Develop Bugs

[Reviews] Oppo N3 Review Thread

Oppo N3 Review Thread​
Hey all
This thread is to collect the available reviews for the Oppo N3 into one place. Feel free to post reviews found on the web or when the device becomes available create your own:good: If anybody feels one should be added to the OP, please PM me. I'll kick off with a few i found on the net:highfive:​
Reviews/Previews
http://www.stuff.tv/oppo/oppo-n3/review
Stuff.tv Hands-on/Preview
http://www.cnet.com/uk/products/oppo-n3/
CNET - Hands-on​
Video Reviews/Previews
Android Authority - First Look​

Good And uPDATE
So Nice i See Specification .But Cost Some High

Review Quick and Dirty
Bought it today after comparing it with Mate 7 and here is my quick and dirty review:
Plus
+ very impressed by the motorised camera
use of o click: can control manually in small increments, on screen or through the o click;
+ sound quality and volume;
+ extremely fast camera focusing and shot to shot speed;
+ finger print scanner is good once i've figured out how to use it (and this coming from a person whose corporate finger print scanner cannot read mine...)
+ despite the weight of 192 g, it feels solid instead of heavy
+ without using the VOOC charger, charging speed is snail like; with the VOOC, it is really fast
+ O click pairs quickly and works very well (as compared to the previous version)
+ ps. heard from some reviewers that the camera head is loose but mine feels satisfactory. Some also mentioned about the rattling from the loose volume button, but mine seems fine too. Heng ah.
+ despite the many complaints about the faux leather over the camera/ear piece, after using it, I think i like this choice as it makes long conversation where I place my ear tightly next to the ear piece more comfortable. In short, it looks like a misfit, but it feels good when used.
+ Oh i love the gesture functions esppppppppppppppppp the double tap to wake, 3 fingers to screenshot
Minus
- crazy location of ear phone jack (though, fortunately, I use wireless earphones, so it is irrelevant.)
- coming from Note 4, somehow this screen looks small, although both are 5.5 inches
- mass storage option is gone (previously oppo had it right?)
- auto brightness is too aggressively dim indoors
In all, i think it is an excellent phone. However, at this price point, I don't think it'll move many pieces.
As compared to Mate 7, I think where Mate 7 trumps N3 is its screen to fascia ratio since Mate 7 doesn't have a rotating camera and uses on screen keyboard. However, i found mate 7 to be a tad unwieldy and the speaker to be too 'thin'/too shrill.

