Oppo’s always had a bit of an uphill challenge in the premium flagship space, particularly around the brand perception and its ability charge top dollar from people looking to spend on premium flagships from Apple, Samsung…and even OnePlus. That’s what the 2018 Find X and this year’s Find X2 Pro was meant to be for, for Oppo to deliver a solid, no-compromise Android flagship that ticks every box…with a flourish! It was meant to announce Oppo’s status as one deserving of a seat on the table of flagship elders. Maybe even one to topple the OnePlus 8 Pro? Consider this – the Find X2 Pro comes loaded with a Snapdragon 865 chipset, 12GB of memory, 512GB of storage, a 120Hz Quad-HD+ display, IP68-waterproofing…and 60x periscopic zoom lens and a scorching 65W fast charging. Talk about checking every damn box.
Except, you can’t buy this phone, at least not yet. Yes, you read that right. The Find X2 Pro has launched in India, but it’s not on sale. The company bailed on making the smartphone available for retail purchase, opting instead to donate the phone to select “change-makers and warriors” across India. So, what we’re left with is a stellar halo product, one that I would assume will help improve brand equity for Oppo across the board, while the almost normal-by-comparison Find X2 (Rs. 64,990) makes its way into stores. How was Oppo’s best-in-class, take-no-prisoners flagship? Here’s my take on what could have been…
Design: The Find X2 Pro, while in no way as futuristic as the original Find X, is still quite a looker, with its silky finish, curved ceramic back with a micro-etched design that you can see up close. Such a pity the vegan leather finish isn’t coming to India would have lent an unmatched premium appeal to the device. It’s certainly on the heavier side, weighing in at 217 grams thanks to the ceramic back, but the weight is evenly distributed and Oppo’s done a great job with the hand-feel of this device. The only bugbear – the vertical camera module on the back has a pronounced hump, but slapping on the additional case solved the table-wobble issue.
Display: It doesn’t take a detective to see that Oppo and OnePlus have a lot in common with their displays, ergo their parts as well. The Find X2 Pro’s display is a smidgen smaller (at 6.7-in) than the OnePlus 8 Pro, but the rest – a 120Hz curved-edge AMOLED QHD+ panel with HDR10+ support – is the same. Much like the OnePlus 8 Pro, you can enable the high refresh rate at the full QHD+ resolution, which gets you the absolute most out of the screen…and the result is a stunning, immersive display with bags of brightness and punchy colours that are made for bingeing Netflix or just scrolling through your Insta feed. The 240Hz touch sampling rate only makes interacting with the device even smoother. Slick as a whistle, I tell you.
Performance: Oppo’s pulled out the stops with the Find X2 Pro, and it’s even more over the top in pure hardware than the OnePlus 8 Pro. Snapdragon 865? Check. 512GB of the fastest UFS 3.0 storage, along with 12GB of storage? Double-check! Gaming is phenomenal on the device, as is everyday use, although one has to note that OnePlus has likely done a better job in optimizing the animations and overall software experience, so it feels smoother even though it’s no faster. Oppo’s ColorOS 7.1 skin is a big improvement over its previous avatars and while the device has its fair share of bloatware, there’s none of that first-party app notification spam that we’ve seen even on flagships off late. Oh, and one big flagship aspect that Oppo has absolutely nailed – the haptic feedback with the vibration motor. It’s right up there with the best Samsung Galaxy devices around.
Cameras: Even with its flagship credentials, Oppo impresses with its triple camera setup – a 48MP Sony IMX689 primary shooter, a 13MP camera with a periscopic 5x telephoto lens and a 48MP 120-degree ultra-wide angle. The main camera shoots 12MP images by default, combining 4 pixels into 1 to add in extra detail, great colour accuracy and decent dynamic range, all while focusing extremely fast. The ultra-wide also turned out good images, although details were possibly not as impressive as the primary shooter. Night mode images were in particular impressive. Clearly, I had the most fun with the telephoto lens on the Find X2 Pro, with images staying perfectly usable all the way past 30x hybrid zoom. At full stretch (60x), images are expectedly soft, but the sheer ability of seeing that speck in the zoomed-out image really up close is an achievement that one never tires of. Compared to the S20 Ultra, the other big zoom-phone in town, the Ultra does better at shorter reach (up to 10x), and the X2 Pro better zoomed all the way in (20x or more). Overall, the Find X2 Pro has done a commendable job with the camera setup. Now, if only one could actually buy this smartphone….
Battery: You’ll find plenty of phones with bigger batteries than the Find X2 Pro (4260mAh), but the secret sauce here is the 65W Super VOOC 2.0 charging tech that takes the device from zero to 100 in 45 mins flat or up to 50% in under 15 minutes! It’s almost fun to see the charger boost the battery percentages right as you watch! The scorching charging speed is the fastest I’ve seen on the market right now, and somewhat makes up for the fact that the Find X2 Pro lacks wireless charging, almost du jour for the segment. Battery life is decent - with a little over five hours of screen time with all display settings maxed out, it’s a shade short of the OnePlus 8 Pro.
Verdict: Is the Oppo Find X2 Pro worth the buy? Absolutely. This is a terrific flagship sans compromises except, you know, that you can’t walk into a store and pick it up. Oppo needs to right this wrong so that the Find X2 Pro actually goes into customer’s hands and doesn’t remain as a fancy proof of concept for the Indian market. Until then, go pick up a OnePlus 8 Pro instead.
Highlights: OPPO Find X2 Pro
Pros: Blazing fast performance, excellent cameras, stellar fast charging, brilliant display, premium design
Cons: No wireless charging and does not sell in India. Enough said.