[Review] OPPO Find X – Rising Star

OPPO is best known for crafting a range of rather novel phones of late with an emphasis on capturing superior selfies with nary a flagship class phone in sight from their stables for the past several years though this has changed with the launch and arrival of their impressively appointed and uniquely designed Find X which we had the pleasure to field test.

The smartphone equivalent of a concept car, the OPPO Find X integrates a veritable checklist of the best hardware currently available along with a unique feature that makes it a trailblazer in terms of phone design. As shown in its rather impressive launch in Paris, the phone comes with one of the largest screen-to-body ratios available in a smartphone, allowing it to cram in a massive 6.42-inch display in an extremely slim and compact form factor. This is achieved by dint of several feats of engineering that result in a backplate devoid of fingerprint readers or cameras and a front that is entirely a display.

While the astute would wonder where they’ve placed the cameras, OPPO has instead implemented an unorthodox solution indeed. They’ve crammed the front and rear cameras into a pop-up motorised assembly that rises out of the top part of the phone on demand and which silently retracts back in when done. As the phone lacks a fingerprint reader, the phone unlocks via facial recognition with the sensors also integrated into the front portion of the pop-up camera array.

As far as presentation is concerned, OPPO has pulled out all the stops and the external box and burned orange interior tray beneath it look distinctive amidst the usual array of plain white or black boxes festooning the market. Removing the phone reveals a few interesting accessories. You get the obligatory power plug and cable, a pair of conventional 3.5mm audio earbuds and a USB Type-C to 3.5mm audio jack adaptor. The adaptor is unfortunately necessary as the phone itself lacks a 3.5mm audio jack so you’ll need to tote it around if you are using a wired pair of cans.

Externally, the OPPO Find X has a form factor and silhouette in keeping with contemporary smartphone design. The backplate comes in a deep iridescent purplish red that looks striking when viewed under direct sunlight though the Find X can also be had in a shade of iridescent blue as well. Unlike other smartphones, the Find X has a backplate unbesmirched by any fingerprint reader or camera, all of which is emplaced within the pop-up camera array. Bar the OPPO logo and Find X logo emblazoned on the bottom quadrant of the phone, the entirety of the backplate is one solid curved piece of glass.

The front mirrors this seamlessness with the curved panoramic arc AMOLED display taking up almost the entirety of the front save for super slim bezels framing the sides. In effect, the front of the Find X is effectively almost all display with the back composed entirely of glass. The only buttons apparent on the phone is a volume rocker on the left with a power button on the right with the edges of the phone curving gently in to make it easier to wield one-handed despite its large size.

When held, the Find X feels exceptionally premium and looks like the logical extension of what happens if you maximise a phone’s screen-to-body ratio to its theoretical limits. The heft of the phone is also reassuringly solid, making the whole affair go quite aways towards matching its substantial price tag. The only major quibble is that the finish is highly reflective, making it a fingerprint magnet that requires frequent wipedowns to remain pristine.

OPPO Find X Specifications and Performance

As far as hardware goes, the OPPO Find X has specifications that allow it to go toe to toe with any flagship phone currently in service. By integrating a pop-up camera array and ditching any buttons or a notch up front, OPPO has managed to cram in a vibrant and sharp 6.42-inch curved Full HD+ AMOLED display that has an immense 19.5:9 ratio and a crisp 401ppi.

The display itself is a thing of beauty, offering great clarity and vibrant hues onscreen with the large aspect ratio making gaming and movie watching a real treat even under daylight. The display also has a similar ‘always on’ mode somewhat akin to Samsung’s Galaxy S-series devices that tells the time and date while leaving the rest the screen black. To kick out sound, the phone has a mono speaker at the base that offers a fair bit of clarity for general listening duties but is otherwise unremarkable.

Crammed within the 9.4mm thin glass sheathed casing is a Snapdragon 845 octacore processor running Android Oreo 8.1 overlaid with their Color OS, 8GB RAM and 256GB of non-expandable storage. The phone lacks an SD card expansion slot; instead it has a dual nano SIM card tray at the base of the phone.

In synthetic benchmarks, the Find X performed in an impressive fashion. In Geekbench 4.0, it got a single-core score of 2,378 and a multi-core score of 8,215. In 3DMark’s Sling Shot Extreme OpenGL ES 3.1 it got a score of 4,674 and in Sling Shot Extreme Vulkan, it got a score of 3,677. In Antutu Benchmark, the Find X acquired a very respectable score of 286,497. In PCMark 2.0 it got a score of 9,822.

