Sometimes, competition can come from unexpected quarters, and that is what’s up with Xiaomi’s Mi5 smartphone.
The device, considered unbeatable in terms of value, caused some consternation among fans when it was priced at Rs 24,999 — the highest ever price for any Xiaomi device ever launched in India.
While normally brands like Oppo and Gionee never posed a threat to Xiaomi because they tended to price their phones more richly than Xiaomi, with Mi5, things are starting to change.
Oppo’s latest launch in India, the F1 Plus, is a case in point.
If you exempt the fact that it does not have Snapdragon 820, the Oppo F1 Plus comes very close to the Mi5 in terms of offering a decent set of specs for around Rs 25,000.
The F1 Plus, priced Rs 26,900 (with potential for discounts unlike Mi5) is built around the new mid-range chipset from MediaTek, the MT6755 or P10.
In terms of power, the Helio P10 is located above Snapdragon 616 and below Snapdragon 652, and the device should give an Antutu score of about 55,000 points.
Other than the processor, there is very little to fault the F1 Plus over.
While the Mi5 offers 3 GB of DDR4 RAM, the F1 Plus delivers 4 GB of DDR3 RAM. In other words, in terms of power, the F1 Plus is only as good as last year’s flagships, and is probably about 40% slower than the Mi5.
However, if power is not what you are looking for, the Oppo F1 Plus does offer a lot of things that could make it worth your while.
First, it has an AMOLED display unlike the Mi5, which comes with a TFT display.
Secondly, it has twice the internal storage memory at 64 GB and also supports additional memory of up to 128 GB if you swap the second SIM with a memory card. The Mi5, on the other hand, does not support any kind of extensible memory at all.
Perhaps the most interesting feature of the F1 Plus is its 16 MP front camera, dedicated to selfies. With such a powerful camera also comes quite nifty software features that make you and your friends look more handsome than you actually are.
LTE support is category 6, up from Cat 4 found in last year’s chipsets like Helio X10, and battery capacity is 2.9 Ah. It is not clear whether the Helio P10 supports VoLTE or 4G voice. The phone also comes with a fingerprint sensor.
One more plus is that since Oppo sells through brick and mortar stores, there is a likelihood of discounts unlike in case of the Xiaomi model.
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