Oppo gets into the budget smartphone space with Neo 3 launch on Flipkart at Rs 10,990

After bringing its high-end models Find 7 and 7a to India, Oppo has launched the Neo 3 budget smartphone in India through its retail partner Flipkart. Priced at Rs. 10,990, the Neo 3, will sit slightly ahead of the Oppo Joy in the company’s portfolio.

The dual-SIM (GSM+GSM) Oppo Neo 3 mirrors the specs of the Oppo Neo in some departments. The camera megapixel count, the processor, display size and resolution are identical to the Neo. It features a 4.5-inch display with a FWVGA (480×854 pixel) resolution, which sounds decent, but there are phones with much higher resolution display in this price range these days. Case in point, the Xiaomi Redmi 1S, which goes on sale on Tuesday.

A dual-core 1.3GHz processor (unspecified chipset) runs the show and there’s 1GB of RAM on board too. That combination will power the Oppo custom UI running on top of Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean. A 5-megapixel camera sits on the back along with an LED flash, and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera.

Oppo’s proprietary ColorOS is slightly better than what Gionee has to offer, but its not all that different in terms of functionality. There’s 4GB of inbuilt storage that can be expanded via a microSD card to up to 32GB. The Oppo Neo 3 comes with 3G, Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Direct, GPS/ A-GPS, NFC, OTG, Micro-USB, and Bluetooth 2.1. Finally, it packs in a 1900mAh battery, though Oppo has not mentioned any rated battery life.

Oppo Find 7 Now Exclusively Available Online via Flipkart

Oppo India on Tuesday announced a partnership with Flipkart to sell its smartphone devices on the e-commerce platform.
The Chinese smartphone manufacturer said the company's entire range launched in India thus far, will be available to online customers via Flipkart from Tuesday. Notably, this list includes the Oppo Find 7 (Review | Pictures) - famous for its QHD display - which is now exclusively available via Flipkart.

Commenting on the partnership, Mr. Tom Lu, CEO, Oppo Mobiles India, said "We have been striving to come closer to our customers and become a part of the society. With more and more consumers going online, having a digital presence has become a must. Flipkart is definitely one of the most popular shopping platforms with a very loyal customer base and by partnering with them, we are sure Oppo's smartphones will reach out to more customers. With our products, Indian customers will get a chance to experience the best in innovation, the way many customers have enjoyed globally."

Besides the famous Oppo N1 and the Oppo Find 7 smartphones, the brand's current India portfolio includes the Oppo R1, Oppo Find 5 Mini, Oppo Neo, Oppo Yoyo, Oppo Joy, Oppo Neo 3, Oppo Find 7a and the Oppo N1 Mini that was launched earlier this month at Rs. 26,990.

The Oppo Find 7 was launched alongside the Find 7a in June, though the former only became available on retail shelves in July.

Oppo Find 7 review: Great design and stunning display, but poor battery life

Oppo might still be a relatively unheard of brand for many but for those who’ve used their products will attest to the high standards of build quality, right down to their budget offerings. So far we’ve seen the N1, Joy and even had a go at the R1 and Find 5 mini. Even though all fall in very different price brackets, the stellar build and attention to detail has never failed to impress.



Today, we have the flagship Find 7 with us, which is available in a slightly cheaper variant called the Find 7a, sans the Quad HD display. Priced much lower than most current flagships with the same hardware, can the Oppo Find 7 find its way into the hands of those looking for a capable flagship on a budget?

Design and Build
The Find 7 has a plastic chassis but manages to feel every bit as premium as you’d expect a flagship to be. It’s quite slim at 9.2mm but a bit on the heavier side at 171g. The weight is evenly distributed however throughout the phone and it sits well in your hand no matter which way you hold it. The bezel is also incredibly thin which gives the illusion of all-screen.

The Find 7 still uses capacitive buttons for navigating the menu but we found the backlighting to be rather insufficient. The back cover has a microscopic chequered pattern, which is only noticeable once held. It offers some amount of grip when held though, which is nice. We also have a 13MP shooter and dual-LED flash combo in the back.

The party piece of the Find 7 is the Quad HD, 5.5-inch display which is stunning to say the least. The brightness level is really good as well and is easily legible under sunlight. While the increased pixel density isn’t immediately discernable, it’s definitely one of the sharpest around.

