Oppo Find X review: The most interesting phone in the world

Note: This article was first published on 7th September 2018.

Overview

It's been a while since Oppo released anything in the Find series. The Find 7 came out in 2014, with an at the time unheard of QHD display, but since then Oppo has been focusing on its more affordable R series instead. According to Oppo Director of Product, Venus Dang, that's because it takes time for innovation to be developed and perfected before it can make its way to market. But after four years, Oppo believes the wait has been worth it, with the new Find X, a gorgeous bezel-less, notchless phone whose front face is almost entirely a display thanks to a unique hidden pop-up camera mechanism.

The Find X isn't just a one trick gimmick either, it boasts top-of-the-line specs, including a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor with 8GB RAM, either 128 or 256GB internal storage, a dual rear camera setup pairing a 16-megapixel, f/2.0 lens with a 20-megapixel f/2.0 lens and a 25-megapixel f/2.0 front camera. 

But at S$1,199 for the 128GB version, and S$1,399 for the 256GB version with SuperVOOC charging, the Find X is pushing into the super flagship territory currently only occupied by Apple and Samsung. Is Oppo really ready to compete with the two giants of the mobile industry? Let's find out.

Design: The future is here

The Find X is about as close as you can get to the coveted dream of holding just a display in your hand. Its hidden camera mechanism and ultra-thin bezels give it a ridiculous 93.8 percent screen-to-body ratio, which absolutely destroys both the Samsung Galaxy Note9 (83.4 percent) and Apple iPhone X (82.9 percent). 

The huge 6.42-inch display itself is curved at both sides - a design Oppo calls the “Panoramic Arc” screen, but is really just mimicking Samsung's dual curved "Infinity Display". Like the S9, S9+ and Note9, the back of the Find X is also dual curved. In fact, with the screen off and the cameras hidden away, the Find X looks exactly like the S9+. Thanks to its ultra thin bezels, it's actually slightly shorter than the S9+, and about the same width, although it is slighter thicker.

The top of the phone is what makes the Find X so unique. Here you'll find the hidden motorized panel that houses both the front and dual rear cameras. Whenever you use Face Unlock or open the camera app, the entire top panel will raise up out of the phone with a slight mechanical whirr, revealing the cameras and a few sensors. The whole thing takes less than a second. 

Naturally, with any mechanical device, there are concerns about how long it will last until something breaks. Oppo claims that it has tested the motor for up to 300,000 actuations, or roughly 400 movements a day for two years, but it's still a unique concern that you don't have to worry about with any other phone. After a week with the Find X, I'm also alarmed by the amount of dust and debris that manages to find its way inside the mechanism. It hasn't affected anything so far, but surely that can't be healthy.

None of this would be a concern if Oppo hadn't doubled down on the mechanism by making Face Unlock -  which Oppo has given the unfortunate name 'O-Face' - the only form of biometric security. Yes, like the iPhone X, the Find X doesn't have a fingerprint scanner. As a result, you have to activate the mechanism every time you want to unlock your phone, which, for me at least, can be over 100 times a day. It would be nice to have a fingerprint scanner as a backup, at least then you could save the pop up camera just for photos and selfies. You can of course just use a passcode or pattern to access your phone, but what's the point of having a device that looks like its from 2020 when you have to unlock your phone like it's still 2010?

On the plus side, O-Face itself is actually quite good, and it even works in the dark, just like Apple's Face ID, thanks to an infrared scanner. Oppo's version projects 15,000 dots that help it scan your face in three dimensions with "millimeter-level" accuracy. Oppo says O-Face has a much reduced false positive rate compared to fingerprint readers - 1/1,000,000 instead of 1/50,000, which is the same rate claimed by Apple, despite using only half of the 30,000 infrared dots used by Face ID. The only thing holding O-Face back is that it's not quite as instantaneous as Apple's version as you have to wait half a second for the mechanism to slide out first.

By the way, if you're wondering what happens if you accidentally drop the phone with the cameras extended, Oppo has had the foresight to make the camera automatically retract if the internal gyroscope and accelerometer detects that the phone is falling - so at least that's one hazard you don't have to worry about.

One last compromise to be aware of with the pop up camera is that its mechanical nature means the Find X lacks any form of water resistance.

The back of the phone is relatively clean apart from an Oppo logo in the middle, and a 'Find X' logo at the bottom, with 'Designed by Oppo' beneath it - I really could have done without this last part.

Two colors are available for the Find X - Bordeaux Red and Glacier Blue. In both cases, the majority of the the rear is a glossy black, while the edges are bordered by iridescent red or blue highlights that are only really visible when they catch the light. It's an interesting but subtle effect that's a nice change from all of the metallic blue smartphones we're seeing this year.

Along the right edge you'll find the power button, while individual buttons for up and down volume can be found on the left. 

