At the beginning of the year, we were tremendously impressed by OPPO’s latest mid-range offering – Reno7 Pro 5G (Review) – which remained one of our favorite smartphone in the sub-$1,000 category even after we came across so many launches over the past three months.
Although memories of the phone still remain fresh in our mind, but that wouldn’t stop OPPO from launching it’s next-generation’s Find X5 Pro flagship model in the local market this month to provide some serious competition against recent models such as the Huawei P50 Pro (Review) and Xiaomi 12 Pro (Review) to name a few.
As usual, the new Find X5 Pro will lead OPPO’s premium line for 2022 and could potentially be a game changer for the company’s aspiration to expand it’s presence in the high-end market which are currently dominated by the likes of Apple and Samsung.
Thanks to OPPO Singapore, we get to test out the OPPO Find X5 Pro for more than two weeks to check out what the latest flagship has in store for us. While this may sounds a bit of exaggeration, but we were left with pretty much nothing but good impressions about the phone. To find out why, read on our full review of the OPPO Find X5 Pro!
Design
OPPO’s Find X series smartphones have always been in the forefront when it comes to revolutionary smartphone design. In 2018, when smartphones are largely dominated by uninspiring notches, OPPO shook the world with a never-seen-before motorized pop-up camera which not only allowed the phone to be free of notches, but also arrived with a near full-screen display unseen during that period of time.
The company subsequently impressed with it’s follow-up models which of course include last year’s OPPO Find X3 Pro (Review) which features a so-called Gradient Arc design that allows the rear camera housing to blend smoothly and elegantly onto the back plate that frees us from those unsightly bumps.
The new OPPO Find X5 Pro continues to refine last year’s unibody design with a redesigned camera bump which looks nothing like what we see among other smartphones, handing it an unique personality that stands out from the crowded smartphone space.
What remain unchanged are those gorgeous streamlined curves along the edges which gives the phone a timeless and elegant design which OPPO’s Find X series smartphones have been known for over the years. Apart from better aesthetic, adopting a curve design also makes the phone thinner and hence more manageable for those with smaller hands.
Speaking about handling experience, the OPPO Find X5 Pro certainly lives up to the price it commands. The phone is an absolute joy to hold thanks to it’s ceramic backplate which offers a smooth and luxurious texture that feels a tad more premium than other flagship models with a glass back.
Just like it’s predecessor, the OPPO Find X5 Pro is also IP68 certified for water and dust resistance. That basically means you wouldn’t need to worry whenever the phone is exposed to light drizzle or drops into the bathtub (touch wood of course!).
Display
When the OPPO Find X3 Pro was announced last year, it’s “Billion-color” display was touted to have the best smartphone display at that point of time. It’s therefore not surprising for the new Find X5 Pro to impress once again in this category.
Blessed with a spacious 6.7” LTPO AMOLED display, the OPPO Find X5 Pro offers plenty of screen estate for both entertainment and productivity. The screen itself isn’t just vibrant, but also brings plenty of details to the screen thanks to it’s pixel-dense QHD+ screen resolution.
To sweeten up the deal, it also supports 10-bit color depth as well as 100% DCI-P3 color gamut coverage which ensure colors are rendered accurately when viewing photos or watching your favorite Netflix contents.
Also, it’s fast 120Hz refresh rate makes scrolling and navigation felt really smooth on the screen. Like most other high-end models, it’s refresh rate is adaptive in nature, meaning it’ll automatically adjusts the refresh rate from as low as 1Hz up to 120Hz based on the onscreen contents in order to lengthen it’s battery life.
Most importantly, the phone doesn’t have no issue getting sufficiently bright whenever the situation calls for it, such as when taking photos during bright daylight. As I mentioned before, this is a crucial feature which is often overlooked by consumers since it determines whether the screen can remains visible in environment with strong ambient light, and is therefore significant for those who tend to spend most of their time outdoor.
For better durability, OPPO had also reinforced it’s front display with an extra layer of Gorilla Glass Victus which not only protects the screen against scratches, but also to cushion the impact of an accidental drop.
Performance
Sitting at the heart of the new OPPO Find X5 Pro is none other than Qualcomm’s latest flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 mobile processor which never fails to deliver exceptional performance that makes day-to-day usage felt like a breeze, when coupled with it’s buttery-smooth refresh rate as well as it’s well-optimised ColorOS 12 user interface.
Even when dealing with more resource intensive workloads like video editing or playing high intensity game titles such as Shadow Fight 3 and PUBG New State, the phone showed no sign of lagging despite running at higher graphics setting. This of course makes the Find X5 Pro an ideal smartphone for both productivity and entertainment.
To keeps the phone cool during prolonged gaming sessions, the OPPO Find X5 Pro is also backed by a reliable heat-dissipation system consisting of a super-large vapor chamber and cutting-edge 3D graphene films. In fact, it’s pretty impressive how OPPO managed to squeeze in such advance cooling system under it’s slim chassis.
Performance aside, OPPO also aims to deliver a heightened gaming experience on the Find X5 Pro by equipping the phone with a powerful X-axis linear motor which delivers an amazing performance that was normally experienced only among gaming-centric smartphones such as the ASUS ROG Phone 5 (Review).
On the memory side of things, the Find X5 Pro also features an ample 12GB RAM and 256GB built-in storage which provides more than sufficient leeway for multi-tasking as well as capacity to store your favorite games and media contents on the device.
Cameras
For photography, the OPPO Find X5 Pro is equipped with a state-of-the-art camera system featuring a 50 megapixels (f/1.7 aperture) main camera, 50 megapixels (f/2.2 aperture) ultra-wide camera, as well as a 13 megapixels (f/2.4 aperture) telephoto camera.
One big different in it’s imaging department this time round is perhaps it’s co-development with Swedish photography giant Hasselblad. That alone already sounds promising to begin with, even before we start talking about the improvements.
Having impressed by last year’s OPPO Find X3 Pro, we can’t help but garner high expectations on the new Find X5 Pro’s camera system which indeed didn’t disappoints us during our testing.
Regardless of lighting conditions, it’s 50MP Sony IMX 766 camera is able to capture delightful photos with admirable dynamic range and details that are on par or even better than other flagship phones in the market.
While this is admittedly the same imaging sensor what was adopted on last year’s Find X3 Pro, but the effect of Hasselblad’s partnership is deeply felt in terms of the camera’s color reproduction which is now even more accurate than before. This results in photos that appear vibrant and yet natural – just like what we see with our own eyes.
Also, it’s worth heaping praise on the camera’s autofocus system which works like a charm even in relatively low-light environment, allowing us to capture sharp-looking photos within the shortest period of time.
For snapping photos under low-light environment, the Find X5 Pro comes with the usual night mode feature which does a remarkable job in enhancing the brightness of the scene to uncover shadow details that are otherwise non-visible on the photos.
Just like it’s predecessor, the OPPO Find X5 Pro is one of the few devices in the market which actually adopts an identical imaging sensor for it’s main and ultra-wide camera. Therefore, we can expect the ultra-wide camera to output the same adorning photo quality as the standard lens, which is a definitely a good news for those who enjoy landscape photography.
Last but not the least, there’s also a pretty useful 13 megapixels telephoto camera to help with snapping photos of faraway subjects. This camera doesn’t allows you to zoom as much as 100x zoom like what we saw on the Huawei P50 Pro (Review), but instead up to 20x zoom which is still more than good enough for majority of the users.
Although photos taken by the telephoto cameras aren’t on the same level of quality as those taken by it’s main and ultra-wide unit, but it’s nonetheless usable between 2x to 5x zoom factor as it’s able to produce photos with nice color profile and well-controlled image noise.
Of course, the deterioration in photo quality will become more obvious as you edge beyond the 5x mark, and increasingly so towards the 20x mark. However, it’s important to note that this isn’t something limited to the Find X5 Pro, but rather majority of the smartphones.
Besides photographing faraway subjects, the telephoto camera also comes in handy whenever you need to take close-up photos of plants or insects which you doesn’t want to get really close up to.
Battery & Charging
To keep it’s lights on, the OPPO Find X5 Pro is backed by a respectable 5,000mAh battery which is slightly larger in capacity over last year’s 4,500mAh battery. On average, the phone doesn’t fail to supply me with approximately 1.5 days’ battery life under moderate usage, with auto brightness tuned on and refresh rate set to standard.
Also, the phone hardly goes beyond the 15% mark even when I use the phone more heavily throughout the day with several hours of gaming and video streaming when commuting. That’s how lasting battery life is on the OPPO Find X5 Pro.
To sweeten the deal, OPPO also upgraded it’s wired charging speed from 65W to 80W, allowing the phone to deliver a full charge from 0 to 100% in around 40 minutes. Otherwise, the phone can also refill a completely flat battery up to 50% in merely 12 minutes.
For those who ain’t a fan of wired charging, you’ll be glad to know that the phone also supports a blazing-fast 50W AIRVOOC wireless charging which is able to recharge a completely flat battery almost equally as fast in just around 47 minutes.
Verdict
To sum up, the OPPO Find X5 Pro is a phone with plenty to love, but nothing to hate. From it’s sleek and elegant design to it’s pro-grade camera system, the OPPO Find X5 Pro is a phone which not only stands out in terms of design, but also impresses with it’s hardware excellence.
For those who’re interested, the OPPO Find X5 Pro is priced at just $1,699 in Singapore, and will be available for purchase islandwide starting April 30th via OPPO Concept Stores, OPPO’s Shopee, Lazada and Qoo10 Official Stores, M1, Singtel and StarHub as well as all authorised retailers.
Pre-order for the OPPO Find X5 Pro will commence from April 16th to 29th at at OPPO Concept Stores, OPPO’s Shopee, Lazada and Qoo10 Official Stores, as well as Challenger, Gain City, Best Denki, Courts and Harvey Norman at a discounted price of S$1599.
Customers who pre-order from the OPPO Concept Stores, OPPO’s Shopee Flagship store, Challenger, Gain City, Best Denki, Courts and Harvey Norman will receive a free Google Nest Hub (S$139) and Kavlar Phone Case (S$69) worth S$208, while stocks last.
Similarly, those who pre-order from OPPO’s Lazada Flagship store and Qoo10 official store will receive a free 45W AirVOOC Wireless Charger (S$119) and Kavlar Phone Case (S$69) worth S$188, while stocks last.
