Oppo F1 Plus review: Selfie-propelled

Performance

The Oppo F1 Plus chipset is a mid-range affair. The phone has a premium body and a price to match it at around € 400, but you can definitely get better performance for your money if you shop around with the competition. Still, The F1 Plus does offer a bit of pure performance improvements over its predecessor - the Oppo F1.

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 616 SoC has been swapped for a more productive Mediatek MT6755 Helio P10. Both have a total of eight Cortex-A53 cores, so they are not worlds apart, but the higher clock rate of 2.0 GHz does suggest an increase in speed. A clear down side to the chipset choice is the Mali-T860MP2 GPU. It struggles severely when outputting to the 1080p display. On the flip side, memory is plentiful at 4GB and storage is also a lot less confining now at 64GB plus a microSD card slot.

We put the Oppo F1 Plus through our usual testing procedure and made sure to pit it against a few other devices that either have a similar chipset or cost about the same.

First, lets look at GeekBench 3 for a pure CPU performance test. The Oppo F1 Plus did alright, but nothing really spectacular. It ties the Huawei P8 at the top of the A53-powered handsets, but comes way short of competitors that offer better cores.

GeekBench 3 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (Helio X10)
  4537
• HTC One M9
  3761
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (S650)
  3570
• LG G4 (final)
  3522
• Huawei Mate S
  3475
• Sony Xperia Z3+ final
  3402
• Huawei P8
  3380
• Oppo F1 Plus
  3242
• Oppo R7s
  3206
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  3120
• Oppo F1
  3014
• Asus Zenfone 2 ZE551ML (Z3580)
  2887
• Motorola Moto X Play
  2608

AnTuTu provides a much more complex rating of the handset and its performance. Here, we can see the Oppo F1 Plus is around the same ball park as the Xiaomi Redmi 3 and pretty close to the Zenfone 2. However, it is still dwarfed by yesteryear's flagships like the Sony Xperia Z5 Compact, HTC One (M9) and LG G4.

AnTuTu 5

Higher is better

• HTC One M9
  51427
• Huawei P8
  50876
• Sony Xperia Z3+ final
  49441
• LG G4 (final)
  48693
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (Helio X10)
  47816
• Asus Zenfone 2 ZE551ML (Z3580)
  47254
• Oppo F1 Plus
  47112
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 2
  46307
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  45348
• Huawei Mate S
  44393
• Oppo R7s
  37857
• Motorola Moto X Play
  37020

The BaseMark OS II 2.0 test, which gauges CPU, GPU, Memory, System, and Web performance, rates the Oppo F1 Plus higher, but not quite up there with the best.

Basemark OS 2.0

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (S650)
  1537
• HTC One M9
  1365
• Sony Xperia Z3+ final
  1226
• Asus Zenfone 2 ZE551ML (Z3580)
  1222
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  1160
• Huawei P8
  1112
• Oppo F1 Plus
  1092
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 2
  1063
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (Helio X10)
  1018
• Oppo F1
  961
• Oppo R7s
  930
• Huawei Mate S
  914
• Motorola Moto X Play
  809

CPU performance was decent if unspectacular, but graphics are rather disappointing. The Mali-T860MP2 GPU just isn't enough to push pixels to the 1080p panel. You should probably avoid the Oppo F1 Plus if you are big on Android gaming. Still, most casual titles, that you would pick up to pass a few minutes run without any trouble.

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• HTC One M9
  23
• Sony Xperia Z3+ final
  21
• LG G4 (final)
  15
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (S650)
  14
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  12
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (Helio X10)
  8.5
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 2
  8.5
• Oppo F1 Plus
  7
• Oppo R7s
  5.9
• Motorola Moto X Play
  5.8
• Oppo F1
  5.8
• Huawei Mate S
  5.4
• Huawei P8
  5.4

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• HTC One M9
  24
• Sony Xperia Z3+ final
  21
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (S650)
  14
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  12
• Oppo F1
  11
• LG G4 (final)
  9.4
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (Helio X10)
  7.9
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 2
  7.9
• Oppo F1 Plus
  7
• Oppo R7s
  6.2
• Motorola Moto X Play
  6.1
• Huawei Mate S
  5.8
• Huawei P8
  5.7

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia Z3+ final
  16
• LG G4 (final)
  9.9
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (S650)
  9.1
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (Helio X10)
  4
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 2
  4
• Huawei P8
  3.4
• Oppo F1 Plus
  3.3
• Huawei Mate S
  3

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia Z3+ final
  17
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (S650)
  9.1
• LG G4 (final)
  5.6
• Huawei P8
  4.3
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (Helio X10)
  3.9
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 2
  3.9
• Huawei Mate S
  3.4
• Oppo F1 Plus
  3.3

Basemark X further reveals the disappointing reality of GPU performance from the Oppo F1 Plus. Even at medium settings, it offers far from a fluent experience and often lacks behind some of its cheaper competitors.

Basemark X

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia Z3+ final
  20767
• HTC One M9
  19848
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (S650)
  14732
• Asus Zenfone 2 ZE551ML (Z3580)
  12426
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  11798
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (Helio X10)
  8540
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 2
  8518
• Huawei P8
  6307
• Oppo F1 Plus
  6204
• Huawei Mate S
  5368
• Oppo F1
  5314
• Oppo R7s
  5302
• Motorola Moto X Play
  5032

Basemark X (medium)

Higher is better

• HTC One M9
  33789
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (S650)
  23376
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (Helio X10)
  15359
• Oppo F1 Plus
  14843
• Oppo R7s
  10637

Now putting numbers aside and turning to real-life performance we can say we are satisfied. There are some dropped frames occasionally while navigating the UI or scrolling through apps but in general the phone behaves itself and is no problem to use. We even tried a couple of heavy games like Lara Croft Go and NOVA 3 and they played smoothly so if you stick to better optimized content it's not all lost.

Heating was also under control and although the phone does get a bit warm near the top it's not particularly uncomfortable to hold.