Oppo Find X2
Our favourite new flagship smartphone?
When Oppo made its first concerted effort to break into non-Asian markets, it did so with the Oppo Find X in mid-2018, but since then it’s found more success with the Oppo Reno series.
We’d heard rumors that Oppo was considering the return of the Find range, and a release date seemed likely for the end of 2020 – but then the company surprised us with a reveal of the Oppo Find X2 and Find X2 Pro at its MWC 2020 replacement event in early March.
The Oppo Find X2 is the company’s first true premium device in two years (Oppo has told us that the aforementioned Reno devices, even the accomplished Reno 10x Zoom, which leads that pack, are now considered its mid-range series). It’s clear that Oppo wants to make up for this lost time, and the Find X2 packs a smorgasbord of features that look seriously impressive on paper.
Specs on paper don’t always translate into a great user experience in practice, though; so does the Oppo Find X2 have enough to rival phones from top-end competitors like Samsung, Apple or Sony? We got hands-on with the handset to find out.
Design and display
If you were to combine all the features you associate with the phrase ‘2020 premium phone’ and put them on one device, you’d have a phone very like the Oppo Find X2, although the design also incorporates some signature Oppo flourishes.
The 6.78-inch screen is curved at the edges at a 68-degree angle. The edges of the screen aren’t quite as steep as Oppo’s ‘waterfall’ screen that we’ve seen on concept devices before, but the curve certainly feels more pronounced in the hand than the edges on phones like the Samsung
Galaxy S20.
This display is broken up by a ‘punch-hole’ cut-out segment in the top-left corner. This did feel a bit intrusive to us, especially given that the original Find X had a pop-up segment for this camera.
When we asked Oppo about this, they told us they’d found that the pop-up mechanism took up too much internal space for just the front-facing camera, so we can see why the feature was dropped to make way for other tech inside this phone.
As was the case with the Find X, there’s no 3.5mm headphone jack on the phone; unlike the Find X, Oppo told us the phone is IP54-resistant, providing partial dust and water splash resistance, but shy of the IP68 protection on the Pro version.
Camera
On the back of the Oppo Find X2 you’ll find a 48MP main camera, which would have been considered
The main snapper is joined by a 13MP telephoto camera that facilitates 5x hybrid zoom (combining optical and digital zoom) and then 20x digital zoom.
pretty impressive in early 2019; in 2020, however, the best camera phones are pushing the limits to 64MP and even 108MP. Still, resolution isn’t everything in a camera phone.
The main snapper is joined by a 13MP telephoto camera that facilitates 5x hybrid zoom (combining optical and digital zoom) and then 20x digital zoom. We weren’t actually told the optical zoom limit of the device, but we’d estimate this at 2x based on the other zoom counts.
The third and final camera is a 12MP ‘video lens’ camera, with a 120-degree field of view (similar to that of an ultra-wide-angle lens).
Features and specs
The phone runs on the top-end Snapdragon 865 chipset, which should deliver blazingly fast processing speeds, perhaps enough to rival the iPhone 11 or even the Samsung Galaxy S20.
This chipset comes with a built-in 5G modem, so the Oppo Find X2 is a 5G device, just like its
Find X2 Pro sibling; there’s not going to be a 4G-only device, according to Oppo.
The Oppo Find X2 runs Android 10, the latest version of Google’s operating system, with Oppo’s ColorOS 7 laid over the top. This brings mainly aesthetic and navigation changes from stock Android, but we found the top-end screen tech really brings out the vibrant colors of its icons and buttons.
Final Thoughts
If your eyes have been growing wider and wider as you read this review, you should definitely keep your eyes on the Oppo Find X2. Although we only got to test it out briefly, our experience was broadly in line with our expectations based on the top-end specs inside the phone.
One aspect we’re a little dubious about though is the cameras. Most new smartphones, especially premium ones, are constantly pushing the limits of camera capabilities, with high-res sensors, fantastic zoom performance, and a slew of impressive post-processing abilities; but Oppo seems to have brushed over the cameras in the Find X2 in favor of other features.
That said, we’re looking forward to spending a lot more time with the Find X2, along with the rest of the phones features; it’s possible that the snappers are better than the specs list gives them credit for. Likewise it’s possible the top-end screen quality and fast charging speeds have unforeseeable negative consequences.
Time will tell, but so far, Oppo’s onto something good.
Oppo has packed its new flagship full of all the top-end features you’d expect from a premium device in 2020, and more, so there’s certainly a lot to like here. The cameras do feel a little sub-par though, at least in terms of specs.
Tom Bedford
This chipset comes with a built-in 5G modem, so the Oppo Find X2 is a 5G device, just like its Find X2 Pro sibling.