Largely agree with the above.
The good:
The phone is overpriced. I pre-ordered from OppoStyle and got a free VOOC battery pack, 32GB SD Card, and an iLike case for it, so the price of £430 actually felt ok, but without those freebies I'd feel a little bit ripped off, and that offer is gone now.
The camera is fabulous, only taken one selfie with it so far which was after a 4 day long course and 140 mile drive home, no makeup and really tired, but still somehow made me look good: http://lum.uk/temp/IMG20150122211859.jpg
The shutter speed on the camera is really fast too, so great for taking cat photos. http://www.imgur.com/p5dwFqR.jpeg
Dual-SIM on a flagship phone is wonderful. Work have me using a Blackberry Curve with a data bar on it and only Blackberry services allowed, so I've never been able to shove my work SIM into an Android and still get email before. Words cannot express how much I hate that Blackberry but I can't even dial on it without either using a pen to poke the keys, or end upbreaking a nail.
Color OS is actually surprisingly nice. This is the first Android I've owned where I haven't felt the need to immediately rip out the entire OS and replace it with Cyanogen or AOKP (My previous androids were an HTC Desire Z and a Motorola Droid 4). I've still had to replace the launcher with Nova Launcher though.
VOOC charging is really clever. I read a bit about how it works, the phone basically has 3 batteries and charges them at 1.5A each, so it's not going to kill the battery too fast. I really don't mind that a standard charge is slow. I charge it overnight at 2.1A from a USB mains socket by my bed, so that'll be 0.7A per battery which is going to make it really nice to the batteries longevity.
Battery life is superb. Even during a day of heavy use, my second day of owning the phone, including much tinkering, gaming and also using a lot of data in the doctor's waiting room, it was only down to 40% by midnight.
The "Skyline" notification light is actually quite good in these days of LEDs that are far too bright, however whenever I see the name I always think of a Nissan, not a fancy LED.
An SD card slot on a high end phone released in 2015!
The downsides:
The dual-SIM layout is slightly odd. It takes a micro SIM as its primary and a nano SIM as the secondary. 4G is only available on the micro SIM, not the nano!. This strikes me as an odd decision as nano SIMs are more likely to be 4G capable, and to be the primary SIM for the phone, with the larger SIM being from a crappy company phone. Fortunately for me my girlfriend is very good with a craft knife and the Blackberry SIM is now a perfectly good nano SIM. I guess some folk would rather use up their works data allowance for everything and then stick in a personal nano SIM for calls.
The position of the power button is annoying. I keep grabbing it and locking my phone when I want to just hold the phone. I wonder if there's a way to make that button unlock only, not lock, as I can lock it by either closing the case or double tapping the home button.
Opening task manager by doing a long press on menu, rather than home, takes a little bit of getting used to.
The Oppo widgets only work on their own launcher. I had to install Google Calendar to get a working calendar widget, which then left me with two calendar entries in the app drawer.
There is still a little bit of bloat to be removed. Google Chrome should not be baked into a ROM as it's 80mb and is almost invariably out of date when the phone ships, plus I use Firefox anyway, also the above mentioned oppo calendar.
There's a hidden app with the name still in Chinese that had me nervous at first as I had no idea what it did. Turns out it's EngineeringMode.apk and is triggered by *#*#4636#*#* and has a few things to tinker with, but use with caution.
No kernel source code available, no fastboot files available. This is especially annoying given that the OTAs failed for me.
Most information about the phone, and about ColorOS is only available in Chinese.
Non-removable battery.
SD card can't be used at the same time as a second SIM. I wonder if careful shaving of both cards could get around this, but unwilling to try it as getting a card stuck in that slider would basically ruin the phone.
The SIM slider can be completely removed and if you lose it you have a £430 tiny overpriced tablet!
All in all I'm quite happy with my purchase. I'm not sure it'll do that well as the phone doesn't know what it wants to be. The dual-SIM thing is great for business people, but the selfie camera is obviously targeted at young women, yet the size is likely too big and they're competing with Samsung who actually have physical shops in the UK. They're also doing zero marketing. For me it is (almost) the perfect phone*, but I'm weird and have multiple often contradictory requirements. I love it but not sure I'd recommend it to anyone else.
* for it to be perfect it would have to have a 5-row QWERTY slider. This is my first non-QWERTY phone and I'm struggling with typing having come from a Droid 4. Guess I need to look for an external keyboard.

so far battery life seems to be as good as my note 4.
very happy with the phone so far but knowing me, soon, i will revert to note 4 cos i like the pen.
the motorised camera is quite amazing.
my main gripe is i wish the finger print scanner were as big as the huawei one.
Comparing with Note 4
Note 4 over N3
- generally faster esp with file copying
- slimmer
- feels better in the hand
- a more sensible headphone jack
- better screen
- better auto brightness
- Spen!!!!
- GPS is better
- more RAM
N3 over Note 4
- faster camera
- more wow factor with the camera module
- much better mono speaker
- better finger print scanner
- colorOS is a more user friendly OS than touchwiz
- can be dual sim (not checked whether it is dual standby though)
- lower price point plus got freebies
- gestures are great!!
- fast charging is quite phenomenal
The placement of the monospeaker is particularly smart. It is at the bottom but more importantly, because of the skylight notification portion, the speaker is not the last part of the phone. This is important because for phones with bottom-mounted speakers, when i play games and hold the bottom, my palm covers the speaker. Additionally, when the phone is placed on the table, with the skylight bulge and the table flanking the speaker, there is a lot of resonance, making the speaker pretty loud!! At the same time, on speaker phone mode, i can cup my palm over the bottom to increase the volume. In all, this is the best implementation of bottom speaker.

what do you mean by "dual standby"? I have two SIMs in there, so I'll test it for you.

i suppose to find out whether both lines can be called through or whether only one can be used (despite there being two sims in the phone).
Lum_UK said:
what do you mean by "dual standby"? I have two SIMs in there, so I'll test it for you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

both sims work at the same time
inertiaholic said:
i suppose to find out whether both lines can be called through or whether only one can be used (despite there being two sims in the phone).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you can receive calls or texts on both sims at the same time....the sim settings are also great...you can set it to default reply so that if someone texts or calls you on sim1 the phone will default reply on sim1....also when you go to make a call or send a text there is an option for both sims you just press the one your using

Review by Music.Photo.Life.
I'm happy to share my review of the OPPO N3 here.
http://musicphotolife.blogspot.sg/2015/04/oppo-n3-swivel-camera-smartphone-review.html
Thanks for reading!

