OPPO wasn’t the first to the foldable smartphone game, entering the arena just last year with its first attempt. Now, the Chinese brand is launching the Find N2, its second-generation foldable device complete with high-end specs and a design that attempts to iron out the usual kinks that have plagued the form factor since its inception.
OPPO gave us the opportunity to spend some time with the bleeding-edge device and I’ll be sharing my experience with it. Unfortunately, there isn’t a global version just yet so the unit that we received is one meant to be sold in China, therefore lacking any Google apps or services. Because of this, I couldn’t practically use it as a daily driver but nonetheless, the Find N2 impressed me more than some other foldables I’ve had my hands on.
The OPPO Find N2 features a more compact form than some of its competitors from Samsung and Huawei, opting for a new 17.7:9 aspect ratio that’s much easier to handle. The external display features a relatively short 5.54-inch display that makes the small-phone-lover in me excited, bringing the ability for easy one-handed use for people with small hands.
The cover display is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus and can go as high as 1,350 nits peak brightness. At the top centre of the phone is the punch hole cutout for the 32MP selfie camera. OPPO chose to equip the compact phone with a side-mounted fingerprint scanner instead of an under-display one and at the bottom, you will find two bottom-firing speakers in lieu of a top and bottom stereo configuration. When folded, the phone lies completely flat with no gap in between, allaying fears of breaking the hinge for those who put their phones in their back pocket.
The internal display is, of course, the fun part of any foldable, and this phone is no different. While it’s smaller than some of the other foldables on the market, It’s still a respectable 7.1-inch display when unfolded with a 9:8:4 aspect ratio. It’s smooth and vivid with a peak brightness of 1,550 nits, housing another selfie camera in the top left corner. Both the outside and inside panels of the Find N2 are LTPO AMOLED and feature an adaptive refresh rate of between 1Hz and 120Hz.
What makes the main display stand on top of its competitors is the crease or lack thereof. Phone makers have been making huge strides in attempting to make the crease in the middle of a foldable screen unnoticeable and OPPO’s latest device is one of the closest, if not the closest, to achieving a near-invisible crease.
Don’t get me wrong, of course, you can still feel the crease if you run your finger through the middle of the display with some force and you can also see it when it catches the light from certain angles. But the fact that I actually have to put in a conscious effort to spot the crease is no easy feat given that giants like Samsung failed to achieve such levels of engineering.
When it comes to taking photos, the OPPO Find N2’s photography capabilities are above average but nothing to write home about. It sports a triple camera setup consisting of a 50MP main shooter, a 48MP ultrawide, and a 32MP telephoto with 2x optical zoom.
The camera module carries the Hasselblad branding due to its collaboration with OPPO but in reality, it doesn’t seem to make any noticeable difference in quality. The phone’s software does take advantage of the folding design to add some practical tools when taking photos.
This includes being able to take a selfie using the rear cameras by unfolding the device and using the cover screen as a preview. There’s also the FlexForm mode that essentially lets the phone act as its own stand when open partway, making it easy to take group photos using a timer.
The OPPO Find N2 is a marvel of engineering and shows just far foldable phones have come in the short few years since they have been in the market. The company has not revealed any plans to release the device outside of China, but suffice to say it would be a major disappointment if we never got to see a global version of it with GMS.
In China, the phone starts at CNY7999 (~RM5070) for the base model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. It maxes out at CNY8999 (~RM5700) for the 16GB+512GB variant.
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