Oppo Find X2 Pro smartphone review – a fine experience all-round

In the flagship smartphone market, if you’re not Apple or Samsung, it can be hard to stand out from the crowd. But Oppo has managed to do it with the new Find X2 Pro.

The device has a premium design and a bunch of premium features to go with it.

Oppo has held its ground against the big brands in recent years with phones in the mid-tier and flagship levels.

The Find X2 Pro has been thoughtfully designed with the user in mind and delivers what customers are looking for: a large high quality screen, great performance, impressive camera system, long battery life and fast charging.

On the design side, the Oppo Find X2 Pro has a curved edge screen as well as a curved rear panel which means the tapered chassis sits nicely in your hand.

The phone also has a subtle texture on the back which helps keep it free of fingerprints.

It is also IP68 rated so you’ve got no worries about water and dust.

On the performance side, the device has 12GB RAM and 512GB of internal memory and is powered by an octa-core processor which runs at up to 2.84Ghz.

The Find X2 Pro is running Android 10 with Oppo’s ColorOS 7.1 user interface over the top.

This is also a 5G device so, when in 5G coverage areas, you’ll be able to achieve higher download speeds and get to your content even faster.

But the 5G network is pretty sparse. We had a Telstra SIM card in our Oppo Find X2 Pro and didn’t see 5G appear on the phone once. But when there is 5G you’ll be prepared.

The 6.7-inch OLED curved screen also catches your eye as soon as it comes to life. It has QHD+ resolution (3168 x 1440) and 513ppi (pixels per inch).

In comparison, the iPhone 11 Pro Max OLED display has a 2688 x 1242 resolution and 458ppi.

It has a 120Hz refresh rate which offers smoother scrolling whether you’re going between pages, on a website and going through photos.

It’s also great for watching content. We watched a number of sports clip and scenes from action movies on the YouTube app on the device and it looked fantastic.

What helps here is Motion Clear – the motion compensation technology which can actually pump up videos at 30 frames per second or lower to up to 60 or 120fps to make them look even silkier and dynamic.

As an entertainment device, the Oppo Find X2 Pro is a worthy companion.

That screen makes consuming content a pleasure and your photos and videos also pop in that screen.

There is a warning to customers that running the phone at 120Hz and QHD+ will eat into the battery life.

We think it’s worth the extra power use but it doesn’t impact the overall battery life too heavily. If you own a Ferrari, you’re not going to leave it in the garage.

The screen is HDR10+ certified with 800 nits peak brightness and a 5,000,000:1 contrast ratio. For a phone screen – that’s a big deal.

Also onboard is AI Adaptive Eye Protection which can adjust the screen colour temperature and brightness to suit your surroundings.

And the phone doesn’t just look good. – it sounds good as well with Dolby Atmos onboard so you can actually hear the directional sound.
There is plenty of Dolby Atmos content you can watch on Netflix and YouTube to put this feature through its paces.

But you will have to hear your content out loud through the phone’s speakers.

You cannot connect Dolby Atmos-friendly headphones – which usually need to connect by cable – there is no headphone jack.

On the camera side, the Oppo Find X2 Pro also has solid credentials with a 48-megapixel wide-angle lens, a 48-megapixel ultrawide-angle lens and a 13-megapixel periscope telephoto lens that can achieve up to 10x hybrid zoom and up to 60x digital zoom.

Naturally images with this camera were remarkable with accurate colours and remarkable clarity.

The zoom function also works very well and allows users to zoom right on a subject from a distance and, with the optical image stabilisation, you are able to easily capture the shot at 60x digital zoom without it moving around too much.

Ultra Night Mode does a good job capturing images in virtual darkness. We took a picture in almost a completely dark room and we were stunned by the results.

This mode uses an algorithm and all three lenses of the camera to bring in all the available and brighten up the frame.

The results were impressive in dark rooms but most of the low light photos you’ll want to take will be in slightly more favourable conditions and also produce far better results.

With the front-facing camera, the Oppo Find X2 Pro can also elevate your selfie game with the 32-megapixel lens that also uses an AI Beautification mode to smooth out the image.

Shooting 4K video is also much smoother with the Ultra Steady Video feature and the three recording microphones also work well together to reduce wind noise and focus in on your subject.

There is a fingerprint reader built into the screen that is fast and responsive and has the device unlocked instantly.

Battery performance is also excellent with the onboard 4,260mAh battery and there was no issue of being caught short of a charge before the end of the day.

But when it is time to charge, the Oppo Find X2 Pro really impresses.

It has 65W SuperVOOC charging so you can get back to 40 per cent battery capacity in just 10 minutes.

What’ve even more impressive is being able fully recharge the battery in as little as 38 minutes.

That’s a very handy feature if you are going to be out all day and don’t have much time to charge.

There are very few things not to like about the Oppo Find X2 Pro.

One thing that disappointed us was the lack of expandable memory.

With such a gorgeous screen it would have been great to have your favourite content on a microSD card to watch anywhere and anytime.

The other thing missing is wireless charging – so you have to plug in the cable to charge unlike the Samsung and Apple phones in this price range.

The Oppo Find X2 Pro is priced at $1,599 which many will consider expensive. But the device does offer a great screen and excellent camera.

Whether a customer with $1,599 to spend will choose Oppo over Apple or Samsung is yet to be seen but if the device was a few hundred dollars cheaper – it’s chances of success would have increased dramatically.

VERDICT

Oppo has delivered its finest device ever with the Find X2 Pro – it offers a remarkable design and equally remarkable experience from its excellent display and camera and can stand shoulder to shoulder with other flagship devices and hold its own.