[FIX] GPS issues, antenna cases only E98X, requires disassembly.

I thought this was worth sharing, this is my second thread ever on XDA and hope it helps somebody.
Quick story about my case:
I tried software fixes, ROMs, and made a lot of reading, when I finally figured it could be an antenna issue, I decided to give myself a try on my cellphone repair skills, turns out I turned a “nearly dead” GPS taking 10 minutes to lock into a “better than average” GPS taking 20 seconds to lock. Time taken for the task, 15 minutes, time suffering from bad GPS signal, 1 year, go figure.
Let’s see if you are a candidate to try this solution:
- You must be sure this isn’t a software related issue (i.e. my GPS works with X rom but it doesn’t with Y rom, that would certainly be a software issue).
- You CAN get a GPS lock but the signal is weak (i.e. constantly dropping signal in an area where you are sure another phone works fine) or GPS locks takes up to 5 minutes (and you already tried a software fix to speed up GPS lock).
- You’re phone is relatively old (i.e. it was bought when it came out, although I’m sure the quantity is low, I assume there are still E98X phones which are brand new and I would not recommend disassembling a brand new phone).
- You have experience opening cellphones (i.e. experience using small phillips screwdriver, gently popping frames/housing/covers, putting back in position plastic buttons before re-assebly).
Before we start, quick explanation on what may be happening to your phone if you are a candidate:
- Presumably, the GPS antenna (and Bluetooth, 3G/4G as well) is making poor contact with the springs on your phone.
- This phone uses contact springs for pretty much everything (see attached picture for springs locations of antennas), so these springs and/or the antenna contacts eventually bent away from each other and lower your GPS, Bluetooth, 3G/4G signals.
Here is what you need to do:
- Remove the back cover, and remove the back frame (See the following video from minute 0:00 to 1:50 for disassembly of backframe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9OJRtf39QA).
- Inspect every spring and antenna contacts (see attached pictures for antenna springs and pad locations), make sure they are not rusted or damaged, else you need a replacement part for it (for antenna pads, you may want to clean those with isopropyl alcohol if you have some).
- Using a soft, thin, *plastic* tool (thinner than a credit card, but sturdier than paper), lift every spring you see up to 10 degrees (see attached picture for reference) and wiggle it up and down to force it to stay tilted up about 10 degrees (don’t force it up more than 15 degrees when wiggling or you risk to break the spring, there are quite a few of springs, I remember at least 5 pairs, so make sure you get them all done).
- Revert all disassembly made (See the following video from minute 6:32 to 7:51 for reassembly https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QxLa5rXX7Y), and VOILA!! your GPS signal came to life again (and hopefully your Bluetooth and 3G/4G are enjoying the new perks too!)
-Additionally, better 3G/4G signal does save battery, your cellphone amplifiers require less work and produces less heating too.
Disclaimer: I’m not responsible for damage to your phone, this guide is intended for an grown up audience who takes responsibilities of their own actions.

Reserved

Jose-MXL said:
Reserved
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was looking for something like this. Thanks very much..........

Let me know if you need anything else (i.e. more detailed instructions) and report back your results, unfortunately for the audience, I didn't take pictures of the process since I wasn't sure it was going to work (and then just took the picture of the NFC springs), so if you can take some pictures of how the contacts looks in the inside, that would awesome, I can update the main post with these, there is quite a few springs inside so you want to make sure you get them all in shape.
I forgot to say in the main post, better 3G/4G signals give a lot less of work to the amplifiers, which means less phone heating and less battery consumption, this is a nice service to do to a 2 year old phone like mine.

