Doogee F3 Review: Looker yes, but a keeper?


Doogee’s been talking highly about the F3 for quite some time now. The phone comes in a couple variants — the regular F3 and then the F3 Pro. Most phones in the recent months, or even the past couple years, have had 5.5-inch (or larger) screens. The Doogee F3 on the other hand has ‘only’ a 5-inch one.

So, quite clearly, the market for a phone like this is going to be fairly limited. But that also means there’s less competition, because companies hardly make 5-inch phones these days, and thus, Doogee have a good chance of making the F3 popular (if done right).

Has it been done right, however? Let’s find out.

Doogee F3 Review – Design

As I mentioned before, Doogee made a big deal about how the F3 was a ‘design first’ phone. You will also be able to purchase additional wooden and glass back covers for the phone, which according to Doogee are made in the same factory that did the StyleSwap covers for OnePlus.

Doogee F3 16

Doogee F3 (top) with the No.1 S6i (bottom)

The truth — the Doogee F3 hardly feels like something out of the ordinary. In fact, the phone resembles the No.1 S6i (Galaxy S6 clone) so much that it is virtually impossible to tell in between the two phones blindfolded.

Doogee F3 2

That said, in itself, the Doogee F3 does feel like a substantial piece of kit. That is mainly because of the added weight on the phone, a practise that a lot of new Chinese companies have adopted lately. The edges are metal, with the both sides of the phone covered in curved metal.

There is a bit of Samsung S6 in the phone, but you have to give it to Doogee for making it feel more ‘premium’ than other phones in its range. But that still doesn’t warrant a purchase solely on the ‘feel’ factor that Doogee have bet big on.

Doogee F3 7

While the phone is fairly pleasing on the eye, it does have some issues cosmetic, mainly to do with the precision with which the metal edges around the phone are cut. When you want metal around your phone, it is imperative that it is cut to precision and with as less a margin for error as possible.

Doogee F3 Review – Performance

MediaTek have been very impressive on the performance side of things right from the start of this year, when the 64-bit chips first starting appearing. It turns out that the MT6752 did better than the makers would’ve hoped for, thereby eating its own market for higher-end SoCs.

This prompted MediaTek to give the MT6752 an ‘update’ and dish out the MT6753, which in essence is a knocked down MT6752. Nonetheless, you can’t blame MediaTek for doing what they did — for what it costs (or rather, the phones based on it), the MT6753 does mighty fine.

On the Doogee F3 you get 2GB of RAM with the octa-core 1.3GHz MT6753, which makes for a fairly decent but far from flagship setup. You will be able to browse the web while being active on IM, but you can’t expect to enjoy the latest EA title at the highest settings on the phone.

Doogee F3 Review – Hardware

Doogee F3 2

The display on the F3 is a 5-inch 720p panel, which is again something you don’t get to see too often. The F3 is $149 at the time of writing this review, so you definitely expect a full HD display at that cost which unfortunately isn’t happening with the F3.

That said, the 5-inch panel on the phone is decent quality (Doogee seem to have taken care of the quality on most aspects) and you’ll probably only miss having 1080p panel when you’re looking at the specs sheet of the phone. Unlike other sub-$150 phones, the colours on this one don’t wash out, and aren’t over saturated.

Doogee F3 11

The speaker grille is a tiny little horizontal window on the rear of the phone, susceptible to being obscured each time you keep your phone on its back. The volume is OK, but the speaker lacks bass and is strictly OK only for the odd loudspeaker call.

Something my unit of the Doogee F3 suffers from is a non-clicky power button (and that has been the case from day one). Now, that is something REALLY frustrating. The power button is something you use more than a hundred times each day — and anything less than a satisfying click equals nothing but frustration. This, and the fact that the metal frame around the edges isn’t perfectly cut goes to show that Doogee have indeed cut corners in the manufacture of the F3.

Gizchina News of the week


Doogee F3 Review – Camera

Doogee F3 9

Doogee claim they’ve used a 13 mega-pixel samsung ISOCELL camera on the F3. While its hard to tell the exact model and make of this sensor just from the pictures, what I can tell you is that the camera does a very decent job at taking pictures.

