OPPO Find X5 in-depth analysis and opinion

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analisis oppo x5 teknofilo 2.jpg
analisis oppo x5 teknofilo 2.jpg

Don’t have time to read the full review? Head directly to the Conclusions section to know what I liked the most and what I liked the least about the OPPO Find X5.

OPPO is one of the brands that is growing the most worldwide and, in Spain, it is already the fourth manufacturer in units sold according to the latest Canalys report .

OPPO has a large number of mid-range smartphones in its catalog, but it also has the high-end Find X series, which usually offers a good balance between features and price.

Recently, OPPO has presented the new OPPO Find X5 and X5 Pro , its new flagships that arrive under the slogan “the power to live it all.” These are full-fledged flagships, which arrive to compete against the best smartphones of the moment.

The OPPO Find X5 is the better brother, but it still has very powerful hardware: 6.55″ AMOLED screen with HDR10+ and 120 Hz support, Snapdragon 888 processor, 8 GB of LPDDR5 RAM, 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage, triple rear camera wide angle (50MP, f/1.8) + 2x telephoto (13MP, f/2.4) + ultra wide angle (50MP, f/2.2), front camera (32MP, f/2.4) and 4,800 mAh battery with 80W fast charge .

The phone is for sale at a price of €999 in Spain. Courtesy of OPPO, I have had the opportunity to thoroughly test the OPPO Find X5 , and then I bring you my in-depth analysis.

Analysis Index

  1. Design
  2. Screen
  3. Performance
  4. connectivity
  5. biometric security
  6. Battery
  7. Software
  8. Multimedia
  9. Camera
  10. calls
  11. Price
  12. Conclusions

 

design and construction

The front design of the OPPO Find X5 is not far from what we find in other high-end smartphones. Its front is dominated by a 6.55″ screen with symmetrical frames around the screen.

The upper and lower frames are quite narrow, although not as thin as the Galaxy S21 series. The screen is curved on both sides, so the side bezels are barely visible when looking at the phone from the front.

The reduction of the frames allows the OPPO Find X5 to boast a high screen-to-body ratio , around 89% according to data from GSM Arena (93% according to OPPO).

The curvature of the screen makes it tend to look darker on the sides when looking at the phone from the front.

Since the curvature of the screen only serves an aesthetic function, many wonder if the distortion of the image on the sides really compensates for the visual appeal it brings by hiding the edges.

OPPO has repeated the formula of the hole for the front camera, which is located in the upper left corner of the screen, and has a very small size.

The position chosen by OPPO in the upper left corner is a success since, when holding the phone horizontally to play, it is located in the area where we normally rest our fingers and, therefore, does not cover any useful element of the interface. Other smartphones place the hole-punch camera in the center and can overlap with the content.

The screen is protected by Gorilla Glass Victus , which is the latest generation of Corning’s coating. Therefore, it is to be expected that the screen will keep the phone safe from scratches and bumps.

The back is made of matte frosted glass in black or white . It has a silky touch that makes me  tick when I slide my fingers, but I really like its matte finish, since fingerprints go unnoticed (although they do remain marked on the camera module).

The glass on the back is curved on both sides and has a more modest protection, Gorilla Glass 5. The chassis is made of aluminum , so it should withstand accidental bumps well.

The most striking aspect of the OPPO Find X5’s design is that the rear camera module does not sit on the glass, but instead emerges as a protrusion.

The shape of this module is irregular and, although there is nothing written about tastes, I consider it to be a very original finish that brings something different to a market where almost everything is already seen.

In addition to the aesthetic effect, OPPO claims that the integration of the camera protrusion into the glass itself improves heat dissipation.

 

If we look at its dimensions, it is a smartphone that, for its screen size, is somewhat thicker (8.7 mm) and heavier (196 grams) than its competitors.

