OPPO Find N Review: a Foldable Smartphone with Wrinkle-Free Display

Chinese brands have actively started to design foldable smartphones with flexible displays. And, judging by the OPPO Find N, very successfully. The smartphone is very convenient to use with one hand when folded. And thanks to the clever design and the new Flexion Hinge, we finally saw an internal flexible display with almost no crease in the middle. After the first flexible smartphones with a fold, improving this design feature was only a matter of time. That said, both displays are of very good quality. The only complaint is that the refresh rate of the external one is only 60 Hz.

Inside, of course, there is top hardware and a large amount of both RAM and built-in memory. And according to the other characteristics, everything is fine. The smartphone got a very good shooting main camera, absolutely standard wider and a weak TV. Externally, the smartphone looks very interesting and well-assembled. We can only complain a little about a very limited use of the flexible display. Although, I suppose, with the firmware upgrades it will become more interesting. 

Oppo Find N

Flagship foldable smartphone with bendable 7.1-inch internal AMOLED screen and 5.49-inch external screen. Equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 processor, 8/12 GB of RAM and 256/512 GB of internal memory, a triple main camera. It is powered by a 4500mAh battery and supports 55W wireless charging and 50W wireless charging.A special feature is the nearly entire absence of a fold on the main display. The smartphone will delight fans of the most advanced technologies.

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Pros:

• Excellent flexible AMOLED screen with 120Hz refresh rate and HDR
• Almost invisible fold of the screen
• Flagship hardware
• Cool main camera
• Attractive appearance

Cons:

• The telephoto camera is rather weak

What's in the Box?

OPPO Find N will be delivered in a large beautiful black box with embossed surface and model name on the front. Inside, at the top level, there is the smartphone itself. Below - the rest of the kit: charger, USB Type-C cable, tray eject tool, documentation and the so-called Exclusive Service Card.

OPPO Find N Design

When closed, OPPO Find N is a very small smartphone. The dimensions are similar iPhone 13 mini or something similar. The thickness of such a "sandwich" is quite impressive. The diagonal of the external display is "only" 5.49 inches. Which is really very modest by today's standards. The rest of the front panel is familiar: the front camera is in a round hole and a small speaker slot in the upper part.

When opened, it turns out to be a 7.1-inch tablet. The aspect ratio is very unusual: 8.4:9. Indeed, the screen visually looks almost square. The frames are palpable, although you can't say that this is a bad thing when you use the device as a tablet. Inside, there is also a front camera. It is located in the hole in the upper left corner of the screen.

The bezel around the screen does not protrude too much above the screen. It performs its protective function, and does not interfere with the comfortable use of the display.

Most importantly, OPPO managed to get rid of the fold almost completely. Visually, even at an angle, it is almost impossible to see any unevenness. Only tactilely you can feel the slightest bit. This is really cool, both aesthetically and technologically.

The second important design point is that in folded state there is no gap between the halves of the smartphone as such. The parts fit tightly together, which, among other things, eliminates dust and dirt. The frame is completely metallic. On the bottom edge there are stereo speakers, USB Type-C, microphone and tray.

In the tray, there is only room for two SIM cards. Although in the minimum configuration with 256 GB of internal memory - not much to complain about.

On the upper edge of the smartphone, there is nothing interesting except for an additional microphone.

The layout of the controls is quite unusual. The power button with a built-in fingerprint scanner is on one "half", which in any case remains on the right. The volume rocker is on the second "half" and in the open "tablet" format is on the left. During a very short time of use I did not have any special complaints about this arrangement. There was only one false press. While unlocking with the index finger of my left hand in the closed state, I touched the volume down button and took an unplanned screenshot.

The hinge and the cover that covers it are quite massive, which subconsciously inspires confidence and creates a sense of reliability. The lid has a longitudinal recess with a decorative lettering "Designed for Find".

We managed to turn the white version of the smartphone in our hands. The back cover is made of glossy glass, but fingerprints are not visible on the white. The design of the camera is similar to the flagship OPPO Find X3 Pro. The entire lid is made from one piece of glass and smoothly "flows" into the camera unit. This solution looks unique and quite aesthetically pleasing.

The smartphone feels expensive, reliable and, interestingly, monolithic. Even in spite of the folding design. The smartphone weighs 275 g, significantly more than the usual models.

Design Features

As mentioned above, when folded, OPPO Find N is a very compact smartphone that is convenient to use with one hand on the go. At the same time, the 5.49-inch screen diagonal allows you to comfortably use the entire screen area without having to intercept the smartphone. And the greater thickness adds points to the grip. That reduces accidental dropping when you answer a call or message on the go. The tablet version is great for surfing the web, reading, working with mail and documents: a lot of information is placed on the screen.