IMG_20151016_164529_result

It probably doesn’t take Xiaomi Mi 4c level photos, but I’m fairly impressed with what the camera does. There’s a few different modes to choose from too, including panorama, multi angle, HDR, beauty, etc.

Swiping left will also activate the ‘Pro’ mode which will let you change settings such as exposure, ISO, etc. But there’s no manual focus and long exposure.

IMG_20151016_164556_result

Doogee F3 Camera Sample Gallery

Doogee F3 Review – ROM

The ROM on the Doogee F3 us fairly vanilla with a few additions here and there. Most notably, there’s a voice unlock app baked in to the ROM which will respond to two pre-set (by you) words, such as ‘OK, Doogee’ or for example, ‘Hello, Smartphone’. The feature works well-ish, and also fires a short alarm and an ‘I’m here!’ tune when the phone recognises your voice.

Besides voice wake up, the ROM features a power saver app, a third-party keyboard (GO Keyboard), DG Xender to send and receive files real quick, and an app locker.

Other added features include the usual you see on budget MediaTek phones, such as off-screen gestures, along with some useless ones, for e.g., wave to unlock, etc.

What is good though is that Doogee haven’t been too adventurous and have left the ROM largely untouched apart from the above mentioned additions. This means that the phone is usually very stable and does hardly suffer from any abnormal force closings, etc.

Another thing that I noticed about the ROM is something that looks like a bit of a hack. Nothing to worry about, but Doogee seem to have asked their engineers to speed up the animations, etc. so that the phone appears faster than it actually is. I remember having something similar on my desktop back in the day when every computer on the planet ran Windows XP.

Doogee F3 Review – Gallery

Doogee F3 Review – Specifications

Model Doogee F3
SIM Card Dual standby
Color White Black/
Capacity RAM: 2GB

ROM: 16GB with hybrid microSD slot

Language Multi Language
Chipset CPU: MediaTek MT6753 octa-core 1.3GHz
System Android 5.1
Screen Display size: 5-inches

Resolution: 1280 x 720 pixels

Cameras Rear:  13 mega-pixel

Front:  5 mega-pixel

Network and Wireless Connectivity 4G: FDD 1/3/7/8/20 (800 900 1800 2100 2600)

3G: WCDMA 900MHz / 2100MHz

2G: GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz

WIFI : 802.11b/g/n (2.4GHz)

Battery capacity  Non-removable 2200mAh
Dimensions 142.7 x 70 x 6.8 mm

170g weight

Doogee F3 Review – Verdict

The Doogee F3 is nice to see, good to hold… but I’m not sure how many will be sold (excuse the rhyme).

The display quality is something that will leave a good taste, but the audio and the lack of precision don’t back it up. The unsatisfying power button is another cause of concern, and I’m hoping it is only my unit that suffers from this problem.

The rest of the phone is OK; performance is up to what you will expect from a mid-range phone, and thanks to the ROM there are no real compatibility issues.

If there’s something besides the screen quality that will leave you impressed, it is probably the camera, which honestly is a sweet surprise.

In all, the Doogee F3 isn’t something I’d spent $150 on. Something to the tune of $125 or even $120 sounds a lot better. After all, there are phones like the Coolpad Note 3 in the market now that offer a lot more for a little less.

We would like to thank Jack of TinyDeal for arranging the Doogee F3 sample for review. Thanks Jack!

Disclaimer: We may be compensated by some of the companies whose products we talk about, but our articles and reviews are always our honest opinions. For more details, you can check out our editorial guidelines and learn about how we use affiliate links.

Previous First photos of the Bluboo XTouch are in (and they look rather classy)
Next ZTE's Blade S7 is another 'mid-range flagship'

106 Comments

  1. Saqib Majumder
    October 16, 2015

    nice review. btw how is the audio quality through the headphone jack compared to Letv S1 or Meizu MX5?

    • October 16, 2015

      Nope. Not comparable.

      • Saqib Majumder
        October 16, 2015

        thought as much. thanks for the feedback.

