OPPO Announces The F1 Plus, A Super-Slim Phone With A 16MP Front Camera That Doesn't Look Anything Like An iPhone, No Sir It Doesn't

Look, Chinese phone manufacturers, we need to have a talk. I know trademarks, copyrights, patents, and all manner of intellectual property are played kind of fast and loose over there. But when even your legitimate companies follow Apple like a bunch of multi-million-dollar ducklings, it's not poking any holes in the old "iPhone clone" argument. Case in point: OPPO's shiny new F1 Plus, a phone that has some fantastic design and hardware and could certainly stand on its own merits... that just happens to look like someone took an iPhone 6 Plus and put it through a photocopier a few dozen times.

The oh-so-pretentious introduction video doesn't do it any favors. Sorry, OPPO design team, you did not climb to the top of a stock footage mountain and stare soulfully at the distant ridges to get inspiration for the F1 Plus. Not unless that mountain was made out of paper from the various depositions and summons you've been sent from Cupertino.

And you know what? That's a crying shame, because on paper the F1 Plus is a really cool device. Its all-metal body is just 6.6mm thin, the 1.66mm side bezels are tiny, it has a 16MP front-facing camera with a 2.0 F-stop lens (for capturing every single pore in your face), and it has some neat design touches like a dual-SIM tray where the second slot can also accept MicroSD cards. Its 5.5-inch AMOLED screen looks nice, even if we don't know what kind of resolution it has, and 4GB of RAM plus 64GB of storage are more than generous for a price of €389/£299. At that price a MediaTek processor (2GHz Helio P10, if you're wondering) and a somewhat middling 13MP rear camera seem like fair trade-offs. The battery is a bit light at 2850mAh, but it's understandable for such a slim device.

All that makes the iPhone design, both in the hardware and in OPPO's rather shameless Color OS Android skin, all the more depressing. Even the fingerprint scanner uses Apple's home button design, with only a tiny bit of elongation in the name of differentiation. If you'd like one, it's scheduled to go on sale in India, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa later this month, with European sales starting in May. At the moment there are no plans to sell the F1 Plus in the Americas.

PRESS RELEASE

OPPO Launches F1 Plus, Slim-Bezel Stunner with 16-MP Front Camera

New Delhi, Apr. 5, 2016 — Sporting a 16-MP front-facing camera, the OPPO F1 Plus launched at an event in New Delhi today. As the second device in the photography-focused F series, the F1 Plus blurs the boundaries between mid-range and premium, and takes the “Selfie Expert” title of the hot-selling F1 to an all new level.

Featuring an eye-catching all-metal unibody, VOOC Flash Charge, 64 GB of storage, 4 GB of RAM and lightning-quick fingerprint recognition, the F1 Plus is also the first device to feature a brand-new technology in OPPO’s arsenal: the Hi-light Camera, which ensures that users can take clear, bright and colorful selfies in any light condition.

In addition to India, the F1 Plus is set to land in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and North Africa this month, with online sales on the way for European consumers in May.

OPPO F1 Plus

A Beauty to See and to Hold

The F1 Plus has a stylish all-metal unibody and sits amazingly light in the hand. At 151.8x74.3x6.6mm, it weighs only 145 grams, a feathery figure for its size. Sporting a 5.5-inch AMOLED display with 4th Generation Gorilla Glass, the device also makes smart use of ultra-thin 1.66-mm bezels to give it a look and feel that could easily be mistaken for a smaller 5.2-inch phone.

The OPPO F1 Plus has ultra-thin 1.66 mm bezels

OPPO designers gave the F1 Plus a metallic light-catching edge that shows off the phone’s flowing lines. The edge is both stylish and functional, perfectly conforming to the contours of the hand to give the F1 Plus an effortless “Comfort Grip”.

Comfort Grip

Hi-light Camera: You in the Best Light

The F1 Plus’ 16 MP front-facing Hi-Light Camera has been purpose-built for catching clear, vivid photos in any lighting condition. Paired with the new Selfie Panorama feature, Beautify 4.0 and the front-facing Screen Flash, the Hi-Light Camera will allow users to get the perfect shot on the first snap, anywhere and anytime.

