Oppo Find X smartphone review
Oppo pops up with an all-screen gem.
Oppo thinking differently
Very good camera performance and a large high-quality display are the features that most users look for in a premium smartphone. The Oppo Find X not only delivers on both counts but may also be one of the most interesting tech devices of 2018 from a company able to 'think different'.
In this article:
The verdict
Apple and maybe Samsung seem to be the only smartphone companies able to convince consumers that they should fork out $1000 for a product. But Oppo doesn't. The company is hoping you'll consider the latest Find X as a premium smartphone with a design from one of the few companies that are 'thinking differently'.
Oppo Find X
$1099 (128GB)
All screen without the notch
For phone designers, getting the largest possible display on a smartphone means taking the screen as close to the edge of the phone as possible. But the front-facing camera lens at the top of the screen usually gets in the way.
Premium phones such as Apple's latest releases the iPhone XS and iPhone XR (as well as the discontinued iPhone X), Huawei's P20 Pro and LG's G7 claim to be 'all screen', but there's still a thick black strip or black notch at the top of the display around the lens and sensor.
The wow factor
The Oppo Find X packs 6.4 inches of screen into a body smaller than the Apple iPhone 8 Plus (which only has a 5.5-inch monitor). Click on the camera icon and you quickly realise how Oppo has been able to deliver the final piece in the smartphone display puzzle, with a camera that slides out of the phone casing.
To unlock the phone you use a passcode or facial recognition. Setting up facial recognition is easy and very natural, as you simply raise the phone to your face to calibrate it and from then on raise it to your face to unlock. The camera quickly pops up to see that it's you and then hands over control – undeniably funky.
There's no doubt that the pop-up camera of the Oppo (it doesn't really pop up so much as slide up and down) turns heads, but it's also a bit disconcerting; the camera at full stretch does look like it could be a magnet for dust and a weak spot for clumsy smartphone owners. But after using it for a few weeks, we found that the Oppo Find X and its camera mechanism comfortably handled the daily beatings that a smartphone endures without incident.
However, it must be noted that the phone isn't rated for dust or water protection, and even though we left the phone in a bag out of its case and subjected it to general use, it didn't come in contact with water.