Content
- Video review
- Equipment and design
- Software
- cameras
- Performance and Benchmarks
- findings
The OPPO Find line is one of the oldest smartphones on the market. The first model, OPPO Find, was released in 2011 so far away that it was a slider with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. After 2014, the series was “silent” for several years, after which it returned with the experimental Find X. In the next generations, however, we saw the original Find concept – flagship smartphones with the highest possible technical equipment. Such is the OPPO Find X3 Pro. In Russia, it is not officially sold, but can be found at resellers (we bought in TechnoKit) or on AliExpress. Is it worth chasing this exclusive, now we’ll figure it out.
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Specifications OPPO Find X3 Pro |
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| Network | 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G | ||
| Firmware | Android 11, ColorOS 11.2 | ||
| Screen | 6.7″, 3216×1440 pixels, 20.1:9, 525 ppi, LTPO AMOLED, 120Hz, 240Hz touch, 10-bit, HDR10+, 1300 nits, curved edges | ||
| Chipset | Qualcomm Snapdragon 888, 5nm CPU: 1 x X1 x 2.84GHz + 3 x A78 x 2.42GHz + 4 x A55 x 1.8GHz GPU: Adreno 660 |
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| RAM | 8 GB LPDDR5 |
12 GB LPDDR5 |
16 GB LPDDR5 |
| ROM | 256 GB UVS 3.1 |
256 GB UVS 3.1 |
512 GB UVS 3.1 |
| SIM and memory card | Two nano-SIM slots, no microSD | ||
| Camera | Quadruple, double flash Main: 50 MP (-> 12.5 MP), IMX766, 1 µm (-> 2 µm), 1/1.56″, phase detection autofocus, OIS, f/1.8, video recording 2160p@60fps Wide Angle: 50 MP (-> 12.5 MP), IMX766, 1 µm (-> 2 µm), 1/1.56″, phase detection autofocus, f/2.2, video recording 2160p@60fps Telephoto: 13 MP, f/2.4, 2x zoom, video recording 2160p@30fps Microscope: 3 MP, f/3.0, 30x magnification, 1080p@30fps video recording |
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| Selfie | Punch-left, 32 MP (-> 8 MP), 0.8 µm (-> 1.6 µm), 1/2.8″, f/2.4, 1080p@30fps video recording | ||
| Battery | 4500 mAh (2 x 2250 mAh) | ||
| Charger | 65W USB Type-C 30 W wireless 10W reverse wireless |
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| Wireless interfaces | Wi-Fi 6 (802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax) Bluetooth 5.2 A-GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, Beidou, QZSS |
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| NFC | There is | ||
| Biometrics | Fingerprint scanner (on screen) | ||
| Sound | Stereo speakers (main + spoken) | ||
| Waterproof | IP68 | ||
| Dimensions and weight | 163.6 x 74 x 8.26mm 193 g |
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Video review
Equipment and design
On May 14, 2021, the first Chinese rover Zhuzhong, launched as part of the Tianwen-1 (Questioning Sky-1) mission, successfully landed in that part of the Great Northern Plain, which Schiaparelli gave the name Utopia Plain. In honor of this, OPPO has released a special version of the flagship, called Mars Exploration Edition, and for the international market – Mars 2021 Utopia Planitia Edition (Planitia is a “plain”, not a “planet”, as you might think). It was this premium version that we tested, but don’t worry – the only differences are the design of the box, a complete case, an inscription on the back, a pre-installed interface theme, and memory capacity. So everything that will be said in this review also applies to the standard version of OPPO Find X3 Pro.
The kit includes a case (simple silicone in the standard version and Sandstone in the Martian-utopian version), headphones, USB cable, 65W charger, SIM needle and documentation. In general, everything you can wish for. It’s great that OPPO hasn’t followed (at least not yet) in the footsteps of its competitors and removed accessories from its premium products.
The case of OPPO Find X3 Pro is made of glass and metal, and the glass on the back is matte and very pleasant to the touch (the black version has a glossy and even mirror back, there is also an eco-leather option). I really liked how the camera protrusion was played up – instead of an obvious heel with lenses, there is a smooth lift, which looks much more organic and neat. It will be great if other smartphone manufacturers adopt this technique.
But the location of the cameras OPPO itself took over from someone, mirroring it. People who are not very versed in smartphones will immediately recognize the iPhone in this camera unit – well, okay, it looks great. In addition, there are four cameras, not three, like the iPhone, and the additional camera is very interesting. But first things first.
