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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!
Conflicting reports in regards to NFC on the higher-end Deluxe models. GSM Arena reports it's available, PDAdb, which i believe is more reliable doesn't even mention 'NFC'.
I believe this VERY common feature has been 'avoided' in this phone, absolutely foolish by ASUS as it's keeping me away from this phone. Can someone please confirm? Anyone know why this decision was made despite the fact they have the 5.5", 5.7" deluxe variants and the ULTRA, which isn't much better?
Thanks
RoOSTA
It is available BUT it is in the very top of the phone.
Most phones use the battery and have NFC centered around the middle of the back. The ASUS Zenfone 3 deluxe, and the ZTE Axon 7, have it at the top of the phone, around where the speaker is located.
I don't know WHY it was put there but I eventually found it with a bit of hair pulling...
Somethings need to be the top part of the back but you can also use the very top of the phone too. A little annoying as this isn't very well explained...
NFC sensor is on the front near the top of the screen.
Yes, it have NFC, in te top of the phone near the call's speaker
I used it all days with some nfc tags.
An awkward location to put the NFC. You cannot see the screen when it is contacting the other device.
ultramag69 said:
It is available BUT it is in the very top of the phone.
Most phones use the battery and have NFC centered around the middle of the back. The ASUS Zenfone 3 deluxe, and the ZTE Axon 7, have it at the top of the phone, around where the speaker is located.
I don't know WHY it was put there but I eventually found it with a bit of hair pulling...
Somethings need to be the top part of the back but you can also use the very top of the phone too. A little annoying as this isn't very well explained...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
@wshek @jonasiesta
Thanks guys. Can you show me a quick NFC tag scan in a short video please?
roosta said:
@[email protected]
Thanks guys. Can you show me a quick NFC tag scan in a short video please?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey, so I sometimes get the NFC to work (unlike my zenfone 2) bit when I tap to send / beam a picture it goes to Google play and tries to install the gallery app. Anyone know how to send the picture instead?
jmoricone said:
Hey, so I sometimes get the NFC to work (unlike my zenfone 2) bit when I tap to send / beam a picture it goes to Google play and tries to install the gallery app. Anyone know how to send the picture instead?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You "sometimes get it to work" ? Pretty crap phone if it doesn't work as intended...
roosta said:
You "sometimes get it to work" ? Pretty crap phone if it doesn't work as intended...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Senior member of High School
I get NCF to work.. Did not realize the chip was in a different location than model 2. Model 2 is rooted and can send pics via beam with no problem. Version 3 when I try to beam tries to install the app. Don't need wise ass comments. Joined XDA for "real" advice. If I need bull**** comments, remarks, etc I would have just posted on ****ty websites. Real question for real answers. If you have nothing else to do shut the **** up
The NFC is located at the top of the phone. You could "image" it's using the 3.5mm jack as the center of antenna. (Although it's actually there..)
I use the NFC function almost daily for payment (for convenience store purchase as well as subway ride) and it works 100% of time. (never second time touch) The way I use it is screen facing me, only the very top of phone (basically where the 3.5mm jack is located) is touching the payment terminal reception pad.
Most of the payment terminal will even accept the phone lying flat, LCD up as long as the 3.5mm jack is located near center of the payment terminal's reception pad.
The reason why NFC is located at top of phone is that the back of this phone is made by one piece of metal. NFC signal will have trouble pass this metal barrier. Beside, I found it's easier to use as NFC is at top since can hold the phone 45 degrees (LCD facing me) instead stick the back of the phone flat to the payment terminal when making payment.
Also, the screen is not needed to be on when making payment (YMMV, may depend on APP). The sensitivity of NFC is even better then my cashless credit card. (I tested both at same terminal).
lssong99 said:
The NFC is located at the top of the phone. You could "image" it's using the 3.5mm jack as the center of antenna. (Although it's actually there..)
I use the NFC function almost daily for payment (for convenience store purchase as well as subway ride) and it works 100% of time. (never second time touch) The way I use it is screen facing me, only the very top of phone (basically where the 3.5mm jack is located) is touching the payment terminal reception pad.
Most of the payment terminal will even accept the phone lying flat, LCD up as long as the 3.5mm jack is located near center of the payment terminal's reception pad.
The reason why NFC is located at top of phone is that the back of this phone is made by one piece of metal. NFC signal will have trouble pass this metal barrier. Beside, I found it's easier to use as NFC is at top since can hold the phone 45 degrees (LCD facing me) instead stick the back of the phone flat to the payment terminal when making payment.
Also, the screen is not needed to be on when making payment (YMMV, may depend on APP). The sensitivity of NFC is even better then my cashless credit card. (I tested both at same terminal).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the info. One of the downsides of the body design I guess... Good to see its working for you and there's a way around it. I would've gone for this phone had root been available on it by now. Lack of IR is something I don't use all the time, but still find it important and am using on my V20...
RoOSTA
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.
Not how convenient is the placement - I can tell that in store, what I can't tell and most reviews doen't mention is mean how quickly and reliably does it recognise your fingerprint and how often does it miss, particularly are there any circumstances under which it consistently has trouble?