Measurements (mm.) Weight (gr.) Screen Screen to body ratio (*)
Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra 163 × 78 × 8,9 228 6,8″ 90%
Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 165 × 76 × 8,9 227 6,8″ 90%
Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra
164 × 75 × 8,4 234 6,8″ 91%
Xiaomi Mi 11
164 × 75 × 8,1 196 6,8″ 91%
Huawei Mate 40 Pro 163 × 76 × 9,1 212 6,8″ 94%
ASUS ROG Phone 5s
173 × 77 × 9,9 238 6,8″ 82%
Xiaomi 12 Pro 164 × 75 × 8,2 204 6,7″ 90%
iPhone 13 Pro Max 161 × 78 × 7,7 240 6,7″ 87%
Samsung Galaxy S21+ 162 × 76 × 7,8 200 6,7″ 88%
OPPO Find X5 Pro
164 × 74 × 8.5 218 6,7″ 90%
OPPO Find X3 Pro 164 × 74 × 8,3 193 6,7″ 90%
OnePlus 9T
163 × 74 × 8,7 197 6,7″ 90%
POCO X4 Pro
164 × 76 × 8,1 205 6,7″ 86%
Pixel 6 Pro
164 × 76 × 8.9 210 6,7″ 89%
OnePlus 9
160 × 74 × 8,7 192 6,6″ 88%
Huawei P40 Pro+ 159 × 73 × 9,0 226 6,6″ 92%
Huawei P40 Pro 158 × 73 × 9,0 209 6,6″ 92%
I live X60 Pro
159 × 73 × 7,6 179 6,6″ 90%
Samsung Galaxy S22+
155 × 76 × 7,6 195 6,6″ 88%
⏩ OPPO Find X5
160 × 73 × 8.7 196 6,55″ 89%
Sony Xperia 1III 165 × 71 × 8.2 186 6,5″ 84%
POCO M4 Pro
160 × 74 × 8.1 180 6,4″ 85%
Samsung Galaxy S21 FE
156 × 75 × 7,9 177 6,4″ 85%
Pixel 6 159 × 75 × 8.9 207 6,4″ 83%
Samsung Galaxy S21 152 × 71 × 7,9 169 6,2″ 87%
Samsung Galaxy S22
146 × 71 × 7,6 167 6,1″ 87%
iPhone 13 Pro 147 × 72 × 7,7 204 6,1″ 86%
iPhone 13 147 × 72 × 7,7 174 6,1″ 86%
Sony Xperia 5III
157 × 68 × 8,2 168 6,1″ 85%
Huawei P40 149 × 71 × 8,5 175 6,1″ 86%
Pixel 5 145 × 70 × 8,0 151 6,0″ 86%
iPhone 13 mini
132 × 64 × 7,7 141 5,4″ 85%

(*) Screen-to-body ratio data obtained from GSMArena

Next, we are going to review the different elements that we find on the sides of the phone.

On the right side we find the power button with a green detail, which has a good feeling to the touch.

On the left side we find two volume buttons.

The upper part of the phone is free of any element.

The bottom of the phone has a USB-C connector, the speaker and the SIM card tray.

OPPO has given the Find X5 IP54 resistance , which offers protection against dust and splashes. Therefore, you must be careful that it does not fall into the bathtub or pool, as it may not survive the dip.

 

Screen

The OPPO Find X5 has a 6.55″ LTPS-type AMOLED screen , with a 20:9 elongated ratio. The screen resolution is Full HD+ (2,400 × 1,080 pixels), which means a high pixel density of 402 dpi that ensures text and images look razor-sharp.

Being an OLED screen, the sub-pixel matrix is ​​of the Pentile type . This means that the sub-pixels are arranged in a diamond shape with more green sub-pixels than red or blue. Therefore, the effective resolution of the panel is lower than the nominal resolution when the screen displays blue or red colors.

The LCD screens that other phones have have RGB matrices, where the sub-pixels are placed one after the other, in red-green-blue (RGB) rows, so the announced resolution applies equally to the sub-pixels of each colour.

OPPO has incorporated a refresh rate of 120 Hz, which translates into a smooth viewing experience, especially when moving around the interface or scrolling in apps such as Chrome , Twitter , Instagram or the photo gallery. You can also notice a greater fluidity when playing titles that are prepared to offer high FPS rates.

The refresh rate is not adaptive, so you must choose if you want to see all the content at 120 Hz (greater smoothness, less autonomy) or 60 Hz (less smoothness, greater autonomy). Other smartphones can dynamically adapt the refresh rate to the content displayed, being able to reach only 10 Hz or less if you are watching static content so as not to consume as much energy.

According to the company, the Oppo Find X5’s screen covers 100% of the DCI-P3 color space. If you’re not familiar with color spaces, the sRGB space (Rec. 709) is the Android standard, while the DCI-P3 space offers a larger color gamut and is used in the film industry.

color spaces. Source: AVSForum

There is an even wider color space called Rec. 2020 , which covers 76 percent of the spectrum visible to the human eye.