Another thing that OPPO has adopted from some people is the idea that all sorts of outdated technologies have no place in modern flagships. And while some manufacturers are trying to implement everything that is possible in a smartphone, OPPO mercilessly sawed out a 3.5 mm audio jack, an infrared port, a microSD slot and an FM radio. In general, nothing more. Well, at least Dual-SIM was left.
There are no complaints about ergonomics – the smartphone is thin and quite light (8.3 mm / 193 g). The policy “weight up to 200 g” in all its glory, BBK well done. For some reason, the volume buttons are on the left, but oh well, they are not often needed. Plus, many people like this arrangement, although I’m more of a supporter of the buttons on the right. The fingerprint scanner is located on the screen – a little low, but you get used to it quickly. Works well, never let me down for all the time of use.
The screen of the OPPO Find X3 Pro looks very, very cool on paper. This is an LTPO AMOLED panel with a huge resolution of 3216 x 1440 pixels (20.1:9), slightly curved edges, a maximum brightness of 1300 nits, support for HDR10 +, 10-bit color, a refresh rate of 5-120 Hz and a touch polling rate of 240 Hz. Cool? Yes, but there is one caveat. PWM – 50% at maximum brightness and even more at any other. And no DC Dimming. Take care of eye health – pass by, alas.
There is stereo, but a spoken speaker is paired with a multimedia speaker, which is noticeably weaker. However, in most scenarios this is enough, and if you want to immerse yourself in the audio track, use headphones. The LED indicator is not provided, it is replaced by Always-On Display.
Software
Android 11, ColorOS 11.2. Well, as I already mentioned, a special “Martian” theme is preinstalled on the Mars Exploration Edition. Because of this, I had a constant dissonance: on the main screen everything is so beautiful, premium and Martian, and when you open any menu, you immediately find yourself in some kind of Realme. I don’t want to say anything bad about Realme or OPPO software, but their friendliness and minimalism contrast very much with the premium standard theme.
Those who are going to order the Find X3 Pro, especially the Mars 2021 Utopia Planitia Edition from China, are probably worried about how things are going with Google Services. Everything is good with them. There are none out of the box, of course, but you can download APK Google Play from anywhere, it will install, and from there – any desired software. True, Chrome for some reason refuses to download, but I have come across this on other smartphones for the Chinese market; I had to use Yandex.Browser again. There is Google Play certification.
Another thing is that the Chinese version of ColorOS is full of untranslated moments and, in general, Chinese services that need to be removed or disabled. And there are also two pre-installed Member Points apps – one for reading books, the other for watching videos. Why they are called that, I don’t know. But their interface is entirely in Chinese.
cameras
The quartet of cameras on the OPPO Find X3 Pro is not the most trivial, so let’s figure it out. The main and wide-angle modules are based on a 50-megapixel Sony IMX766 sensor with 1 micron pixels (12.5 MP and 2 microns after 4-in-1 binning), the capture angle is 84 and 110 degrees, respectively. This is followed by a telephoto camera with a 2x zoom (13 megapixels) and another very interesting camera, which I will talk about a little later. OIS is only on the main camera. We look at examples from the three main modules:
Really strong against the background of competitors here is only shirik. By putting the same camera as the width as on the main module, OPPO gave it a huge advantage over the 8/12-megapixel modules in the flagships of other manufacturers. At the same time, the company was unable to provide the same color reproduction on the two cameras, and in general, both 50-megapixel cameras do not shoot as cool as the main cameras on some other smartphones. It seems to me that OPPO overdid it a little with naturalness – many frames look very gray, especially if you watch them not on an AMOLED screen. At night, I recommend not to neglect the night mode, but you should not turn it on with a sufficient level of lighting – the result will be very strange.
Shirik has autofocus, which allows you to shoot good macro shots on it. And OPPO understands this very well, so it automatically activates the wide when you try to take a macro (if the zoom is selected at 1x or 2x, digital zoom from the wide is used). I must say it’s very convenient. The telephoto is the weakest of all smartphone cameras, but if you need to shoot something far away, it will do.
