Oppo Find X2 hands-on: On a triumphal march with orange vegan leather and black grooves?
Oppo presents a new smartphone that could easily crush the competition. And it comes in orange vegan leather.
Oppo dares to do something. The new Oppo Find X2 also comes in black, but it's mainly the orange vegan leather that catches the eye.
It then also feels leathery, if a little over-treated. Well, a mobile has to withstand different use than a good pair of leather boots or a nice leather jacket and it also has to be taut. In addition, real leather in mass production is definitely inappropriate for something that will be obsolete after two years at the latest. And the material is orange. Still is.
The black Oppo Find X2 also has its charm, because simply having a plastic or ceramic back is not good enough for Oppo. It has very fine grooves on the back. When you hold it, you almost don't feel them, but the effect the light creates when you turn it is extraordinary. Plus: If you run your fingernail over it, it makes a funny sound. I do that in the video above and Stephanie or Armin leave the take in. That's important.
You can't see the grooves in the image thanks to the rather sharp JPG compression of our system. But if you view the image as a raw file, you'll be fine. Sorry for the inconvenience.
But now: the specs
Oppo historically launches a new Find every two years. The Find series is what the Galaxy S series is for Samsung or the P series for Huawei. The flagship. The Find X shook up the market in 2018 with flagship specs at a very attractive price. Simply not in Switzerland, but mainly in Asia and in overseas enthusiast circles.
The Find X2 Pro, as well as the non-Pro version, will be officially launched in this country. Behind the 6.7-inch diagonal Amoled display lies 12 GB of RAM and 256 GB or 512 GB of storage space. If I were to continue with the mention of the Snapdragon 865 system-on-a-chip with eight cores and up to 2.84 GHz performance and simply mention the display as "is so and so big", then I would be doing it an injustice. Oppo is following this year's trend and installing a 120-Hertz display as standard. According to the Chinese company, the touch sensitivity is particularly suitable for gamers, as it works at 240 hertz. Even if you're not a gamer, let me tell you: a 120 Hz display is really nice. The animations are smoother, the whole operation feels radically different than on a display with a lower refresh rate. Softer, warmer and more natural. The Oppo Find X2 leaves an extremely good first impression, even if the manufacturer has packed its own user interface called ColorOS on top of Android 10. I'm yet to find out whether it's any good. I am sceptical.
The Oppo Find X2 no longer has a 3.5mm headphone jack, but it does have Bluetooth 5.1 with aptX. This means the best conditions for outstanding sound quality and, depending on the equaliser setting, this can make a huge difference. Of course, this also depends in part on the headphones. Bluetooth 5.1 at least solves the problem of sound delay during video playback on the mobile phone. Plus WiFi6 compatibility. Nice.
48, 13, 8, 32: The cameras in detail, but without 4K60fps
Despite all the nice things behind the display, it's the cameras that are of interest. Without a good camera, a smartphone is as good as worthless. However, the question of camera quality is not just a question of sensor size, megapixels and light intensity, but also of software. Therefore: Don't be impressed by the numbers in the following list, but take a look at images from the camera. Something like the image here.
The picture is taken with the triple camera setup of the Find X2 Pro. This consists of the following lenses
- 48 MP wide-angle lens, f/1.7, optical image stabiliser, sensor: Sony IMX689
- 13 MP telephoto lens, f/3.0, 2x optical zoom, sensor: Samsung S5K3M5 Isocell
- 48 MP ultra-wide angle lens, f/2.2, sensor: Sony IMX586
Then there's the selfie cam, which is embedded in the top left of the screen using the hole punch method:
- 32 MP ultra-wide-angle lens, f/2.4
The camera also takes videos. Doesn't sound surprising, but this is a feature that will be pushed this year. Because until now, a camera setup was supposed to do more in terms of video than what we've got so far. That's why the iPhone uses Filmic Pro to record with several cameras simultaneously, and Samsung is following suit with its own software. But the big question is always: "Can this thing do 4K60fps?", i.e. videos with a resolution of 3840x2160 pixels at 60 frames per second.
Yup, it can. Nice. Even better is the fact that the stabilisation system, a mixture of software and hardware, does an extremely good job. It's only when you hold the mobile in landscape mode and tilt it that the stabilisation doesn't really keep up. But how often do you make this movement?
Oppo, the conqueror
Even more exciting than the Find X2 is the situation Oppo finds itself in. Not only is the company new to the Swiss market, but it is also coming from abroad with a lot of power. Oppo is the largest mobile phone manufacturer in China and dominates the market there. We Swiss simply don't know the brand. Not yet. This is set to change, as Oppo is aggressively making inroads and delivering impressive specs.
In addition, the trade war is making Huawei less attractive. On my own behalf: In the run-up to the launch of the Huawei P40 Pro, my inbox is already filling up with enquiries about how Google services can be upgraded on new Huawei devices.
Oppo is not affected by the situation. The trade war does not affect "Chinese mobile phone manufacturers" as an industry, but Huawei as a legal entity. So here comes an aggressive manufacturer with over ten years of experience in the business and dominance in one of the world's largest markets, and its toughest direct competitor is fighting against the misconception that its smartphones will spontaneously go up in flames overnight because of the Trump administration.
Oppo has a chance of winning. Damn good chances of victory. <p
Journalist. Author. Hacker. A storyteller searching for boundaries, secrets and taboos – putting the world to paper. Not because I can but because I can’t not.