No current panel is capable of displaying this last full color space, instead typically sticking to around 60 percent.

On the other hand, HDR technology increases the dynamic range of color tones displayed on the screen. The OPPO Find X5 screen is compatible with HDR10+ content.

The Oppo Find X5 offers four screen calibration modes : Vivid , Natural, Cinematic and Bright.

Bright mode offers the native OLED display color gamut and higher contrast, Cinematic mode targets the DCI-P3 gamut used in cinema, Natural mode targets the sRGB gamut commonly used in video, web and content and Vivid mode renders colors more vivid as they offer higher saturation.

The OPPO Find X5 has automatic color management that automatically switches to the appropriate color gamut for content that includes ICC color profiles.

To analyze the quality of the display, I have carried out several tests with the professional software CalMAN Ultimate and an X-Rite i1Display Pro colorimeter .

By default, Vivid mode is active , which, as I mentioned, targets the DCI P3 color gamut. In particular, this mode covers 100% of the Android standard sRGB color space and 100% of the wider DCI P3 color space.

In this mode, colors are stretched to the DCI P3 color space, so they look oversaturated in almost all apps (except Gallery), since Android apps normally use the sRGB space. This excess of color produces more striking images but less faithful to reality.

In Photo Gallery, however, OPPO applies its color management system. That system causes photos within the Gallery to be displayed in the sRGB color space by default for a more accurate display, while photos tagged with DCI P3 (such as those taken by the OPPO Find X5’s camera) are displayed in the native P3 color space of the profile.

In Intense mode, the error in color fidelity against the DCI P3 gamut is good since we get an average deltaE value of 2.1 dE (a value below 4 dE is considered excellent and above 9 is considered unacceptable), and the maximum deltaE value turns out to be 6.2 dE.

The color temperature is 7,096ºK, above the reference level of 6,500ºK, which implies a certain bluish tone that is noticeable in applications with a white background, such as the browser. Luckily, OPPO offers three possible manual color temperature settings (cooler, default and warmer) that allow a value closer to the ideal value of 6,500ºK.

Characteristics of the screen in Vivid Color mode

Natural mode targets the sRGB color space and is therefore most appropriate if you are looking for the highest fidelity in most applications and when viewing Internet content.

In this mode, the screen covers 98% of the sRGB color space (and 73% of the DCI P3 space). The error in color fidelity against the sRGB gamut is spectacular since the average deltaE value turns out to be 1.1 dE, and the maximum value is 2 dE.

The color temperature is 6,392ºK which is quite close to the reference level of 6,500ºK, so white does not have any color tint.

Screen Characteristics in Soft Color Mode

Cinematic mode targets the DCI P3 color space and offers better color fidelity than Vivid mode.

In this mode, the screen covers 100% of the sRGB color space and DCI P3 space. The average error in color fidelity against the DCI P3 gamut is excellent, 1.3 dE, and the maximum error turns out to be also very low, 2.3 dE.

Now, content created with the sRGB gamut in mind, like most apps and images on the Internet, expands its colors up to DCI P3, so it also looks oversaturated. This gamut is therefore only appropriate when viewing content created natively in DCI P3.

The color temperature is 6,352ºK, very close to the reference level of 6,500ºK, so the screen does not show any color tint.

Screen Features in Cinematic Mode

The last display mode is Bright mode, which is unclear as to what its goal is as its description is very vague: “enhanced color display.” According to my tests, this mode is the one that offers the most saturated colors and the bluest white color point.

In this mode, the screen covers 100% of the sRGB color space and DCI P3 space. The average error in color fidelity against the DCI P3 gamut is lower than that of the rest of the modes, 2.5 dE, and the maximum error turns out to be also higher, 8 dE.

The color temperature is 7,118ºK, quite far from the reference level of 6,500ºK, so the screen has a bluish tint.

Screen characteristics in Bright mode

According to my own measurements, the maximum brightness of OPPO Find X5 is around 460 nits with 100% of the screen illuminated in white color (known as 100% APL, Average Picture Level ), which is how the brightness is measured. brightness as usual. Due to the operation of OLED panels, if we reduce the illuminated area, the maximum brightness that is measured is higher.

