Wednesday, April 22, 2020

OPPO Find X2 Pro Review - The company's finest yet!

Back in March, OPPO unleashed the Find X2 Pro, the company's new top-of-the-line handset designed to take on the best of the best in the market this year.
OPPO Find X2 Pro - The company's finest yet!
OPPO Find X2 Pro review

OPPO equipped the upgraded Find X with some of the best hardware and software you'll find which impressed us right off the bat.

In particular, it has a premium Ceramic or Vegan Leather body, jaw-dropping-display, Snapdragon 865 at the core of its hardware, 65W charging, high-end triple-cameras with super zoom solution, and more.

Now, it's time for our full review. Read on.

For our first impressions, read here.


Multimedia Experience

One of the best displays today

The Find X2 Pro may not have the all-screen design of the first Find X in 2018, but the display it is using is miles ahead in terms of quality and performance.


Like the 2018 Find X, the main highlight of the new Find X2 Pro is the display. It is using a massive Gorilla Glass 6 protected 6.7-inch display with a 67.8-degrees curve, a tiny bottom bezel of 2.9 mm, and an impressive 93.1 percent of screen-to-body ratio.

It goes with a super crisp QHD+ 3168 x 1440 resolution at 519 ppi, extra smooth adaptive 120Hz refresh rate, and a touch sampling rate of up to 240Hz.
Display settings
Display settings

It also comes with 100 percent DCI-P3 WCG (wide color gamut), the color accuracy of 0.4 JNCD, ultra-low reflectivity of 4.4 percent to produce a pure black color, and HDR peak brightness of 1,200 nits, and AI Adaptive Eye Protection System with TÜV Rheinland Full Care Display Certification.

Lastly, it has the O1 Ultra Vision Engine, an optimization chip to make images and videos look even better.

The result? This is one of the best displays that I've ever seen on a smartphone yet. Yes, I personally like it better even against the screen of the Galaxy S20 Ultra.

It looks great in all conditions. It even looks bright even against the direct hit of the sun. This display also has beautiful curves and good viewing angles.

Basically, I enjoyed the viewing experience of this handset as it is great for nearly everything. It is amazing for watching high-definition YouTube and Netflix content as well as looking at your social media feed, the photos you took, and playing games.

For audio, this device is great for a phone as well. It comes with fairly loud, detailed, and crisp stereo speakers. For a phone, it has a respectable bass punch. I enjoyed that it has Hi-Res audio certification and it comes with strong driving power.

It worked really well for USB-C wired earphones and a few headphones as well as TWS buds. It has a Bluetooth 5.1 with almost no delay on my Enco Free TWS buds.

This device also has a clear earspeaker and triple-mic setup. I never had an issue with voice quality for calls. Even audio recordings as great with a 3D-like effect and minimal noise. It has wind noise reduction and audio zoom.


Camera

Monster triple-cam
Monster triple-cam

The OPPO Find X2 Pro sports a triple-camera setup at the back unlike most flagships with four (4) or five (5) cameras. Some of you may think that it is inferior to the competition, but no.

Why? It uses a customed-tuned triple-camera with very impressive specs. The first camera is a 48MP f/1.7 Sony IMX689 sensor with a 7P lens, OIS, and All Pixel Omnidirectional PDAF focus. It uses PDAF and Laser AF at the same time. It's a massive 1/1.4-inch sensor that's larger than the 1/2-inch sensor of previous-gen 48MP cameras.

The secondary camera is also impressive. It sports a 48MP f/2.2 Sony IMX586 sensor with a 6P lens 120-degree ultra-wide-angle and 3cm ultra-macro. This is considered as massive of a secondary camera.

The third camera of the Find X2 Pro is also very impressive. It is a 13MP f/3.0 periscope zoom camera with a 5x optical zoom. This camera sensor enabled the handset to produce up to 10x lossless zoom and up to 60x digital zoom.


It didn't have a 3D ToF depth camera, but this configuration is still monstrous.
Crisp and clear cameras
Crisp and clear cameras

For modes, it has the usual auto HDR, Filters, Panorama, Portrait, Night Mode, and an Expert mode. The Expert mode has up to ISO 6400, 32s shutter, and 12-bit RAW support.

OPPO is calling its new Night mode the Ultra Night Mode 3.0 that works for the Wide, Ultra Wide, and Telephoto sensors.

Rear Camera Samples

Daylight 1x
Daylight 1x
Daylight ultra-wide
Daylight ultra-wide
Daylight 5x optical zoom
Daylight 5x optical zoom
10x hybrid zoom
10x hybrid zoom

One of OPPO Find X2 Pro's specialty is color accuracy. The company did a great job of keeping the colors close to natural. As expected, both the main and wide cam got images with crisp details in daylight due to their use of 48MP cameras.