  2. Muhammad Yasir
    October 16, 2015

    i was expecting something BIG from this …

    nothing big … but its an improvement from doogee .. AT THE V.LEAST !

  3. MattD
    October 16, 2015

    Is it just my phone, or photogalleries are messed up?!

    • October 16, 2015

      They’re a little different from normal, just try swiping left or right to move between images.

      • Muhammad Yasir
        October 16, 2015

        what took u in reviewing this ?

        also … i want ur comments about this ?
        are doogee in the right direction ?

        • October 16, 2015

          “what took u in reviewing this ?” didn’t get you?

          Don’t know were Doogee’s headed, but companies like UMI and Elephone seem ahead of them at the mo

          • Muhammad Yasir
            October 16, 2015

            it took u an eternity man … why did the F3 require so much time when others dont warrant such extended periods of review durations ?!

            ELEPHONE’s better ?!

      • MattD
        October 16, 2015

        It’s not that: pics ment to be in the slideshow (or whatever it’s called) are insted one on top of the other, overwriting the text (i can see the text is below the pics)… I’m going to send a screenshot as soon as i can

      • MattD
        October 16, 2015

        Here it is a screenshot… As you can see, pics overwrite the text, that is actually below and can be seen on the sides!

        • Dan Dare
          October 17, 2015

          I get that – I have to allow cloudflare in http switchboard and it fixes itself.

  4. mf1gt3r
    October 16, 2015

    Hmmm. Am not impressed. I expected better pictures from that cam.

    • Muhammad Yasir
      October 16, 2015

      same … plus that dual flash looks useless after those results !

      • Steve B
        October 30, 2015

        check S7yler’s review on Youtube, he has got some very good results with this phone pic wise.

        • Muhammad Yasir
          October 31, 2015

          why so many conflicting reviews :/ ???

    • balcobomber25
      October 16, 2015

      That’s assuming its a real ISOCELL camera, Doogee has been known in the past to lie about specs.

    • Steve B
      October 17, 2015

      really need to see full size, these compressed web images are poor, hopefully S7yler will review it soon soon.

  5. Muhammad Yasir
    October 16, 2015

    Judgment from my Side : NO!

    NOT A KEEPER!

    P.S bonus points to doogee for finally improving tho !

    • Tajwar
      October 16, 2015

      Soo…….. not your next phone huh?

      • Muhammad Yasir
        October 16, 2015

        wording’s pretty evident …

    • Max
      October 17, 2015

      I told you this phone would habe the specs, but it is still a doogee so it maybe won’t suck gut it won’t be good either. 😀 anxiously waiting for the XTouch. O.O

      • Muhammad Yasir
        October 17, 2015

        yeah … hardware wise its a good phone but it all comes down to how every single piece performs and i find it more than just underwhelming for a $150 phone… closer to $100 and it would be better !

        lets see how xtouch is priced and performs … i just said 2 lines above, good hardware doesnt guarantee a great phone !

  6. Sirrr
    October 16, 2015

    And what about the “mighty” 2200 mAh battery?
    Or how is the GPS?
    Or 4G and wifi signal?
    Backlit capacitive buttons?
    Notification Led? How many colors?
    or…..
    or…

    • Vlada
      October 19, 2015

      Exactly. The review was mostly focusing on things which are clear from the specification and there is no need to mention them. But how the HW really behaves? We didn’t find out. Pretty useless review, unfortunately. 🙁

    • Gav
      October 19, 2015

      I just received the F3 Pro model and had its first full days use yesterday, and it lasted the full day, connected to a 4G network, (which worked well) and it lasted the full day with constant use, nothing too extensive, but web browsing, social media, calls, texts etc. The screen was on full brightness, and mine has the 1080 screen not the 720 of the one in this review, and it was all fine. It has a really good screen actually.

      • Steve B
        October 21, 2015

        A white one or one of the other versions?

  7. balcobomber25
    October 16, 2015

    Personally on a 5inch phone I would prefer a 720p display, as long as they use a quality one. The display will still look excellent at that size and it will use less far less battery.

