Mired in the Apple-Samsung duopoly on US carriers, it's easy to forget that there are other phone manufacturers out there that have them both beat at their own game. Oppo - the lead singer in the world's largest phone-making conglomerate - just announced the Find X6 series, its 2023 flagships with refreshing design perspective, record bright display, and a unique camera trio where the periscope zoom focuses on quality not quantity.
The "all cameras are equal" mantra permeates the Oppo Find X6 Pro photography concept, but the even amount of attention paid to the main, ultrawide, and zoom cameras is not the phone's only virtue, far from it.
The two-tone design and 2500 points of light display
Symmetrical elegance and the best phone screen
With the Find X6 Pro, Oppo introduces a brand new design language for its flagship Find series of phones. The camera island is now centered, making the phone look much more symmetrical and bringing enhanced ergonomics as it does away with the possibility of your index finger waddling into the frame as so often happens with corner cameras.
The revamped camera placement is not the only eye-pleasing design decision, as the Oppo Find X6 Pro lands with a two-tone design version that resembles that classic cameras of yesteryear that not only splits the handset's coloring at the middle of the island, but also its body materials.
The upper glass quarter is done in a metal-like finish, and then followed by a cool vegan leather section making for a unique piece of conceptual phone design that is so rare to see these days. The purely glass-clad models that come in black and green are given different designer love, with anti-glare glass and finish that shines yet isn't prone to fingerprint smudges.
At the front, the big 6.82-inch 1440p display is protected by the latest, toughest Gorilla Glass Victus 2. The Find X6 Pro offers the whopping 93.5% screen-to-body ratio, making it one of the best in class in that regard, thanks to the slightly curved display sides, the punch-hole selfie camera, and the thin top and bottom bezels. Despite that Oppo shaved off the bottom bezel where the screen controller and cable assembly are housed for a symmetrical look, it still managed to tweak the latest LTPO 2.0 OLED display panel technology to arrive at the brightest display on a phone so far by a large margin.
While the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra stayed on last year's 1750 nits of brightness, and Apple touts the top 2000 nits of the iPhone 14 Pro series, Oppo quietly one-upped them with a record 2500 nits display brightness, a boon for outdoor visibility. Being a flagship Oppo phone, the Find X6 Pro also comes with per-unit display calibration for perfect wide gamut coverage straight from the factory.
Oppo introduced the dynamic 1Hz-120Hz display refresh rate and factory-level color calibration before anyone else and never looked back, perfecting its phone displays with each passing edition. Besides the record-shattering screen brightness and Dolby Vision or HDR10+ support with the display shining at 2200 nits while watching HDR content, Oppo improved the dynamic refresh rate on the Find X6 Pro, too. Just like on the iPhone, it can now sense how fast you are sliding your finger when scrolling, and adjust the refresh rate accordingly, saving further on the battery draw in the process. In short, the screen of the Find X6 Pro is a little wonder in a long string of best-in-class phone displays from Oppo.
All cameras are created equal, liberty and justice for all!
Record large periscope zoom camera sensor
Moving to the back of the Find X6 Pro we discover the camera island nestled symmetrically in the middle of the phone's back. Oppo calls the Find X6 Pro the phone with "three main cameras," hinting at how it treated each camera all along the zoom range. Previously, it introduced main and ultrawide camera with equal 50MP resolution and flagship Sony sensors on each, color-coordinating their output for more uniform photography experience. We have those here as well, starting with a huge 1-inch main Sony IMX989 sensor and the largest ultrawide camera one at a 1/1.56" IMX890 unit.
The Oppo Find X6 Pro camera specs
On the Find X6 Pro, however, Oppo added a periscope camera with the same 1/1.56" IMX890 sensor as the ultrawide camera, for a unique 50MP zoom camera like no other currently available. Not only did this allow it to offer the highest quality periscope zoom camera sensor on a phone, but also to expand the output coordination in terms of resolution, detail, and color science across the camera trio, hence the "three main cameras" slogan. We snapped a few photos with a pre-production Find X6 Pro model in sunny Spain for your viewing pleasure and will be putting the retail model and its more polished algorithms through its paces soon.
