Gadgetory

about a year ago Alpo tried to tack what I call the front facing camera conundrum but while there was a sound idea it just wasn't very well executed and now they have come back with a new iteration that has a motor in the rotating camera is it enough to up your selfie game well it's Josh regard from Android Authority what's going on everybody and this is the Oppo and three anyone familiar with oppa will recognize their design language here in the n3 made even better with the smaller form factor than the original and one but I think its design might be a little bit polarizing obviously the 5.5 inch screen size puts this phone squarely in the camp of similarly sized flagship devices and that's a very welcome change and a weighty heft keeps this phone feeling quite sturdy as well but the very aspects of the phone champions might stand out a little too much we'll start with the Marquis rotating camera which has a textured plastic feel to it that seems out of place compared to the rest of the device that is made of a smooth plastic the skyline notification light down on the bottom might be viewable from the front and back this time but if you look at it it kind of looks somewhat like a hitch or a tiny handle of sorts on the bottom and the O touch area on the back though now a great fingerprint scanner is outlined in a rather jarring silver frame making room for all of these features means they had to move a lot of the elements to the sides and while I don't much mind having the headphone jack on the top right as you can see here the microUSB charging port is on the bottom left and as you can see here it's just a little bit odd to use while charging ultimately the m3 has a clean look that is punctuated by silver linings and some very obvious additions though the highlight for me was its feel overall a distinct line throughout the frame adds a very tactile element to the grip and though a larger bezel around the screen doesn't always hope with the handling the side-to-side reaching is now much better when compared to the original and one because of the overall smaller screen size personally I enjoy the way Oppo made the n3 it's almost like a bare-bones of a powerful computer that is generally unassuming in its looks but does go out of its way to accentuate its own capabilities the 5.5 inch IPS screen brings 1080p solution with 403 pixels per inch though its size is just outside the realm of comfort in one hand it falls in line with plenty of the more well-known flagships of similar size due to their screens in good conditions the colors are adequately attractive and the sharpness is where it should be across the board and all the viewing angles are pretty good too Oppo opted for capacitive keys in the n3 for navigation opening up the effect of real estate on the screen for whatever games or videos you might be enjoying but I had the most trouble with the screen how in broad daylight as this IPS performer that should bring good brightness is easily shunted by direct sunlight even at the highest possible settings I had issues seeing what was going on and really that was the only big flaw unfortunately for this screen underneath the hood the performance of the oppo n3 is supported by the Snapdragon 801 backed by the Adreno 330 and two gigabytes of RAM and this is a package that at this point might be getting a little long in the tooth color OS might not be the smoothest experience as it lacks a certain coherency in its navigation but the total time getting in and out of applications didn't suffer due to his power the only times I had trouble getting in and out of places was due to the somewhat small capacitive keys that aren't always reliable to use and then there were some stutters in the loading of the recent apps screen but in other respects like in gaming the processor proves that it can still hack it and thus the n3 benefits in Hardware the list of features is pretty significant with the n3 not even counting the rotating camera which we will get to later the skyline notification light starts it off and now it is viewable even when the phone is faced down thanks to a second window on the back my only problem with it is the same as it was for previous iterations of this the light only glows one color a bright white in this case sound quality from the bottom outed speaker is pretty standard and it's adequate loudness can be enhanced via the Mac's audio application it is a full equalization suite that I ended up using mostly for a nice bass boost when using headphones call quality was actually a bright spot as the speaker on the rotating unit produced very loud and clear audio without any peaking and calls weren't dropped on the t-mobile network though I will say that Internet connectivity on its LTE network was a little bit spotty at times as we make our way up to the rotating camera the O touch area centered on the back now brings a fingerprint scan this is the type of scanner that we tend to really like the touch version rather than swiping and it's positioning definitely helps its usage the out touch is also a button and after you set up the fingerprint scanner unlocking the n3 means simply pressing down that button and then holding your finger there for a quick scanning this security can be used for unlocking apps as well you can still swipe along the Oh touch to control things like the camera rotation but pressing down to take a picture while in the camera was used for more often even if its appearance might be a little bit questionable ultimately the ODE touches function is undeniable and of course the o-click accessory comes standard with the package and I have done a full feature focused video on its capabilities build quality might be somewhat lacking especially in its cheaper plastic construction but it has been able to withstand my punishment thus far a far-away directional circle now allows for controls on music as well as in the rotation of the camera which does help when you need to think outside the box to get a good shot off it comes free with the n3 which is great but some connectivity and Bluetooth range issues take away some of its luster as a true phone location device when you need to find your phone but you still have to use the phone to reconnect the Oh click to it and of course in battery life the opal entry has to rely on a 3000 milliamp hour battery unit inside for longevity unfortunately it kind of just doesn't cut it on average I got about twelve hours on the oppo n3 with the screen on time being just about around three-and-a-half hours every single time 16 hours on average is possible with the n3 as long as your usage goes down a little bit but you can also get there by relying on the power