OPPO is bringing their flip phones to other parts of the world! Finally, the modern flip phone market is going to have some competition. I’m pretty bored looking at the Z Flip only, honestly.
Now, the OPPO Find N2 Flip is an interesting phone. It takes the modern flip phone design, enhances it, then add a few specialties of their own. Does OPPO have what it takes to dethrone the Galaxy Z Flip4? Let’s find out.
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Unboxing
We’ll start off with the unboxing. One thing I do like is that OPPO also included a case inside the box. I’m not a fan of this case since it’s just a hard shell plastic that gets hairline scratches easily and also slides around the table – but hey, it’s better than nothing.
The box is also excessively big, by the way.
Design
Now, let’s talk about the phone itself. I really like the design. The textures are slightly rough and it adds grip when I’m holding it like this – and it just feels so nice to touch. Even the hinge cover of the phone has a wave texture on it too. The craftsmanship of this phone is certainly exquisite.
As you can see though, the top of the Find N2 Flip has two cameras, and beside them is the humongous cover display, taking half of the total available space.
Cover display
Let’s talk about the cover display then. It’s a 3.26 inches AMOLED screen with 382×720 pixels in resolution. It’s a rather weird aspect ratio but it does feel like a tiny phone screen on the cover display.
What we can do with this cover display though, is quite a lot but I also think they can further improve it in a software update. We can double tap the display and use face unlock to start using it, or just use the fingerprint scanner.
Then, we can swipe down to access the list of quick settings, or swipe up to see the notifications. From the notifications menu, we can reply by selecting a bunch of preset messages only. We can’t type our own messages but we can add our own custom preset messages.
Then, swiping to the side reveals the widgets available on the cover display. They don’t offer much utility, honestly. The weather and events widgets are handy but could’ve been integrated into the cover display’s home screen instead – and the camera widget does offer quick access to video or portrait modes – but I prefer to just use the shortcut to double-tap on the volume buttons instead.
One intriguing shortcut they have included is the earbuds control. If you have any OPPO or OnePlus earbuds, then the widget gives us quick access to control the ANC or transparency modes while looking at the earbuds’ battery life – but that’s about it.
The most baffling thing to me is that it doesn’t have a dedicated music widget or a Spotify widget. From what I know, the Spotify widget is coming, but it’ll take some time. So, we’ll have to use this mini popup at the bottom of the cover display’s home screen, but I think it’s not enough. Once any music app gets suspended in the background, then the popup disappears.
Main display
We’ll move on to the main display for now. There is nothing out of the ordinary here, so we have a 6.8-inch AMOLED screen with 2520×1080 pixels in resolution, and 120Hz refresh rate.
This display is actually very good. I did the test twice – one for the top half and another for the bottom half. Both sides covers around the same percentage of sRGB and DCI-P3 color gamuts and have similar ΔE numbers too.
Then, the maximum manual brightness is at around 542 nits but when we turn on auto brightness and shine a light on it, it goes up to about 985 nits. That means you won’t have any issues if you want to use this phone outdoors.
And the crease – yes, it’s there – but just barely visible. I have to shine a light at certain angles to really highlight that crease and show it on camera too. I can also feel it when I swipe my finger across but the trough is definitely not as deep as Samsung’s.
The hinge is also smoother – but maybe it’s because the phone is still new.
Software
Now, I want to skip forward to talk about the software. The OPPO Find N2 Flip is using ColorOS 13 on top of Android 13 and there are definitely bloatware apps pre-installed. I mean, just look at this. At first, we only have the infamous Hot Apps and Hot Games, but via a firmware update, we now have Hot FreeGames too!
But today, I want to only talk about how ColorOS 13 makes use of this flip form factor. Honestly speaking, I don’t expect much. OPPO clearly didn’t bake in any extra features too as there is no FlexForm Mode as what we’ve seen on the Find N2 Fold, and only the camera app will split its interface into two. The gallery app remains the same as before – so nothing special there.
For flip phones, you unfold the display into a regular phone anyway. The cover display features are more important. There is a special menu item here that is called “foldable features” and all the customizations for the cover display are found here.
We can put our own wallpaper, customize which widget to show up and in which order, and finally – customize the aforementioned quick reply messages and also add your own if you want to. Honestly, I think there is a lot more potential to take advantage of this cover display. As we mentioned earlier – the weather and events widgets can be integrated into the cover display’s main page.
OPPO is also going to have 4 generations of “major updates” and 5 years of security patches.
Cameras
Moving on to the cameras – we have two of them, co-developed with Hasselblad and powered by their own MariSilicon X chip too. We have a main and another ultrawide angle camera – just like the Z Fold series. However, I must state it now – the Find N2 Flip does not have OIS.
How does that affect the pictures? Well, to have a look at all the pictures and videos taken with the OPPO Find N2 Flip, watch our video at the top of this review.
Performance
The performance – well, there’s nothing much to talk about. It’s using the MediaTek Dimensity 9000+ chipset and I will consider it as a “last-gen chipset” but the Find N2 Flip was announced at that time when the new chips were getting unveiled.
Anyway, this is not a gaming phone but you can use it to play games if you want to. Playing Genshin Impact at the highest graphical settings, we can get about 40-ish fps most of the time – which I think is pretty good. The temperature is good as well. Flip phones will have the chipset situation on one half of the phone, hence the surface area available to dissipate heat is very limited – but this phone managed to maintain below 44°C all the time. Good job.
Battery life
The battery life is something that I’m not really concerned about. With that 4,300mAh battery, the Find N2 Flip can last for about 11 hours in our PCMark test locked at 100 nits brightness. I think it can last you throughout the day without issues.
Charging speed
We also have a 67W charger inside the box – and it charges from 15% to completion in about an hour. This slower speed is because the phone is actually only taking in 44W maximum.
As you can see, the charging curve is… rather erratic because whenever the temperature rises above 40°C, the charging speed slows down. When it cools down, the charging ramps up again. I’m not sure if OPPO is using the pulse charging technique here, but it sure looks very similar.
Few more things to mention
Okay, a few more things to mention about the OPPO Find N2 Flip. This phone does not have wireless charging. Yep, no wireless charging. I know most people won’t care but I think it should be included just for the sake of completion at this point.
And of course, it’s still using a USB 2.0 port. Transferring files in and out is very slow. Obviously, no HDMI output too.
I also want to point out that the fingerprint scanner on this phone is just very unreliable. I ended up registering the same finger twice to get a better experience, but it’s still not 100% reliable. So, face unlock is my go-to unlocking method for this phone.
Is this a good deal?
So, should you buy the OPPO Find N2 Flip? Well, I do think that this phone is beautifully made and it feels really nice to the touch. That gapless hinge makes it even better since no dust or lint will get inside. The huge cover display I’ll say is a good thing, though OPPO can take advantage of it via a future software update. The battery life is also pretty good as well.
With all of that said, I’ll ask you to keep two things in mind. First, the lack of OIS on the main camera. This is a big problem for me – and I’m sure it is for many other people too. Second, the ultrawide angle camera. If you use it a lot, then the quality coming out of it might be an issue for you.
Other than these two things, the OPPO Find N2 Flip is a fine phone. I do like it but the lack of an OIS makes it a difficult choice for me.
At the price of RM3,999, I think that the OPPO Find N2 Flip is going to bring stiff competition to the market of flip phones.
The main competitor of the OPPO Find N2 Flip is obviously going to be the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip4. If you ask me to pick one of the two flip phones, I think it’s going to be a difficult choice. They both have its own strengths and problems – so it’s really up to your personal preference. One phone will suit you more than the other.
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