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Furthermore, the 50MP pericope camera resolution lets Oppo play around with hybrid optical/crop zoom from the same sensor to arrive at breathtaking 6x magnification shots that excel at low-light as they do at bright sunlight compared to other solutions, including the 10MP 10x zoom camera on the Galaxy S23 Ultra, or the 48MP 4x zoom one on the Pixel 7 Pro. The new camera kit placement allowed for much larger periscope refraction prism which, combined with the larger sensor and faster shuttle movement, introduce better image stabilization on the zoom camera which helped achieve longer exposures and better night shot magnification without blur or loss of focus.
The periscope zoom system offers much improved image stabilization and low-light capture
Because of the big Sony IMX890 sensor pixels on the Find X6 Pro periscope camera, the portrait shots also excel in low-light and night scenarios as the phone is no longer forced to switch to the wide camera when the photons around start disappearing. This is augmented by the biggest ƒ/2.6 aperture on such a camera, so that the Find X6 Pro can produce a more natural depth of field to zoom and portrait shots.
Last but not least, the record-breaking zoom camera kit lets you do excellent macro shots from distances as close as an inch, just as you would on a DSLR camera, plus you can record 4K video with the telephoto camera from afar and get that natural depth of field portrait video look in low-light scenarios as well. Speaking of portraits, Oppo didn't stop here, and leveraged its partnership with the storied Hasselblad camera company for the portraits with natural depth of field and filters bringing that distinctive Hasselblad look.
"The all-new Hasselblad Portrait Mode puts the power of Hasselblad’s legendary XCD 30mm and XCD 80mm lenses in your pocket. Available at 24mm and 65mm focal lengths, each simulated lens brings new perspectives and a stunning bokeh effect to portrait images," says Oppo. "Using an AI training model on the device side, the algorithm can analyze objects like the sky, ground, and trees in real-time and perform object-based multi-semantic segmentation," it adds when detailing the natural Hasselblad portraits look.
The Hasselblad filter can be set as the default in Pro mode and used each time you fire up one of the camera's sensors, plus its color filters now work on JPEGs as well. To achieve all that on-device computational photography, Oppo again resorts to its in-house MariSilicon X imaging processor, now augmented by the excellent Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 computational support, too. The combo allows for rapidly stacking 30 frames with granular exposure levels for widening the dynamic range of a single shot and also displaying 8x higher dynamic range for HDR content than the standard on the phone's display.
The 'equal' Find X6 Pro camera system
Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 performance and ColorOS features
The Oppo Find X6 Pro comes powered by the latest high-end mobile processor by Qualcomm - the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 - which is the one used by Samsung for its flagship S23 series as well, and provides performance per watt commensurate with Apple's high-end A16 without getting hot and bothered in the process.
New liquid-cooled system keeps temperatures at bay
Those high-quality Pro mode and Hasselblad color profile shots or HDR videos will need space, and the Find X6 Pro starts from 256GB of storage at the most basic version, up to a 16GB/512GB combo, and that's with the fastest UFS 4.0 flash storage memory technology at that.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor is flanked by the fastest RAM technology on a mobile, too, with at least 12GB of LPDDR5X memory (16GB for the leather version) allowing for up to 44 apps to be kept open without any noticeable slowdown of the Find X6 Pro. This is enhanced by the latest Color OS 13.1 that manages background processes with aplomb and provides for a number of software features and options rivalling the richest Android overlays out there.
Sleep tracker
With one of the new ColorOS features on the Find X6 Pro, for instance, Oppo is leveraging its digital health lab platform to provide you with enhanced sleep tracking directly from your phone, no need for extra gadgets.