Now about the fourth camera, which is completely unique for smartphones. This is a real microscope with 30x magnification! We can say that this is such a macro camera at maximum speed: if they usually shoot from a distance of 2-4 cm, then here – from just a couple of millimeters! As a result, this camera becomes a real door to the microcosm, where you can explore the skin, hair, breadcrumbs and pixels of other phones. The camera has its own backlight, because otherwise the light would simply not hit the object when shooting, and nothing would be visible in the photo. Shooting with this camera is quite inconvenient (you have to put the phone on the subject, and then lift it up a little to catch focus), but the result is amazing. Sometimes you just take a picture of everything and think what else might be interesting from what is at hand.
birch, border, passport paper, eye in passport photo
sponge for washing dishes on both sides, chipboard, protective screen of the microwave oven
1900s brick, oilcloth, key, mouse pad
leaf, mattress, moss, nail
sock, sofa upholstery, facing brick, ad edge on post
mask, stump, hot stand, blanket
towel, corrugated wallpaper, one hundred rubles, Xiaomi Fidget Cube
TrackPoint, scratches on the mirror, scratches on the window sill, screen with stripes of black and white pixels
A small educational program about what “30x increase” means. Many reviewers mistakenly talk about 30x zoom, like “here we have a telephoto with 2x zoom, but here is a microscope with 30x zoom”. But this is not true – the zoom of this camera is no more than 1.5x, that is, the microscope is only slightly smaller than the main camera in terms of the capture angle. 30x magnification means that the subject in the digital viewfinder, i.e. on the phone screen, when shooting from the optimal distance, it increases by 30 times compared to its real size. That is, if you take a picture of a grain of sand 1×1 mm, it will be 30×30 mm on the screen. This is an increase, not an approximation.
Now about the video. The main and wide-angle cameras can record 2160p@60fps video, and they do it just fine. I really liked the quality of the video (both the visual range and the audio track). The main camera is slightly ahead in quality due to the presence of OIS. The EIS is blown out wide and it doesn’t look as neat. On night videos, the advantage is slightly stronger: the main camera has much less ghosting caused by EIS. The telephoto is connected only at 2160p@30fps, and in the same mode, switching between cameras during shooting becomes available. Microscope and front camera record video only in 1080p@30fps; I still don’t understand why this function is needed for a microscope, but the front camera could have been done more seriously (where is my 4K?).
In addition, it photographs well (in sufficient light), even if the dynamic range is sometimes a bit insufficient. Resolution – 32 MP.
Performance and Benchmarks
In terms of hardware, OPPO Find X3 Pro received all the latest for its time: a Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 chipset, 8/12/16 GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 256/512 GB on a UFS 3.1 drive. About the chipset, I think, it is not necessary to tell. Very powerful at the start, but gets very hot, and because of this, it throttles a lot. However, the performance of Snapdragon 888 even after throttling is enough to play even the most demanding games. Well, you may have to lower the graphics settings a little in Genshin Impact, but in other titles even without it. Another thing is that holding a smartphone in your hands, taking into account the heating, is unpleasant – there is still glass and metal.
And one more detail that makes the OPPO Find X3 Pro not a very gaming smartphone with all its luxurious hardware is the support for high hertz in games. She is not. We found only 90 fps on the minimum graphics (!!!) in PUBG Mobile, and that’s it. In all other games we tested, the screen runs at 60 Hz. OPPO could still turn off the increased touch polling rate (240 Hz) in games, but, fortunately, did not do this, and a fast touch is present in games.
The battery capacity of OPPO Find X3 Pro is 4500 mAh. More precisely, there are two cells of 2250 mAh each, which allows you to implement dual-stream SuperVOOC fast charging. The smartphone is charged really quickly – in 33 minutes from zero to hundreds. Even fast wireless charging is supported (they promise 80 minutes for a full charge, but we didn’t check it – there was no charger at hand, and you are unlikely to find it). But how fast does the battery drain?
Alas, quickly. Of course, I cheekily set the resolution to QHD + and the refresh rate of 120 Hz in the screen settings to enjoy the clarity and smoothness of the picture, but in terms of autonomy, such a combo hits very hard: on average, it turns out around 5 hours of screen on one full charge. So if you’re not ready to give up display capabilities, you’ll have to charge the Find X3 Pro daily. Fortunately, it will not take much time – even if you accidentally forget to charge it in the evening, in the morning, while you are going, it will have time to charge. Synthetic discharge test: 21% in two hours of video, 27% in one hour of play.
findings
OPPO Find X3 Pro put together all the best that OPPO could come up with a year ago. Luxurious 120 Hz Quad HD screen, the most powerful hardware, two 50-megapixel cameras, a unique microscopic camera (and it was really very coolly implemented, and not just put in for show) and great design, albeit with a reference to the iPhone 11/12 in the design of the camera block. But it was not without its drawbacks – there is a very simple telephoto (even without OIS), no DC Dimming and very strong PWM, an average level of autonomy, no 3.5 mm audio jack and a slot for a memory card. In general, the microscope is a lot of fun and almost the most innovative lotion among all the flagships of 2021, but I don’t see anything in this smartphone that would justify its high price (even compared to devices like OnePlus 9 Pro) and difficulties with acquisition in Russia.
© Oleg Lazarev. mobile phone