The OPPO F1 Plus features a custom-built Hi-light Camera

Great photos aren’t made by high pixel counts alone. The F1 Plus’ unique strength in front-facing shots lies in its special custom-built sensor. It arranges pixels in a unique pattern designed to maximize image quality, resulting in photos that are clear, bright and strikingly rich in color. Meanwhile, a large f/2.0 aperture increases the amount of light that enters the camera, and ISOCELL technology works to ensure that all of it hits the sensor just where it should.

All told, the F1 Plus’ Hi-light Camera is four times more sensitive, has twice the dynamic range, and captures shots with four times less noise, compared to cameras without the technology. As a result, the Hi-light Camera produces exceptionally clear and bright images, and excels at low-light, back-lit and night-time photography.

In addition to the uniquely designed hardware, OPPO has also upgraded the F1 Plus’s photo-processing algorithms. After six months of testing and 150 iterations, Beautify 4.0 is optimized to capture natural-looking selfies with bright, clear skin, and beautifully defined facial contours.

The new Selfie Panorama feature, perfect for capturing group photos, also debuts on the F1 Plus. With a few turns of the wrist, users can take extra-wide 120-degree front-facing photos, as the F1 Plus seamlessly combines three photos and ensures that the whole party makes it into the shot.

Rounding out the F1 Plus’ outstanding photography experience is the fast, steady and crystal-clear 13-MP rear shooter. The OPPO F1 Plus’ MediaTek Helio P10 2.0GHz, octa-core, 64-bit processor also comes equipped with the world’s first TrueBright image signal processor (ISP) engine, for enhanced color resolution and detail.

Smooth, Fast and Flexible: All-New ColorOS 3.0 and 4G Dual-SIM

The OPPO F1 Plus cruises through multitasking with the MediaTek Helio P10 and 4 GB RAM, backing it up with a generous 64 GB of storage space, which can be expanded by an additional 128 GB.

Adding to the smooth and flexible user experience is the smart SIM slot design, which offers a Nano-SIM slot, as well as an adaptable second slot that can accept either a second Nano-SIM or a microSD card for expanded memory. Both card slots support 4G and VoLTE HD voice calls.

Newly designed ColorOS 3.0

The F1 Plus is the first OPPO phone to come equipped with the all-new ColorOS 3.0. With a flat, simple design language, ColorOS 3.0 has a tidy and refreshing new look, and significantly reduces the phone’s built-in image library for increased efficiency and speed. Overall system speed has been boosted by 25% compared to ColorOS 2.1, with home screen loading speed increased by 35%, and installation speed for a host of the most popular apps increased by 41%.

Fast, Convenient, Secure: VOOC Flash Charge and Smart Fingerprint Recognition

“Charge for five minutes, talk for two hours” became an iconic slogan for OPPO in 2015 in China, driving home the practicality of the exclusive VOOC Flash Charge technology, and helping convince more than 18 million users so far to say goodbye to dead batteries. The F1 Plus, which reaches a 75% charge after just half an hour of flash charging, is set to bring the convenience and safety of VOOC to even more users around the world.

OPPO's VOOC Flash Charge adapter

What sets VOOC above other fast-charging technologies is its low-voltage approach to the problem. By adhering to the standard smartphone charging voltage of 5V, VOOC keeps the phone’s temperature low during charging, protecting the longevity of the battery and phone internals, and even allowing the user to simultaneously use their phone while they fast-charge, a function that no competitor can offer.

The OPPO F1 Plus uses a 2,850 mAh lithium polymer battery, allowing for 14 hours and 5 minutes of constant heavy use, and ensuring that the F1 Plus keeps users cruising from morning to night.

Front-facing fingerprint recognition

The F1 Plus is OPPO’s first phone to use front-facing fingerprint recognition. It’s able to recognize a fingerprint to unlock the phone in only 0.2 seconds. The fingerprint recognition system can also learn over time, gradually refining its image of the user’s fingerprint and making for an increasingly efficient and smooth unlock process.

As the newest addition in one of OPPO Camera Phone’s core 2016 product series, the F1 Plus is poised to bring a seamless user experience, as well as clear, bright and colorful photos to consumers around the world.

Specific pricing for the F1 Plus will vary by region. Customers in the EU will be able to order the device online for €389 EUR, or £299 GBP.

Last month in Bejing, OPPO launched the R9, an equivalent of the F1 Plus that will be sold in Mainland China, as well as Taiwan, Singapore and Australia.