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Oppo Find X2 Pro review: A fast, and fast-charging, flagship 5G phone
Oppo Find X2 Pro
pros and cons
- Cutting-edge Snapdragon 865 chipset
- Superb 120Hz OLED screen
- Good battery life with super-fast charging
- Excellent camera with up to 60x digital zoom
- Striking backplate design (Vegan Leather model)
- IP68 dust/water resistance
- Single SIM
- No MicroSD storage expansion
Oppo's 2019 flagship Find X smartphone had plenty going for it, but a quirky camera arrangement and some missing features did it no favours. The new Find X2 Pro fixes the problems with last year's model and makes some interesting additions -- including 5G. This 2020 flagship phone comes with 12GB of RAM and costs £899 (inc. VAT) with 256GB of internal storage, or £1,099 with 512GB.
The Oppo Find X2 Pro comes with a regular black ceramic backplate, but I was sent the orange version. Yes, orange. The backing material in this case is Vegan Leather, and it looks amazing -- different to any other handset around right now. It feels soft to the touch, and this phone never once slipped out of my grip or off the arm of my chair.
The 6.7-inch Find X2 Pro comes with a conventional black (Ceramic) backplate or with a textured Vegan Leather finish. The black model is 8.8mm thick and weighs 217g, while the leather-backed version is 9.5mm thick and weighs 200g.
Questions will inevitably be asked about the durability of the Vegan Leather backplate, and Oppo's answer is that the finish is just as hardy as the black ceramic version. Will it stain, mark or tear over time? We'll have to wait and see.
The soft-touch orange backplate is interrupted by the camera lozenge, which protrudes significantly -- enough to cause the handset to bob about a bit on the desk when you tap its screen.
The edges of the phone are bronze/orange in colour, and both the back and front of the long edges curve into the sides, giving the device a sandwich-like look. There's a splash of green on the power button, on the right side.
The lozenge housing the triple rear cameras protrudes a few millimetres from the back. There are speakers at each end of the handset, which has a USB-C port but no 3.5mm headset jack.
Oppo has dropped the unique mechanical pop-up camera system that it used in the original Find X, where a panel the full width of the handset slid up to reveal both front and back cameras. I'm pleased about that: the mechanism seemed to be a feature waiting to fail; the cameras were slow to reveal, making selfies time consuming and precluding face login; and the pop-up section meant the handset was susceptible to the ingress of dust and water. Now, with the front camera in a punch-hole cut-out to the top left of the screen and the rear cameras in their traditional position, there's scope for face login, and the handset has an IP68 rating for dust and water resistance. Selfies are just a click away, too.
The large Gorilla Glass 6-protected OLED screen measures 6.7 inches from corner to corner with a resolution of 3,168 by 1,440 pixels (513ppi, 19.8:9 aspect ratio, 120Hz refresh rate). By default, the screen refresh rate varies automatically depending on the content, but you can select between Auto Select, 120Hz and 60Hz in the settings. An image optimisation chip, the O1 Ultra Vision Engine, enhances video captured at a lower refresh rate, and you can adjust its settings to your preference.
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Settings adjustments for the OLED screen and the O1 Ultra Vision Engine.
I found the screen to be great for reading ebooks, browsing websites and watching video (of course, it handles 4K video). If you're concerned about battery life, it's advisable to set the screen refresh rate to 60Hz or Auto Select, as 120Hz will consume more power.
Anyone using the Oppo Find X2 Pro for gaming or video watching will want good-quality sound. The stereo speakers -- one at the base of the handset the other at the top -- deliver plenty of volume, although the audio is somewhat tinny. There's no 3.5mm headset jack, but my true wireless earbuds worked flawlessly.
The chipset is Qualcomm's leading-edge Snapdragon 865, with 12GB of RAM. No surprise, then, that it absolutely flew during benchmarking, delivering scores of 3246 (multi core) and 909 (single core) on Geekbench 5 -- check out the Geekbench browser for comparative results.
SEE: IT pro's guide to the evolution and impact of 5G technology (free PDF)
The entry-level Find X2 Pro comes with 256GB of storage and costs £899 (inc. VAT), while my £1,099 review unit had 512GB. Out of the box, there was a massive 486GB free.
There's no MicroSD card support for external storage expansion, but it's hardly necessary, even with the lower storage capacity. More problematic -- and it's the main flaw in an otherwise impeccably-specified flagship 5G phone -- is the Find X2 Pro's support for just one SIM.
The cameras are a key part of the overall package. The 32MP front camera takes a fine selfie, but it's the triple camera array at the back that's the real talking point. It comprises a 48MP Sony IMX689 sensor with an f/1.7 wide-angle lens, a 48MP Sony IMX586 sensor with an f/2.2 ultra-wide-angle (120° FoV) lens, and a 13MP periscope camera with an f/3.0 telephoto lens. This array offers 10x hybrid zoom -- including 5x optical -- and up to 60x zoom, with optical image stabilisation (OIS) on the wide-angle and periscope cameras.
Images shot with 10x hybrid zoom (left) and 60x digital zoom (right).
Maximizing the zoom loses a lot of fidelity and is a tedious process, as the only way to get to 60x is by pinching the screen numerous times. Still, the capability is quite a feat and at lower zoom levels -- up to about 5x -- the results are impressive. I have not been able to do a lot of leisure photography with this handset, but initial testing suggests that the wide-angle lens and great colour capture will steal the show over mega-zooming.
The Oppo Find X2 Pro runs Android 10 with Oppo's own ColorOS overlay, now at version 7.1. ColorOS is rather neat, and its added features are generally more help than hindrance, and it is fairly unobtrusive. Interventions come in a range of guises, from settings tweaks to additional apps. The Oppo Relax app, for example, plays ambient sounds and gentle music, and has some breathing exercises. If you think it sounds cheesy, I actually found the audio rather pleasant as background noise.
Oppo's standard Quick Tools pop-out can be called up by sweeping in from the right edge of the phone. It provides fast access to frequently-used apps and features.
Oppo's ColorOS overlay on Android 10 includes the Quick Tools pop-out (left) and the Relax app.
Less welcome are some of the pre-installed apps. Admittedly there aren't many of these and they take up little storage space, but if you'd rather not have the likes of Netflix, Facebook and the Opera web browser on your handset you'll be disappointed that they can't be uninstalled.
The 4,260mAh battery delivers excellent performance. Under the PC Mark Work 2.0 benchmark, the Find X2 Pro lasted for an impressive 15 hours 31 minutes (see comparative results here). The battery is in fact two separate 2,130mAh units, and its 65W SuperVOOC 2.0 fast charging is astonishing: if you use the provided charger, it should be possible to get from zero to 40% in 10 minutes, and fully charge the handset in just 38 minutes.
Conclusions
Oppo has abandoned the original Find X's pop-up camera arrangement in favour of a more traditional design, while compensating with a strikingly orange Vegan Leather backplate option. The Find X2 Pro's 6.7-inch OLED screen is simply sublime, and the long-lasting battery's fast charging is a double bonus. All this, plus the cutting-edge Snapdragon 865 chipset and generous internal storage, adds up to an impressive flagship 5G smartphone. Our only real concern is the lack of dual SIM support.
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