Oppo Mirror 3 Review
We have found the answer to the problem through our latest midrange smartphone Oppo Mirror 3.
Oppo has provided an 8-megapixel camera in the Mirror 3 product, which is equipped with backside-illuminated (BSI) Sony IMX179 sensor. This sensor is known for its excellent performance in low light. On the other hand, the specifications of the Oppo Mirror 3 are below expectations considering its price, at least on paper. We spent some time with this device to find out why the camera performance is so good that
This product should be purchased.
Look and Design
We like Oppo’s finesse in design and attention to detail when making smartphones. Even though the design of Mirror 3 is not much different from other candybar phones, it looks more premium than its price. Most importantly, this smartphone is a little smaller, which is a pleasant change considering that we generally use phones with 5-inch or larger screens these days. We were able to take it out of the pocket very easily and use it in one hand. The reality is that the back part of the phone is slightly curved, due to which it becomes more convenient to hold it in the hands.
Oppo Mirror 3 is a compact phone. Its dimensions are 137.7×68.8×8.9mm and weight is 130 grams. The body of the phone is completely made of plastic, but it looks quite sturdy. However, cheap plastic has been used to make the power button and volume rocker on the right side.
While pressing these buttons, we felt as if they would break, the reason for this was a distinct clicking sound. The micro USB port and microphone for phone calls remain at the bottom of the phone. On the other hand, there is a 3.5mm audio port at the top of the phone. There is another microphone in the upper part which works to record voice during video capture. There is also an infrared emitter.
There are capacitive buttons at the bottom of the screen, through which one can navigate in the operating system. The earpiece, light sensor and front camera are located above the screen. The rear has a textured look, but it has a gloss coating on it, due to which it looks smooth to touch. There is a metallic ring around the camera and flash. There are seven small machine-made holes in the back of the phone for the speaker. Inside the rear cover, there is a battery compartment, two micro SIM card slots and a microSD card slot.
Specifications and software
Talking about the features, we had told that there is no new specification in Oppo Mirror 3. The phone has a 1.2GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 SoC processor, with integrated Adreno 306 graphics. The phone has 1 GB RAM and 8 GB internal storage. 8GB may seem small to you, but you can expand it up to 128GB via microSD card. With this Mirror 3 through micro USB port
Can act as USB host. All these specifications are not so great, because other smartphones priced lower than this are coming with Snapdragon 410 SoC processor and 2 GB RAM is a common feature these days.
The 8-megapixel rear camera of Mirror 3 has an aperture of f/2.0, 5P lens and blue light sensor. The 5 megapixel front camera can be used to take selfies. Only one SIM card can be used to connect to a 3G network. Talking about other connectivity options, the phone has Infrared, Bluetooth 4.0 and Wi-Fi a/b/g/n options. The phone has a 2,000mAh battery.
The 4.7-inch IPS LCD panel has a resolution of 720×1280, while its pixel density is 312ppi. There is Corning’s Gorilla Glass 3 protection on top of the screen. The display of the phone is bright and the color saturation is also fine. The screen does a good job at viewing angles and in direct sunlight. Anyway, Oppo has rarely disappointed with the display of its phones. But one thing is also, some people may say that at this price
Compared to other smartphones in the range, the display specifications of this phone are below average.
Oppo has used its Color OS 2.0 skin on top of Android 4.4.4 KitKat. Not using Lollipop operating system is a big drawback of Mirror 3. Color OS 2.0 is quite polished, clean and light, but it comes nowhere close to matching Android. Color OS 2.0 has made some improvements and added some tricks, but these are not exclusive to this product. For example, we can see the status bar
In this we can monitor the speed of our 3G connection. The gesture and motion tricks also worked well most of the time. Oppo has also given the option to the users to change the themes as per their wish.
camera
The camera app has a variety of features and modes available within the app itself, which users can add and remove as per their preference. HDR, Panorama and Expert modes are also present. However, this app has unique features like Colorful Night, Double Exposure and GIF. The color of photos taken in low light can be further improved through Colorful Night Mode. Through double exposure you can take two photos and expose one to the other.
Can be superimposed on it, this is used to give artistic effect. You can create moving pictures through GIF mode. Every detail was visible in photos taken in normal light, and they were not pixelated. However, the overall tone was warmer than we would have liked.
You will need to use HDR to prevent the photo from being overexposed. Tip: Contrary to popular belief, you get better photos in the shade than in bright sunlight.
The BSI sensor does its job well in low light and we got some great shots. Noise can be felt in these photos, but it is much better than the photos taken with the camera of other smartphones. In fact, the low light performance of the camera is on par with the Huawei Honor 6 Plus and that is a huge achievement in itself.
The 5 megapixel front camera does a great job while taking selfies, there is no need to apply beautify effect. The 1080p video captured from the camera did not live up to expectations, especially as many areas were underexposed despite reasonable lighting.
performance
We have no complaints about performance, but the Mirror 3 isn’t exactly a powerhouse. It performs basic tasks well but as soon as any intensive task is given, it starts lagging. This shortcoming was clearly visible while playing the heavy graphics Asphalt 8 game.
In AnTuTu and GFXbench tests, the Mirror 3 scored 19,840 and 10,974 respectively, which is slightly lower than the test results of other smartphones built on the SoC. The phone scored 5,236 in the graphics benchmark test 3DMark Ice Storm, while the phone gave a result of 9.5fps in the GFXbench test.
Mirror 3 did not face any problem in playing videos. There were no problems playing even heavily encoded sample footage at 40Mbps. The speaker of the phone is as loud as required and the earphones that come with the phone are sufficient for general use. The voice quality during phone calls is good and we did not face the problem of call drops. The phone’s battery lasted 8 hours and 1 minute on the video loop battery test, which
The phone’s 2,000mAh battery capacity was a bit of a surprise.
our decision
The price of Oppo Mirror 3 is Rs 16,990, which is slightly higher than the value of the product. However, the primary camera can capture excellent photos in low light and this feature should attract many buyers. Buy this phone only if you want to use it for taking photos or you want to use the phone as an infrared remote control for your other electronic devices.