My current phone is a Galaxy S8, before that I had a Pixel. I plan on getting a new one in the next month or so, short listed to Galaxy S10+ or Pixel3 XL. One of my favourite things about the Pixel is the fingerprint reader, which worked pretty much first time, every time - when I picked it up the phone was unlocked by the time I was looking at the screen. The S8 not so much; I can work around the smaller, less well placed reader but it often has trouble reading my finger print. I've reregistered, rebooted, cleaned the reader etc many times, to no effect, it still has trouble particularly if my hands are cold (for a certain value of cold, never below freezing around here), skin is dry, skin is wet etc...
My partner has my old pixel, I still have a fingerprint registered on it and the pixel still consistently reads it first time, even when the S8 can't.
For me this is one of the make or break features on a phone, it's not covered in reviews and will be hard to test in store, so I'm asking this community - how good is the fingerprint reader on this phone?
(I'm posting this on both the Pixel 3XL and S10+ forums, apologies to those who follow both)
It works perfectly every time, both in my XL and my wife's regular 3.
@Clancy_s I have tested the fingerprint reader pretty thoroughly by having others try to unlock with theirs. It has not failed. And it unlocks quickly for me
Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using XDA Labs
Mine works great. Not sure how secure it is but I like it. One thing to remember is the new GS10 has a new finger print technology so I'd try it out in a store if possible before settling on it.
TonikJDK said:
It works perfectly every time, both in my XL and my wife's regular 3.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This. Perfect every press, and works great as a notification down-pull if you just want to check them without using two hands, or trying to stretch to reach the top.
Fingerprint unlock worked great on my Pixel 2 XL and working similarly on Pixel 3 XL also
never failed to unlock
I have had this phone since September and came from Huawei P30 Pro, before that Honor V10, Huawei P20 which had fast fingerprint sensor and worked 99% of the time first time .
I cannot believe how bad this sensor is in real use, unlock success rate is about 5% no matter how many times I delete and Reregistered all fingers.
I scan my prints and test in the setup and they are acknowledged correctly but once I start using for real to unlock the phone or approve stuff it rarely works.
I have tried all kinds of angles and strengths of press but it's useless.
Running the beta in hope of improvement but it's still useless.
Did I get a bad unit here or is Samsung just totally crap with fingerprint sensors?
Sent from my SM-N975F using Tapatalk
After you've registered your fingerprints.... re-register them to improve the accuracy of the scanner. Also, if you find it sluggish, reduce the animations in the settings...
Sent from my [device_name] using XDA-Developers Legacy app
I am reregistering prints to try and improve and after every update hoping something is better.
As said when setting up and checking it is fine but when I have to use for example with 2FA app to approve a log in it just fails "fingerprint not recognised" before eventually going to pin.
Will try the animation setting and see if that helps.
Sent from my SM-N975F using Tapatalk
for a while, the Note10+ fingerprint reader had a terrible success rate, no matter what "hacks" i used to try to make it better (i.e. multiple fingers, the "test/learning" hack, etc.) — loads of "make sure you cover the entire sensor" and "no match found" etc.
this tip might be crazy, but it does work: MOISTURIZE LIGHTLY.
100% serious.
my right thumb was not able to unlock my Note while i was working at my desk. super frustrating. looked at my hands, thought they were looking dry, so i put a dab of glycerin hand cream on and BANG: every single damn time now, regardless of whether my thumb is vertical or sideways.
I got my Note 10+ today and have spend a long time setting it up. Once I registered my prints I had not issues (unless I didn't press firmly enough on the screen). It's been fine for me thus far.
You shouldn't compare ultrasonic fingerprint sensors that are in their early stages with optical ones that have been out there for years. Ultrasonic is much more secure. And saying that success rate is only 5% means that you either have a defective unit or need to change the way you use it. I have a success rare of no less that 90%... not as accurate and quick as my old note 8 with its optical sensor but I got used to it
I've had no issues with the fingerprint sensor, before or after the update.
AM Radio said:
for a while, the Note10+ fingerprint reader had a terrible success rate, no matter what "hacks" i used to try to make it better (i.e. multiple fingers, the "test/learning" hack, etc.) — loads of "make sure you cover the entire sensor" and "no match found" etc.
this tip might be crazy, but it does work: MOISTURIZE LIGHTLY.
100% serious.
my right thumb was not able to unlock my Note while i was working at my desk. super frustrating. looked at my hands, thought they were looking dry, so i put a dab of glycerin hand cream on and BANG: every single damn time now, regardless of whether my thumb is vertical or sideways.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
heh yeah classic S10+ fingerprint reader from Samsung. I also found the same "you need to lick your finger first. Yeah, it's not a joke. " :laugh:
yep lick your finger first does actually work, if you have dry hands the scanner is mostly trash, use moisturiser/lick/damp your finger and it will work near 100% reliability. basically if you don't have clammy hands it will likely be hit and miss.
actually found myself in bars using the condensation on my drinks to help me unlock the phone, it seems an odd thing but it seems moisture in your skin is a massive deciding factor on it working.