Oppo Find X2 Pro hands-on: 120Hz screen and a superb 10X zoom camera

Oppo made its name with midrange phones aimed at young people, but its new Find X2 and Find X2 Pro come packed with flagship specs. The Chinese manufacturer unveiled the new phones — along with a new smartwatch called the Oppo Watch — Friday, nearly two years after the launch of its predecessor, the Oppo Find X. The Find X2 costs 999 euros, which converts to roughly $1,130, £870 or AU$1,480. The Find X2 Pro will be 1,199 euros, or about $1,360.

Oppo isn’t a household name in the US, but it’s the fifth-largest phone-maker in the world. It’s emerged as a threat to Apple in recent years, offering features such as no-notch displays and under-the-glass sensors that aren’t found on the iPhone. 

The phones were announced at two simultaneous livestreamed events in Barcelona and Beijing. The launch was originally scheduled for late February at Mobile World Congress, which was canceled due to fears over the coronavirus outbreak.

First impressions of Oppo Find X2 Pro

Both the Find X2 and the Find X2 Pro come loaded with the premium specs that you’d expect from flagship phones in 2020: 5G capabilities, the newest Snapdragon 865 chipset and superfast charging. According to Oppo, the Find X2 Pro has a battery capacity of 4,260 mAh and can be fully charged in just 38 minutes. 

The specs sheet only tells part of the story. The rest of it unfolds through hands-on experience. The Find X2 Pro is a sleek phone with a futuristic appearance. That’s thanks in part to its ultra-narrow bezel and its gently curved edge, which bends at an angle of up to 67.8 degrees on both sides. I didn’t find it tricky to press the buttons on the edge and was able to do so easily without accidentally pressing or smudging the screen. The Find X2 Pro is longer and slightly narrower than the iPhone 11 Pro Max and iPhone XS Max, which I find allows for a more effortless and comfortable grip compared with both those models. Its 6.7-inch AMOLED screen and a 120Hz refresh rate make it the best display yet on an Oppo phone and put it up there with the Samsung Galaxy S20. It also has a 240Hz touch-sampling rate and an in-screen fingerprint reader.

Perhaps the most noticeable change to the Find X2 is the absence of its ostentatious pop-up selfie camera. Instead there’s a punch-hole notch on the left side of the screen, which houses a 32-megapixel selfie camera. Oppo’s decision to ditch one of the Find X’s most distinctive features might suggest that it didn’t do much more than allow for an uninterrupted display. It did, however, help make Oppo a poster child for phone innovation in China. 

Notch or no notch, the Find X2 Pro has mind-blowing camera capabilities. It features a triple-camera setup on the rear, which is equipped with not one but two massive 48-megapixel sensors that feature in the ultrawide-angle camera and the main camera. 3K image capture means the colors captured in photos are sharp, vibrant and even dramatic, though they aren’t as true to life as photos taken with an iPhone 11 Pro, which are duller but capture the surrounding buildings more realistically as you can see below.

I also tested some of the Find X2’s zoom features. The image quality from 10x hybrid zoom (pictured above) was superb, rivaling the iPhone 11 Pro’s 10x digital zoom capabilities.

Low-light imaging was also impressive, thanks in part to the Sony IMX 689 sensor, which gives the Find X2 powerful shooting capabilities at night. Switching to night mode, I took the picture below at around 9 p.m. on a dark night here in Singapore. But you wouldn’t know it from the picture below, which shows lit-up grayish skies that don’t resemble real life at all. Other pictures I took at night using the main snapper were vibrant and had wonderful depth and texture. They looked overprocessed to me, but this may not be an issue for everyone.

For the rest of the specs on the two Oppo Find X2 models, see this chart:

Oppo Find X2 Series Specs

	Oppo Find X2	Oppo Find X2 Pro
Display size, resolution	6.7-inch AMOLED; 3,168×1,440 pixels	6.7-inch AMOLED; 3,168×1,440 pixels
Pixel density	513ppi	513ppi
Dimensions (Inches)	6.5×2.9×0.31 inches	6.5×2.93×0.35 inches
Dimensions (Millimeters)	164.9×74.5×8.0mm	165.2×74.4×8.8mm
Weight (Ounces, Grams)	Weight: 196g (Ceramic) / 187g (Glass)	Weight: 207g (Ceramic) / 200g (Vegan Leather)
Mobile software	Android 10	Android 10
Camera	48-megapixel (ultrawide), 12-megapixel wide angle, 13-megapixel (periscope telephoto)	48-megapixel (ultrawide), 48-megapixel wide angle, 13-megapixel (periscope telephoto)
Front-facing camera	32-megapixel	32-megapixel
Video capture	3K	3K
Processor	Qualcomm Snapdragon 865+ (octa-core, 64-bit)	Qualcomm Snapdragon 865+ (octa-core, 64-bit)
Storage	256GB	512GB
RAM	12GB RAM	12GB RAM
Expandable storage	No	No
Battery	4,200 mAh	4,260 mAh
Fingerprint sensor	In-screen	In-screen
Connector	USB 3.1	USB 3.1
Special features	5G enabled, water resistant, dust resistant	5G enabled, water resistant, dust resistant