Smartphones brands are slowly moving towards a bezel-less screen design but many of them still haven’t been able to get rid of bezels completely. For a phone to be completely bezel-less, the camera, earpiece, and a few sensors have to be placed elsewhere so that the entire front surface of the phone could be filled with the screen. Well, Oppo and Vivo have now found a way to make a phone with a completely bezel-less screen. Vivo has opted a pop-up camera module design, which helped it make the Vivo NEX, the first notch-less and bezel-less smartphone in the industry.
Oppo Find X
Rs. 59,999What Is Good?
- Gorgeous design
- Excellent primary and selfie camera
- Brilliant display
- Fast and smooth performance
What Is Bad?
- Lacks 4K/60FPS video recording
- Display misses out on HDR
- UI design looks outdated
Oppo has taken a largely similar approach with the Find X, its first truly bezel-less and notch-less smartphone. The top portion of the Oppo Find X, the area between the screen and the rear surface, can slide in and out of the device frame, neatly hiding the components that would otherwise come in the way of a completely bezel-less screen. This slide-out portion not only houses the front-facing camera and the earpiece, but also a couple of sensors as well as the rear-facing cameras. Although the long-term durability of the sliding mechanism is questionable, the Find X surely looks futuristic and beautiful.
The Oppo Find X not only has a bezel-less and a notch-less display, but it also comes packed with top-of-the-line hardware, including the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor, 8GB RAM, 256GB storage, 25MP front-facing camera, 16MP+20MP dual-camera setup at the rear, dual-SIM connectivity, USB Type-C port, and a massive 3,750mAh battery with support for fast charging. You get all this for a price tag that’s below Rs. 60,000, which is significantly lower than what many other flagships smartphones are priced at. Let us have a look at how the Oppo Find X performs, and more importantly, how reliable its sliding mechanism is.
OPPO Find X: Specifications
- Body – Metal frame, slide-out structure at the top, Corning Gorilla Glass 5 at front and back, 156.7 x 74.2 x 9.4 mm, 186 grams
- Display – 6.42-inch Super AMOLED, Full HD+ resolution, 19.5:9 aspect ratio
- Rear Camera – 16+20MP dual camera setup, OIS (for the 16MP sensor), phase-detection autofocus, dual-tone LED flash, 4K/30FPS video recording
- Front Camera – 25MP, f/2.0, 1080p/30FPS video recording
- Processing Hardware – Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 SoC (4 x 2.8 GHz Kryo 385 Gold + 4 x 1.7 GHz Kryo 385 Silver), Adreno 630 GPU
- RAM – 8GB LPDDR4X
- Storage – 256GB
- Operating System – Android 8.1 Oreo, ColorOS 5.1 UI customisation
- Battery – 3730mAh, 22.5W VOOC fast charging
- Other Features – 3D face unlocking
OPPO Find X: What’s In The Box?
- Oppo Find X
- 22.5W VOOC fast charger
- USB Type-C cable
- USB Type-C to 3.5mm audio jack adapter
- USB Type-C earphones
- SIM card tray removal pin
- Transparent protective case
Oppo Find X Review: Design & Build Quality
As mentioned earlier, the Oppo Find X has a motorised slide-out structure at the top, which houses both front and rear-facing cameras as well as a bunch of sensors. The device uses a metal frame, which is sandwiched between Gorilla Glass 5 panels at the front and the rear of the phone, just like any other modern flagship smartphones. As far as the looks go, the Oppo Find X is the most gorgeous smartphone I’ve ever come across. The device is an instant attention-grabber, thanks to its shiny surface, bezel-less curved display, a distinctive purple colour on the edges, and, of course, its unique slide-out body.
Oppo Find X is the most gorgeous smartphone I’ve ever come across.
People are extremely curious about the durability of the device and its slide-out mechanism more than anything else. Especially, after popular YouTuber JerryRigEverything showcased how fragile the Oppo Find X is in comparison to other flagship phones. Well, I don’t think that’s the real-life use-case. So, how durable is the Find X in the real-life usage? I don’t consider myself to be careful with smartphones – I drop them frequently, keep them in tight pockets, throw them in my car’s glovebox, keep them under the pillow while sleeping, and the likes. The Oppo Find X has been through all those scenarios, and even after that, it’s been working perfectly fine.
