Oppos Find N2 Is A Dazzling Display Of Folding Competence (Analyst Angle)
In recent weeks, I have had the opportunity to use the Oppo Find N2 Flip foldable smartphone. In fact, I traveled the world with it and took it everywhere with me. This is an amazing device.
The Find N2 Flip is also one of the first flagship devices to use the MediaTek Dimensity 9000+ processor, so I wanted to see how that might affect performance. abbreviated version. This is great, but read the details.
In this article, I also want to introduce this phone in the context of an increasingly competitive and attractive foldable phone market.
Get in the pen
The foldable device market has grown significantly in recent years, driven primarily by Samsung and Huawei, as well as other OEMs such as Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, and Motorola. However, US consumers can only choose between Motorola and Samsung, with Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo staying completely away from the US for fear of what happens to Huawei. (If you don't follow this market, the short story is that Huawei was publicly and drastically banned from the US market before a major product launch at CES and subject to penalties, among many other restrictions.) Notable on this list is TCL, which never released its foldable phone, even after telling the world about it. Also missing is Apple, which many say is the main reason the category hasn't exploded yet despite healthy growth. Google is rumored to be working on a foldable Pixel device, but that device has yet to be released.
As the market matures and competition intensifies, we begin to see prices for complex devices drop to a more consumer-friendly price point. The first foldable device, the Samsung Galaxy Fold, had a lot of compromises, and while it made smartphones cool again, it still came with an exorbitant $2,000 price tag, not to mention a flimsy screen. Samsung has since launched its own line of foldable Flips, which I think is more suited to the average consumer, offering foldable devices at a more affordable price of $999.
The key component of the folding design is its mechanical hinge. This is where Oppo impressed me the most with its sophisticated devices. The Oppo Find N was the first commercial foldable I saw that didn't have a cutout like all Samsung foldables. This doesn't mean the Find N2 Flip is completely invisible, but it does make the fold much less noticeable.
Oppo also learned a lot from the Find N; The Find N2 Flip has a lot of great features, like a large external screen that doubles as a great preview screen for selfies or notifications. I've also installed a third-party CoverOS app to extend the cover viewing experience. Also, Google needs to better enable on-screen widgets for all modern Android devices. I don't think OEMs are required to provide these features. rather, it should be a Google OS-level feature that developers can point to in their apps. All of that said, it's pretty clear that Oppo intends to eat Samsung's lunch outside the US when it comes to high-end devices, and may end up using one of its sub-brands like OnePlus to do the same in the US. .us
design
The Find N2 Flip's design is sleek, premium, well thought out, and worth the $1,000 you'll find anywhere in the world. In other words, the phone has the correct shape, material, and design of a premium device without the overpriced premium price tag. While many fancy phones don't have an under-display fingerprint sensor, there is a fingerprint sensor under the power button, a popular option among foldable phone makers. Also, the way you hold the phone (with your right hand) naturally depends on the fingerprint sensor/power button. This allows you to open the outer cover and the inner flip screen after unlocking the device. If you're left-handed, you'll probably be better off using your index finger instead of your thumb.
The phone has three microphones, two bottom and one top, for excellent call handling and noise cancellation. It also has stereo speakers, one of which is hidden in the ear cup when opened, while the other is directed downwards next to the USB-C port. The phone has two main outward-facing cameras and an internal selfie camera that captures the screen. It would be great if Oppo included an under-display selfie camera here, but most of them don't have the best image quality nowadays. Samsung has it in the Fold4, and I really don't like taking selfies with this camera, mainly because of the significant degradation in image quality.
The main screen is a 6.8-inch 2520 x 1080 screen; The 3.26-inch overlay display has a 720 x 382 resolution. The main display also has a 120Hz refresh rate, while the external display has a 60Hz refresh rate. Everything is packed into a device that It's about 7.45mm thick when unfolded, or about 16mm thick when folded, and the whole thing weighs just 191g.
Work and user experience
I was more interested in the performance issue because, as mentioned above, this is one of the first phones to use the MediaTek Dimensity 9000+ processor. This model also has 8 GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 256 GB of UV 3.1 onboard storage. 9000+ is not the fastest MediaTek processor; that crown goes to the Dimensity 9200, which you'll find in the new Oppo Find X6 and Vivo X90. (I hope to see more devices using this chipset later this year.) However, the Dimensity 9000 can be found in many devices, and the 9000+ is just a speed boost for this chip.
I have tested the Oppo phone's performance through a series of benchmarks and found that it lives up to expectations. It performed almost the same as my Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor inside, and was slightly behind all my single-core test devices in Geekbench 6. In terms of GPU, it was close to the Red Magic 7S. from last year. Pro. , which also uses Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and beats the S22 Ultra in terms of GPU.