It utilizes a combination of sensing components like the accelerometer or mics to follow your body movements, the pulse rate, and snoring sounds in order to provide you with a complete picture of your sleep pattern from your phone alone, a rather ingenious option.
The phone-based Sleep Tracker
Private calls and infrared sensor
The infrared sensor is back, baby!
Oppo introduces several new privacy-oriented features on the Find X6 Pro. Chief among those is the enhanced privacy during voice calls. Oppo augmented the sound direction from the earpiece for a greatly limited spillage. This allows the Find X6 Pro to direct the sound of your conversation directly into your ear with ambient leakage reduced more than three times compared to a regular phone, so that nobody in your household or on your train or Uber ride can eavesdrop on your calls from the earpiece alone as so often happens these days.
New sound-sealed earpiece offers enhanced call privacy
Another great new feature that Oppo provides on the Find X6 Pro is the return of the infrared sensor. That staple of near field communication has been missing from a whole generation of phones, but we missed the ability to control the TV or air conditioner directly from our phone, too, so we are glad that Oppo is bringing it back on a flagship device like the Find X6 Pro. The IR sensor also allows to share control of said appliances with other X6 Pro units in the household with a simple QR code or NFC tap.
1600-cycle battery and ultrafast low-temperature charging
Phone makers other than Apple or Samsung keep upping the ante when it comes to ultrafast charging and longer battery life cycles, and the Oppo Find X6 Pro is no exception to that rule. Equipped with a 5,000 mAh total battery capacity split in two modules that can charge simultaneously, the Find X6 Pro comes with a 100W SuperVOOC charger that can top up the depleted battery to 100% in just 24 minutes.
SuperVOOC 100W charging can top up the battery in 24 minutes
Not only that, but the AirVOOC wireless charging coils on the back can accept 50W power for 51 minutes to full charge. For comparison, the 5000 mAh battery in the Galaxy S23 Ultra takes more than an hour to charge with a cable. The reverse charging speed with which the Find X6 Pro can top up other gadgets like wireless earbud cases is also set at a record 15W.
Furthermore, Oppo's amazing Battery Health Engine endurance management system strikes again with chemistry that is good for 1600 charge-discharge cycles before the unit hits 80% capacity. That's double what the iPhone offers, for instance, and ensures that the battery will be as good as new for at least 4 years into the phone's ownership, all the while it charges four times faster than an iPhone, or twice faster than a Samsung flagship, not to mention the breathtaking wireless charging speeds that Oppo provides.
Last but not least among the battery health preserving features is the low-temperature charging mode. Just like your Tesla, the Find X6 Pro senses when an attempt at charging in sub-zero temps is made and preconditions the battery for more efficient charging even in Arctic conditions that are much more adverse than the current phone charging limits.
Oppo Find X6 Pro price and release date
12GB/256GB: $870
16GB/256GB: $945
16GB/512GB: $1015
March 24
The Find X6 Pro will be available for purchase in a base 12GB/256GB memory variant only for the Black and Green glass models at the equivalent of about $870, while the more common configurations will be a 16GB/256GB at $945 in local currency, and a top-end 16GB/512GB model that barely breaks the $1000 threshold.
The Find X6 will land on March 24, too, in Green, Gold and Black, with prices starting at just $655 for the base 12GB/256GB model and ending at $725 for the souped-up 16GB/512GB top-end version.
In other regions the excellent 2023 flagships from Oppo may cost more, of course, if and when they get the global launch treatment, and we cross fingers for a wider global release of the phones that seem crafted to shatter the Apple-Samsung duopoly.
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Daniel, a devoted tech writer at PhoneArena since 2010, has been engrossed in mobile technology since the Windows Mobile era. His expertise spans mobile hardware, software, and carrier networks, and he's keenly interested in the future of digital health, car connectivity, and 5G. Beyond his professional pursuits, Daniel finds balance in travel, reading, and exploring new tech innovations, while contemplating the ethical and privacy implications of our digital future.
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