The bottom edge houses the single downward-firing speaker, the dual Nano-SIM card slot (both slots are 4G LTE Cat16 compatible) and finally, after stubbornly sticking to Micro-USB for way too long (looking at you Oppo R15) a USB-C port. Unfortunately, unlike Oppo's R series phones, the Find X does not have a 3.5mm headphone jack. Naturally, the top of the phone is absent of any ports.

Display: Looks great, but deserving of a higher resolution

The Find X has a 6.42-inch AMOLED display with a Full HD+ 2,340 x 1,080 (~401ppi) pixels resolution and a 19.5:9 aspect ratio. The display is vivid and bright, with great contrast, deep blacks, and wide viewing angles, but its huge size is really deserving of a higher resolution. When compared to other large phones like the 6.4-inch Samsung Galaxy Note9, there's a discernable difference in clarity. According to Oppo, the display is HDR10 compatible, but I had trouble getting it to display HDR content on both Netflix and Amazon Prime Video.

One other thing you'll find on Samsung's Super AMOLED displays, but not on Oppo's AMOLED display is the brightness overdrive mode when exposed to bright light. The Find X screen looks great indoors, with a maximum brightness of 430 nits, but it can't go beyond that outdoors, and the screen is quite hard to see under bright sunlight.

Unlike Samsung's Edge Panels software, Oppo doesn't offer much extra functionality to make use of the curved edges of the display, although there is an option to turn on a "curved panoramic light effect' which displays a pulsating color across the entire edge of the display when you have an incoming call or lockscreen notification.

There's an Always-On Display option for the phone, but it's off by default and buried in the settings menu. To turn it on, enable the "Screen Clock" option in the Display settings. Screen Clock will show the time and date, as well as notifications like missed calls and unread messages.

Audio: Needs stereo speakers

Oppo has teamed up with Swedish audio experts Dirac to develop software optimization for the Find X called 'Real Original Sound Technology'. This feature only works with headphones connected and is essentially an equalizer with some pre-configured presets for various genres. You can also customize your own settings.

Audio sounds pretty good through the bundled USB Type-C earphones (which look identical to Apple EarPods by the way) but isn't as impressive through the single on-board speaker. The on-board speaker is fairly loud, and has a reasonable amount of bass, but pales in comparison to anything with stereo speakers.

If you prefer wireless audio, the Find X supports a wide range of Bluetooth codecs, including SBC, AAC, aptX, aptX HD, and LDAC.

Software: More than a passing resemblance to iOS

The Find X runs on Android 8.1 Oreo with Oppo's ColorOS 5.1 on top. As usual, ColorOS bears more than a passing resemblance to iOS, with the app drawer removed, and apps sitting instead on the homescreen itself.

New features in ColorOS 5.1 include new app shortcuts, which let you long press an app to display a small menu of quick launch shortcuts (basically Oppo's version of 3D Touch), redesigned icons and themes, O-moji (yes, they're Oppo's version of Animoji), new AI features including real-time translation, and new navigation gestures.

Just like Apple and Samsung, Oppo has its own 3D face mapped emojis. Oppo's version is called O-moji and works pretty similar to Apple's. There are 12 animals to pick from, including a penguin, pink hippo, and a lion with a fabulous pink hairdo. Alternatively, you can create your own O-moji by taking a selfie and then customizing an array of options. You can access your O-moji's via the camera app, then insert them as stickers into any messaging or social media app.

Oppo's improved AI software claims to build on user behavior models for faster app launches and better resource management. We've seen this before in many other phones with varying levels of success. The AI engine also uses this behavior to show relevant information on the left-most homescreen pane - calendar appointments, quick shortcuts, weather, world clock, package tracking, flight info, among others. You can also manually configure these if you prefer.

Oppo has redesigned its gesture controls for the Find X. You now have an option to turn on 'Swipe Up Gesture' navigation, which basically copies the gesture model on the iPhone X. Turning it on will position three small lines at the bottom of the UI (although you can also choose to hide these). By default, swiping up from the middle line acts like a home button but if you stop on the screen mid-way, you'll open the recent apps menu, just like on the iPhone X. Swiping on either the left or right lines acts as a Back button. Alternatively, you can change the layout so that one line goes back, and the other opens the recent apps menu; this is a much better layout. 

There are also two gestures you can activate that only work on the curved edges. Swiping twice across an edge will switch you back to your previous app, while swiping in opposite directions across both edges will open split-screen multi-window.

One last thing to take note of is that, like many Oppo phones, the Find X lacks NFC support, which rules out most mobile payment apps. This isn't as big of an issue on Oppo's more affordable phones, but you really expect a S$1,199 phone to at least have NFC.

Benchmark Performance

The Oppo Find X is powered by Qualcomm's current flagship processor, the Snapdragon 845. It's the same one found on the OnePlus 6, LG G7 ThinQ+, Sony Xperia XZ2 Premium and many other phones. The Find X also has a massive 8GB RAM.

