With the launch of the F3 Plus yesterday, Oppo seems to be have moved on with the budget and mid-range category of smartphones. The smartphone sports some decent specifications but things change when we take price into the account. Oppo F3 Plus is priced at Rs 30,990 which is way more than the price segment the company is known to play in. There is a reason why Chinese smartphone manufacturers have made it big in the Indian market and that is the aggressive pricing strategy. No doubt, the Oppo F3 Plus is a pretty solid piece of hardware, but does it justify the price? No, if you ask us and here is why.
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Price
As mentioned above, price plays an important role when a smartphone hits the Indian shores. People living in India are probably on the rational side of consumer behaviour graph, so being a little over-ambitious for pricing can result in a negative feedback. We are not saying that people won’t buy the F3 Plus, however, people would have bought it more if Oppo had managed to price it around Rs 20,000 – 25,000 range. We know that the smartphone banks heavily on the dual-front facing camera, has a 4000mAh battery, 4GB RAM and decent Snapdragon 653 Chipset but crossing the Rs 30,000 mark implies entering the premium segment, at least when considering the scenario in India.
Competition
When we say Oppo F3 Plus could have sold more if priced aggressively indirectly indicates the presence of better alternatives at the current price. And yes we know this is going to be yet another tussle with the impeccable OnePlus 3T. However, now there are claims that Oppo targets more on the offline market but then the sheer presence of Samsung above Rs 30,000 price point is what will hurt the Oppo F3 Plus sales the most.
Software Updates
Well, this has been one of the galling issues with most Chinese handset manufacturers. The software updates for these devices are a distant dream especially when it deals with an upgrade to a new OS. So if a consumer spends over Rs 30,000 on a smartphone in India, he surely expects timely updates and even though all the companies make promises at the launch, not all of them become a reality. However, this is not the case with every Chinese handset manufacturer. OnePlus 3T, for instance, is one of the few devices who currently runs on Android 7.1.1 Nougat. We know it takes time for an OEM to integrate the new version of Android to its skin, but how long?
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Trust Factor
There is another problem when you buy a handset from Oppo or similar Chinese handset manufacturers( except ffor brands like Xiaomi, Lenono, Huawei and so on) , and that is the lack of trust. We are not firing the shots in dark here. A lot of our readers have complained about Oppo smartphones and their poor after sale service. Samsung, on the other hand, is the leader in this area while OnePlus has probably the best online community right now. So spending Rs 30,990 with poor software updates, lack of trust factor, and better alternatives for the same price is bound to create problems for the Oppo F3 Plus.