Oppo’s on a quest to uncover the ultimate flagship, and they’re pretty sure they’ve found it in their own portfolio. The Find X2 Pro (the standard version of the phone is skipping Australia) will be arriving on our shores soon, and there’s much to recommend it.
First things first – Find X2 Pro shares very little with its predecessor in terms of form factor. It’s a much more straightforward “black slate” phone with no wacky motorised raising/lowering parts.
This means it’s on a much more level playing field with its peers in terms of price and features. Case manufacturers are probably breathing a sigh of relief, too.
Colour, size and materials
What are are looking at is a 6.7-inch QHD+ OLED device with a punch-hole camera at top-left and a 93% screen to body ratio.
There’s a couple of different colour options for the Find X2 Pro, and they’re actually different materials.
There’s the Ceramic Black finish that has dark metallic frame forming the body of the phone and the Oppo brand subtly ingrained in the rear.
Let’s be honest though – Black is kind of boring. What you really want – and you might notice from the photos in this post that I’m far more interested in it – is Vegan Leather Orange.
The orange variant of the Find X2 Pro is certainly something to lay your eyes on. It’s a bold colour to put on the back of a phone, and in this case it’s paired with a rose gold metallic frame forming the central body of the phone. Adding a little pizzazz is the good metal accent with Oppo’s branding on the rear.
Comparisons were made at today’s launch event with a handbag owing to the combination of leather and gold, and they’re not inaccurate … but I don’t mind. The orange is eye catching, and the (faux) leather finish promises that this phones might not slide off every surface in your house.
Regardless of the material you choose, you’ll get a phone that carries an IP68 rating.
A titan of sight and sound
That big 6.7-inch screen is packing a few interesting tricks too – not only does it sport the much-rumoured 120Hz refresh rate, but it’s also packing some custom hardware – the Oppo O1 Vision Engine, a fancy term for motion enhancement (improving sports and gaming content) and processing to bring HDR-like colour and contrast to non-HDR content.
The Find X2 Pro’s screen is also packing a touch sampling rate of 240Hz to help keep up with rapid input changes and movement, which promises to be useful in gaming but might also help you with swipe input on keyboards and the like.
Oppo’s promising a 10-bit “true billion colour display” on the phone, 100% P3 gamut coverage, and as we saw today it also works pretty well in direct sunlight (but that’s not the pic above, mind). It’s an OLED QHD+ display that promises to put a cinematic experience in the palm of your hand.
A cinematic visual experience is matched with a dual stereo speaker system with Dolby Atmos support.
Best in class camera
Oppo’s had a longstanding and well-deserved reputation for camera quality for a long time now, punching well above its weight for midrange cameras. As the company moves into the premium market though, it needs to bring a premium camera experience with it, and the Find X2 Pro looks like it delivers on this front.
Triple-camera setups are becoming increasingly common these days, and it’s not necessarily a guarantee of premium quality or performance as the feature trickles down to the lower end of the on the rear of the device, it’s worth giving some attention to exactly what each sensor does, and the other features stacked into the camera bump on the back of the phone.
First up, we’re looking at a brand new 48MP Sony IMX689. It’s a 1/1.4″ sensor with an f/1.7 aperture and OIS. This is the standard sensor (commonly referred to as the wide angle sensor now, in the days of ultra-wide cameras). It promises to do some good things for your photos.
Backing up the main sensor is another 48MP sensor – a Sony IMX586 with a 120-degree field of view and an f/2.2 aperture. Ultra wide angle data captured at the same resolution as the main sensor promises some great results.
Finally, there’s a 13MP sensor attached to a periscope telephoto apparatus, allowing the camera to achieve up to 10x hybrid zoom with impressive results. It’s the second generation of Oppo’s periscope zoom technology, first seen in last year’s Reno series. Being a periscope lens there’s a higher aperture of f./3.0 at play here.
We took a Find X2 Pro away from the demo area at today’s launch event and snapped a few sample pics across the water in Pyrmont.
While we’re obviously shooting in broad daylight, the zoom results are impressive and are sure to give you a few good options for framing your latest Instagram masterpiece.
Oppo’s paid attention to balancing up the captured colour temperature across all three sensors, with a dedicated sensor on the back of the phone capturing colour data at shutter time, instead of needing to balance it all up with software later.
Speaking of software, the Find X2 Pro brings upgrades to Oppo’s night mode shooting capabilities, and an impressive macro mode.
Pickr‘s Leigh Stark kindly shot a couple of sample macro photos with his demo unit and shared them with us for this post.
Oppo is also promising a best in class video shooting experience, with updates to stabilisation and the ability to shoot 4K video at 30 or 60fps. They’re also blending sensor data in video mode to avoid the ugly jumps that can occur as your view passes between sensors during zoom operations – this means you can zoom in on features smoothly while shooting video, and should lead to some great video results.
We’re pretty impressed with this camera, and it seems DxOMark was as well – the Find X2 Pro just hit the top of their leaderboard.
What’s inside: 5Gs, GBs and a big battery
The Find X2 Pro is a flagship smartphone, and Australia’s getting what looks like a pretty high end hardware configuration for it.
First of all, the processor is Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 865 with its built-in 5G modem. The processor’s cores clock in at up to 2.8GHz, and the 5G modem runs in standalone/non-standalone mode depending on your carrier’s network.
The processor is paired up with a whopping 12GB of RAM and a huge 512GB of storage. Oppo’s always been known for throwing in great specs at their chosen price point, and this phone is no exception.
5G and 120Hz displays are known to be battery hogs, though – how will you keep this thing powered? Well, there’s a few interesting claims on battery — the most notable of which is that the Find X2 Pro’s 5G won’t be a constant battery drain, with power consumption in standby at least consistent with that of a 4G phone. We’ll see how that pans out come review time.
Obviously, the other side of battery drain is keeping the phone charged. There’s a total battery capacity of 4,260mAh and Oppo promises to charge it as fast (and as safely) as possible. SuperVOOC will bring in up to 65W of power over USB C, fully charging the phone in just 38 minutes. If you’ve only got a short time with the charger, 10 minutes will get you from 0 to 40%.
There’s no wireless charging to speak of here, but at that speed we’re not really too troubled by that.
Finally, there’s an in-screen fingerprint sensor and NFC built in to the phone.
Color OS 7.1, based on Android 10, is running the show. Oppo playfully points out that it supports the full Google Mobile Services ecosystem, too.
We’ve been following Find X2 for a while now, and it’s great to see that our faith in Oppo’s hardware prowess continues to pay off. The Find X2 Pro doesn’t bring any hardware gimmicks, but it’s a solid design packed inside some attractive finishes.
Oppo’s not quite ready to share local launch details yet, but we’re expecting to see a flagship device like this arrive with carrier support (especially packing 5G). The phone’s going to arrive sometimes in the next 2-3 months, and it’ll run you an actually-rather-reasonable $1,599 when it does so.
We’ll be putting the Find X2 Pro through its paces in the next few weeks, so keep an eye out for a full review and let us know in the comments if there’s any specifics you’d like us to cover.
What are Oppo like with updates? Looks like a damn good phone
I wondered about the oppo updates myself Ben , i nearly bought the reno 5g last year , but could not find much in the way of word of mouth about them ( i like to hear what actual owners have to say ) ..
I bought the P30 pro instead for a bargain price , but in hind sight i should have bought my usual galaxy , or may be tried the reno just for suming different .
How is $1599 reasonable?