Oppo Find X2 Pro review: the biggest challenge of the Samsung S20 Ultra – Forbes

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra, a phone with specifications and numbers so stuffed beyond Samsung’s previous offerings that it looked like an answer to Chinese phones, which were making their way onto the international phone scene by offering more of everything.

Since Chinese phones are not officially available in the U.S., the S20 Ultra’s maximum kitchen sink approach stands out even more in the limited U.S. mobile phone industry. Apple has a 12 megapixel camera with 4 GB of RAM; Samsung offers 108 megapixels and 12 GB. The latest and largest Pixel from Google is powered by a 3,700 mAh battery; Samsung operates on a 5,000 mAh cell.

But in Asia and Europe, the Samsung S20 Ultra had to do it all because the Chinese challengers were just around the corner. One of them, the Oppo Find X2 Pro, is already there.

Polish and practicality on radical style

Oppo is pumping phones at a breakneck pace, to the point that only one series (the Reno) can debut in May 2019 and by January 2020 on the number three model. But the Find X series waited a year and a half before this sequel. This shows the pedestal on which Oppo places the Find X series – it takes time to develop because it is special.

The previous Find X, released in mid-2018, was special due to a radical design that didn’t seem to have a camera module, at least from the outside. Rather, the camera system was hidden inside the body of the device, only rising and exposing itself to the world when needed. This design allowed Find X to appear as a smooth, seamless slab, almost like a piece of jewelry.

It looked amazing and got my vote for the best looking phone of 2018. But it wasn’t exactly practical to use due to the need to constantly raise and lower the camera module; and a factory with a very slippery shape due to the absence of camera bumps.

The Find X2 series – which includes a standard model and a Pro model – does not, by comparison, have an exterior construction that will drop the jaws or turn heads. It looks like several other handsets already on the market. But it’s not necessarily a bad thing – it’s a proven design that is arguably the most usable and practical at the moment.

Instead, Oppo seems to have spent the year and a half refining the features so that they can all be crammed into this device.

As powerful as Android

I’m testing the high-end Pro model of the Find X2, and the specs and features here are powerful to the point of being exaggerated. Here’s a sneak peek: 6.7-inch curved OLED screen with 120 Hz refresh rate and 240 Hz touch sample rate; Snapdragon 865 with 12 GB of RAM; two 48-megapixel cameras for standard and wide-angle shots, plus a “periscope” zoom lens that allows for almost lossless 10X zoom and a 60X digital zoom. Fast 65 W charge that pumps 3% to 4% juice per minute.

These specifications mainly match or exceed what Samsung offers with the S20 Ultra. Samsung can say that it won a victory with its 108 megapixel sensor, but I am not convinced that a 108 megapixel sensor is of great use in the mobile (I am also testing the S20 Ultra right now) . The only area where the S20 Ultra can say it has clearly won is the size of the battery: 5,000 mAh for the 4,260 of the Find X2 Pro.

Here’s the thing: the Samsung S20 Ultra costs $ 1,400. Oppo did not announce a price at the time of publication, but it will almost certainly be cheaper.

The screen is amazing

But let’s go back to the screen. It is a curved OLED panel with a maximum resolution of 3,168 X 1,440 (even higher than what is called “Quad HD”), with a wide range of colors which covers 100% of P3 standards from Hollywood. It also refreshes at 120 Hz, twice as fast as the 60 Hz panels that make up 99% of the screens we encounter every day, from iPhones to televisions to professional computers.

The latter is the most important part: the faster 2X refresh rate allows Oppo to create more animations in a second, which results in animations that appear to us to be twice as fluid or fluid. Use this screen for a few hours and return to a 60 Hz panel on a Samsung iPhone 11 or 2019 phone, and the difference is noticeable.

Running the Find X2 Pro screen at its maximum potential – 120 Hz with Quad HD + resolution – will drain the battery (from my use, it might not even last half a day), so I suggest reducing resolution at 1080p, which greatly improves the battery life. To be honest, most human eyes will not be able to see the difference between 1080p and Quad HD +.

The Find X2 Pro’s screen is on par with the best screen I’ve ever seen, as well as the Galaxy S20 Ultra, which also refreshes at 120 Hz.

All the little things too

The rest of the hardware has nice little touches that were missing from previous Oppo phones. The Find X2 Pro is rated IP68 for water resistance – the first Oppo phone to achieve this rating – it has powerful stereo speakers; a much improved haptic vibration motor; and a ceramic or leather back finish, both welcome to stand out from the sea of ​​glass holder phones.

The only things missing are the headphone jack and wireless charging stand.

Cameras: versatile and capable

Two years ago I was having coffee with someone from Oppo, and he conceded that even though Oppo phones were one of the top two sellers in China and were starting to get good reviews from the international press , they needed to improve on the camera and software performance. It was refreshing to hear a company representative admit that there were areas for improvement, and the performance of the Oppo camera has been steadily increasing over the past year. I would say that the Oppo Reno 10X Zoom from last year was the first large Oppo camera, and the Find X2 Pro is progressing naturally on this point.

The “Periscope” zoom lens technology that Oppo pioneered (and that Samsung uses in its S20 Ultra) is making a comeback, but it is now second generation hardware with better algorithms.

