First Look: OPPO Mirror 3

OPPO has launched its mid-range smartphone- Mirror 3 in India at a price of Rs. 16,990. The smartphone features a neat design intuitive ColorOS 2.0.1 based on Android 4.4 KitKat and some interesting camera features. We give it a spin to check what the Chinese company has to offer in this price bracket to deal with other competitors.

Bright and vivid HD display

The display is bright and can be used in day-light

The OPPO Mirror 3 features a 4.7-inch IPS HD display with a pixel density of 312ppi. Likewise previous smartphones of the company, the display on Mirror 3 is very bright, display vibrant colors and is fairly touch responsive.

While using the smartphone, we found that the display on Mirror 3 is brighter than the display of Moto G 2nd generation, has better outdoor visibility and displays clear pictures with natural colors.

A compact design that easily fits in one hand

Not sleek, but designed quite well to sit easily in one hand

Though it’s not a very sleek device, we liked the overall design as it feels quite compact and lightweight in hands (137.6 × 68.8 × 8.95mm and with 126g). The smartphone has an ergonomic arc at the back, allowing the mobile phone to fit naturally into the palm of the user's hand.

The dotted rear panel looks better than the glossy backs

Moreover the rear panel has a dotted design, which looks much better than the glossy backs found in the smartphones of this price bracket. OPPO said that the 0.5 mm embossed dots are molded three dimensionally on the rear panel after 10 printing procedures, resulting in transparent and three dimensional texture effects. And the panel is also protected by scratch-resistant UV coating.

The metallic rim adds a premium look to the smartphone

Another thing is the metallic rim that runs around the edges of the smartphones giving it a premium look.

The 8 MP rear camera with LED flash packs some interesting features

The OPPO Mirror 3 features an 8 MP rear camera with SONY IMX179 BSI sensor. It has a pixel size of 1.4µm, sensor size of 1/3.2 inches and an aperture of F/2.0. The front is equipped with a 5 MP camera, which comes with Beautify function to enhance the selfie experience.

The camera UI is clean and results in sharp pictures

OPPO has always tried to innovate and deliver something new with its camera modules. The company said that the Mirror 3 comes with Pure Image Engine, which utilizes PI 2.0+ technology to give some amazing results. We liked the camera performance in day-light conditions as the pictures taken displays natural and vivid colors. The images are sharp and even after zooming the shot pictures, the detailing is quite good and pixilation is very minute.

Various modes in the camera UI, PI 2.0+ technology

The PI 2.0+ technology brings some interesting tweaks to the OPPO Mirror 3. There is Double Exposure, which overlaps two pictures to create a dreamy effect. You have the HDR mode to balance the different lighting conditions. The Expert mode allows to control the exposure, ISO, color tone, etc. Then you can capture the light trails with the Slow Shutter mode. There is also a selfie mode, which comes with Beautify 3.0 that integrates modes such as natural, fair, and rosy to enhance the skin tone.

64-bit processor delivers powerfull performance

The OPPO Mirror 3 is powered by a 1.2 GHz 64-bit Quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8916 chip which were able to load applications without any delays. It also has Adreno306 graphics processor to offer a smooth gaming experience. The smartphone is backed by a 1GB RAM to handle multitasking.

64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon SoC inside for smooth computing

The smartphone comes with the OPPO’s fast charging technology and the 5V-2A charger can charge the Mirror 3 to full power within just 90 minutes, which we found to be quite accurate. The 2000 mAh battery can be charged in a short time than the other smartphones lacking fast charging. Moreover, the smartphone lasted for 16 hours on a moderate usage which is not bad.

Dual SIM card dual standby 

The 2000 mAh battery, dual SIM card and microSD card slots

As you can see in the picture, the rear panel of OPPO Mirror 3 houses two slots for dual Micro SIM cards and one on the above for a microSD. There is 8 GB in-built storage that is expandable up to 128GB via microSD card, which is quite a fair deal at this price point.

The Color OS 2.0.1 looks neat and refreshing

The OPPO Mirror 3 is powered by Android 4.4-based ColorOS 2.0.1, which is visually appealing and is one of the best looking customised OS we have used. However, it’s not very stable as there are frequent lags and unresponsiveness during the usage. We hope a minor software update from the company will fix that.