In practical terms, the phone is swift and responsive on account of its generous amounts of RAM and current-gen Snapdragon 845 processor, allowing it to handle the likes of Player Unknown Battleground on high settings and other high-end games without breaking a sweat. Multiple browser windows, videos and even a modicum of basic video rendering work were handled in an equally capable fashion. Somewhat disconcerting though is that it tends to get a bit warm under heavy usage but it’s not a major deal breaker.

Seeing as the phone lacks a fingerprint reader, the only form of biometrics it has is via facial recognition. Fortunately it does so in a very competent manner with the mechanism and the facial unlock working without error each and every time it was tested without any delay and it still functioned fairly well under dim light.

OPPO Find X camera

On the imaging front, the Find X comes with a rear 20-MP and 16-MP with integrated OIS dual rear camera with the front coming with a single 25-MP selfie camera. All three cameras have an f/2.0 aperture.

The biggest draw to the Find X is its pop up camera that is integrated into a motorised housing that rises and descends when you use the front or rear camera and when you need to unlock the phone via facial recognition. The design has its merits, especially for users with security concerns as the cameras remain covered until needed.

To its credit, the mechanism for the camera is very well engineered, rising silently in less than half a second when summoned and robust enough that it functioned without flaw for dozens of times during our test period. According to OPPO, the motor has been tested multiple times, such that it’s rated for five years of regular usage without error. Unfortunately, the nature of its design means that the phone cannot be made water resistant. After two weeks of use, some motes of dust were gathered in spots just out of reach, making them challenging to remove.

In use, the Find X’s pop-up camera array did not prove to be a hindrance and was fast on the draw. Under daylight, the rear cameras offered up extremely pleasing shots on auto mode with a good mix of colour and detail along with swift subject acquisition. Low light shots were pretty fair with noise within tolerable levels bearing in mind lighting conditions as well on account of the f/2.0 aperture though there are better performing camphones out there for low light work.

The front selfie camera benefits from OPPO’s earlier work in selfie camphones with a plethora of filters available and an AI beauty mode that intelligently optimises settings based on gender. Of note is the inclusion of a slick Portrait mode that takes advantage of the phone’s AI algorithms to offer a variety of alternative lighting modes that intelligently light your visage with studio-style lighting.

You have a choice of Rim Light, Face Light, a rather bizarre Bi-Colour light, a Canvas light that mimics the appearance of a white canvas behind you and a local light mode that desaturates the background so that you stand out. It’s pretty amusing and you can yield some decent results with some practice and experimentation. Videos captured on the rear are available at up to 4K 30fps with fair results on account of the rear OIS helping somewhat for judder free panning. As cameras go, the Find X is a sound performer for both the front and the rear camera and are up there in the upper echelons of flagship camphones.

Price, Battery Life and Conclusion

The OPPO Find X under an average workload lasted the better part of a full day with enough juice to last until the commute home, making it a fair performer as smartphones go.  This is assuming a modicum of web browsing, emails, several minutes of movie streaming on Youtube and iFlix, a few rounds of gaming on Clash Royale and PUBG and liberal use of social media through the day. Heavy use of the camera and more liberal gaming will drain the battery in a much faster fashion and you can expect much less endurance if you do so on a prolific basis . Fortunately, the VOOC fast charging tech lets you top it up to about 75% in about half an hour or so which comes in handy.

As it stands, the Find X is OPPO’s finest phone ever made and is a wonderfully designed and beautifully hewn example of a smartphone with impressive performance under the hood paired with an innovative pop-up camera mechanism. Alas it doesn’t come cheap though it is so far the most visually striking phone currently available and that kind of distinctiveness commands a justifiable premium.

Specifications
Price RM3,699
Display 6.42-inch curved panoramic AMOLED , 2,340 x 1080 pixels
Processor Qualcomm Snapdragon 845
OS Android 8.1
Memory 8GB RAM/256GB storage
Camera 16-MP w/ f/2.0 + 20-MP f/2.0 (rear) / 25-MP f/2.0 (front)
Battery 3,730mAh
Size/Weight 156.7 x 74.2 x 9.4 mm / 186g

What we liked Whisper silent and fast camera mechanism, huge and luscious display, excellent performance, decent cameras, fast charging VOOC tech, comes with a free bundled USB Type C to 3.5mm adaptor
What we didn’t Casing is very slippery to wield, no 3.5mm audio jack, not cheap
We say Boasting a distinctive design that integrates a novel pop up camera and powerful specifications, the Find X is OPPO’s most powerful and most aesthetically pleasing phone ever made.