  8. Saqib Majumder
    October 16, 2015

    nice review. btw how is the audio quality through the headphone jack compared to Letv S1 or Meizu MX5?

    • Yash Garg
      October 16, 2015

      Nope. Not comparable.

    • Saqib Majumder
      October 16, 2015

      thought as much. thanks for the feedback.

  9. Guest
    October 16, 2015

    i was expecting something BIG from this …

    nothing big … but its an improvement from doogee .. AT THE V.LEAST !

  10. MattD
    October 16, 2015

    Is it just my phone, or photogalleries are messed up?!

    • Yash Garg
      October 16, 2015

      They’re a little different from normal, just try swiping left or right to move between images.

    • Guest
      October 16, 2015

      what took u in reviewing this ?

      also … i want ur comments about this ?
      are doogee in the right direction ?

    • Yash Garg
      October 16, 2015

      “what took u in reviewing this ?” didn’t get you?

      Don’t know were Doogee’s headed, but companies like UMI and Elephone seem ahead of them at the mo

    • Guest
      October 16, 2015

      it took u an eternity man … why did the F3 require so much time when others dont warrant such extended periods of review durations ?!

      ELEPHONE’s better ?!

    • MattD
      October 16, 2015

      It’s not that: pics ment to be in the slideshow (or whatever it’s called) are insted one on top of the other, overwriting the text (i can see the text is below the pics)… I’m going to send a screenshot as soon as i can

    • MattD
      October 16, 2015

      Here it is a screenshot… As you can see, pics overwrite the text, that is actually below and can be seen on the sides!

    • Dan Dare
      October 17, 2015

      I get that – I have to allow cloudflare in http switchboard and it fixes itself.

  11. Riccardo Benzoni
    October 16, 2015

    This thing has 2 hours screen battery (not joking) and this aspect has not even been mentioned! Are you serious guys?

    • balcobomber25
      October 16, 2015

      That has to be some horrible software optimization because a 6753 and 720p display should give this thing very good battery life even with a rather small battery.

      • MattD
        October 17, 2015

        The y100 pro was announced with the same 2200mah battery, but turned out it was a 1800mah cell… I have no doubt it’s the same thing here!

      • Riccardo Benzoni
        October 17, 2015

        Battery might also be fake, we are talking about doogee, still have to find one with battery matching the exact specs. May be the same 1700mah they put in every phone.

    • MattD
      October 17, 2015

      Funny how they did the same exact thing they did with the y100 pro just days after they were catched… No doubt the real battery is smaller than the one they declared, and an unfair company is much of a deal breaker than just poor battery life, imho!

      • Riccardo Benzoni
        October 17, 2015

        I agree that doogee is a deal breaker by itself, but if we watch the device there are no doubts the battery is by far the weakest point here. I wonder how it’s possible to not write a single word about it and give 6.5, which would assume that this thing should allow you to reach the end of the day with a decent usage. And it’s not possible with this one.

        • MattD
          October 19, 2015

          First rule of buying a doogee: don’t. It’s a doogee.
          😀

    • Gav
      October 19, 2015

      I got the F3 pro yesterday, which has the same battery with a 1080P screen, I ran it at full brightness, and still got a full days use on 4G network, with medium usage. I wasn’t watching movies, or playing games etc, but it still lasted the full day no problem.
      I doubt this with the 720p screen would only have 2 hours of screen time.

      • Riccardo Benzoni
        October 19, 2015

        if you ran it at full brightness and got a full day, maybe you forgot to turn it on.

        • Domagoj
          January 2, 2016

          you fool, he meant he used phone for full day, not that screen on time was full day.

  12. mf1gt3r
    October 16, 2015

    Hmmm. Am not impressed. I expected better pictures from that cam.

    • Guest
      October 16, 2015

      same … plus that dual flash looks useless after those results !

    • balcobomber25
      October 16, 2015

      That’s assuming its a real ISOCELL camera, Doogee has been known in the past to lie about specs.

    • Steve B
      October 17, 2015

      really need to see full size, these compressed web images are poor, hopefully S7yler will review it soon soon.

