When Oppo N1 was first announced to the world last year, its rotating camera was pretty much the talk of the town. The idea of having such camera is quite interesting since it allows users to utilize the same high resolution 13-megapixels camera for both rear shots and front-facing selfies.
Fast forward to last week, the Chinese manufacturer has upped the ante by revealing the successor to Oppo N1 in the form of Oppo N3. Despite featuring a smaller 5.5-inch full HD IPS display (the N1 has 5.9-inch full HD IPS display), the N3 in general features plenty of improvements over its predecessor.
For example, the N3 has a sharper display than N1 with a pixel density of 403ppi. Additionally, the device is also powered by a more powerful processor, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 MSM8974AA which comprised of a 2.3GHz Krait 400 quad-core CPU and Adreno 330 GPU. Furthermore, the N3 also comes with support for microSD card which was not available on N1. However, the amount of RAM in N3 is still identical to N1 at 2GB and there is only internal storage option for N3 which is 32GB.
Another noticeable differences than N3 has is the notification strip light that Oppo has installed into N3’s hollowed underside, a feature that also can be seen on Find 7. At the same time, the N3 is also slightly thicker than N1 at 9.9mm but nevertheless, the smartphone is somehow still 21g lighter than its predecessor.
Pre-installed with ColourOS 2.0 which is based on Android 4.4, the N3 is also a dual-SIM LTE device which supports a combination of micro-SIM and nano-SIM. You don’t usually see such feature on a high end smartphone but then again, there is one catch though: users are not able to use microSD card if they choose to insert nano-SIM into N3 since both cards somehow used the same card slot.
Of course, the main highlight of N3 would the device’s motorized rotating camera. Utilizing a step motor from Schneider Electric that is said to be a world’s first, the movement of the camera can be controlled in so many ways including swiping up or down on the phone’s display or through the Touch Access feature within the fingerprint scanner at the back of the phone.
Alternatively, users can also choose to use the bundled O-Click 2.0 Bluetooth Remote Control or even their own hands to position the camera to their liking. The camera is even able to rotate itself in auto panorama mode, which is quite a sight to behold.
Draped in faux leather, the camera also features a 1/2.3-inch 16 megapixels CMOS sensor that was sourced from a California-based company called OmniVision Technologies. Alongside the sensor, Oppo has also included a F2.2 lens from Schneider Kreuznach as well as a dual LED flash setup.
Just like any other smartphones out there, camera hardware alone doesn’t get the job done as image processing technology plays a vital role as well. For N3, the responsibility falls on Pure Image 2.0 Plus which also provides multiple photography modes that N3 users able to utilize including the Ultra HD 64-megapixels image stitching, beautification, HDR, and many more.
Here are some image samples from N3 under the normal mode but do note that they might not represent the final retail product since the device we used were a demo set at N3’s global launch event:
To complete the package, the N3 is built with a 3000mAh battery together with the support for VOOC fast charging technology that was first introduced with Find 7. In case you are not familiar with it, the technology allows the battery on selected Oppo smartphones to be charged up to 75% in only 30 minutes and it is not just a mere claim either as we have tested it out before with Find 7. Each N3 is accompanied by the newly-designed VOOC Mini charger which is smaller than the original VOOC charger but still able to get the job done according to Oppo.
As far as first impression concerned, it seemed like Oppo might have managed to surpass the standard that it has set with N1. Of course, it is still too early to say since we only spent very little time with the device during its global launch in Singapore last week. So, let’s hope we will get to see the device once again and give it a proper review very soon.
The new Oppo N3 is expected to arrive in Malaysia by the end of the year with an expected price of between RM 1998 to RM 2098. To learn more about the device, head on to global.oppo.com.
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