I’ve accidentally forced closed the slide-out portion of the Oppo Find X many times, but it still hasn’t shown any issues or any signs of wear and tear; it works like new. Sure, there is a slight wobble to the whole slide-out structure, but it does not affect any functionality. At first, I was sceptical about the speed of the slide-out mechanism, and whether if it would be fast enough to pop-out when I quickly want to capture a selfie, but to my surprise, the camera starts as fast as it would in any other smartphone whose camera sensor is mounted outside.
On the downside, the Oppo Find X is the most slippery device I’ve ever used. The device starts slipping down if the surface even has a slight amount of slope. You have to be extra careful with the device. However, the issue can be resolved by using the supplied protective case. The device is also very big, so single-handed usage is nearly impossible, but then again, every flagship smartphone nowadays has the same issue. Hence, I can’t complain about that.
Oppo has done a great job with the design and build quality of the Find X, and I am completely satisfied with it. However, it has to be seen how the slide-out mechanism holds up in the future. We’ll keep you updated on that.
Oppo Find X Review: Display
The most talked about feature of the Oppo Find X is its screen; it is the second smartphone after the Vivo NEX to feature a truly bezel-less and a notch-less screen. Thanks to the bezel-less screen form factor, the display is gorgeous to look at. The screen itself is a 6.42-inches Super AMOLED unit with curved edges, Full HD+ resolution, and 19.5:9 aspect ratio.
As expected with any AMOLED panel, the Oppo Find X’ screen has vivid colour reproduction and pure, inky blacks. The outdoor visibility is excellent thanks to high brightness levels. However, the screen doesn’t get as bright as the ones used in Samsung’s flagship smartphones. The outdoor visibility could have been even better if not for its super-reflective surface, but then its reflective surface is what makes the device attractive, so I wouldn’t complain about it.
Oppo Find X screen has vivid colour reproduction and pure, inky blacks.
Moving on to the test parameters, the display of the Find X can’t reproduce darker shades of red, pink, and blue accurately. Though the screen has true blacks, it fails to display harder to reproduce shades of black. This means you won’t be able to see the exact black shades in movies such as The Dark Knight. The gamma levels are also far away from the standard 2.2 value – they are somewhere around the 1.3 and 1.4 mark. The white saturation is very good though. The display also doesn’t exhibit any banding issues.
The display of the Oppo Find X is not as good as the one on the Apple iPhone X or the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 in terms of colour reproduction, black level accuracy, gamma levels, and white saturation. However, if you don’t know what they are, there is a very little chance that you’ll ever find any flaw with the Oppo Find X’ display. I think it does a very good job in comparison with most of the other flagships out there.
Oppo Find X Review: Camera
The Oppo Find X features a 16MP+20MP dual-camera at the rear. The camera has OIS, phase-detection autofocus, and dual-tone LED flash. Images captured with the Find X in daylight conditions have excellent quality. They come out bright and detailed. The dynamic range is outstanding as well. Colours reproduced are more vivid than they are in reality, but that’s not a bad thing for many consumers. I’d say the image quality is on par with the other flagship smartphones released in 2018.
Images captured in low-light conditions are excellent as well. They are bright, detailed, and contain very less noise. Thanks to OIS, even the pictures taken in pitch-dark conditions come out really well. There is a slight over-sharpening, but it is nothing that can’t be overlooked. Oppo has also used an excellent quality lens, and there is almost no lens flare in the images. That being said, the low light image quality is still not as good as that of the Huawei P20 Pro or the Samsung Galaxy Note 9.
Images are bright, detailed, and contain very less noise, even in low-light.
The camera features portrait mode, courtesy of the dual-camera setup. The portrait image quality is magnificent. The camera distinguishes very well between the subject and the background. It also handles blurring around the edges of hair very well, which many other smartphones fail to do. However, portrait images still don’t look as good as those captured on the Apple iPhone X or the Samsung Galaxy Note 9. The Find X also has a panorama mode, which can capture 19MP images, and they have outstanding image quality.
Oppo is known for having great selfie cameras, and the Find X being their flagship smartphone, they’ve cut no corners in the selfie department. The device has a whopping 25MP front-facing camera. The images taken with it have a fantastic image quality. The images come out very sharp, and the camera manages to capture even the minutest detail of the face. The images are also very bright and vivid, which make them look very appealing. The lowlight selfies are also one of the best in its class – they are bright and have comparatively lower noise levels. There’s also a portrait mode in the selfie camera, which works very well. Although, it sometimes messes up blurring around the edges of the hairs.
Selfies come out very sharp, and the camera manages to capture even the minutest detail of the face.