    • Steve B
      October 30, 2015

      check S7yler’s review on Youtube, he has got some very good results with this phone pic wise.

    • Guest
      October 31, 2015

      why so many conflicting reviews :/ ???

  13. Steve B
    October 16, 2015

    This has had one of the longest presale times I can remember, which along with the continuous prompts and reminders mean Doogee have (pre)sold many many of these. Some resellers have sold all their allotment. The supply delay and lack of full reviews (plenty of early unboxings though, strange that) has worked well for Doogee, hope it isn’t a regular tactic.

    • balcobomber25
      October 16, 2015

      I look at the long presale and all the prompts as them having problems selling it not as them having sold many of them. The supply delay is a tactic used by all companies to try to increase demand. Xiaomi and OnePlus are infamous for this. The unboxings are usually review units which are sent out.

      • Steve B
        October 16, 2015

        Responses to questions on some resellers sites stated they had sold allocation and have too many orders to give future availability. The longer the presale, the more hype they’ve generated, the more chance to sell before (delayed) reviews possibly dampen that.

        • balcobomber25
          October 17, 2015

          You don’t know how many units were actually in their allocation to begin with. It could be a very low number per site. Doogee makes a lot of claims about half of them turn out to be true. LG is the biggest producer of 2.5d phones by a wide margin. They have been producing them since 2012 before Doogee even existed.

  14. Guest
    October 16, 2015

    Judgment from my Side : NO!

    NOT A KEEPER!

    P.S bonus points to doogee for finally improving tho !

    • Tajwar
      October 16, 2015

      Soo…….. not your next phone huh?

    • Guest
      October 16, 2015

      wording’s pretty evident …

    • Max
      October 17, 2015

      I told you this phone would habe the specs, but it is still a doogee so it maybe won’t suck gut it won’t be good either. 😀 anxiously waiting for the XTouch. O.O

    • Guest
      October 17, 2015

      yeah … hardware wise its a good phone but it all comes down to how every single piece performs and i find it more than just underwhelming for a $150 phone… closer to $100 and it would be better !

      lets see how xtouch is priced and performs … i just said 2 lines above, good hardware doesnt guarantee a great phone !

  15. Sirrr
    October 16, 2015

    And what about the “mighty” 2200 mAh battery?
    Or how is the GPS?
    Or 4G and wifi signal?
    Backlit capacitive buttons?
    Notification Led? How many colors?
    or…..
    or…

    • Vlada
      October 19, 2015

      Exactly. The review was mostly focusing on things which are clear from the specification and there is no need to mention them. But how the HW really behaves? We didn’t find out. Pretty useless review, unfortunately. 🙁

    • Gav
      October 19, 2015

      I just received the F3 Pro model and had its first full days use yesterday, and it lasted the full day, connected to a 4G network, (which worked well) and it lasted the full day with constant use, nothing too extensive, but web browsing, social media, calls, texts etc. The screen was on full brightness, and mine has the 1080 screen not the 720 of the one in this review, and it was all fine. It has a really good screen actually.

    • Steve B
      October 21, 2015

      A white one or one of the other versions?

  16. balcobomber25
    October 16, 2015

    Personally on a 5inch phone I would prefer a 720p display, as long as they use a quality one. The display will still look excellent at that size and it will use less far less battery.

  17. October 16, 2015

    At least they got the name right. F3: find next.

    • MaxPower
      October 17, 2015

      smart

  18. Riccardo Benzoni
    October 16, 2015

    This thing has 2 hours on-screen battery time (not joking) and this aspect has not even been mentioned! Are you serious guys? That’s the biggest deal breaker, not even a 4, 6.5 is crazy!

    • balcobomber25
      October 17, 2015

      That has to be some horrible software optimization because a 6753 and 720p display should give this thing very good battery life even with a rather small battery.

    • MattD
      October 17, 2015

      The y100 pro was announced with the same 2200mah battery, but turned out it was a 1800mah cell… I have no doubt it’s the same thing here!

    • MattD
      October 17, 2015

      Funny how they did the same exact thing they did with the y100 pro just days after they were catched… No doubt the real battery is smaller than the one they declared, and an unfair company is much of a deal breaker than just poor battery life, imho!

