OPPO F1 Hands-on, First Impressions

OPPO has just officially launched its new selfie-centric smartphone, the F1. With an 8-megapixel front facing camera plus an enhanced camera software, OPPO is taking the selfie game seriously. Here’s a quick first impression of the OPPO F1.

The OPPO F1 looks like your ordinary candy bar phone and it doesn’t try to impress you with its aesthetic. But on hand, the F1 won’t disappoint when it comes to build quality. Its back plate has a metallic matte finish that does give a good impression, although we hoped OPPO also did the same with its polycarbonate frame.

Up front, we have the 5-inch HD display topped with a curved 2.5D Corning Gorilla Glass 4. The front camera, earpiece, sensors, and capacitive navigation keys surround the display. On its right side is the power/lock button while the volume rocker is located on the left. On top, we have the 3.5mm jack with the microUSB port at the bottom. At the back is the main camera plus its LED flash, and the loudspeaker grille.

As for the display, it’s an IPS panel, so viewing angles and overall image quality shouldn’t disappoint. Powering the F1 is a mid-range octa-core Snapdragon 616. As far as we know, it’s the first handset to be locally available with the new chipset from Qualcomm. Accompanying it is a generous 3GB of RAM and there’s 16GB of expandable storage for your files.

While For the cameras, we have a 13-megapixel primary shooter and an 8-megapixel selfie camera which is the main feature of the F1. 8MP is not the highest pixel count selfie camera around but OPPO’s software enhancements plus its bright f/2.0 opening help produce a better-looking self-portrait.
We’re still to test out their software when we get a review unit. For now, here a sample I was able to take with the front camera with slight beautification:

OPPO F1 specifications:
5-inch IPS LCD (720 x 1280 pixels), 294ppi
2.5D Corning Gorilla Glass 4
1.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 616 octa-core processor
Adreno 405
3GB RAM
16GB internal storage
Expandable via microSD (up to 128GB)
13MP rear PDAF rear camera w/ LED flash
8MP front camera
Dual-SIM / Dual-Standby
4G LTE
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth 4.0, A2DP
GPS w/ A-GPS
Android 5.1 Lollipop w/ Color OS 2.1
2,500mAh battery (non-removable)
143.5 x 71 x 7.3 mm
134 g

And that’s a quick first encounter with the OPPO F1. The new mid-range camera phone from OPPO with a price tag of Php11,990USD 204INR 17,321EUR 195CNY 1,488.