There are three categories of people who purchase smartphone, one who get it for an expensive price, another who gets something which is worth more or less near flagship standard smartphone and lastly one who gets a budget smartphone which is reliable. I am going to talk about the middle one which relates to people who gets a near flagship like standard smartphone with a budget below RM1200. What are the criteria that one should consider before getting a smartphone with the budget mentioned.
Display Size and Quality
This is probably the most basic but still most important feature that one should seriously consider on a smartphone. On the OPPO F1s there’s an IPS display with HD resolution which is sized at 5.5-inch. Of course you can still get a FULL HD display smartphone with similar budget, but then it will lack in other segments. A proper smartphone should be well balanced.
Storage
These days, smartphones which are offered within our desired budget always come with insufficient storage capacity. Most of them come with 16GB on board storage and to compensate and satisfy one’s need, there’s the micro SD card slot. On the OPPO F1s, there’s 32GB of onboard storage which is indeed sufficient enough offering double than the usual storage space on similar budget smartphone. Of course, there’s still the micro SD card slot on the OPPO F1s too.
Performance
I am aware that people these days tend to look down on Mediatek processors and it is regarded as one low-performing processor overall. For me the Mediatek MT6750 processor on the OPPO F1s was able to provide me a reliable yet great performance. Surprisingly there was no lag at all during my usage period. I did not even come across frame drops while gaming. I tried the Asphalt 8 and mostly on Pokemon GO. There’s another reason why this processor performed well. There’s 3GB of RAM which comes to be very handy yet a great assistant to the Mediatek processor.
Battery
Oh, tell me how important is this feature to you? Without a proper battery capacity, there won’t be great amount of satisfying hours to use a particular smartphone. The OPPO F1s comes with 3050mAh battery but missing out the VOOC fast charging feature. Instead they bundled up with a 2A output charger which charges quite fast. Usually with the current budget, there’s always 1-1.5A output charger bundled. Since OPPO decided to go with HD display on the F1s, there’s a longer screen on time as this display consumes less power and generally Mediatek processors are well known for its low power consumption.
Features
I know most smartphones nowadays are already offering fingerprint scanner feature. However, a fast and reliable one is featured on the OPPO F1s. It is extremely fast and manages to detected even when your fingers are moist. Apart from that, the OPPO F1s is capable of assigning each application to each finger. This is a very useful feature as I can unlock by using a particular finger which opens Whatsapp directly.
Some other features such as double tap to wake and sleep the phone and swipe three fingers downwards on the screen to capture screenshot are few of many useful gestures and motions that makes our life easier. I can bet with you that there are still phones who are not capable of offering such features, especially for below RM1200.
A true OPPO smartphone lover will know the power of Beautify. Its not like any other smartphones Beautification feature because the user experience is totally different. The effects and filters look very natural and does not give any fake looks. Even the highest setting for the beautification mode still gives you a natural looking photo. You can try it on any other smartphones and see the outcome.
Something that most of us want these days on a smartphone will be premium build quality. The smartphone should look expensive regardless of the pricing yet the design should be classy. You can get this combo on the OPPO F1s. Just look at the metal build quality and simplistic design. What else would you expect from a smartphone worth RM1198?
Camera
When it comes to the camera, we all definitely want a decent performer especially something that is capable of capturing sharp outdoor images. The OPPO F1s has a 13MP main camera with PDAF which help you focus fast and at the same time maintaining great sharpness. Don’t look down on this phones capability of capturing great landscapes. As for the front camera, we all know how great the 16MP front shooter gets.
Probably one of the best selfie smartphone camera out there at that price range. Definitely value for money and could deliver what you are expecting for. I am sure some of you might wonder how come some people’s selfie images are just too perfect? It’s usually from OPPO’s smartphone with Beautify and it works the best on the OPPO F1s.
The Decisive Moment
This is where we have to conclude why I have decided to choose OPPO F1s as the best value smartphone below RM1200. Not to forget its build quality which is mostly all around aluminium which gives a real premium outlook. This is definitely a great effort from OPPO as they did not budget out on the design language in order to reduce their manufacturing budget. It simply delivers everything in a single package whereby it fits the criteria of a regular user who demand everything to be near perfection although at a limited budget. There’s no doubt for this smartphone to be the top choice for users especially in Malaysia to consider. By the time I actually publish this article, I am pretty sure the statistics of sales in Malaysia for the OPPO F1s is already doing great in numbers.