipset. VOOC fast charging delivers stellar charging speeds and all the VOOC hardware is included in the box.
- The UI is heavily inspired by Apple's iOS, especially noticeable in some Oppo apps (calendar, gallery, etc.); plenty of duplicate apps preinstalled; ColorOS 3.0 is still based on Android Marshmallow, which is nearly two years old now.
- The Snapdragon 653 delivers good performance. Combined with 4GB of RAM, there is ample headroom for multitasking. The Adreno 510 is a bit lacking in raw graphical performance, but is still perfectly suited for most loads.
- The single bottom-facing loudspeaker only scored an Average mark in our loudness test.
- Audio quality is loud and clear with an external amplifier and decent when using headphones.
- The still camera is quite impressive; great panorama, OIS is a nice addition. Dual Pixel technology makes for really snappy and accurate autofocus.
- Camera app lacks polish and is generally poorly organized. There are no settings for photo resolution and no to disable EIS.
- Selfies are rich in detail. The dual camera implementation is simple and straight-forward. Results are pretty consistent between the two snappers. There are no added features, like selective focus. Steer clear of Beauty mode and its filters.
- 2160p videos are good if you ignore the compression artifacts; The 1080p videos have a noticeably narrower FoV and rather mediocre detail level.
Value seems to be the questionable piece of this equation. Even in Oppo's own ranks, there is the R9s, which costs about as much as the F3 Plus, while potentially offering a more universally appealing feature set. For one, there is an AMOLED panel adorning the otherwise similar body. You get the same 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, alongside an excellent 16MP main camera.
Gone is the fancy dual selfie setup and the Snapdragon 653 gives way for a slower, yet highly power-efficient 14nm Snapdragon 625. Good news is, despite the downgrade the R9s is still capable of capturing video in 4K@30fps.
Oppo F3 Plus • Oppo R9s Plus
And if size is a major priority and the 5.5-inch diagonal of the R9s just doesn't cut it, there is the R9 Plus. With its 6-inch AMOLED panel, equally big 4,000 mAh battery and identical Snapdragon 653 chipset. It lacks a second selfie cam, so you have to decide what is more important to you before picking between those two.
A different take on the dual selfie camera, the vivo V5 Plus brings selective focus (and autofocus in general), but no wide-angle selfies. It comes with a smaller 5.5-inch panel and Snapdragon 625 chipset, though.
And if size is a major priority and the 5.5-inch diagonal of the R9s just doesn't cut it, there is the R9 Plus. With its 6-inch AMOLED panel, equally big 4,000 mAh battery and identical Snapdragon 653 chipset. It lacks a second selfie cam, so you have to decide what is more important to you before picking between those two.
A different take on the dual selfie camera, the vivo V5 Plus brings selective focus (and autofocus in general), but no wide-angle selfies. It comes with a smaller 5.5-inch panel and Snapdragon 625 chipset, though.
vivo V5 Plus
If selfies matter, but you don't necessarily want two front cameras, you can also consider the Sony Xperia XA Ultra. Its 16MP, f/2.0, 1/2.6", OIS front camera, complete with autofocus and an LED flash can really take your selfie game to the next level. The newer XA1 Ultra as well. It offers an even better overall hardware package, but that is also reflected in the price tag.
Sony Xperia XA Ultra • Sony Xperia XA1 Ultra
You could also easily source a phablet with a decent selfie from Samsung, if you are willing to stretch your budget a little. The Galaxy A7 (2017) is a prime candidate with a 5.7-inch Super AMOLED panel, Exynos 7880 Octa chipset, 16 MP, f/1.9 main camera and even an IP68 rating on the metal unibody.
Samsung Galaxy A7 (2017)
There's no shortage of alternatives out there, but none of them can beat the Oppo F3 Plus across the board. The imposing Oppo flagship has plenty going for it, and while we'd certainly appreciate if the Selfie expert tag was backed by autofocus, we still think it's a purchase many will be perfectly happy with.
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