Oppo Find X3 Pro review: Flagship smartphone features at a premium price Review

Oppo is a major-tier smartphone vendor, occupying fourth position in terms of worldwide sector share in Q4 2020 in accordance to IDC, powering Apple, Samsung and Xiaomi. This time very last 12 months I found Oppo’s Find X2 Pro to be a worthy flagship, and now we have the 2021 design — the Find X3 Pro. There are other Come across X3 variants, the Neo and Lite, the two of which are much less costly and much less expansive. But the Pro is the place it is really at for cutting-edge capabilities — and a high quality value of £1,099 in the UK (Oppo phones are not officially accessible in the US). 

As befits a flagship handset, the Come across X3 Pro is run by Qualcomm’s major-end Snapdragon 888 5G mobile platform. There is also 12GB of RAM and 256GB of interior storage. Out of the box, 20GB of my overview handset’s storage was occupied, leaving 236GB to fill with apps and information. 

There is space for two SIMs in the caddy that pops out from the base edge of the chassis, but you will find no solution for external storage growth via MicroSD card. 

Just one thing I appreciated about the Come across X2 Pro I reviewed very last 12 months was its orange Vegan Leather backplate. This was refreshingly different in style and design, with a smooth-touch finish that built it grippy and capable to go the ‘chair test’ — not sliding off the arm of my chair through screening. 

Nonetheless, it would seem I was in a minority as regards the orange Vegan Leather solution due to the fact it has gone, and this time about we are in glass-back again territory. The IP68-rated wraparound chassis arrives in two colours: my overview device was Gloss Black with an ultra-shiny, ultra-reflective, ultra-slippery finish to the backplate. It failed the chair check. There is also a Blue variant with a frosted-on the lookout, non-reflective finish.

The backplate curves into a lifted plateau housing the digicam lenses, flash device and connected parts. Light-weight demonstrates about this curve, and in some way the depth of the digicam area looks much less intense than it essentially is. Rest the handset experience-up on a desk and the digicam lenses are sitting down powering the major proper of the display screen: tapping everywhere on the left facet of the display screen higher than about 50 {36a394957233d72e39ae9c6059652940c987f134ee85c6741bc5f1e7246491e6}-way results in a significant wobble and accompanying clatter as the backplate tilts down onto the desk. 

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Oppo has managed to make the Come across X3 Pro a shade lighter and more compact than very last year’s design. The Vegan Leather X2 Pro was 9.5mm thick and weighed 200g, when an substitute black ceramic-backed design was eight.8mm thick and weighed 217g. The two have been 165.2mm tall and seven.4mm extensive. This time about, the X3 Pro is eight.26mm thick, 163.6mm tall, 74mm extensive and weighs 193g. 

The X3 Pro’s screen is the exact dimensions as very last year’s design at six.seven inches. The resolution is one,440 by 3,216 pixels, supplying a pixel density of 525ppi, and the AMOLED panel is as vivid, sharp and vibrant as any that I’ve encountered. The panel supports one hundred{36a394957233d72e39ae9c6059652940c987f134ee85c6741bc5f1e7246491e6} of the DCI-P3 color gamut and HDR10+, has a typical brightness level of 500 nits, soaring to a optimum of 1300 nits, and benefits from an adaptive refresh rate that maxes out at 120Hz. 

The tiny slice-out in the higher left corner of the display screen for the front-struggling with digicam is hardly noticeable. The curvature of the display screen down its lengthy edges isn’t going to appeal to accidental taps and the in-screen fingerprint sensor proved responsive and accurate. 

If you discover reaching across the six.seven-inch display screen a challenge, Oppo has executed its Sensible Sidebar. You can pull this out from the proper edge of the display screen — you will find a tiny greyed-out lozenge indicating its location. As soon as obvious, the Sensible Sidebar features shortcuts to commonly made use of apps. If you populate it with apps that guidance the Oppo split-display screen element, you can drag a single out and it will open alongside the app you’re currently utilizing. Be aware, nevertheless, that not just about every app supports split-display screen method. 

There is a option of Vivid, Gentle, Cinematic or Amazing color modes, and you can manually toggle Eye Comfort method, transform the color temperature utilizing a slider or have it transform immediately based on ambient mild, and toggle SDR/HDR modes. It truly is a whole lot to play with, but that is not all: you can also set the display screen refresh rate to default to 120Hz or 60Hz, and toggle involving QHD+ (1440 x 3216) and FHD+ (1080 x 2412) or have the process come to a decision dynamically for you. 

Many of the configurations, as perfectly as the Sensible Sidebar, appear courtesy of Oppo’s overlay for Android eleven, ColorOS eleven.two. Its configurations-based mostly offer you is seamlessly integrated with the Android configurations, and it adds a good offer in an unobtrusive method. You get a couple bloatware apps, like Facebook (which can be uninstalled) and Neftlix (which cannot).  