In terms of entertainment, things are not so good: there may be problems with scaling in games. And when watching a video, a lot of unused area remains on the screen due to the almost square aspect ratio. In the "laptop" version, it is convenient to make video calls, and some stock applications already support this mode of operation. The branded keyboard is divided into two parts for easy typing with your thumbs.

In general, you can think of a lot of use cases. The main thing is for the software to support, and this is already a question for the developers. And this question is still open, given that the geography of smartphone sales is vague.

OPPO Find N has Flexion Hinge, which the company has been developing for 4 years. It consists of more than 100 components that are manufactured to a maximum precision of 0.01 mm. A teardrop-shaped design is used inside the hinge, which increases the bend angle. Thanks to this, it was possible to minimize the fold in the open state. The company claims that the crease is 80% less noticeable than other similar solutions. It is difficult to say exactly how this was measured, but the fold is really almost invisible. Also, the design of the hinge made it possible to almost completely remove the gap in the closed state.

Comparison with Samsung Galaxy Fold3 looks quite logical. Structurally, they are similar, but there are really many differences. Fold3 is much longer and narrower at the same time. The thickness is the same. The buttons on the Fold3 are more familiar, on the same "half". The Fold3 speakers are spaced apart on the top and bottom edges, while the OPPO Find N has both on the bottom.

Galaxy Fold3 turned out to be somewhat larger in size. Although it weighs 4g less.

When developing OPPO Find N, the company deliberately made the screen almost square, so that when the smartphone is open it is not necessary to unfold it. Galaxy Fold3 is more commonly used in landscape orientation, especially when watching videos. And, of course - the fold, which is really practically invisible for Oppo.

Screens

Starting with the foldable internal display, the OPPO Find N uses a 7.1-inch flexible AMOLED screen named OPPO Serene Display. Samsung is engaged in its production. Resolution - 1920x1792, aspect ratio - 9:8.4, pixel density - 370 ppi. 500 cd / m² manual brightness and peak brightness up to 1000 cd / m²  are expected, there is also support for HDR. The display supports an adaptive refresh rate of 1-120 Hz. In the display settings, everything is familiar: dark theme, eye protection, scale and font and color modes. From the less familiar - a set of Ultra Vision Engine enhancers.

Visually, there are no complaints to the screen, both in brightness and picture quality. Hardware measurements showed that in Bright mode the maximum brightness reaches 468.96 cd/m2, and the color gamut is noticeably wider than sRGB. Color rendering slightly goes to the cold shades due to a slight overabundance of blue.

In Natural mode, the color gamut is close to sRGB, and the color reproduction is noticeably closer to the reference values. Maximum is practically at the same level: 467.853 cd / m².

In Pro mode, the maximum brightness is 469.227 cd / m². Same color gamut as in Bright mode, but more natural colors.

Now let's talk about the external screen. This is AMOLED with a diagonal of 5.49 inches and 1972x988 resolution, the pixel density is 402 ppi. The declared brightness values ​​are the same as the internal display. But there is one drawback: the refresh rate of the external display is 60 Hz. This is the only complaint. Everything else is fine.

The external display turned out to be even slightly brighter than the main one. In Bright mode, the maximum brightness is 490.342 cd / m². At the same time, in terms of color rendering, the situation is similar to the internal screen in the same mode.

In Natural mode, the maximum brightness was 486.95 cd / m². Color reproduction is close to natural, and the color gamut is very close to the sRGB color space.

In Pro mode, the maximum brightness is 483.626 cd / m². All indicators are very close to the reference indicators, and the color gamut is wider than sRGB:

OPPO Find N vs other smartphones:

Unlocking Methods

So far, the fingerprint scanner in the power button remains the standard for all smartphones with flexible displays. OPPO Find N is no exception. This decision looks quite logical. There would be two under-screen scanners. And it is not entirely clear how technologically easy it is to install the scanner under a flexible screen. The scanner itself is fast and accurate. Face recognition is also supported. For this, front-facing cameras are used without any additional funds. Recognition speed is very high in good lighting conditions.

Performance, Memory, Sound and Battery Life

In terms of internal components, the OPPO Find N was without surprises. This is a typical current flagship (before the release of smartphones on Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1). Accordingly, inside there is an eight-core 5-nanometer Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 processor, which includes one Kryo 680 core clocked at up to 2.84 GHz, 3xKryo 680 2.42 GHz and 4xKryo 680 at 1.8 GHz. The graphics accelerator is Adreno 660. RAM - 8 or 12 GB LPDDR5. Built-in - 256 or 512 GB of UFS 3.1. We have visited the top variant. In synthetic tests the smartphone shows the expected impressive results. In the AnTuTu ranking, it was even ranked third.