Enclosed is a picture from a replacement mid frame cover. Could you please use something like ms paint to circle which pins you bent upward? Looking at my Optimus G Pro 980 Mid frame cover and motherboard/logicboard I do not see these........
Jose-MXL said:
Let me know if you need anything else (i.e. more detailed instructions) and report back your results, unfortunately for the audience, I didn't take pictures of the process since I wasn't sure it was going to work (and then just took the picture of the NFC springs), so if you can take some pictures of how the contacts looks in the inside, that would awesome, I can update the main post with these, there is quite a few springs inside so you want to make sure you get them all in shape.
I forgot to say in the main post, better 3G/4G signals give a lot less of work to the amplifiers, which means less phone heating and less battery consumption, this is a nice service to do to a 2 year old phone like mine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

jmacguire said:
Enclosed is a picture from a replacement mid frame cover. Could you please use something like ms paint to circle which pins you bent upward? Looking at my Optimus G Pro 980 Mid frame cover and motherboard/logicboard I do not see these........
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
UPDATE:
See main post, I got a picture from somewhere else for the spring locations.
Actually my friend, that picture only shows the pads for the antennas, try to match it with your phone and see where they contact, these are going to be the springs, they don't look like spiral springs, these are other type of springs which I don't recall the name but they are more like a V shape, and one of the sides is attached to the board and the other one "springs" up and down, let me know if you got it or I will open my phone again, just for you! (no kidding)
Also, if I were you I would try to do the same for all pairs of springs I see on the motherboard, there is a pair for the speakerphone and one more down the board for something else.

GPS finally fixing
Thank you so much for this post. Before this solution, I tried different roms, gps fixing apps, disabling carrierIQ, editing the gps.conf file to add "better" servers, etc. This is the only solution that really worked. Now I am getting a GPS fix in 10 to 15 seconds where before it was up to a minute or more. I have an LG E980 (ATT Version).
As directed, I turned off the phone, removed the rear case back, removed the battery+sd card+sim card, removed the screws in the back panel of the phone and then separated the back panel from the front panel to expose the circuit boards and spring contacts. Then, I cleaned all the spring contacts and their mating flat contacts on the back panel with alcohol. Then I bent all of the spring contacts up slightly, re-seated the back panel making sure the side buttons were in the correct place (I do not believe the quickmemo and power buttons are interchangeable even though they are the same size fyi), and then secured the screws back in place.
Thank you!

Way to go buddy, I'm glad I could help you and that you were able to follow those horrendous instructions, I can't be sure on your case since yours wasn't as bad as mine, but on my case it also improved 4G reception overall, these antennas are used for pretty much everything so it would only be logical to get better signal on all the services, this is a "must" service on old E98X phones, perhaps nearly half of the GPS and bluetooth issues on the forum are due to this plus a weak or faulty software filtering not helping.

any info how to increase the wifi antenna? could this be the white cable?
Sent from my LG-E980 using XDA Free mobile app

I've quit using my OG Pro because the GPS is so poor. Hard to get a fix and drops constantly. Glad I stumbled on this, and will give it a try.
Can you point out which springs are specific to the GPS antenna? I suppose I can try to work with all the springs, but with my luck, I 'll break something that was working fine.

fungo45 said:
I've quit using my OG Pro because the GPS is so poor. Hard to get a fix and drops constantly. Glad I stumbled on this, and will give it a try.
Can you point out which springs are specific to the GPS antenna? I suppose I can try to work with all the springs, but with my luck, I 'll break something that was working fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know which ones they are. I did all of them. They are a lever type spring contact so it is hard to break them. Just do so lightly.

Wow fairly simple fix with great results, thanks!

Jose-MXL said:
Before we start, quick explanation on what may be happening to your phone if you are a candidate:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just tightening all the screws fixed all my GPS issues. No disassembly required! Add this into OP.

Thanks
Just did this, really improved the speed and reliability of everything- gps, wifi, etc. Thanks.
A quick tip for those doing this the first time. be careful of the buttons. I've taken apart my optimus g pro a few times now, and those dern things like to fly out of you're not careful when taking it apart. Also, when putting back together, use a small piece of scotch tape on the exterior of the frame to hold the buttons in place when you put the frame back in place. make sure the tabs of the tape stay on the outside, and pul them gently as you snap the screen back on. It's easier to have the frame on the table on put the screen down onto the frame when done this way, and save those dern buttons from coming out of their slots.

I have two OG Pro (E980) developed same broken GPS issue.
Now, I think the problem is the two soft contact pads, when I bent little bit, the GPS 's issue got fixed.
Also, the method not to improve any 4g/Wi-Fi/Bluetooth.
LG made such low quality contact PINs

Two years have passed and this thread is still helping people with their now "ancient" G Pros. My problem was that the coax cable had popped loose. Still I went ahead and re-tensioned all the contact springs. GPS is now functioning like new. Thanks to all who contributed.

Any way to test if my NFC reader is working properly?