Features
The Find 7 runs on the same Colour OS that we’ve seen on previous Oppo phones. This heavily modified version of Android runs absolutely smoothly and is one of the best skins out there in terms of functionality. You can customise the look by switching between different themes as well.

The phone is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 SoC, running at 2.5GHz. The Quad HD display version comes with an extra helping of RAM bringing the total up to 3GB. There’s also double the onboard storage at 32GB which is expandable further up to 128GB. Looking at the benchmarks, it’s easy to see that the Find 7 is every bit as good as the established brands, if not better.

We had a slight issue with the auto-brightness however which wasn’t very consistent when moving from dark to bright areas. Also, in complete darkness, the screen is simply too bright for comfortable viewing and you have to manually lower the brightness.

Media
Media playback is very good and the Find 7 has a very loud speaker. Even at minimum volume, it sounds as if it’s at sixty percent. This  can be quite annoying at times, especially in office environments. The music player is pretty slick and we get sounds enhancements from Waves MaxxAudio. You can choose from a list of presets or customise it yourself.

Connectivity
The Find 7 supports LTE and quad-band 3G and 2G. Other features include Wi-Fi ‘n’, Bluetooth v4.0, NFC, GPS and GLONASS. We’re missing Wi-Fi ‘ac’ here, which has become standard on high-end phones. There are plenty of productivity apps built-in like file manager and more.

Camera
This one packs in a 13MP camera in the back and a 5MP shooter in the front. Both feature an f/2.0 aperture which means you’ll be able to capture good low-light shots. The user interface has been heavily modified as well with plenty of more options added. Apart from slow shutter mode which we first saw in the N1, the Find 7 can also shoot in RAW.

Thanks to the beefed-up CPU, 4K video is also possible as well as 1080p at 60fps. Image quality is pretty good and phone is very snappy when it comes to focussing speed and saving an image.

Battery life
This version of the Find 7 packs in a 3000mAh battery but even that’s not enough to deliver good battery life. Compared to the G3, which had a similar screen and battery, the Find 7 drains its battery far more quickly and the main culprit is the display. The phone also lacks LG’s enhancements like Graphic RAM, which all help in prolonging battery life. You’ll be able to get through the day on a single charge with nominal use but use the screen or the camera too much and battery life goes for a toss.

Verdict and Price in India
The Oppo Find 7 is priced at Rs 37,990 which seems like good value at first when you factor in the Quad HD display. However, we feel the Find 7a makes more practical sense. Not only is it quite a bit cheaper, you also get a regular Full HD display, which shouldn’t impact battery life as much.

Rest of the specifications are more or less the same, which makes it a good alternative to the Nexus 5. If you’re dying to spend upwards of Rs 35,000 however, then we recommend the Samsung Galaxy S5 instead.

PRICE

₹37,990

Oppo N1 mini featuring quad-core processor unveiled in India for Rs 26990 today

The Oppo N1 mini was scheduled to land in India today and sure enough, it has been officially unveiled with a price tag of Rs 26990 stuck to it. The company celebrated the launch of the smartphone by holding a contest on Twitter and promised that the top three winners would have ‘exciting prizes’ in store for them.

Just in case you haven’t heard it umpteen times before, the Oppo N1 mini handset is by no means a small phone considering the 5-inch display nailed to its front. One of the most unique features of this handset is the rotating camera which borrows its design inspiration from the now deceasedNokia 5700 XpressMusic (second picture).

When you swing around the Sony sensor-enhanced 13MP snapper to face you in order to click a picture, the flash unit comes along with it. This automatically makes the Oppo N1 mini a greatcamera phone for those addicted to capturing selfies because we all know how awesome flash is for erasing blemishes.

The Oppo handset arrives with 2GB of RAM and a quad core processor from Qualcomm. It works on Android layered with the company’s very own Color OS and chugs along on a 2140mAh battery. The first handset from the brand to land in India was the N1, after which others like the R1, Find 7 and Joy were released.

