OPPO Find X7 Ultra hands-on: Here's why it’s our loss that it’s not officially sold in Singapore

Note: This feature was first published on 6 June 2024.

We’ve had the opportunity to test the imaging capabilities of OPPO’s 2024 flagship smartphone, the OPPO Find X7 Ultra.

Unfortunately, this phone, like its predecessor, the OPPO Find X6 Pro, is not officially sold in Singapore. We can only hope this will change, especially considering our amazing experience with the handset. 

Still, we couldn’t pass up the chance to experience its photo-taking abilities, given how much fanfare it has generated since it hit the (other markets) in January this year.

Unlike our typical phone hands-on and demo articles, we’ll dive straight into Find X7 Ultra’s imaging capabilities. That’s mainly because OPPO was kind enough to loan us a set with an operating system made for China, which means no default Google Play app store came with the device. 

The phone’s quad rear cameras were extensively covered during its launch, so we’ll supplement what’s out there with additional information OPPO has shared during its Find X7 Ultra photography tour in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

OPPO’s choice of having two periscope telephoto lenses (along with a wide-angle primary and ultrawide-angle secondary camera) was deliberate, covering as much focal range as possible with optical or near-optical zoom quality. The same goes for the phone, which has all four shooters at 50MP, which means there are no compromises to details or file size when you pick any lens for photo-taking.

Most enhancements since its predecessor (besides having a new primary camera sensor, the 1-inch type Sony LYT-900) lie in additional optimisations for its Hasselblad tuning. Besides having the bokeh (artistic blur surrounding an in-focus subject) resemble those found on mirrorless cameras, OPPO’s proprietary R&D also made great efforts to ensure it stays clean with every shot. 

One example is “hair strand bokeh”, an addition which ensures that stray hair isn’t mistaken as background when the rest of the shot is artistically blurred.

Another feat is an improved focusing distance for bokeh-filled Portrait Mode, where Find X7 Ultra can focus on portraiture subjects as far as 9m away. This complements its 6x optical zoom (approx. 135mm, if you compare it to 35mm-equivalent shooting) since 6x shooting would put a considerable distance between your subject and the phone. 

For users who like granular control, Master Mode (manual mode) now offers tuning that emulates the Hasselblad X2D series cameras. This is on top of the new RAW Max feature that offers computational photography before the image processing pipeline converts the file into DNG, with Adobe-certified 50MP RAW shooting across all rear lenses.

That’s enough yapping. Let’s see why it’s a pity the OPPO Find X7 Ultra isn’t available in the Singapore market.

Image Samples

Right off the bat, the OPPO Find X7 Ultra shows off several key features with these standard shots. When shooting at its optical ranges of 23mm, 47mm, 72mm, and 135mm (1x, 2x, 3x, and 6x zoom respectively), the phone is capable of producing consistent shots of near equal detailing, contrast, and colour science. It almost doesn't matter to the OPPO Find X7 Ultra if it's outdoors (the temple grounds) or indoors (the golden statues), and that's even with the threat of rain over the horizon. The consistency between all four rear cameras is what makes the phone truly versatile at shooting quick snaps.

An important note about the 1x zoom on the main camera is that it offers three focal ranges at a single tap of its "1x" button in the default camera app. Much like the iPhone, you can quickly flit between its default focal length (23mm) and choose between two other popular "1x zoom" focal range: 28mm and 35mm.

It's also critical that such detail retention can be replicated in low-light scenarios (ISO 2,500), and the Find X7 Ultra also did not disappoint in this dimly-lit restaurant. To the naked eye, it's not apparent that this is taken right before sunset. We believe some users might find this necessary to their photo-taking needs, but others may not enjoy how much boosting these images get without any post-processing. However, one thing's clear: you can be a terrible photographer and the Find X7 Ultra finds ways to make your shots look impressive.

Demonstrated across these three photos are a wide range of focal lengths and apertures doing their magic in Portrait Mode (the one with artificial focus/bokeh separation between subject and background. In some instances, like the shop figurines, the blurring can get very aggressive, which is extra true if you're forcing the camera to shoot at very low apertures (which grants amazing bokeh). But, for the most part, OPPO definitely got its bokeh science down pat. Most impressive to us was the ability to replicate "hair strand bokeh" accuracy in the lady's portrait shot, which clearly demarcated the bokeh background from her foreground hair.

Strikingly stunning subjects aside, these series of Portrait Mode shots also highlight an important quality that separates great artificial bokeh from the good. In the masked character's hand is a dagger that's in the foreground, and rightfully bokeh-coated when juxtaposed against the focal point (face mask). Yet, the OPPO Find X7 Ultra doesn't neglect the background's bokeh effect. 

To cap off the imaging performance of OPPO's 2024 flagship mobile device, here are some more photos for your reference:

Closing Thoughts

It's clear to us why it's Singapore's loss that OPPO didn't choose to bring in the Find X7 Ultra. With its extreme versatility in both typical, architectural, and portraiture photography, the Find X7 Ultra's imaging capabilities stand out, even if you chose to speed to the end of the article here. This doesn't even include our trials with OPPO-created AI editing tools, like AI Eraser (which works just like Google's Magic Editor).

Will OPPO finally change their mind and bring future Find X series to our sunny island? Let's hope that's the case.

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