First, let me warn you that none of the selfie pictures I took were shot using the OPPO F1s. But don’t let that faze you because I will show you precisely why those selfies now make me wish I have the OPPO F1s.
The Oppo F1s
Bloggers like me are one-woman production teams. We attend events and take a lot of product pictures. That’s great. But product pictures are not as personal as having one’s self in the picture, right? A product may look picture perfect but you can always get that from a professional photographer. What personalizes a product and brings it closer to the hearts of its target market is seeing people handling it, holding it up, using it, checking it out. This is the reason why most of my blog posts have people in them and many times, I try to be part of the landscape.
I was not part of the blogger group that attended the launch of the OPPO F1s but my friend Noemi was there (and she actually won the phone from a selfie contest). She has been showing me the features of the phone and after seeing the photos she took…I’m impressed!
Let me share with you the OPPO F1s’ best features as I see it. The Selfie Front Camera
The OPPO F1s features a 16MP on a front camera! Add to that a 1/3.1-inch sensor and an F/2.0 aperture for better pictures in low-light conditions. Where else can you find a smartphone where the front camera specs are superior to the rear camera? Only in a phone that is made for selfie experts, right? And that does not diminish the value of its rear camera which comes at a whopping 13MP.
My selfie photos have mostly been lackluster because of grainy images. But that was unavoidable, considering that many brands have focused for years on improving the rear camera. Only OPPO F1s has recognized that we are now in a selfie generation and deliberately chose to make the front camera more superior to the rear cam.
Let me show you some selfie comparisons taken with my devices and Noemi’s OPPO F1s.
My Selfies
A selfie with Noemi, taken with another brand’s front cam. Beautiful ladies, grainy photo, terrible with low light! And this was a sunny day!A recent selfie at Rappler Social Good Summit with my new ipad mini 4. The ipad mini has a passable 8MP rear camera but the 1.2MP front camera is MEH for selfies.
A golden opportunity for a selfie with Maria Ressa and Robin Padilla wasted! See how grainy the photo is. And look at my eye wrinkles!
Now, check out some of the photos I borrowed from Noemi.
Noemi’s Selfies with the OPPO F1s
Noemi’s winning look at the OPPO F1s launch
That’s Noemi and me in the foreground as we took this selfie while waiting for Presidential Communications Sec. Martin Andanar at his Malacanang office. The office had low light but look at how bright the photo is all the ay to the back!
Selfie Panorama
Got a large barkada? No problem. Rotate the front phone from side to side and the OPPO F1s stitches your photos to create a panoramic photo with everyone in the picture! This actually solves a dilemma of mine when I want a selfie with a group of friends. I am forced to go further away from them to fit them all on my screen. What happens? My face looks disproportionately larger than theirs as I am closest to the cam. With a selfie panorama, our facial images can be all the same size and we’re all in!
See? This is how I usually do a groupfie. I am too close and they are too far!
I got this photo from the OPPO website to illustrate the difference. It clearly shows how many more people you can fit into a panoramic shot compared to a normal shot. I think the OPPO F1s can be described better as a GROUPFIE camera.
Touch Access in 0.22 Seconds!
Touch Access (from OPPO website)
I love the prospect of simply resting my finger on the home button and unlocking the phone in just 0.22 seconds, to be exact. It is a feature I have come to love on my iPad mini 4 and to have it also on my phone would be a great productivity plus.
If you think it is just a small improvement over a typed password or even a secret pattern code think about this. One, it is a time saver if you factor in the total number of seconds in a day that you save unlocking your phone. Two, it extends the life of the home button. Mechanical parts have a finite life; using a sensor instead of pressing down on a button to unlock the phone actually means a longer life for that button. And three, it is a better secure feature. A password or pattern code can be guessed by others but how many can replicate your thumbprint?
Here’s one more plus of Touch Access – you can use it to finger-activate and open up to 5 applications by assigning a finger to each app. I can just imagine how much faster it will be for me to open Twitter, Facebook, my email, and a chat messenger I use daily.
Customizable, finger-activated access to favorite apps (photo from OPPO website)
A Real Dual SIM Slot
Why do I say ‘real’? Well, some of the new phones say they have dual SIM slots when in fact, what they have is what is called a Hybrid Dual Sim. There are two slots but one of the slots can be configured for another SIM or a micro SD card. If you decide to use a micro SD card, you lose the dual sim feature.
But look below at the OPPO F1s card tray.
Physically, you can place 2 4G SIMs PLUS a micro SD card! (photo from OPPO website)
What you see in the photo above is a dedicated pop-out tray with slots for two 4G SIMs supporting top speeds of up to 150Mbps AND an extra slot for a micro SD card up to 128GB. For a lot of us with at least two phones, this is the solution to a tight budget.
Beautify 4.0
Here’s a little confession. Much as I love doing selfies, they do reveal more of what I would rather have less of as we age – those fine facial lines, the wrinkles around the eyes, and the eyebags!!! Sure, there’s nothing wrong with showing our natural self, warts and all, but sometimes, I just want selfies that make me look good. The Beautify 4.0 feature brightens up the face, smoothes out skin tone, and reduces blemishes. The OPPO F1s offers this option for just those moments.
I may not always use this option for all selfies but it is a comfort to know that the Beautify 4.0 feature is there for those moments when you need to look a little better.
The (Value-for-Money) Price
Noemi, in her blog post about OPPO F1s, wrote that the suggested retail price at launch date was PhP 12,990. Take note…the OPPO F1s is a 3GB RAM phone with built-in 32GB storage, expandable to 128GB. Other brands with that memory and built-in storage are much more expensive. I bought a midrange phone of a very popular brand with 3GB RAM late last year and it cost me over 20k. A 7+k difference is a B-I-G difference and makes the OPPO F1s a must-check-out phone.
Is the OPPO F1s IT?
As a blogger and social media person, a phone’s features are very important for me because the quality of photos make a difference for my posts. At the moment, my son and I both need to replace our old phones very soon and I have already been looking at different brands and comparing features for some time now. After seeing Noemi’s photos with the OPPO F1s and after checking out its best features, I can definitely say the OPPO F1s is one of our top options. It has a lot of the things I am looking for in a phone and undoubtedly, it should work for my bunso who is part of this selfie generation.
(This is an entry post for OPPO F1s with Nuffnang Philippines)
Tita forever, geek forever!!!
Loves gadgets more than clothes...
First introduced to IT via punched cards and COBOL programming...
IT auditor for over 5 years...
IT consultant covering the financial industry for over 7 years...
Now, a blogger and social media practitioner...and still covering the IT world, among other interests.
And proud that all my kids are geeky as well.
~ Tita Jane Uymatiao