    • Riccardo Benzoni
      October 17, 2015

      Battery might also be fake, we are talking about doogee, still have to find one with battery matching the exact specs. May be the same 1700mah they put in every phone.

    • Riccardo Benzoni
      October 17, 2015

      I agree that being a doogee is a deal breaker by itself, but if we watch the device there are no doubts the battery is by far the weakest point here. I wonder how it’s possible to not write a single word about it and give 6.5, which would assume that this thing should allow you to reach the end of the day with a decent usage. And it’s not possible with this one.

    • MattD
      October 19, 2015

      First rule of buying a doogee: don’t. It’s a doogee.
      😀

    • Gav
      October 19, 2015

      I got the F3 pro yesterday, which has the same battery with a 1080P screen, I ran it at full brightness, and still got a full days use on 4G network, with medium usage. I wasn’t watching movies, or playing games etc, but it still lasted the full day no problem.
      I doubt this with the 720p screen would only have 2 hours of screen time.

    • Riccardo Benzoni
      October 19, 2015

      if you ran it at full brightness and got a full day, maybe you forgot to turn it on.

    • Domagoj
      January 2, 2016

      you fool, he meant he used phone for full day, not that screen on time was full day.

  19. Steve B
    October 16, 2015

    This has had one of the longest presale times I can remember, which along with the continuous prompts and reminders mean Doogee have (pre)sold many many of these. Some resellers have sold all their allotment. The supply delay and lack of full reviews (plenty of early unboxings though, strange that) has worked well for Doogee, hope it isn’t a regular tactic.

    • balcobomber25
      October 17, 2015

      I look at the long presale and all the prompts as them having problems selling it not as them having sold many of them. The supply delay is a tactic used by all companies to try to increase demand. Xiaomi and OnePlus are infamous for this. The unboxings are usually review units which are sent out.

    • Steve B
      October 17, 2015

      Responses to questions on some resellers sites stated they had sold allocation and have too many orders to give future availability. The longer the presale, the more hype they’ve generated, the more chance to sell before (delayed) reviews possibly dampen that.
      Plus they included the F3 in the recent claim that they are thr biggest producer of 2.5D screen phones, so they must be pretty happy with how things are going.

    • balcobomber25
      October 17, 2015

      You don’t know how many units were actually in their allocation to begin with. It could be a very low number per site. Doogee makes a lot of claims about half of them turn out to be true. LG is the biggest producer of 2.5d phones by a wide margin. They have been producing them since 2012 before Doogee even existed.

  20. 10basetom
    October 17, 2015

    At least they got the name right. F3: find next.

    • MaxPower
      October 17, 2015

      smart

  21. Dan Dare
    October 17, 2015

    i was looking at the F3 because of the pdaf focus, in fact what I’d love to see is a review of cameraphones getting the quick shots – time to unlock, start the app, focus and quality of burst shots. I don’t really take pictures of flowers 🙂 but when I do see something it’s often a rush to get the perfect snap before it’s gone.

    • balcobomber25
      October 17, 2015

      Pictures of flowers are one of the best sample shots for judging the quality of a camera. What good is taking a quick shot if it is of poor quality? There are plenty of apps in the play store for capturing quick shots.

      • Dan Dare
        October 18, 2015

        No point taking a picture of bad quality – which is why I’m interested in pdaf for instant focus of movement, which can’t be fixed by an app. it goes beyond that though – fingerpint power key & physical camera button like the xperia z5, or optimised processing, could mean snaps can be as quick as they used to be with instant cameras. camera ‘tricks’ like tracking a moving object with a slow shutter, or using multiple shots to simulate that, are also pretty interesting.

        • balcobomber25
          October 18, 2015

          Those are all interesting but this site isn’t a detailed camera review site and to test all of those (plus the myriad of other things people want with other components) would take much time. The purpose of the camera reviews here are to show you the quality of the camera images and what it is capable of. Sites like XDA have users who go in depth with all those other features you want.

