OPPO F1 Plus review: Better yet exactly the same

I got stuck when writing this review for the longest time. I spent an unnecessary amount of hours staring at a blank page in Google Docs trying to come up with an angle for this smartphone. Is it remarkable? No, absolutely not. Is it terrible? Nawp, that’s not right either.

What on earth do I call the OPPO F1 Plus then?

OPPO upgraded their F1 “selfie expert” smartphone with this brand new F1 Plus awhile back. We all found out that the original selfie expert was far from a selfie expert, so the question became if this Plus added any more points into that stat.

On paper, things look pretty good. With a more capable camera in front than at the back, you could easily tell which end should be doing most of the work. It’s built pretty solidly too, taking many design cues from a particular American tech company.

But, one or two big questionable choices have caused this device, that could have been so much more, to fall into the same trap as its predecessor.

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We take more images today than we ever have in the past and a lot of it is of our own narcissistic mugs. The inescapable fact is that of all the positive and negative qualities in the human body, we chose to nurture one that’s neither one nor the other and yet both at the same time.

Vanity is very much an on-the-fence quality if there ever was one. It’s empowering because it gives us confidence, teaches us to love ourselves and appreciate us for who we are. But, it’s also destructive when we start to value ourselves above others and let what we think we get right to get to our heads.

The selfie is a big enabler of that and smartphones that encourage (and even facilitate inaccurate representations of ourselves) are the vanguards.

In many ways, the OPPO F1 Plus is very similar to the F1 that it succeeds. The amount of oomph you get out of the MediaTek Helio P10 processor and 4GB of RAM isn’t particularly impressive. It runs smooth but isn’t snappy. It doesn’t choke but you will have to wait awhile between loading screens in your intensive mobile game.

Not that you will be able to play your mobile games for very long as its battery life is decidedly average. About 15 hours on battery with less than 3 hours of screen on time? Power users be wary. The good news is that it charges rather quickly. This VOOC Flash Charge-enabled smartphone tops up its 2,850 mAh battery in just one hour while 30 minutes gives you 67%.

It’s also got plenty of storage, with 64GB onboard that OPPO lets you expand even further with a microSD card. You will have to sacrifice one SIM in this dual-SIM smartphone to do so, however.

If I had to point out one standout feature, it would be the fingerprint sensor mounted just below the 5.5-inch Full HD AMOLED display. It’s unbelievably quick. Some might even say it’s quicker than lightning and for once, I might actually agree with them.

OPPO may plaster their smartphone’s camera prowess on every single banner and bunting you can find, but that fingerprint sensor is by far the biggest star.

And this leads us into the cameras. With a 16MP front selfie camera and paired with a pale-in-comparison 13MP rear snapper, I don’t think you need me to tell you which is the right way up. But image quality is king and the photos that come out of the massive front unit are…not bad.

It’s definitely an improvement over the old F1. It’s snappier, more detailed and a lot more fun to use. It also comes with a whole host of beauty features and enhancements, but the thing I found most consistent between my test selfies (and my colleague’s) is that the images can look a little…pasty.

Especially when lighting isn’t perfect. Still, it’s a sight better than many other selfie snappers out there.

The 13MP rear camera feels more like an afterthought at this point. It’s there if you need it, but a combination of slow snapping, average image quality (poor in low light) and inaccurate focusing makes you wonder why OPPO even bothered with one in the first place.

From what I can tell, OPPO has definitely made a noticeable change and overall improvement with the F1 Plus. What hasn’t changed is the audience it appeals to. This undoubtedly good looking device with a metal unibody and pretty gold colour is for the fashionista who wants a handset that looks and feels good on the outside and is functional on the inside. Oh, and of course, one with a good selfie camera too.

It’s OPPO’s most refined smartphone yet, but it also suffers from a lot of the F1’s original problems. It’s a touch prettier with a slightly better selfie snapper, but it also lacks the pizazz that I wished was in original F1. I called the Plus’ predecessor “utterly forgettable” and I fear that round 2 hasn’t changed that perception.

In fact, with a price tag of RM1,898, I think that it is as overpriced as the original F1 when that first came out. Of course, I’m no selfie-obsessed fashionista so my priorities lie in different aspects when I look for a smartphone.

I can’t shake the feeling that OPPO has fallen into the same mental trap that stems from the very human nature their new smartphone promotes — vanity. Sure, they’re confident that they’ve built a pretty good product (because they have), but in their hubris, have overvalued what their device and brand is worth.

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Here are some photos from the OPPO F1 Plus. Click on each image to view the full sized picture. If you’d like to see more photos, you can check out the gallery on our sister site TheSkop.

Main camera:

Selfie camera: