The entry of folded smartphones from Chinese manufacturers into the European market is undoubtedly a breath of fresh air. One of the first models is OPPO Find N2 Flip . The producer chose it for its European debut not by chance. Flips account for 70% of the foldable phone market, compared to folds that fold down to the size of a tablet. They are also cheaper and more affordable. it is a strong competition for Samsung models . OPPO Find N2 Flip is more modern and at the same time attractively priced compared to traditional flagships. Now we also know how the battery and camera of this phone perform.
How do we evaluate design?
The design of the OPPO Find N2 Flip is its key competitive advantage. A closed phone has no gap. The unfolded phone has a smoother screen. The whole is complemented by the largest external display to date. It makes it much easier to take selfie photos or read notifications. It also has more widgets – in addition to the weather, calendar and timer, there is also a voice recorder and a screen to manage wireless headphones. It’s better than the competition, but there is still some unsatisfactory. You cannot launch any application or reply to a message from an external screen. It is also impossible to use the camera other than for selfies. We still have to wait for these issues to be resolved.
The housing is made of glass or plastic that perfectly imitates glass. The frame of the device is metal. Looking inside the USB C socket, you can see that the metal is the top layer of the frame. Here , Samsung with the Galaxy Z Flip4 model has an advantage – the frame makes a more solid impression, and the phone itself is sealed according to the IPX8 standard. OPPO has no official sealing standard and cannot be submerged in water.
The active fingerprint reader is located in the power button on the side of the housing. It works fast and reads our fingerprint the first time. OPPO also has stereo speakers that play surprisingly loud and sound good. In this respect, this small phone outclasses many classic designs. The stereo effect here is achieved by amplifying the volume of one side rather than completely separating the channels. The lower speaker is also noticeably louder.
What do we think about the displays?
Find N2 Flip’s internal foldable screen is top of the line. Made in LTPO AMOLED technology, with a refresh rate of 120Hz and a very high maximum brightness of up to 1600 nits. The diagonal of the display is 6.8 inches, and its resolution is 2540 x 1080 pixels. The bend point, although visible from certain angles, is much more discreet and less noticeable under the finger than the competition. The screen looks great and the only thing that distinguishes it from the best flagships is a plastic frame that protrudes above its surface and protects it when the phone is closed.
The external display has a diagonal of 3.26 inches, a resolution of 720 x 382 pixels. It is also made in AMOLED technology. It has a maximum brightness of 900 nits and is covered with Corning Gorilla Glass 5. It also has a protective film stuck on it. It’s more usable than the much smaller screen on the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip4 . In OPPO you can see the full frame of the camera and it is legible, with the right proportions. However, it is still limited to widgets and does not support the entire system.
Specification
OPPO has a Mediatek Dimensity 9000+ processor, 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of memory for the system and files in UFS 3.1 technology. Now, after running the Antutu benchmark, we know that Find N2 Flip is ranked 12th with a score of 1,014,038. It is a little faster than last year’s flagships, but slightly slower than this year’s top models.
The communication package includes the latest standards: 5G, LTE, WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.3 and NFC. Location is performed using GPS (L1+L5), GLONASS (G1), BDS (B1I+B1c+B2a), GALILEO (E1+E5a) and QZSS (L1+L5).
Operating system
Find N2 Flip runs on Android 13 with security updated to February 5, 2023. The system overlay is ColorOS version 13.
Flip’s functionality does not differ from the classic OPPO and OnePlus phone with an almost identical system overlay. The additions are limited to the possibility of setting an animated pet on the external screen as wallpaper and widgets dedicated to a smaller display. Other functions of split screen, flexible windows and sidebar are the same as in other phones. There are also dedicated shooting modes, but more on them later. The overlay is legible and functional.
What kind of photos does it take and what kind of videos does it record?
OPPO is equipped with two cameras on the back of the case and one accessible after unfolding the screen for video conferencing:
- 50 MP, f/1.8, 23mm, multi-directional PDAF – main camera
- 8 MP, f/2.2, 112˚ – wide-angle camera
- 32 MP, f/2.4, 22mm – aparat do selfie
None of the foldables on the market has an as good set of cameras as the best classic smartphones specializing in mobile photography. Here the situation is similar – none of the Find N2 Flip cameras has optical stabilization. There are also no other features of high-end devices, such as an inch matrix, a periscope telephoto lens and 8K video. There is simply no room in the housing for most of the listed elements. It seems that in a classic high-end smartphone, it is the cameras that occupy the most important position, and the folding is all about the folding itself.
This does not mean that OPPO cameras are bad, they are just not as good as in a classic smartphone at a similar price.