I think the NFC reader on my phone might not be working. I tried scanning some NFC toys on it, and no matter where I placed them all over the back and front of the phone, absolutely nothing happened. NFC IS on and enabled, but I get no response.
Is there any way I can check to see if the NFC hardware in my phone is working properly? Or has anyone else had this issue?

NFC is working usually but it does have a small zone where is working. Is the area of the headphone jack, in that small zone between the camera and headphone jack, maybe a little bit of center to the left.
I also use the NFC for various things and I discovered there is working good, the worst part is when you want to do payments to find where is working
Sent from my HTC 10 using Tapatalk

You are not alone with this problem.
Check this thread: https://forum.xda-developers.com/htc-10/help/nfc-reading-cards-t3372168
For me it never worked, too. But I don't need it, so it's not that important for me.
I already sent it to repair. They replaced some parts and it worked one time for me, but never again.

Yeah, I was looking through that post, but it seemed inconclusive. I do need NFC, but really want to make sure if it's a hardware problem first before I send it in for repair. I am not sure how to properly restore everything to a new phone exactly like it was if I do. Which is why I wanted to know if there was any decent way to test it first. Maybe a place I can get a cheap NFC sticker or some app that can test the hardware or something?

The "hardware" will be another phone with NFC, and the sticker can be an electronic passport or a credit card with "contactless" "(paywave)" option.
Sent from my HTC 10 using Tapatalk

burleanu said:
NFC is working usually but it does have a small zone where is working. Is the area of the headphone jack, in that small zone between the camera and headphone jack, maybe a little bit of center to the left.
I also use the NFC for various things and I discovered there is working good, the worst part is when you want to do payments to find where is working
Sent from my HTC 10 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for this I was moving my yubi key all over but somehow didn't discover this spot, but you're right it does work near the camera as you describe. Previously I thought it was my OS Lineage, or hardware.
cheers

Trying to identify the purpose of the two poles on the ZE551ML

Especially the one labeled U6002, which was lopped off in my attempting to remove the middle ribbon cable (during Step 9 here). All I've been able to find is generic information like this, but these numbers could be purely coincidental.
http://www.electronicmarket.com.au/5211a13303c/tube-assemblycondenserout-552113a-p-58377.html
http://www.electronicmarket.com.au/5230ar2630a/filterair-152302-p-58846.html
They can be glimpsed at the bottom of the second pic here:
https://www.scribd.com/document/355593344/Diagram-Schematic-ZE551ML

But... it's written in the pic, these are the pogo pin for the NFC antenna which is in the back cover.

Thanks. I didn't know that, since the arrow is distinctly pointing away from what I'm talking about and to something else. Also, it uses singular "pin" and not "pins," so that also was deceiving.
Anyway, the surface of the board revealed when one snapped off appeared not to be metal, so I just super-glued it back on.
I have not tested NFC yet, but I never use it.

I am using NFC for more than 6 months now that my bank support AndroidPay (now GooglePay), you need the NFC antenna to pay with it, I pay with my phone everywhere, very useful.

I just read up on it, and it does look useful. I'll try it out.

NFC in a weird spot on the 4a 5g

I recently upgraded from the Pixel 2 to the 4a 5g, and have today found my first gripe with the phone. For some reason google decided to put the NFC sensor in the center of the phone (slightly below the fingerprint sensor), whereas on the Pixel 2 it was near the top of the phone. (see https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/7157629?hl=en)
This has two impacts for me:
1 - it makes it awkward to hold the phone up to the reader since you now have to hold it by the top or bottom of the phone (I'm assuming this, since I haven't actually gotten it to work yet)
2 - I need to relocate or find an alternative solution for the metal plate that I had in that spot for my car's magnetic mount. I'm assuming this is what was causing google pay not to work for me since it didn't give any errors or anything, thus the research.

To be fair, having the NFC chip near the FP sensor is how most phones i've had do it, if anything it's now less confusing for people having used other phones.
I get how this can be frustrating if you're used to something else though.
The NFC range is enough so it won't make a difference with Google Pay. With the 4a 5G and the OnePlus 6 i used before, payment goes though while the phone is still a bit more than 5cm away from the reader, even through my hand, and with hazardous placement (never really felt the need to know exactly where the NFC coil was on my OP6, because it just worked anyway). Still surprizes me, it always triggers from farther i think it will. I've tried directing the bottom of the phone towards the reader, still works.
Don't think you'll notice any difference if you want to position the phone the same way as before.