In automatic mode, when we are under intense light such as the sun, the brightness increases to a maximum value of 749 nits with the screen fully illuminated, that is, with 100% APL. This value is some distance from the 800 nits indicated by OPPO in the specification sheet (it has probably been measured at a lower APL level).

In this comparative graph we reflect the maximum brightness value with the screen at 100% white (APL 100%). As can be seen, the maximum brightness value is high but it falls short of other high-end smartphones .

Being an OLED panel, the black color is very deep , so the colorimeter used has been unable to measure any brightness level. This means that the color black is really dark and that the contrast is theoretically infinite.

OPPO has incorporated a visual comfort mode that filters blue light to alleviate visual consumption, making it possible to configure the color temperature. It can be activated manually or, if we prefer, program the start and end time.

There’s also a feature called Natural Tone Display that automatically adjusts the color temperature of the screen based on ambient lighting. However, this functionality is incompatible with the manual adjustment of the color temperature of the screen, so you cannot select a white tone that is colder or warmer than the one that OPPO selects by default.

OPPO has also added a couple of features related to video enhancement: Video Image Refiner, which improves the definition of low-quality videos, and Video Color Enhancer , which expands the color gamut of SDR recordings to HDR for a better visual experience. In both cases, if these functionalities are activated, the battery consumption increases.

An HDR video brightness mode is also present , which increases the brightness of the screen when playing HDR videos at the cost of increasing battery consumption and heating up the phone. Another option is adaptive sleep , which prevents the phone from going to sleep if it detects that you are looking at the phone.

OLED screens have a peculiar behavior when viewed from an angle. On the one hand, the light emitters are closer to the surface, and this makes the contrast and brightness vary less when moving from the center, but on the other hand, the Pentile matrix causes the colors to be distorted.

In the case of the OPPO Find X5, the colors do not look distorted when looking at the screen from an angle.

OPPO has added an Always On Display (AoD) type functionality, which shows the time/date, battery level and colorful app icons with notifications to read.

One small drawback is that it shows app icons instead of the notification icon, which causes things like the Google app icon to appear when the notification is actually a weather update.

You can choose the style of the clock, including custom patterns, a text of your choice, a combination of text and image or even the silhouette of a portrait — this last functionality we had already seen on OnePlus smartphones and the result is, well, better .

It is possible to select whether the always-on screen should be permanently active, only at certain times, or deactivated if the phone has been idle for a while. In any case, the always-on display will turn off if the phone’s battery level is below 10% and it is not charging.

OPPO Find X5 always active screen

OPPO includes an option called Color Vision Enhancement that corrects colors for those who are visually impaired with color tones. It allows you to test how you perceive colors to check if you actually have a visual deficiency.

Color vision test to adapt colors to your vision

As for absences, the OPPO Find X5 does not have MEMC , which makes videos look smoother by interpolating frames in content with a lower FPS rate, nor does it offer DC Dimming , which reduces screen flicker to low. brightness levels.

 

Performance

The OPPO Find X5 has the high-end processor Snapdragon 888 , which was announced in early December 2020 and was Qualcomm’s most powerful during 2021 with the permission of the Snapdragon 888+, but has already been surpassed by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 .

In addition, OPPO has included its own MariSilicon X NPU, which has been developed on a 6nm process and combines NPU, ISP, and multi-level memory architecture to deliver high performance AI operations with excellent power efficiency.


ℹ️ Info: This is the NPU MariSilicon X

The MariSilicon X NPU delivers 18 trillion operations per second (TOPS), more than enough computing power to support AI algorithms, while achieving excellent power efficiency of 11.6 TOPS per watt so as not to drain your battery.

For reference, when running OPPO’s AI noise reduction algorithm, MariSilicon X can achieve up to 20 times faster performance compared to OPPO Find X3 Pro. This means that OPPO Find X5 can capture video Night 4K AI applying enhancements to each frame in real time.

MariSilicon X also features a powerful ISP that enables images to be captured with 20-bit 120db wide dynamic range, 4 times that of the Find X3 Pro. It provides images with a contrast ratio of 1,000,000:1 between the brightest and darkest areas of the image, which helps keep images true to life.

With its powerful computing power and high data throughput, MariSilicon X can directly perform real-time 4K AI processing and 20-bit HDR fusion in the RAW domain at the pixel level. By processing the original image data, MariSilicon X can achieve a signal-to-noise ratio of 8dB for images.