The main OPPO camera copes well with a large tonal range and HDR mode. The photos are detailed and have eye-catching colors. The double magnification is done digitally. The night photos are also surprisingly good – sharp, noiseless, with saturated colors. The lack of stabilization does not seem to bother here at all, at least when it is not completely dark. The only scenario where the main camera is a bit weaker is the interior photos. Nevertheless, the effect is still satisfactory.
The weaker link is the wide-angle camera, which has a resolution of only 8 megapixels. Even without zooming in, you can see that wide-angle photos are less detailed than from the main camera and have more noise. The wide-angle camera also copes with the tonal range a little worse. As a camera, it fulfills its function, but here switching to a similarly priced non-folding smartphone would bring a visible improvement. This also applies to the telephoto lens, which we will not find in OPPO.
4K video is of good quality. It offers great detail and effective stabilization. When walking, the vibrations are almost invisible, but artifacts and ripples on the sides of the frame may appear. The wide-angle camera can only record in 1080p, and you cannot switch between cameras while recording.
OPPO folding adds the option to set the phone like on a tripod, makes it easier to take a photo from the ground looking up, and allows you to hold the phone folded at a 90-degree angle like an old DV camera.
Sample pictures:
How long does the battery last?
OPPO has a 4,300mAh battery, one of the largest in a foldable Flip phone . The battery in Flip4 from Samsung is as much as 600 mAh smaller. In our test, this translated into just under 20 hours of YouTube video streaming with screen brightness set to half. This is a very good result for any smartphone, especially for a small and foldable phone.
According to the manufacturer, the included 44W charger should charge the phone halfway in 23 minutes. In our test, we got the following load times”
- 5 min – 14%
- 10 min – 24%
- 15 min – 33%
- 20 min – 43%
- 30 min – 61%
- 58 min – 100%
Charging is fast, it has almost twice as much power as the Flip4 model from Samsung . However, this is still not such a short charging time as traditional flagships with a charger power exceeding 100W. OPPO does not support wireless charging, which is standard for Samsung .
Conclusion
The more competition in the market, the more consumers gain. In this case, the entry of OPPO with a folded smartphone to the European market is very positive. And how is the phone itself? In my opinion, it’s definitely better than Samsung , which should be updated soon. Less visible bending of the screen, no break after closing, larger external display, higher performance, faster charging are the advantages of OPPO . In many other respects, it matches Samsung – the internal display, stereo speakers, fingerprint reader are just as good. What OPPOlacking for total domination are the housing sealing standards, wireless charging and a slightly better wide-angle camera.
For those looking for a successful foldable smartphone in the form of a flip OPPO Find N2 Flip is a very good proposition. Currently the best on the European market. We will see what the premiere of the fifth generation of Samsung foldables will bring . Until then, OPPO has an advantage over it.
It remains an open question whether it is worth choosing a foldable smartphone instead of a classic one, and everyone has to answer this question for themselves. For me, folding has mainly the aspect of novelty and glamor. The smartphone is supposed to bring joy and I understand those who choose Flip.
Main pros and cons of OPPO Find N2 Flip
Advantages of OPPO Find N2 Flip:
- Attractive design
- When closed, there is no gap between the halves of the screen
- Good quality stereo speakers
- Effective fingerprint reader in the power button
- The ultimate foldable display
- The largest external screen among foldable flip smartphones
- High performance
- Android 13 with the ColorOS overlay is aesthetic and legible
- Very good photos day and night from the main camera
- Good quality 4K video with effective stabilization
- 44W charger
- 4300 mAh battery – 600 mAh more than a comparable Samsung
- Nearly 20 hours of online video streaming
- Price at the level of a classic flagship
Disadvantages of OPPO Find N2 Flip:
- No housing sealing standard
- The frame is not all metal
- Widget-limited external screen functionality
- Few additional functions resulting from the bending of the screen
- The wide-angle camera is clearly of lower quality than the main one and competition solutions
- Video stabilization sometimes generates artifacts on the sides of the frame
- Non-folding smartphones have triple, more versatile camera sets
- The animals on the small display wallpaper are not interactive
We love it: the best flip design ever
What we don’t like: still too limited functionality of the external screen
Who is the OPPO Find N2 Flip for:
- For those who value novelties and want to attract attention
- For those who think traditional smartphones are too big
- For those who place the highest emphasis on selfie quality
Who OPPO Find N2 Flip is not for:
- Not for those emphasizing the best and most versatile set of cameras
- Not for people who need a sealed case
- Not for people who will be bothered by the need to open the smartphone to operate it.