The one thing that I sorely missed on the Oppo Find X is 4K video recording at 60FPS. Even the smartphones half as costly as the Find X have it, take the Asus Zenfone 5Z for instance. Oppo could have offered 4K 60FPS video recording as its SoC is perfectly capable of handling it, but for unknown reasons, they haven’t. The Find X can record 4K videos at 30FPS, but even at that, it sucks. The videos appear jittery, and the audio quality is unimpressive. On top of that, the image stabilisation doesn’t work very well. If you are someone who records videos a lot, then the Find X shouldn’t be on your list.
Oppo Find X Review: Performance
The Oppo Find series of smartphones have always come packed the latest and the fastest SoC in the market, and the Find X is no different. It comes with Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 SoC and 8GB of RAM. The device is very fast and smooth. Its well-optimised software further adds to its speedy performance. Gaming on the device is also very smooth; it doesn’t heat up while playing even the most graphics intensive games. The Find X doesn’t feel as smooth as the OnePlus 6; as good as the Galaxy Note 9 I would say.
The Find X doesn’t feel as smooth as the OnePlus 6, but it is almost there.
Coming to the software design, the ColorOS 5.1 isn’t all that good. The UI doesn’t look modern, and a few bits and pieces don’t look polished. It is a lot better looking than Vivo’s FunTouch OS, but still nowhere near the UI design from Samsung, HTC, or even stock Android. The one thing I hated in the ColorOS is that there is no battery usage graph. I don’t know why Oppo has decided to remove it but is totally unacceptable – they shouldn’t just remove the basic Android features.
Speaking of battery, the Find X packs a 3730mAh battery, and it returns an excellent mileage. I usually got around 30 hours of battery backup, and although I couldn’t check the screen-on time due to the lack of battery graph, I am sure I was using it more than 5 hours at least. The device also features Oppo’s 22.5W VOOC fast charging, with which it can recharge itself under two hours, which is pretty quick.
The Oppo Find X doesn’t come with a fingerprint scanner – it uses iPhone X-like 3D face scanning, the components for which are placed in the slide-out structure. At first, I was sceptical that the Find X would take a significant amount of time to unlock the device as the camera has to first slide-out of the body and then scan the face. However, I was astonished by the unlocking speed of the Find X – it is exceptionally fast. Hell, it is even faster than the face unlock in the Apple iPhone X. Great job there, Oppo!
I was astonished by the unlocking speed of the Find X – it is exceptionally fast!
There is one major issue with the face scanning though – it can’t be used for authentication in the Google Play Store, or with any third-party applications like the 1Password or any sort of banking apps. This is a huge bummer, as every time you open your banking app, purchase anything from the Play Store, or access your password manager, you’ll have to enter the password manually, which takes up a lot of time. I don’t think the support for the face scanning authentication will arrive anytime soon. This is one thing you’ll have to consider before buying the Find X.
In terms of connectivity, the Oppo Find X is a dual-SIM device. It supports 4G LTE and VoLTE. Unlike many other Snapdragon 845 equipped devices, the Oppo Find X does not support 4G VoLTE simultaneously on both the SIM cards. This wasn’t a major issue for me, but it could be for some, especially for those who are using both the SIM cards with support for 4G-only network. The positioning of the earpiece is quite impressive – it is placed on the slide-out portion, but has a passthrough to the front, so it doesn’t have to pop-out every time you receive a call. I liked this approach over the screen-vibrating sound reproduction on the Vivo Nex, as it sounds a lot better.
The device doesn’t come with a 3.5mm audio jack, which is quite disappointing, but then again, not many flagships released this year have it. The bundled USB Type-C to 3.5mm adapter does a pretty good job, though. As for the sound of the loudspeaker – it is loud and clear. Although, I wish the Find X had stereo speakers.
Oppo Find X Review: Verdict
The Oppo Find X is undoubtedly the best-looking smartphone ever made. Along with that, it also has an excellent display, great cameras, and fast performance. However, when you pit the Oppo Find X against the OnePlus 6 and the Galaxy Note 9, the other two devices offer a better primary camera, better UI design, faster performance, commitment to software updates, and 4K/60FPS video recording.
If you don’t mind having a notch then go for the OnePlus 6 – it is cheaper and has a better overall performance.
Here’s my advice, Oppo Find X is an excellent smartphone, and it will not disappoint you, but you should only buy it if you care about its design. If you don’t mind having a notch then go for the OnePlus 6 – it is cheaper and has a better overall performance. If you don’t want a notch, and if you could spend slightly more, then go for the Galaxy Note 9, it is better than the Oppo Find X in almost every aspect.