Unfortunately, the CPU Throttling Test refused to work with the smartphone, so it's hard to say anything definite about overheating. But during the tests, the case heats up. Which is not surprising, considering the Snapdragon 888. Wireless interfaces: eWi-Fi 802.11 a / b / g / n / ac / 6 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz, Bluetooth 5.2 LE (aptX HD and LDAC) and NFC for contactless payment. Global Positioning Systems Supported GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO, BDS, QZSS. Sound-wise, everything is fine: fairly loud stereo speakers that sound good and support Dolby Atmos.

The smartphone uses a 4500 mAh battery. The proprietary 33W SUPERVOOC wired fast charging and 15W wireless AIRVOOC are supported. Although Qi standard works too. And 10W reverse charging. Due to the Chinese firmware, it was not possible to use a smartphone as the main one. But, judging by the consumption in performance tests, the smartphone will withstand a full day without problems.

The Interface

OPPO Find N runs on Android 11 with a proprietary filmware ColorOS 12. We had for testing a smartphone with Chinese firmware with a bunch of local applications and without any hint of Google services. When closed, the shell has a familiar structure with desktops, widgets, gesture or button navigation options, some additional gestures and a smart panel that is called from the edge of the screen at a selected location. Of course, all icons and animations have been redrawn. But overall, nothing out of the ordinary, especially if I've used any other OPPO smartphone before.

In the open state, the interface takes on a typical tablet appearance with an increased distance between icons and a two-column organization in various lists such as settings and the like. Everything is convenient and understandable.

From the additional functions we can only highlight the support of the half-bent mode for a couple of obscure Chinese applications: the information is displayed on the upper half, and the controls on the lower one. And the so-called "Flexible windows": from the smart panel you can quickly open applications in a window. Which can be quite handy with a large effective display area. For sure, additional features will be added with updates.

And, of course, a set of standard applications, including a file manager, compass, player, a tool for transferring data between smartphones, and so on.

In general, the filmware works smart, without noticeable bugs, and it is easy to use. But I would like more features on a flexible display.

Cameras

The rear camera of a smartphone includes three modules. Main 50-megapixel Sony IMX766 with f / 1.8 aperture, 24 EGF, 1 / 1.56 ", phase detection autofocus All-Pixel Omni-Directional PDAF and optical stabilization. 16 MP Sony IMX481, f / 2.2 aperture. And a 13 MP telephoto camera, Samsung S5K3M5 module, f / 2.4 aperture, 52 mm EGF, 2x zoom. Both front cameras are identical: 32 MP resolution Sony IMX615, f / 2.4. The smartphone can write video up to 8K resolution.

The camera application in the closed form in general has a standard look with a carousel of the main modes, all the basic settings on the screen, a separate section of the additional modes and the possibility of manual settings. In the tablet orientation everything is a bit more interesting and the controls are very conveniently located with the expectation to control with the thumbs holding the smartphone with two hands:

The main camera performs very well in almost all conditions. The photos are very detailed, with a wide dynamic range and fairly natural color reproduction. Including in the night mode, where most modern smartphones have "yellow" effect. 

The ultra-wide-angle camera is typical for modern smartphones. It has no autofocus, but in sufficient light it can take very decent pictures. At night, however, the detail decreases significantly, especially on the edges of the frame, and in general there is occasional soap:

Telephoto camera is devoid of any, even minimal electronic stabilization. It is possible to get a clear photo on it, but it is not an easy task:

Videos in 4K resolution with a frame rate of 60 fps have very good detail and no too sharp jerks.

In the stabilization mode, the usual artifacts and a slight decrease in detail appear, but within reasonable limits. The picture is pretty smooth:

3 Things to Know about OPPO Find N:

• OPPO Find N is a foldable smartphone with a 7.1-inch flexible AMOLED display
• At the moment, this smartphone has the most invisible fold on the flexible screen
• Inside - the flagship Snapdragon 888 processor, 8/12 GB of RAM and 256/512 GB of internal memory

OPPO Find N vs Samsung Galaxy Fold3:

Oppo Find N

Flagship foldable smartphone with bendable 7.1-inch internal AMOLED screen and 5.49-inch external screen. Equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 processor, 8/12 GB of RAM and 256/512 GB of internal memory, a triple main camera. It is powered by a 4500mAh battery and supports 55W wireless charging and 50W wireless charging.A special feature is the nearly entire absence of a fold on the main display. The smartphone will delight fans of the most advanced technologies.

Read Verified Customer Reviews

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold3

Flagship foldable smartphone with flexible 7.6 "internal AMOLED screen and optional external 6.2" screen. Equipped with the flagship Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 processor, 12 GB of RAM and 256/512 GB of internal memory, a triple main camera, a sub-screen front camera on the inside and a standard one on the outside. It is powered by a 4400mAh battery and is IPX8 water resistant.

Read Verified Customer Reviews