Phones

Oppo's new flagship model hits the mark

The Oppo Find X2 Pro 5G has decent battery life.
The Oppo Find X2 Pro 5G has decent battery life. PHOTO: OPPO

You have been warned, Samsung and Huawei. Oppo is coming for the big hitters of the smartphone industry with its latest flagship model - the Find X2 Pro 5G.

It ticks all the boxes for a premium model and rivals Samsung's flagship Galaxy S20 Ultra in having the latest features, such as a 120Hz Oled screen and 5G connectivity.

At $1,699, the Find X2 Pro 5G is the most expensive Oppo smartphone to date. It costs nearly as much as the S20 Ultra ($1,898) and represents a hefty increase from Oppo's last phone, the Reno 10x Zoom ($1,199).

My orange vegan leather review unit looks and feels expensive, with gold trimmings around the edges and a gold Oppo logo. The Find X2 Pro also comes in a less ostentatious black ceramic version.

Its design is rather conventional for a modern smartphone.

The front is practically all screen, with its 6.7-inch display curving around the edges on the left and right. I barely noticed the small hole-punch front camera at the top left corner. Its in-display fingerprint sensor is as fast as any I have tested.

One highlight is its high-resolution 1,440p display, which can run at a 120Hz refresh rate.

At this high refresh rate, navigating the phone interface or scrolling a webpage would appear smoother than on the usual 60Hz screen.

Initially, this feature did not work with the default Chrome mobile Web browser. But when I checked again a week later, the 120Hz refresh rate had been enabled in Chrome.

Several games, such as shooter game Shadowgun Legends and racing title CSR Racing 2, can also run at 120Hz, which should result in less stuttering and screen tearing.

The screen is bright and usable outdoors under the sun. A "Nature Tone Display" feature adjusts the display's colour temperature to match the ambient light, making the display look warmer.

  • FOR

    • Vibrant and bright screen with 120Hz refresh rate

    • Flagship-tier cameras

    • Cleaner interface than previous Oppo phones

    AGAINST

    • Rear camera bulge

    • Expensive

    SPECS

    PRICE: $1,699 (from Saturday)

    Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 (Single-core 2.84GHz, triple-core 2.4GHz and quad-core 1.8GHz)

    DISPLAY: 6.7-inch Oled, 3,168 x 1,440 pixels, 513 ppi pixel density

    OPERATING SYSTEM: ColorOS 7.1 (Android 10)

    MEMORY: 512GB, 12GB RAM

    REAR CAMERAS: 48MP (f/1.7), 48MP ultra-wide (f/2.2, 120-degree), 13MP telephoto (f/3.0)

    FRONT CAMERA: 32MP (f/2.4)

    BATTERY: 4,260mAh

    RATING

    FEATURES: 4.5/5

    DESIGN: 4.5/5

    PERFORMANCE: 5/5

    VALUE FOR MONEY: 4/5

    BATTERY LIFE: 4.5/5

    OVERALL: 4.5/5

Oppo says the screen has a wide colour gamut, allowing it to show more realistic images. However, the Find X2 Pro is not certified to show high-dynamic-range (HDR) content from Netflix, unlike other similar high-end phones.

The primary camera is a 48MP camera that uses a new Sony sensor that is larger in size than the previous version. The older Sony sensor is also here, in the secondary 48MP ultra-wide angle camera.

Finally, there is a 13MP periscope-style telephoto camera that offers up to 5x optical zoom (and 60x digital zoom).

By default, the main camera produces 12MP photos from its 48MP sensor, by combining four pixels into one. The camera has quick autofocus. In good lighting conditions, the photos look sharp with accurate colours and little noise.

Noise was also kept to a minimum in low-light conditions, though the level of detail dipped. Although the Find X2 Pro has an Ultra Dark mode that uses long exposure for low-light conditions, I found the colours to be slightly off in this mode.

When shooting an object close up, the camera produced a pleasant out-of-focus effect for more distant items, like the bokeh effect in portrait modes. The camera's portrait mode worked well enough without any obvious artefacts around the hair and clothing of the subjects.

I was also impressed by the camera's video-stabilisation feature.

Videos looked reasonably smooth even when I was recording while walking briskly. The camera can shoot videos of up to 4K resolution at up to 60 frames per second.

Oppo has decluttered its ColorOS user interface. Based on Android 10, the latest 7.1 iteration adopts Google's apps for the browser, e-mail and keyboard input instead of its own proprietary versions.

I prefer this cleaner and leaner ColorOS, though Oppo can go even further by, for instance, removing its smart assistant for the Google Assistant.

Inside the Find X2 Pro is Qualcomm's top Snapdragon 865 processor, which is likely to appear in most flagship Android phones this year.

In the Geekbench 5 benchmark tests, the Find X2 Pro scored 899 (single-core) and 3,256 (multi-core). In comparison, Samsung's flagship S20 Ultra, which uses Samsung's Exynos 990 chip, managed 917 and 2,769 respectively.

Apps opened promptly and games felt smooth in the Find X2 Pro.

In a video-loop battery test, the Find X2 Pro lasted 10hr 35min, which is decent considering the screen was set at its highest resolution and maximum brightness and was running at 120Hz. The phone typically has between 30 and 40 per cent battery life remaining at the end of a work day.

The Find X2 Pro has a fast 65W charger that can fully replenish the battery in about 40 minutes.

The Find X2 Pro 5G is arguably the best smartphone from Oppo so far.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on March 25, 2020, with the headline Oppo's new flagship model hits the mark . Subscribe