Unsurprisingly, the Come across X3 Pro benchmarks extremely perfectly indeed. The very last handset I reviewed with the Snapdragon 888 chipset was the Xiaomi Mi eleven, and while the Come across X3 Pro has 12GB of RAM compared to the Mi 11’s 8GB, the Xiaomi cell phone arrived in somewhat forward: on the Geekbench 5 CPU check, the Oppo Come across X3 Pro scored 927 (single core) and 3311 (multi core), when the Xiaomi M1 eleven registered 1129 and 3704. There is not a good offer in it, and likely not adequate to have a defining influence for any person choosing involving people two phones. You can test out more comparative CPU scores on the Geekbench Android Benchmark Chart. 

The 4,500mAh battery performs incredibly perfectly. I found that in basic use it lasted perfectly beyond a day, and even when I invested an hour or so streaming video clip written content at the finish of a occupied day, I might even now have twenty{36a394957233d72e39ae9c6059652940c987f134ee85c6741bc5f1e7246491e6} or more left at near of play. Beneath the PCMark for Android Work two. battery rundown check the Come across X3 Pro ran for eleven several hours and 26 minutes, which is far better than the 9 several hours recorded by the Find X2 Pro but perfectly powering the leading scores on this check (>25h). Eventually, when I requested the Come across X3 Pro to play YouTube video clip at comprehensive display screen for 3 several hours from a comprehensive charge, the battery fell by eighteen{36a394957233d72e39ae9c6059652940c987f134ee85c6741bc5f1e7246491e6}, suggesting battery lifetime of about 16.5 several hours. 

Rapid charging is practically nothing new, and a flagship handset like the Come across X3 Pro need to have it as a staple element. The claimed ability to produce 40{36a394957233d72e39ae9c6059652940c987f134ee85c6741bc5f1e7246491e6} in ten minutes via Oppo’s 65W SuperVOOC two. flash charging sounds like some sort of magic, but in point, if you do permit the cell phone drain all the way to zero, that is on the playing cards: I set it charging when starting up perform and by the time I was all set to test the newsfeeds I might bought to virtually one hundred{36a394957233d72e39ae9c6059652940c987f134ee85c6741bc5f1e7246491e6}. Wi-fi charging (30W) is supported, as is reverse wi-fi charging (10W), so you can aid out charge-starved buddies or colleagues if essential.  

The front-struggling with 32MP digicam does its job perfectly adequate, but it is really the four-digicam array at the back again that is more intriguing. This comprises 50MP f/one.eight extensive-angle and 50MP f/two.two ultra-extensive-angle (a hundred and ten.3°) digicam, the two utilizing the exact Sony IMX 776 sensor, in addition 13MP f/two.4 telephoto (5x hybrid optical/20x digital zoom) and 3MP f/3. Microlens (60x magnification) cameras. 

The microlens digicam is a standout element. On the system it is really referred to as a microscope, and it does a superb job. Set it extremely near up to anything and it provides astounding effects at both 30x or 60x magnification. Some may perhaps argue it is really a toy, and you do will need a continuous hand to make the most of it, but it is really much more worthwhile to perform with than some of the other third or fourth cameras with which handset makers adorn their phones. 

The two most important 50MP cameras seize loads of mild and depth, and generate outstanding pictures. You can display screen-tap by means of 1x, 2x (optical) and 5x (hybrid) zoom, and then you are in display screen-pinching territory to get up to 20x (digital) zoom. On the exceptionally vivid April days I transpired to pick for screening the digicam, photos have been vivid and sharp in the two extensive and ultra-extensive modes at typical zoom. In basic, nevertheless, zooming was much less satisfactory — bear in mind that it is really principally digital.  

The Come across X3 Pro also caters for supporters of macro method taking pictures via its 50MP ultra-extensive sensor, and it is really amazingly quick to use. You do not have to pick macro method prior to homing in on your topic. As a substitute, as the cell phone closes in the process immediately realises what you are doing, the ultra-extensive lens kicks in, and macro-level emphasis arrives into play. There is a slight jolt in the viewfinder as the change takes position, but this is quick to reside with, and it would make macro method taking pictures a basic stage-and-click affair. It truly is a definite winner. 

Video clip on the rear digicam array maxes out at 4K (60fps), and when there are a few of handsets that will shoot at 8K, such as the Xiaomi Mi eleven, its absence in this article is no good loss except you are a single of the extremely couple people today with an 8K Television set to see it on. 

Conclusions 

The Oppo Come across X3 Pro benefits from a fantastic six.seven-inch 120Hz AMOLED display screen, good battery lifetime and some fantastic improvements in the ColorOS Android overlay, as perfectly as a fantastic macro digicam method. The digital zoom abilities are much less pleasing, and I am not a huge fan of the tremendous-shiny backplate of my overview sample, while I do enjoy the digicam protrusion’s exclusive style and design. There is loads on offer you in this article, but the four-figure value tag may perhaps give a lot of future purchasers pause for assumed.  

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