The smartphone industry is currently undergoing a transitional period in which foldable form factors, as opposed to conventional candy-bar ones, are evolving. In 2021, Samsung will hold nearly 84% of the market for foldable devices. It is also driving the book-like and clamshell form factors, which have established them as the industry standard for foldables. However, the entry of Chinese smartphone manufacturers ought to encourage additional adoption and fair competition.
The foldable smartphone market has been entered by HONOR, Xiaomi, Huawei, and OPPO. Even TCL, a vertically integrated player in the display industry, has shown prototypes of its foldable smartphones for years and is finally planning to release some of them later this year. While OPPO took its time to enter the market, it made sure to address some of the issues customers had with other foldable devices. The first prototype of the Chinese smartphone maker’s product featured a rollable display. However, the majority of these new brands’ efforts have been postponed due to difficulties in developing the foldable hinge, optimizing software, and determining the appropriate form factor. In addition, obtaining manufacturing scale and supply for the same is difficult.
It has been a work in progress; for instance, OPPO recently introduced the Find N, a smartphone that folds like a book and costs approximately $1,400. We had a chance to test the OPPO Find N for a few weeks, but it is only currently available in China. Here is our analysis of its potential from a form factor, hinge engineering, display, camera, and most importantly software perspective.
Design:
The most frequent question I receive from acquaintances, cousins, and even coworkers is, “So which new gadget did you bring today?” Seeing and utilizing the Galaxy Z Fold 3 in person excited everyone. However, when they saw the OPPO Find N, their reaction was completely different. Wow, this is so small and perfectly sized, one of them said. When will this be available in India? When I informed him that it would not be arriving in India, he expressed some disappointment and inquired, “Can I import it from another country?”
These responses clearly demonstrate that OPPO carefully designed the Find N and is gaining popularity. After using the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 for more than five months, switching to the OPPO Find N felt different and refreshing to me. Its pocketability and compact design, which makes it easy to hold, immediately impressed me.
Unless you use the swipe-to-type feature, the Galaxy Z Fold 3’s tall and narrow cover screen makes it difficult to type accurately and without errors. The Find N, on the other hand, had a cover screen that was both smaller and wider, making typing easier. It is not hard to use even by yourself.
Because it has a lot of moving parts, the hinge design is one of the most important parts of any foldable smartphone. The majority of engineering work goes into it. OPPO has chosen a teardrop-shaped hinge that folds the center of the foldable screen in a curved manner, in contrast to Samsung’s wedge-shaped design. This kind of engineering has two major advantages: it prevents the folding screen from having a visible crease and leaves no space when folded.
Over 136 components, according to OPPO, ensure the hinge’s smooth operation. OPPO’s foldable display, like Samsung’s, is protected by an ultrathin glass (UTG) cover that has been tested to bend more than 200,000 times without causing any issues. The hinge mechanism appeared to be quite durable during my use.
The OPPO Find N has its own hinge mode, just like the Flex Mode on the Galaxy Z Fold 3. For instance, in the camera app, the viewfinder is on the top while the shutter button and other options are on the bottom. When the phone is positioned on a table, the mode can serve as a miniature tripod. As the popularity of foldable smartphones grows, more apps are likely to be supported.
Display:
Let’s start with the cover screen. It has a right edge that curves in and nice rounded corners. This design language not only makes it easier to watch videos on YouTube, Netflix, and other platforms, but it also makes them look better.
The app experience on Find N’s cover screen is satisfactory even when using the Instagram, Twitter, Feedly, or Flipboard apps to read news. The content appears more lively thanks to the screen’s vibrant color reproduction and the fact that the viewing experience was unaffected by direct sunlight. There are also good viewing angles on the cover and inner screens.
When unfolded, the inner screen transforms into a miniature tablet. The LTPO folding panel has a refresh rate that can be changed from 1 Hz to 120 Hz. As a result, it can dynamically adjust the refresh rate based on the content being shown on the screen to save battery life. The bright display, vibrant colors, and rapid refresh rate further enhance the excellent content consumption experience, which includes e-book reading, internet browsing, and app multitasking.
However, video viewing is not the same thing. The screen has thick black bars that run along the top and bottom due to the 8.4:9 aspect ratio. You can even have Twitter apps on one side and Gallery, Notes, Video Player, or Calculator on the other with multitasking support. The Z Fold 3 has this feature as well, but the bars aren’t as thick as they are on the Find N.
The primary camera is capable of capturing satisfactory close-up and landscape shots with sufficient sharpness and detail due to its high quality. Even though low-light photography is good, it is not as good as the Find X-series flagship. Here are a few shots to look at.
In addition, the ultrawide camera has the ability to record vivid colors as well as minute details. In photographs of buildings and structures, the fisheye effect can be seen around the edges, but in photographs of landscapes, there is no discernible distortion.
With the 2x telephoto camera, you can zoom into the subject, but the color science is a little off when switching from the main camera to the telephoto camera, even though good details and structure are maintained.
The OPPO Find N can also record video at up to 60 frames per second in 1080p and 4K. The OIS works well, and even at 4K and 60 frames per second, the footage I shot was stable.
Both the cover screen camera and the folding screen camera capture selfies that maintain skin tones and appear detailed. The artificial intelligence overexposed your clothing, particularly outdoors if you are wearing bright ones, despite the fact that portrait mode provides a good separation between the foreground and background. Additionally, it slightly brightens the skin. Aside from that, it makes some progress.
Software and Performance:
The Find N comes with ColorOS 12 UI and the Android 11 operating system as standard. OPPO has included app floating windows and multitasking to take advantage of the folding screen design. In addition, you can quickly launch the Camera or Flashlight app by drawing “V” or “O” using screen-off gestures. Split-screen mode can be activated by swiping down the middle of the screen with two fingers. In addition, there is a smart sidebar that lets you quickly access any app you want, including the calculator, browser, and others.
The Google Play Store was not included in our review unit due to the fact that the OPPO Find N is only available in China. Although it was included in the OPPO application store, the majority of the applications we use, such as WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, were not. Even though I was able to download these applications from third-party app stores, it appears that the operating system is only designed to work with well-known Chinese applications. Split-screen mode and floating windows, for instance, are not supported by the Instagram app.
The flagship 5nm Snapdragon 888 SoC is able to meet all processing requirements without any problems in terms of performance. The Find N can handle any kind of stress, whether you’re multitasking, playing games, watching a lot of movies, or just spending time on social networking apps. Despite occasional app crashes, those were APKs from third-party applications that probably weren’t optimized for the Find N. Gaming experience while playing Asphalt 9: Legends was good on both the cover and the main screen. The back did get warm after 20 minutes, but not to the point where it was uncomfortable.
Last but not least, the Find N’s battery life was adequate. I spent an hour playing games, browsing Feedly, listening to music on Spotify through my phone’s stereo speakers, and watching videos on Netflix or YouTube. I would still be able to use the cover and foldable screen for four hours despite all of this, and I would still have 30% battery left at the end of the day. Therefore, the battery should typically last for an entire workday, depending on how much you use it.