What I like here is even zoom looks great. It has some of the best 5x optical zoom and 10x hybrid zoom around. Most of my daylight shots are well exposed even when I shift from normal, wide, and zoom.
Ultra-wide to 60x zoom
Ultra-wide to 60x zoom

As mentioned this device has up to 60x digital zoom. It is better than the 60x of the Reno 10x Zoom, but don't still expect it to be that serviceable. At least it is there and it can help you see things your naked eye can't see from a distance.

Ultra-macro sample
Ultra-macro sample

Another good trait of Find X2 Pro's camera is it can do macro shots using its secondary ultra-wide camera. AND, it is not GIMMICKY unlike other macro cams found on lower-end phones. OPPO said that it can do up to 3cm ultra-macro images. For me, its quality is not bad unless you will use this mode in low light.
Indoor artificial lighting
Indoor artificial lighting
Indoor close-up shot
Indoor close-up shot

Even indoor shots are top-tier for a phone. The grain is hardly noticeable and colors are close to natural again. It also has strong contrast and sharp details. If I have to nitpick, I would like it to have a bit more saturation. Just a bit.
Portrait mode in low light
Portrait mode in low light

Even in low light, its Portrait mode can deliver. I personally like the depth effect quality even if we all know that it is artificially enhanced. This is really good for a smartphone. It has nice edge detection and respectable separation of background to the image. Not bad for a phone with no 3D depth camera.
Low light auto
Low light auto

As expected, due to its large sensor size and other enhancements, the Find X2 Pro can take really good low light images for a smartphone. This rivals (or even beat) other top-tier cameras like the Mate 30 Pro. Noise is less with well-controlled exposure.
Low light with Night mode
Low light with Night mode
Low light with ultra-wide
Low light with ultra-wide

Like all modern high-end smartphones, the handset also has an excellent Night mode. This will definitely enhance the details, colors, dynamic range, and exposure of shots in the dark. There will be some artifacts, but I can live with it. It's better than having a dull and grainy image in the dark.

OPPO noted that with Night mode, even if you zoom a little, shots will still look decent. I agree.
32MP f/2.4 Sony IMX616
32MP selfie cam

In the front, it uses a single 32MP f/2.4 Sony IMX616 sensor with AI face beauty and HDR. It has most of the OPPO modes with different Face beauty levels and the Portrait effect.
Selfie UI

Selfie Camera Samples

Outdoor with depth effect
Outdoor with depth effect
Well-lit indoor
Well-lit indoor
Low light
Low light

For videos, it doesn't have 8K yet unlike the Galaxy S20 Ultra. But, it has up to 4K 60fps. The 4K 60fps only works with the primary camera. To use the ultra-wide video, you have to go down to 4K 30fps. The stabilization is not that great in 4K 60fps mode as well.

To use the Ultra Steady (primary) and Ultra Steady Pro (ultra-wide) feature, you will need to go down to 1080p 60fps. It would have been nicer if this feature is available in the 4K mode as it truly improves the video stabilization of this device.

In the front, the 32MP camera of the Find X2 Pro has the ability to record 1080p 30fps video. Sadly, unlike other flagships, there's no 4K selfie video mode. The good thing? It records decent selfie videos with crisp details and not that big crop.


Quick and video comparison versus the Huawei Mate 30 Pro



Performance


Some of the highest benchmark scores around
Some of the highest benchmark scores around

At the core of the OPPO Find X2 Pro is the very impressive 7nm 2.84GHz 7nm Snapdragon 865 octa-core processor with Adreno 650 GPU. The Chinese mobile giant also coupled it with 12GB LPDDR5 and 512GB UFS 3.0 storage.

This is insane as most high-end phones only come with 256GB storage. If you will check even the more expensive PHP 69,990 Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra only has 128GB storage.

When we say fast, we mean fast. The Snapdragon 865 SoC is the fastest chipset found on any Android phone yet. This means that the OPPO Find X2 Pro has some of the very best overall performance found on modern smartphones.

As expected, it runs all of the apps with ease and great speed. Multitasking? No problem. Heavy games? Bring it on! It was able to run most of the games we tried with stable frame rates.

This also has all of OPPO's gaming-related features which include the Game Space with notification block and optimizations.

Thermals are also okay most of the time. You will only experience a bit of heating (warmness) if you will play games with 4G LTE in a hot room.

Speaking of LTE. I'm a bit disappointed that OPPO didn't bring the 5G version of this handset here in the Philippines. Instead, we got the 4G version only. While the 5G mobile services are yet to launch in the country, 5G is the way to go.

Most in the major cities in PH are expected to experience 5G later this year. For me, having 5G is a must on a top-tier device, especially if it is priced at PHP 65,990.

I'm sure, a lot of those who will want this would want to use it for more than 2 years. By that time, their phone is still in 4G.

Anyway, the rest of the connectivity features are great. WiFi, 4G LTE (on areas with strong LTE signal), Bluetooth 5, NFC, and GPS all work well. I never had any major issues with calls and SMS as well. Most of the time, if you will experience hiccups, the one with the problem is your provider, not the phone.

