OPPO Find X First Impressions: Extreme Innovation at a hefty price-point

Design: Makes smartphones interesting again

OPPO Find X is visually appealing and technologically innovative. It might start a new trend in the mobile phone industry where smartphones can be interesting again and something to look forward to. The central element here is the motorized sliding structure that allowed OPPO to reach the best-in-class screen-to-body ratio of 93.8 %. It also puts an end to much-talked Apple given notch shaped displays. The sliding structure houses an infrared camera, a ranging sensor, a receiver, a front camera, a dot projector and the rear dual-camera.

The motorized structure automatically stretches out when unlocked or when you fire up the camera. It cleverly retracts when not in use. The innovative and futuristic design element is achieved by using coaxial line sliding, a vortex structure, and a silent motor. During my brief testing, I found the sliding module to be quick in firing up the cameras and the whole process is quite workable in real-life situations.

Gorgeous Metal-Glass construction

And talking about the look and feel, OPPO Find X is bound to turn heads. It is a gorgeous piece of metal and glass that feels super premium in hands. The design reminds me of the Samsung's high-end Galaxy S smartphones as OPPO Find X also features gentle curves on front and rear. The curved edges also improve the grip when holding the smartphone. Importantly, the Find X is easy to use with one hand even though it sports a massive 6.42-inch screen. You will also get Gorilla Glass 5 protection on both front and back; however, the smartphone is not water-dust resistant which a big disappointment. The smartphone will be available in Bordeaux Red and Glacier Blue color variants.

Display: No-notch edge-to-edge Full HD+ AMOLED display

OPPO Find X sports 6.42-inch panoramic arc screen with a dual-arc design. The Full HD+ AMOLED display is crisp and very touch responsive. The colors look vibrant and the display comes in 19.5:9 aspect ratio to offer a wider view. The Find X has very thin borders, 1.65mm on the left and right, 1.91mm on the top border, and 3.4mm on the bottom that results in an impressive and best-in-class screen-to-body ratio of 93.8%. It is a gorgeous display and will come as a delight for gaming and multimedia playback.

Camera: Motorized Camera modules

Oppo Find X steals the limelight with its one-of-its-kind motorized camera module. The retractable module lifts to reveal the triple-lens camera setup which looks pretty slick in action. Unlike Vivo Nex, which uses just one mechanical part for selfie camera, OPPO has engineered a complete solution for front and rear cameras. You need to see it with your own eyes to understand how futuristic it looks in action. The motorized camera block houses the dual rear camera and 3D facial recognition setup that uses an IR sensor. The IR sensor uses laser projection to analyze 15,000 recognition spots on the human face for secure unlocking of the device.

As far as camera specification and performance is concerned, OPPO Find X sports a massive 25MP front-facing camera, which OPPO calls the 3D Stealth camera. The selfie camera uses Sony IMX576 sensor and works on f/2.0 aperture. The selfie camera can detect 296 facial feature points and also features iPhone X like portrait lighting modes. The selfie camera captures crisp shots and also allows you to capture bokeh images.

For rear cameras, OPPO Find X uses 16MP+20MP camera setup with OIS (optical image stabilization). The camera heavily utilizes Artificial Intelligence to enhance photography experience. As per OPPO, the rear cameras of the Find X can intelligently recognize 21 photography modes and automatically fine-tune the final output. We took some shots in daylight and were impressed by the speed and image detailing. We will test the OPPO Find X's camera in detail in our comprehensive review.

Hardware: High-end CPU with ample RAM

OPPO Find X packs some serious power under the hood. The smartphone is powered by the best-in-class Snapdragon 845 CPU and has 8GB of RAM for multitasking. There's 128GB internal memory which could be enough for most of the users.

Software: Android Oreo with OPPO’s ColorOS

OPPO Find X runs on Android 8.1 Oreo with OPPO's Color OS 5.1 interface. The UI runs smoothly on screen; however, it isn't as intuitive and clean as stock Android. If you have used OPPO's phones in past, you would not find any difficulty, but if you are planning to shift from a stock Android device, you might not find it user-friendly at first and install some launcher app to feel at home. Nevertheless, we will spend more time with OPPO Find X to find out its strength and weakness in the software department.

Futuristic design but with some big compromises

The pure bezel-less design and motorized pop-up camera architecture is achieved by making some big compromises. OPPO Find X lacks some basic mobile design features such as microSD card slot, fingerprint scanner, and 3.5mm headphone jack. As there's no fingerprint scanner, you will have to rely on the face recognition technology. We were not completely able to gauge the security aspects of OPPO's face-recognition technology at the demo zone, and will evaluate the performance in our comprehensive review of the smartphone. Besides, you will only have to rely on Bluetooth headphones as there's no standard 3.5mm headphone jack in OPPO Find X. As far as storage is concerned, you will have to store all your multimedia content and apps in 128GB internal memory. You cannot expand the internal memory as there's no microSD card slot.

Battery and Connectivity

OPPO Find X is powered by a sizable 3,730mAh battery unit. The smartphone is also packed with OPPO's VOOC fast charging technology that as per OPPO offers up to two-hours of talk-time with just five minutes of charging. It's a pretty bold claim that we are quite eager to test in the coming weeks. As far as connectivity is concerned, OPPO Find X offers Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.0, USB Type C port, FM, NFC, Dual VoLTE. Sadly, wireless charging is excluded to keep the cost down.

Verdict

OPPO Find X is extremely innovative and a bold attempt to challenge the likes of Samsung and Apple's dominance in the premium smartphone segment. It is futuristic yet very much practical which makes me give 10 out of 10 to OPPO for its thoughtful engineering and innovative approach. But as I mentioned at the start of my first impressions of Find X, would you pay a hefty amount of Rs. 60,000 for a product that comes from the brand which is largely associated with budget and mid-range smartphones? Or you would simply go for an iPhone or a Samsung smartphone in the premium category that has been ruling the charts for quite a while.

Let us know in comments and stay tuned for our detailed review of OPPO Find X.