Utilizing Dual Image Pipeline design and double raw supersampling, MariSilicon X also unleashes the potential of OPPO’s RGBW sensor, supporting the separation and merging of RGB and White signals to deliver 8.6dB improvement in signal-to-noise ratio. and a 1.7x improvement in texture quality, making images more expressive in both photos and videos.


OPPO has included a heat dissipation system made up of a large vapor chamber (3,161 mm²) and the latest generation 3D graphene films, so that the phone stays cool even during intensive tasks.

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The OPPO Find X5 arrives with 8 GB of LPDDR5 RAM , the fastest we can find in a smartphone. This is more than enough to keep a good number of apps in memory.

Until not long ago, today’s most powerful mobile devices used LPDDR4X RAM with a data transmission speed of 4,266 Mb/s. The speed of 6,400 Mb/s allows the LPDDR5 memory to transfer 51 GB of data, that is, approximately 14 Full HD video files (3.7 GB each) in one minute.

LPDDR5 memory has been designed to reduce its voltage according to the operating speed of the processor to maximize power savings. The low consumption characteristics allow the LPDDR5 RAM to offer reductions in energy consumption of up to 30 percent , which has an impact on autonomy although memory is not exactly the element that consumes the most.

OPPO has added a virtual RAM functionality that allows you to use part of the internal storage to add an additional 2, 3 or 5 GB of RAM. In any case, with 8 GB of RAM, it is probably not something as necessary as in other smartphones with a fairer capacity.

The OPPO Find X5 comes with 256GB of storage , which should be plenty for most users — which is lucky because it doesn’t support a microSD card for capacity expansion. This storage is very fast since it is UFS 3.1 type.

The USB-C port is USB 3.1 (1st generation) and supports OTG, so you can plug in a USB-C dongle and access it like external storage. Now, you will have to manually activate the “OTG connection” in Settings > Additional system settings every time you want to transfer files via USB OTG. For some reason that I don’t fully understand, this setting automatically turns off every 10 minutes.

While the phone supports DisplayPort over USB-C for viewing the screen on a TV or monitor, it doesn’t offer a desktop mode like we find on Samsung or Huawei phones.

The latest version of ColorOS comes with AI Self-Smooth Engine 2.0. Such an engine reduces memory usage by 30%, reduces background power consumption by 20%, and increases battery life by 12%. Thanks to this engine, read and write degradation is less than 5% and performance loss is reduced to 2.75% with 36 months of use.

Let’s move on to analyze the performance of the phone in the main benchmarks.

In the AnTuTu v9 benchmark , it has achieved a result of 747,307 points , a high score compared to other high-end smartphones.

In the Geekbench 5 benchmark focused on processor performance, it has achieved 814/3,360 points in the mono/multi-core tests, which are again good results, although not standing out against other 2021 flagships.

In the PCMark 3.0 general performance test that measures performance when performing everyday tasks, it scored 10,513 points , a high value, but it does not beat some high-end smartphones.

When it comes to storage, the phone performs quite well in AndroBench ‘s read and write speed tests.

In the CPU Throttling test that measures the drop in CPU performance after 15 minutes of sustained load, the phone performed very well, with performance only dropping by 11% in that period.

Next, we are going to see the results in various graphic tests to check the expected performance in games.

In the GFXBench test with traditional APIs, the phone has achieved very high results.

In GFXBench tests based on modern low-level and high-efficiency APIs (Metal/OpenGL and Vulkan), the phone achieves high results.

In the new 3DMark Wild Life Unlimited test , the phone has also achieved a very high result.

To check the graphics performance on a day-to-day basis, I have tested several demanding 3D games — Real Racing 3, Asphalt 9 and Call of Duty Mobile .

Using GameBench software , I have been able to measure various performance parameters on these games in actual play.


Do you know GameBench Pro? GameBench Pro is the industry’s leading tool for measuring game performance on Android and iOS smartphones. If you want to know more, you can visit their website .


The games get a stable rate around 60 FPS in all three games. These are quite high values, on par with the best smartphones I’ve tested, although I’m surprised that Real Racing doesn’t exceed the 60 GPS mark, which is common in other smartphones.