Oppo N1 mini main specs list:

- 16GB internal memory, 2GB RAM

- 1.6GHz quad core Snapdragon 400 chip

- 5-inch 720p HD resolution touchscreen

- Android v4.3 with Oppo Color OS

- 13MP rotating camera w/ Sony sensor

- 2140mAh battery

- 148.4 x 72.2 x 9.2 millimeters

- 151 grams

The Oppo N1 mini is supposed to have hit retail availability already, though we are yet to see it on Amazon with whom the company has tied up exclusively in India over online sales.

Oppo N1 mini coming to India this month

Chinese smartphone maker Oppo is soon going to launch Oppo N1 mini, the compact variant of its Oppo N1 smartphone, in the Indian market. Just like its bigger sibling, the N1 mini also sports a rotating camera. 

According to sources, the phone will be launched this month itself. Earlier today, Oppo also posted a teaser of the phone on its Twitter and Facebook pages.

Oppo had launched the N1 mini in the Chinese market in June, pricing it at 2699 yuan(Rs 26,600 approximately). The phone sports a 5-inch(720x1280p) display. It is powered by a 1.6GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 quad-core processor and 2GB RAM.

It sports a 13MP rotating camera lens with an LED flash. The camera is capable of taking 24MP pictures through the Ultra HD mode. The phone comes with 16GB internal storage but doesn't feature a microSD card slot for expansion. It has a 2140mAh battery. The phone runs Oppo's Color OS 1.4 based on Android Jelly Bean.

In terms of connectivity, the phone supports 4G LTE, 3G, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

It's worth pointing out that Gionee also offers Elife E7 Mini, a smartphone that sports a similar rotating camera lens. The phone is powered by a MediaTek octa-core processor.

Oppo Smartphones including Find 7 To Be Sold Exclusively on Amazon India

Taking cues from the US market, which basically sells carrier-based smartphone variants exclusively via select stores, smartphone makers which are entering Indian market have also started making such innovative selling strategies to gain momentum in the market. However, it is not entirely laid like in the US but is mostly related to an exclusive partnership with an e-commerce site. 



Now one of the Chinese smartphone makers which has already entered India last year is applying this strategy to surge its sales figures. Yes, we are talking about Oppo which has recently inked a similar deal with Amazon. As per the agreement, Oppo will sell the entire range of smartphone online exclusively via Amazon India. The range would include all the mobile phones launched in 2014 including Oppo N1 and upcoming ones as well. 

With this change, those who were facing a hard time locating Oppo range at the retail shops, can now find the whole range online on Amazon.in. Moreover, it looks like on ground, Oppo is focusing more on increasing the number of service centers to take care of after sale service. 

This can be said, as Oppo currently runs in business in 12 major cities including: New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Ludhiana, Kolkata, Pune and Lucknow. 

Also reportedly, the company plans to open over 200 service centers across India in the next one year and would launch about 10 products priced below Rs 10,000 to around Rs 40,000 by the end of this year. 

Commenting on the partnership, Tom Lu, CEO, OPPO Mobiles India, said, "Consumer orientation features big on our philosophy. In today's digital age, consumers are spending a lot of time online, out of which e-commerce grabs a big share. We want Indian consumers to be able to buy OPPO smartphones from every nook and corner of the country. And Amazon India will help us do just that. OPPO's smartphones have been appreciated globally and we want to reach out to all those Indian customers who are in pursuit of higher quality products with true innovation." 

On the other hand, Samir Kumar, Director, Category Management, Amazon India, said, "We are excited to be the partner of choice for OPPO Mobiles and offer our customers an opportunity to shop for OPPO's smartphone range with ease on Amazon India. This is in line with our vision of offering customers in India a unique and wide selection of products on our platform and delighting them with a convenient, reliable and a globally trusted mobile shopping experience." 

In a related news, the Oppo Find 7 that was launched last month for Rs. 37,990 would be also available starting today. 

The latest Find 7 comes with a 5.5-inch IPS panel, Quad HD display (2560 x 1440 pixels), Gorilla Glass 3, 2.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 Quad Core (MSM8974AC) SoC, Adreno 330, 3 GB of RAM, Android 4.3 OS, 13-megapixel Sony IMX214 CMOS sensor, Dual-mode LED Flash, 5-megapixel front-facing shooter with 80 degree wide angle sensor, 4G LTE, USB OTG, Bluetooth 4.0, 5G Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, GPS, GLONASS and NFC and 3000 mAh Li-Po battery.