saving features which actually are a bit too aggressive on processing power and display brightness in general thankfully though luke fast charging returns and this time you won't need that large tethered brick a more conventional adapter in cord combo is used but due to a couple of extra pins in the connector that opal likes to use you have to use this combo to get about 65 percent battery life back in half an hour which in my case was the experience and now we can finally talk about the rotating camera which now has a motor built in for automated movements while the original n1 camera was made to withstand a lifetime of rotations I do question how long this small motor powering this cam will last thankfully you can always rotate the camera yourself even if this happens obviously the rotation can be obstructed like when the phone is lying on a table so positioning the phone properly in general is important but otherwise the motor has worked just fine even if I find it to be just a little bit slow the application brings quite a few features in what at first looks like a simplistic interface until you swipe up from the shutter release a bunch of different modes appear including the returning Ultra HD that takes a huge photo for a moderate increase in detail capturing the D focus mode is also available but the manual mode also allows you to set the focus point in your photo which I always find much more ideal and to take advantage of the auto rotation in the camera the auto panorama takes out the guesswork in moving the camera yourself it works pretty well especially when stitching won't pose a big issue in your shot rotating the camera can be done with swipes and holds on the viewfinder or via the rotation button for a quick switch now a picture quality turned out pretty good at least to me I enjoyed what came out of this camera about 70% of the time what I noticed was that the settings for the front-facing mode were different from the rear-facing mode though mostly in color saturation has the self-portraits tended to be bluer on the white balance scale low-light performance takes an expected hit but the dual LED flash is available for usage unfortunately it just wasn't ideal for self-portraits because it tends to flood the subject on top of the exaggerating Beauty mode and in video modes the bitrate could have used a bump up for better quality movies but ultimately it's the poor audio capture in these videos that were more of a bummer but for general photography out in the wild I thought the entities camera was a pretty good performer especially in the rear orientation where everything from portraits to landscapes had good detail and nice colors the entries camera isn't perfect but it does improve the selfie game more than other phones that tried to tackle the same problem and aside from let's say the poor video implementation this is actually a camera I'm pretty satisfied with as a daily companion and finally in software color OS returns in this somewhat updated version and as we've established in the past it's not really everyone's cup of tea the obvious holes in the general Android experience are the lack of an Abbe drawer and some better transitions in and out of the various elements color OS takes on a more ethereal appearance with more muted colors but some flashy features depending on your theme media pages for example bring attractive looking ways of controlling music and pictures what'd I miss from previous color OS iterations is the gesture panel that came down from the left side of the notification drop-down you can still perform the same types of gestures on the standby off screen though like DoubleTap in to wake or drawing a circle to access the camera now the way color handles the recent apps screen isn't my favorite to be honest as it has a list from left to right that isn't as responsive as I want it to be and the notification drop-down shows many of the features available via a swipe down meaning you have to pinch out to expand your notifications all of this is customizable via a theme store that is actually quite robust so you can get color OS looking just the way you want it to admittedly color OS is not the most polished operating system especially when it comes to which translations but it has gone a lot better in previous iterations I do see a lot of people putting on third-party launchers on this particular phone and that's not really a bad thing but if you stick with color OS it is far from the worst Android iteration I've ever used though the entry isn't available online just yet for the West we have been told that it will come in at around six hundred and forty nine dollars which is a pretty standard price but still a bit lower than some of the higher profile flag ships out there as I stated already the n3 smaller size from its original counterpart makes it fall in line with the flagship class though it's always worth noting that the entry is the only one available now with a rotating camera and so there you have it the oppo n3 oboes answer to the front facing camera conundrum while we are still waiting for a perfect camera experience that may still seem quite a bit far off the oppo n3 manages to do quite well and improve on an idea that was not as well executed in the original attempt the experience of using the n3 which includes the O touch and the O click accessory proved to be enjoyable and comparable to its mainstream competitors as it stands right now you can't get any other phone that is quite like the n3 and that's part of its appeal it is stylish to a fault and yet opus n3 also managed to succeed in making the unique features get the essentials right the motorized camera comes in handy at times but it isn't the dealmaker here what makes the n3 such a compelling package is that it improves on all that made the previous iteration different I give the n3 one of our editors Choice Awards for that reason because if you want something unique without sacrificing quality well the entry just might be the phone you've been waiting for as always thank you guys very much for watching and I hope you enjoyed this review of the oppo n3 it is a unique phone and that is most of its appeal but luckily even with that motorized camera it's only one part of what happens to be one of the best packages that I think Oppo has put out yet you can stay tuned for even more coverage from us and the wonderful team here at Android Authority and stay tuned for CES as it is right around the corner and we're gonna have a log great coverage for you from there until then drop us some likes in our videos don't forget to subscribe if you haven't already and remember that an Verna Thornton comm is your source for all things Android