Play FPS (median) FPS stability FPS Min.-Max. %CPU
%GPU
Asphalt 9 58 99% 46-61 13% 63%
Real Racing 3
60 100% 56-61 6% 30%
Call of Duty 60 100% 52-61 N/D N/D

(*) Game quality settings:

Asphalt 9: Graphics quality set to “high”
Real Racing 3: Graphics quality by default
Call of Duty Mobile: Graphics quality “very high” and frames per second set to “very high” by default

In addition to the occasional graphics performance, it is important to know if the phone is capable of sustaining this performance over time or if it is reduced by the increase in processor temperature. The 3DMark Wild Life Stress Test precisely measures the variation in graphics performance after 20 minutes of running the test.

The phone has gotten a pretty good score of 83%, at least if we compare it against other flagships with similar chips, where performance drops faster.

Overall, the OPPO Find X5 has performed well in benchmarks, in line with other Snapdragon 888 chip-based 2021 flagships, but below Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 or Exynos 2200-based smartphones launched in 2022.

On a day-to-day basis, I haven’t experienced any signs of lag when moving around the interface, opening apps, or switching between tasks. Also the gaming experience has been excellent, and I have enjoyed good games with this phone without FPS drops, stutters or long load times.

When it comes to enjoying games, OPPO includes a functionality called Game Space that aggregates all games on a single screen. From there, we can choose to run the game without distractions, which disables alarms, notifications, incoming calls, quick settings, navigation gestures, and the game assistant.

From the game itself, it is possible to display a panel by dragging a tab that, in addition to showing the time, device temperature and remaining battery level, allows you to activate various features:

  • Open WhatsApp, Messenger or Discord in a window.
  • Choose from three performance modes:
    • Competition mode , which improves performance, frame rate and touch response, but increases battery consumption and phone heating.
    • Balanced mode , which maintains a balance between performance and battery consumption. The temperature of the phone remains stable.
    • Power saving mode , which reduces the visual quality of games to decrease battery consumption.
  • Activate Distraction-Free Gaming Mode
  • block notifications
  • Start screen recording
  • Apply game filters
  • Optimize touch response by choosing touch and swipe sensitivity and turning on touch prevention.
  • Show system status, which shows FPS, CPU load and GPU load permanently on the screen.
  • lock orientation
  • Lock the brightness so it doesn’t adjust automatically.

OPPO allows you to record the screen during games , including the sound of the system and/or the microphone, as well as the image of the front camera and the touches on the screen. It is possible to select the video resolution, frame rate and codec (H.264 / H265). However, you cannot pause recordings and resume them later.

 

connectivity

The OPPO Find X5 supports NFC, Bluetooth 5.2 and WiFi 6 (802.11ax), although it does not support WiFi 6E, the new protocol for WiFi networks that uses the 6 GHz band for better performance.

What the OPPO Find X5 does bring is dual-band WiFi acceleration , so it can connect to two WiFi networks simultaneously, one in the 2.4 GHz band and one in the 5 GHz band, to increase speed.

As for cellular connectivity, it is compatible with 5G SA/NSA networks in the existing Sub-6 bands today, but not the mmWave band. Although today the mmWave band is hardly used in a few countries, this will change in the coming years.


i ️ Info: Difference between 5G connectivity type Sub-6 vs. mmWave

The spectrum used for 5G is divided into two bands: below 6 GHz (Sub-6) and above 24 GHz (mmWave).

The main difference between the two is speed and coverage. The Sub-6 band provides better coverage but top speeds are only 20 percent faster than 4G LTE, so it’s not that impressive.

The mmWave band offers a very high download speed (up to 10 Gbps) but the coverage is much worse, about 200 meters, so it may happen that your phone spends more time connected to 4G than to 5G, especially when you are inside a edifice.

This type of technology is designed for open spaces or areas with a high density of users where many antennas are installed. The lower coverage of mmWave is the reason why operators want to fill cities with 5G antennas, so that there is always one with which you have direct line of sight.

In Spain, the only band that is available for 5G is sub-6GHz, so having a smartphone with 5G mmWave connectivity is useless today — at least until the corresponding frequency band is put out to tender.

In the United States, however, some operators have deployed these networks, and this is the reason why some smartphones offer access to 5G millimeter wave (mmWave) networks.


OPPO has included a 360° 3.0 smart antenna that supposedly keeps you connected no matter how you hold the phone.

I have done some connection speed tests both by mobile network and by WiFi connection, and the results are good.

The OPPO Find X5 has reached 300 Mbps download and 300 Mbps upload Wi-Fi with a fiber optic connection at this speed. In the 5G cellular connectivity test, 40 Mbps download and 55 Mbps upload were achieved with a Movistar 5G connection, which, as is well known, is not the fastest.

