Oppo N1 mobile review

A giant when it comes to size
Oppo N1 is a humongous 5.9 inch phablet that is not easy to carry around even though the company has tried its best to streamline its size and dimension. The device is equipped with full HD display, quad-core chipset with 2 GB RAM, revolutionary 13 MP camera (we'll come to that in while), big size battery, internal storage and some nifty gesture support along with handy remote.

Design and Performance
One cannot question Oppo's product strategy with N1. It is a well built device covered under mixture of top quality plastic screening coated underneath matte body that comes in white color (black option would have been nice). The display is a sheer delight and thanks to its size the viewing angles pose no issues too. We would have liked the Snapdragon 800 chipset instead of 600 make but that seems to make no difference to the fluidity of the UI being used by N1 called Color OS. However, the said OS does take a large chunk of space on phone that limits usable space to less than its allotted.

Old Android, new look
The interface is refreshing, well designed and gives Android 4.2 Jelly Bean a whole new look that we like. Moving ahead, the sheer weight and size of N1 feels well balanced out as even at 5.9 inch, it weighs a manageable 213 grams which may be heavy but not a burden and not meant for single hand use at all. Even if you do find it heavy Oppo has added O Click remote along with N1 to make sure crucial aspects of life are not missed out just because of its size. One can click pictures, control music and track the device in case it gets lost or misplaced. All this connectivity happens via Bluetooth. During our usage we found out that O-click has range of around 5m from the device.

Versatility comes to fore
Now coming to the most interesting part about N1, its 13 MP rotatable camera which makes N1 the first smartphone to sport a dual-facing camera with flash that can be rotated up to 206 degrees which makes clicking pictures at impossible angles happen for real. While the size of N1 might hamper such freedom but the rotatable feature makes the camera highly resourceful and capable but not up to mark with its quality that one expects at this price especially in low-light conditions. In terms of performance, the N1 comes quite close to match the likes of Galaxy S4 and HTC One (fig) which speaks volume about N1 being a competent device.

Even in the battery segment, N1 gave us no sign of letting down and managed to last our tests (running HD videos on Wi-Fi at full brightness) for more than 13 hours which implies it can last for more than a day and half.