For those unfamiliar: the Periscope lens uses a unique hardware design that places a lens laterally inside the phone body, so that the images captured by the lens have room to travel through a series of magnifying lenses before reaching the image signal processor. This is the trick that allows the Periscope lens to capture significantly sharper zoom images than a traditional configuration on, for example, an iPhone.

FindX2 Pro’s 2X and 5X zooms are lossless. The 10X zoom – this is where other phones get lucky – can still appear almost lossless.

And while the 60X zoom becomes blurry and noisy, it can still be useful if need be. In the example below, I used the 60X zoom to read a parking sign on the street without moving from my seat.

In general, I find the shots of the Find X2 Pro slightly sharper than those of the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra. In the 30X zoom examples below, I think the image of the Find X2 Pro is less compromised.

The other two cameras are also good. The main lens uses a variant of Sony’s new IMX689 sensor, which Oppo claims was custom-designed for the Find X2 Pro to use a larger than usual sensor size of 1/143 inch. Combine that with pixel binning technology and the Find X2 Pro’s shots with what equates to a pixel size of 2.24 microns.

The larger the sensor size, the more light the sensor can capture, and the Find X2 Pro is among the best for extracting light from nowhere. In fact, the main lens can already capture so much light that it has made Oppo’s night mode (the calculation mode that looks like long exposure photography) redundant. Still, the phone suffers from the same Samsung problem of tending to overexpose bright lights unless the user dials it manually. But the samples below are really vibrant, but well-balanced night photos captured in automatic mode.

Since the wide-angle camera is also a 48-megapixel sensor, it allows you to keep a relatively coherent image as the main objective. So for the most part, the wide-angle images here don’t seem out of place when viewed side-by-side with a standard image, like some LG or Vivo photos do.

Video recording has also improved considerably, especially in low light situations. Using the AI ​​algorithm and data from multiple sensors, the Find X2 Pro artificially composes the ISO in videos. In the example below, I took the Find X2 Pro and the Galaxy S20 Ultra for a walk down a relatively dark lane, and the Oppo video wins quite convincingly.

Software: ramp-up of ColorOS

When it comes to Chinese brands’ Android skins, I have been very critical in the past. While Huawei’s EMUI and Vivo’s FunTouch are still not excellent, Oppo and Xiaomi have made great strides with their ColorOS and MIUI, respectively.

A few months ago, I classified Xiaomi’s MIUI as my second favorite Android skin, but ColorOS has progressed with this latest update to version 7.1. Oppo has added several small touches that make the phone much easier to use. For the first time on an Oppo phone, you can now drag the shade of notifications by swiping down anywhere on the screen, instead of having to reach the top of the screen. As phones get bigger and bigger, it’s almost a must-have feature in my opinion, and Huawei, Apple, and Vivo still don’t offer this option making their software more difficult to use with one hand.

There are many customization options: I can change the shape and size of the icons and define shortcut gestures to launch applications from a locked phone. The animations are fluid and pleasant, in particular on a refresh rate of 120 Hz.

The only nitpick I have is the one-hand mode that was previously available on Oppo phones seems to be gone. Other than that, it’s almost a flawless software experience. The only reason I always rank OxygenOS from OnePlus in mind is that it has more color customization options and the ability to store apps in a hidden part of the phone.

Performance: endurance is only a concern

There is a Snapdragon 865, with 12 GB of RAM, so do we really need to know if this phone can properly perform the daily tasks of the smartphone? I have used this device a lot and have experienced no hiccups, no stuttering. Any game, any application will work well.

The only performance concern here is the battery life. As I mentioned, running this phone at maximum potential (120 Hz, Quad HD +) will run out of power before dinner time. Lowering the screen resolution will be enough to bring the phone back to normal battery drain time, but it’s a compromise. I wish Oppo left with a larger battery here, something closer to Samsung’s 5000mAh cell.

But this phone can be charged at the fastest speeds in the industry, thanks to Oppo’s exclusive fast charge technology. If you can find a socket and free time to plug in the phone even for 15 minutes in the late afternoon, you will almost certainly guarantee enough juice to go until the wee hours of the night.

Conclusion: the most refined Chinese phone

Chinese smartphones have always given us more power and more specifications than the usual Apple, Google and Samsung prices. But they generally lacked varnish here and there. Even Huawei’s Mate 20 Pro, which at the time of its release outperformed all smartphones on the market in terms of power and camera capabilities, suffered from inferior software and video recording jerky. And while OnePlus phones offered the best software experience, its phones generally lacked flagship functionality here and there, not to mention that its cameras were generally good but not great.

For me, the Oppo Find X2 Pro is the most refined phone to date. In terms of software, I have to fumble around to find a complaint. For performance, it is, at worst, the second most powerful Android at the moment. In photography, Oppo has climbed enough that I think this phone can hang with the big boys. Whether it’s software animations to display the shine of material feeling, it’s a refined product, Oppo’s signs drawing lessons from past mistakes.

The price of Find X2 Pro will vary from region to region, and it has not yet been announced at the time of writing. But in Europe, expect it to cross the $ 1,100 mark. In China and Southeast Asia, it should be cheaper. Either way, the Find X2 Pro should cost less than the $ 1,400 S20 Ultra from Samsung, making it a great alternative to Samsung’s latest and nastiest.