Oppo also beat the S22 Ultra in 3DMark Wild Life Extreme, but this doesn't extend to the S23+ or S23 Ultra, as both Samsung devices scored 50% better than the Dimensity 9000+. It's safe to say that the Dimensity 9000+ is very close to last year's Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, which is still a powerful platform. Compared to the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 in the Samsung Fold4, Oppo is on par with Geekbench multi-core performance at 30% less for the Dimensity 9000+. Since Flip4 has a similar processor, suffice it to say that Flip4 has really good performance. PCMark for Android showed that the Find N2 Flip outperformed the Galaxy Z Fold4 by 40%, showing how much Qualcomm has improved performance with its Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1. However, the size is 9000+. It did pretty much the same as I expected.
In terms of system responsiveness and stability, the Find N2 Flip was good and I didn't experience any noticeable crashes or crashes. I also had no compatibility issues with any of the Google Play Store apps and was impressed with the device's T-Mobile compatibility, though the phone doesn't support band 71 (600 MHz) for good 5G coverage. as T-Mobile is the only carrier using this range. Since Band 41 support is more common and available on this device, I got 350-400 Mbps on Speedtest. However, not all models of this phone have the same support range and I would not recommend using it with any carrier in the US without certification from the respective carrier. Wi-Fi performance was on par with the rest of my Wi-Fi 6 devices and the device never felt slow.
In terms of camera performance, Find N2 Flip only has two cameras. Its main camera uses a 50-megapixel f/1.8 aperture sensor with an 86-degree field of view and an 8-megapixel ultra-wide-angle sensor with an f/2.2 aperture and 112-degree field of view. The main camera also records 4K video at 30 frames per second.
Camera response met my expectations for a smartphone, and low-light performance from the external cameras was pretty good, especially when shooting at night. I also appreciate Hasselblad's partnership with Oppo because I love the X-Pan mode and the good black and white photos that Hasselblad does well.
There's also a 32-megapixel front-facing camera when the phone is opened to full size, and while it seems to handle selfies well and uses a hinge, I found its low-light performance lacking. It's a little lacking. However, it was nice to be able to place the phone somewhere and start a 3-second timer just by reaching out and triggering the camera's shutter sequence. While this feature didn't always work, it did work most of the time. I also liked the screen shutter and the main cameras for taking selfies without opening the phone, which is a nice feature.
Battery charging performance is also quite good. The phone has a 4300 mAh battery, which is not the largest. However, with 44W charging, Oppo can achieve impressive charging speeds that rivals like the Galaxy Z Flip 4 with 25W charging can't match. Unfortunately, the Find N2 Flip doesn't have wireless charging, which I'm used to with almost all my phones.
Software and ColorOS
ColorOS is Oppo's own version of Android. It comes with some basic utilities and apps pre-installed, but nothing special. I have nothing to criticize about ColorOS or the Find N2 Flip software. However, it also didn't have much that was significantly different from other devices. The phone comes preloaded with Oppo's App Market, which is different from the Google Play Store, but mainly for countries like China where Google Play services may not be available. My biggest complaint is that the screen saver can't be customized enough, so apps like CoverScreenOS are needed to get the most out of the screen saver.
Durability and ease of use.
I know durability is always an issue when it comes to complex devices, but I can't say I'm worried about the Find N2 Flip's durability. Oppo says the hinge is rated for 400,000 cycles, which is more than enough for the average smartphone lifespan. I have yet to get the loops to work on any of the complex systems and hope this continues. Folding makes the screen more susceptible to scratches, but that didn't happen to me either.
One thing to consider when using a complex device is how useful it is when the device is closed. This is something that Oppo has obviously given a lot of thought to. What I really like about the Find N2 Flip is that it fits where my other phones don't, like in a shirt pocket. I can also comfortably fit my Find N2 Flip in the same pocket as my wallet, since they are both roughly the same size and shape. However, I think that opening the Find N2 Flip should be easier and that there should be some kind of lip to make it easier to open the phone with one hand. This is a problem that smartphones simply don't have and I'd like to see progress on this so that the user doesn't have to unlock the phone with both hands. By contrast, closing the phone to end a call is still very nice and I can't recommend it enough, especially since I miss that experience from my high school days when rotary phones were all the rage.
Envelope
The Oppo Find N2 Flip is a great example of what can be achieved in a tough market with healthy competition. The Find N2 Flip is Oppo's first foldable device available outside of China, and it's understandable why the company is so confident that the device will be a hit.
While it's not a perfect phone, Oppo has done an amazing job and the Find N2 Flip has raised the bar for the entire foldable phone segment in a way only Samsung has done before. I expect we'll continue to see fancier devices from more Android OEMs this year, and perhaps Apple and Google will finally introduce their own fancy devices.
The $1,000 Find N2 Flip is a strong competitor to the Galaxy Z Flip4, though it's not necessarily better than the Flip4 in every way. We will probably see Flip5 in the coming months as well. However, the Flip5 now needs more than minor improvements if Samsung is to remain competitive in this new market.