OPPO offers a space for a second SIM card, so you can make use of the Dual SIM functionality. It is also compatible with eSIM.

OPPO Find X5 supports GPS (L1) , but unlike some high-end smartphones, it doesn’t support dual GPS (L1+L5), so the accuracy won’t be as good. If you want to know more about dual GPS, we recommend our article on this technology.

 

Biometrics

OPPO has incorporated a fingerprint reader under the screen, which allows you to unlock the phone by placing your finger on a specific area on the bottom of the screen.

To unlock the phone, simply place your finger on the fingerprint reader area as long as the reading area mark appears on the screen. This happens if we pick up the phone (the lock screen lights up) or if it notices a slight movement (only the fingerprint area lights up).

Fingerprint recognition works fast and the recognition area is wide, so you don’t need to place your finger exactly on the fingerprint icon for recognition to work.

The position of the fingerprint reader is quite comfortable to reach with your finger when you hold the phone — something that not all phones can boast.

The fingerprint reader is integrated into the screen itself

The OPPO Find X5 also has a 2D facial recognition system that allows you to unlock the phone with just your face when you slide the screen up while on the lock screen.

Recognition occurs quickly, although, being 2D, we must bear in mind that it is not as secure as 3D systems and, therefore, it could be fooled with a photograph or video. In addition, it is not able to recognize the face if you are in complete darkness unless you activate an option that illuminates the screen to, in turn, illuminate the face.

Although facial recognition is not completely secure, OPPO has added a control that allows you to force your eyes to be open for the phone to unlock. It is possible to use the face to unlock the screen, access protected applications and/or access the safe.

It is possible to select whether you want to go directly to the desktop when facial recognition occurs or if you prefer to stay on the lock screen and swipe up when you really need to access the phone.

 

Battery

The battery of the OPPO Find X5 is made up of two cells of about 2,400 mAh that, combined, offer a capacity of 4,800 mAh , a sufficient amount for a smartphone with this screen size.

OPPO claims that the battery offers its maximum performance up to 1,600 charge cycles, offering twice as many charge cycles as most phones.

To check the autonomy, I have carried out the battery test of the well-known PCMark test: Work 3.0.

PCMark Work tests the autonomy of the terminal when performing a mixture of everyday and demanding tasks, since the test simulates browsing web pages, writing texts and inserting images, applying filters to photographs, editing videos and data manipulation.


ℹ️ Info: About autonomy tests

Given the importance of the screen in battery consumption, it is important to calibrate the screens with a colorimeter (or a similar instrument) at the same absolute level of brightness (it is not useful to put it at 50%) if you want to make autonomy comparisons between devices. .

Otherwise, the results may be greatly affected by the brightness level of each smartphone’s screen and are therefore not comparable. We comment on this here because not all analyzes take this into account and in this test we sometimes see absurd values.

In the case of PCMark: Work, the test itself indicates that the test must be carried out with the screen calibrated at 200 nits so that the results are comparable. This is how we conduct all smartphone tests.


Given the impact that the refresh rate has on the autonomy of smartphones, I have carried out this test twice: once with the screen at 60 Hz and once with the frequency of 120 Hz.

In the test with the screen configured at 60 Hz , I have obtained a result of 12 hours and 9 minutes, which is a pretty good value when compared to other high-end smartphones.

If we adjust the refresh rate to an adaptable frequency up to 120 Hz , the autonomy is reduced to 11 hours and 44 minutes , which practically does not imply any change. This is because, despite selecting a frequency of 120 Hz, the test runs almost all the time at 60 Hz by decision of the phone.

On a day-to-day basis, the battery life of the phone has been good and you shouldn’t have any problems getting to the end of the day with normal use. Only in case you make a very intensive use will you have to charge the battery before the end of the day.

In the Battery section, we find a  battery optimization section that proposes optimizations to reduce battery consumption. In my case, it has suggested me to disable some battery consuming apps, disable GPS, disable auto launch of battery consuming apps, enable auto brightness, change screen refresh rate to 60Hz, etc.

It also offers a power saving mode that reduces screen brightness, changes the automatic screen timeout to 15 seconds, disable background sync, and reduces the screen refresh rate.

It is possible to indicate that the energy saving mode is deactivated when the battery exceeds 90% charge or when a certain battery level is reached.