In terms of security, the device most of the modern way of locking and unlocking your device. It has a really fast and accurate In-Display fingerprint reader that is arguably as fast as traditional fingerprint scanners. Yes, In-Display fingerprint scanners nowadays are already that good.

It also has a face unlock solution, but do not expect it to be as great as the unlocking of the P40 Pro and iPhone 11 with different sensors.

You may still opt to the traditional patterns or password locks if you want the most secure unlocking possible.
Add caption

To my surprise, the battery performance of the Find X2 Pro is great despite having a high-resolution display with 120Hz high frame rates. It clocked a total of 12 hours and 50 minutes in our PC Mark battery test and it can last for an entire workday on a single charge.

Even if I heavily use the phone, the battery performance is still decent. With 4G LTE on all the time, watching an episode or two on Netflix, taking photos and videos from time to time, and playing a few games, it still lasted for around 7 hours.

Since it has a 65W fast charger, it can fully charge the phone from 0 to 100 percent in just 35 to 40 minutes. It's the fastest that we ever tested yet.

Sadly, there's no wireless charging support though.

Add caption

This is OPPO's best UI yet, the ColorOS 7.1 skin based on the Android 10 OS. OPPO has trimmed it down to make it as stock-like as possible and it was a wonderful experience. Icons look fresh, transitions are super smooth, bloats are minimal, and navigation is smooth.

I like that you can customize your themes, icons, text size, and more. The gesture navigation works well and it is easy to use for me. There are Screen Light Effects for calls and there's the Always-on Display for notifications as well.

The only thing that I didn't like that much is the inclusion of many app stores. Maybe just OPPO's app market and the Google App Store would be enough.

Among the pre-installed apps, I love that there is Netflix out of the box. This suggests that OPPO is really confident about the display of this device. Like what we mentioned above, the screen of this device is so good.

The score suggests that the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra is one of the best mobile cameras in the world today.

Of course, it has a nice Dark mode. This Dark mode is a universal one as well. It also has the ever-useful one-handed mode, screen recording function, and more.

There is this OPPO Relax app, Kids Space, Digital Wellbeing, and other nifty features as well.

Maybe what they can add in the future is the Desktop Mode. Samsung and Huawei both have this feature on their high-end devices.

Gone are the days where ColorOS is inferior to the competition. ColorOS 7.1 is that good.


Pros - Gorgeous and premium build, top-of-the-line specs, super-fast charging speed, really good cameras for photography, steady 1080p 60fps videos, ColorOS 7.1 is amazing
Cons - Not 5G ready (PH version), no wireless charging, not that stabilized 4K 60fps videos, no 4K selfie videos


OPPO Find X2 Pro Specs

Display: 6.7-inch 3D curved Gorilla Glass 6 protected Super AMOLED screen w/ 120Hz refresh rate, HDR10+, QHD+ 3168 x 1440 resolution at 519 ppi
CPU: 2.84GHz 7nm Snapdragon 865 octa-core processor
GPU: Adreno 650
RAM: 12GB LPDDR5
ROM: 512GB UFS 3.0
Back Camera: 48MP f/1.7 Sony IMX689 w/ 7P lens, OIS, All Pixel Omnidirectional PDAF + 48MP Sony IMX586 f/2.2 w/ 6P lens 120-degree ultra-wide-angle, 3cm ultra-macro + 13MP f/3.0 w/ 5P lens, 5x optical zoom + dual-tone LED flash
Selfie Camera: 32MP f/2.4 Sony IMX616
Battery: 4,260mAh 65W SuperVOOC 2.0 Flash Charge
OS: Android 10 w/ ColorOS 7.1
Connectivity: WiFi 802.11 b/g/n/ac (2.4GHz/5GHz), 4G LTE, Bluetooth 5, OTG, FM Radio, NFC, GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS, dual SIM
Sensors: Accelerometer, light, orientation, proximity, gyroscope, sound, magnetic
Others: In-Display fingerprint sensor, face unlock, IP68 water and dust resistance, stereo speakers, Dolby Atmos, Hi-Res audio, triple-mic, USB-C, Colors: Ceramic Black, Vegan Leather Orange
Dimensions: 165.2 x 74.4 x 8.8 mm (Ceramic Black), 9.5 mm (Vegan Leather Orange)
Weight: 207 g (Ceramic Black), 200 g (Vegan Leather Orange)
Price: PHP 65,990

Verdict

Despite having the few weaknesses we mentioned above, the OPPO Find X2 Pro is one of the best phones of the year so far. I like the fact that it has a stellar QHD+ display, super-fast performance, top-notch cameras, decent battery life despite the power-hungry 120Hz refresh rate, 

My only major gripe is its lack of 5G connectivity for the price.

But overall, the Find X2 Pro showed the world that OPPO can now compete with the very best out there.


Build/Design - 4.75
Multimedia Experience - 4.85
Cameras - 4.75
Performance - 4.75
Average - 4.775/5

Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Share on Google+

Related : OPPO Find X2 Pro Review - The company's finest yet!