          • Dan Dare
            October 18, 2015

            no it’s not, but cameras on phones are becoming one of the main features – as evidenced by the way the tech is going. so real-life scenarios of taking good, quick pics seems pretty relevant. people want to take spontaneous photos as well as carefully staged ones, and the choice of camera is crucial for that.

            • balcobomber25
              October 18, 2015

              People want to be able to show their photos off more than anything. Quality is the most important thing, everything is worthless of the pictures don’t look good.

  22. Gordon Tang
    October 17, 2015

    The specs of the F3 limited are awesome, but it’s gone all quiet in terms of if they’re releasing it 🙁 someone shed some light!

  23. Dan Dare
    October 17, 2015

    i was looking at the F3 because of the pdaf focus, in fact what I’d love to see is a review of cameraphones getting the quick shots – time to unlock, start the app, focus and quality of burst shots. I don’t really take pictures of flowers 🙂 but when I do see something it’s often a rush to get the perfect snap before it’s gone.

    • balcobomber25
      October 18, 2015

      Pictures of flowers are one of the best sample shots for judging the quality of a camera. What good is taking a quick shot if it is of poor quality? There are plenty of apps in the play store for capturing quick shots.

    • Dan Dare
      October 18, 2015

      No point taking a picture of bad quality – which is why I’m interested in pdaf for instant focus of movement, which can’t be fixed by an app. it goes beyond that though – fingerpint power key & physical camera button like the xperia z5, or optimised processing, could mean snaps can be as quick as they used to be with instant cameras. camera ‘tricks’ like tracking a moving object with a slow shutter, or using multiple shots to simulate that, are also pretty interesting.

    • balcobomber25
      October 18, 2015

      Those are all interesting but this site isn’t a detailed camera review site and to test all of those (plus the myriad of other things people want with other components) would take much time. The purpose of the camera reviews here are to show you the quality of the camera images and what it is capable of. Sites like XDA have users who go in depth with all those other features you want.

    • Dan Dare
      October 18, 2015

      no it’s not, but cameras on phones are becoming one of the main features – as evidenced by the way the tech is going. so real-life scenarios of taking good, quick pics seems pretty relevant. people want to take spontaneous photos as well as carefully staged ones, and the choice of camera is crucial for that.

    • balcobomber25
      October 18, 2015

      People want to be able to show their photos off more than anything. Quality is the most important thing, everything is worthless of the pictures don’t look good.

  24. Gordon Tang
    October 17, 2015

    The specs of the F3 limited are awesome, but it’s gone all quiet in terms of if they’re releasing it 🙁 someone shed some light!

  25. AdM
    October 18, 2015

    The quality of the pictures is awful. I think my 2 year old Nexus 7 takes better pictures.

  26. AdM
    October 18, 2015

    The quality of the pictures is awful. I think my 2 year old Nexus 7 takes better pictures.

  27. Truddone
    April 17, 2016

    I have had the F3 Pro for a month now and I’m not pleased at all. Battery is really weak, I did a Geekbench battery test and it scored 1352 with a runtime of less than 4 hours. I’m not a power user, I just do a couple of calls and message and I check my FB page 3-4 times a day and the battery at the end of the day is at 30% or less. Picture quality is under average I get better shots with my old Galaxy S3. Screen sometime isn’t responsive. GPS is good but the phone lacks compass. There isn’t support for 5G WI-Fi only 2G!!! Definitely don’t buy it, for the same amount of money I’d go for a Cubot (and I’m regretting not to have done so!)

  28. Truddone
    April 17, 2016

    I have had the F3 Pro for a month now and I’m not pleased at all. Battery is really weak, I did a Geekbench battery test and it scored 1352 with a runtime of less than 4 hours. I’m not a power user, I just do a couple of calls and message and I check my FB page 3-4 times a day and the battery at the end of the day is at 30% or less. Picture quality is under average I get better shots with my old Galaxy S3. Screen sometime isn’t responsive. GPS is good but the phone lacks compass. There isn’t support for 5G WI-Fi only 2G!!! Definitely don’t buy it, for the same amount of money I’d go for a Cubot (and I’m regretting not to have done so!)