SunSpider Javascript

SunSpider JavaScript measures the browsing performance of a device when processing JavaScript. It not only takes into consideration the underlying hardware performance, but also assesses how optimized a particular platform is in delivering a high-speed web browsing experience. 

The Find X performed well on this benchmark and was just as fast as our other 845-powered phone, the OnePlus 6. Despite being slightly slower on paper, in actual browsing performance, the Find X feels just as fast and responsive as the Note9 and iPhone X.

Basemark OS II

Basemark OS II is an all-in-one benchmarking tool that measures overall performance through a comprehensive suite of tests including system, internal and external memory, graphics, web browsing, and CPU consumption.

The Find X again performed well here, and was actually the top performer, easily besting Samsung and narrowly outperforming Apple and OnePlus.

3DMark Sling Shot

3DMark Sling Shot is an advanced 3D graphics benchmark that tests the full range of OpenGL ES 3.1 and ES 3.0 API features including multiple render targets, instanced rendering, uniform buffers and transform feedback. The test also includes impressive volumetric lighting and post-processing effects. We're running this benchmark in Unlimited mode, which ignores screen resolutions.

The Find X put in another strong showing on this benchmark, beating both Samsung phones as well as Apple's iPhone X. Surprisingly, the extra 2GB RAM over the OnePlus 6 (we reviewed the 6GB variant) didn't help much.

Imaging: A mysterious secondary camera

Open the camera app and the top of the phone will once again slide up, revealing the cameras - by the way, it works with third party camera apps too. One quirk of the pop up camera mechanism is that holding the phone in landscape orientation is a little awkward. It only takes a small amount of pressure on the camera module for it to slide back into the phone, deactivating the camera app on the way.

The rear camera setup consists of a 16-megapixel f/2.0 lens with OIS paired with a 20-megapixel f/2.0 lens. Like the OnePlus 6, the secondary camera doesn't seem to have any clearly defined purpose or benefit. While it has a higher megapixel count than the main camera, it lacks OIS, has a smaller 1/2.8-inch sensor and smaller 1.0µm pixels. Like the OnePlus 6, its only purpose seems to be providing depth information when shooting in Portrait Mode. In fact, you can cover up the secondary camera and shoot photos and videos in every other mode just fine; the camera app won't even warn you that the lens is covered until you switch to Portrait Mode.

Oppo’s default camera app is a straight up copy of the iOS camera app with a variety of shooting modes accessed by swiping left or right along the screen. The Find X includes Portrait, Panorama, Sticker, and Expert modes for capturing stills, and Slow-motion and Time-lapse for videos. The Expert mode lets you manually adjust white balance, ISO, exposure, and shutter speed but feels a little sparse compared to other Expert modes I've tried. There's no option to lay a grid over the display or a level to make sure your shot is straight. You also won't find any light painting, long exposure, or night photography modes like you do on many other Android phones.

Image quality is quite good, with sharp details and no lens distortion across the entire image, however the white balance is off, and colors tend to be slightly cold (both of these issues are easily fixed in any image editing software). Auto-focus is generally fast and accurate, but struggles a bit in low-light situations.

Battery Life

Our standard battery test for mobile phones has the following parameters:

• Looping a 720p video with screen brightness and volume at 100%
• Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity turned on
• Constant data streaming through email and Twitter

The Oppo Find X is powered by a 3,730 mAh battery, which is just above average for a phone of this size. Battery life is decent but not outstanding, with the Find X lasting 11 and a half hours on our video looping battery benchmark.

The Find X comes supplied with Oppo's 20W VOOC fast charger, which is one of the best fast charging standards around and will get you to about 50 percent in just 30 minutes. The 256GB version with Oppo's new 50W SuperVOOC charger will be launching next month, and will apparently recharge the phone from 0 to 100 in just 15 minutes. This sounds a little too good to be true, so we'll wait until we can test this ourselves to pass judgment.

Like all Oppo phones, the Find X does not support wireless charging.

Conclusion

The Oppo Find X is the most interesting phone in the world right now. If you're sick of every phone looking the same (looking at you notch bandwagoners), the Find X is sure to delight. Holding its all screen design in your hand really feels like you're holding the future.

But innovation often comes with compromises and that's certainly true for the Find X. The Find X has no IP rating, no expandable storage, no headphone port, no wireless charging, no fingerprint scanner, no stereo speakers, no NFC support, no HDR10/Dolby Vision support, and only a Full HD display. It also comes with its own unique set of issues, like having to clean dust and debris out of the sliding mechanism, and there's a legitimate concern over just how long that sliding mechanism will last. A year from now, it will probably still work, but will it be as fast as it was brand new?

Are all of these compromises worth an extra 10 percent screen-to-body ratio? For some people, maybe, but for most people, probably not. If you're prepared to pay a premium for the novelty of having a unique and gorgeous device, one that will turn heads everywhere and that people will always want to take a closer look at, the Find X definitely fits the bill. But if you're looking for a complete feature set and a phone that you don't have to worry about breaking down on you, there are other options out there.

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