When the smartphone camera discussion kicks in, there is always a huge debate around the megapixel counts. Now, the focus seems to be shifting towards extra features. Oppo’s latest smartphones in India come with the nomenclature, Selfie Expert. The F1 Plus Selfie Expert (Rs.26,990) goes up against the Moto X Style (Rs.26,999).
Design: Solidly built and good-looking
The F1 Plus looks a lot like the Apple iPhone 6s Plus. It has a very similar metallic finish, curved edges and white strips on the back panel. The metallic finish lends it solidity, while the matte finish provides a firm grip surface. The camera module is slightly protruded and that makes it vulnerable to scratch and damage if you aren’t careful while keeping the phone down on a flat surface. It’s 6.6-mm thick and weighs just 145g which is good for a 5.5-inch screen phone. This phone is lighter than a majority of big-screen phones, including the Moto X Style, which weighs 179g.
Even the fingerprint sensor has been coupled with the home button on the front. The only difference is its oval shape like the Galaxy S7 instead of the circular home button on the iPhone 6s. It is spot-on in terms of accuracy and can be used to unlock encrypted files or apps.
Display: Big and bright
The smartphone’s 5.5-inch AMOLED display has a screen resolution of 1920x1080p. Colours look bright, the text appears crisp and legibility from odd angles is good. The big screen allows extra room for reading and manoeuvring controls comfortably while gaming. The display allows users to switch to the slightly warmer tone instead of the sharp white. While this puts less strain on the eyes by turning off the short wave blue light, it gives the screen a very unnatural pinkish look. There is also a layer of Corning’s scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass 4.
Software: Old Android with new features
The F1 Plus runs Android 5.1 (Lollipop) with a typical interface seen on a lot of Chinese phones, with no app drawer. The default interface has many app icons that look almost like the icons on the iOS. For example, the settings, the photos and the calendar icons look almost similar to what you may see on the iPhone. Even the multi-tasking window, which stacks the apps as cards, looks inspired by the iOS. The key highlight of the user interface is that it offers plenty of themes with different set of icons based on multiple subjects and moods. The phone comes with a built-in security app which provides virus scans, storage clean-up and app permissions. With the app permissions, one can restrict apps from prying into other parts of your phone such as contacts or camera access.
Performance: Smooth with most tasks
It runs on a MediaTek MT6755 octa-core processor with 4GB of RAM, and handles most tasks smoothly. It was able to handle games and movies without any signs of slowing down or heating up on the back. Even switching between apps and multi-tasking is smooth. The phone offers 64GB of internal storage and can accommodate up to 128GB microSD cards. It supports 4G networks. The phone’s battery backup is impressive too and on a single charge, the 2,850mAh battery can eke out a full day’s backup with ease.
Camera: Good daylight camera
The phone’s key highlight is the 16-megapixel front camera which can capture good-looking selfies if the light is good. In low light, it tries to add light but it still can’t hide the noise and disturbances that creep in. It is wide enough to accommodate multiple people in a single shot. The selfie camera supports eight different filters, has a double exposure mode which allows users to take two images and then merges them with the image to enhance the effect or add a background to the first image. There is also a beauty mode which can remove imperfections from the face. The main camera is a 13-megapixel affair, but delivers detailed and colourful results when used in daytime. Low light shots look noisy when zoomed in.
Verdict
The F1 Plus impresses with its front facing camera, smooth performance, storage, good-looking display and a premium design. The Moto X Style has an edge as it offers a slightly bigger 5.7-inch display with high screen resolution of 2560x1440p and offers latest Android (Marshmallow) with a more user-friendly interface.