There is also a super power saving mode that reduces system performance, simplifies the user interface and only allows you to run a limited number of applications simultaneously

OPPO includes a sleep optimization that activates the energy saving mode when you sleep, although this may cause delays in app notifications.

OPPO has incorporated an optimized overnight charging option that reduces battery aging by controlling the charging process at night so that it reaches 80% and charges the remaining 20% ​​just before the time you usually wake up. To do this, the phone learns your habits over time and, if one day you want it to charge quickly, you can easily deactivate this mode from a notification that appears during charging.

Just as there are options to reduce energy consumption, there is also a high performance mode that puts the system to work at maximum power, although energy consumption increases and, therefore, autonomy suffers.

By the way, one thing you’re going to want to do is turn on the battery percentage in the status bar as otherwise it’s hard to know how much battery you have left (it doesn’t even show up in the notification panel).

The OPPO Find X5 has a 80W SuperVOOC fast charge , one of the fastest we can find on the market. OPPO includes a fast charger in the box with this power, which is a major plus point.

In my tests, for some unknown reason, sometimes the phone does not identify the charger as 80W, but it appears on the screen as SuperVOOC 33W. It is enough to disconnect and connect the cable or charger so that, at some point, SuperVOOC 80W appears on the screen and charges at maximum speed ‍♂️.

As you can see in the following graph, the loading process is very fast. In just 13 minutes, it reaches 50% charge, and the entire charging process takes just 39 minutes.

OPPO Find X5 charging process

The OPPO Find X5 also offers 30W AirVOOC fast wireless charging , and supports 10W reverse wireless charging.

 

Interface and functionalities

The OPPO Find X5 runs Android 12 and, on top of the operating system, OPPO has incorporated its own ColorOS 12.1 customization layer

OPPO has made some changes to the overall look of its mobile operating system with ColorOS 12. The company calls it “borderless design.” This means that ColorOS does not use borders for separation, instead each element is placed on a translucent layer. The software now uses different shades of colors to distinguish between primary and secondary information.

ColorOS 12 arrives with Quantum Animation Engine 3.0, a new animation engine that offers dynamic damping and increased feedback.

The system recognizes the different elements that make up the windows with different mass and inertia so that the sliding experience feels smooth and real.

The appearance of ColorOS is quite a departure from the usual stock Android design. App icons are square with rounded corners by default, but you can choose from several icon styles and even customize the look.

On the desktop, we can choose whether we want a 4×6 icon grid (default) or a more or less dense grid.

It is also possible to customize the animation that is shown when unlocking the phone by fingerprint, select a color scheme for the interface, modify the style and size of the font, and even modify the appearance of the icons for quick settings.

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ColorOS shows all installed apps on the desktop, but if you prefer, you can use the app drawer. However, it is not possible to create folders or hide apps in the app drawer.

If we drag the desktop to the right, we access a board called Google Discover where news relevant to you is displayed.

Dragging the screen from the center down while on the desktop opens the search that allows you to locate content in applications, contacts, messages, etc. and even suggests some apps.

The OPPO Find X5 does not have enough space to place a notification LED but it is possible to have the screen wake up when a notification is received. In addition, with the screen always active, we can see apps with pending notifications to read.

One possibility is to soften notification sounds and reduce vibration intensity when using an app in full screen, for example when you’re watching videos or playing games.

Dark mode has been on Android for a while now, and OPPO includes customization options to this mode. With ColorOS, it is possible to choose three styles for the dark mode: Enhanced, Medium and Soft.

The Enhanced style is the default, Medium mode has softer tones, and Soft mode adopts gray tones. The system adjusts the appearance of the wallpaper and icons based on the option you choose.

It is also possible to reduce the contrast in low light conditions, which reduces the brightness even more when the brightness setting is low and Dark mode is activated, which is useful for using the phone in the dark. Dark mode can also be scheduled to come on at certain times or from sunset to sunrise.

OPPO offers gestures on the screen when it is turned off. We can press twice to turn on the screen, draw an «O» to start the camera, draw a «V» to turn on the flashlight, draw «||», «<» or «>» to change the audio track and even it is possible to create custom actions (unlock, call or launch an app) by performing certain additional gestures.

Sticking with gestures, it’s also possible to automatically answer a call by holding the phone to your ear, switch from speakerphone to headset by holding the phone to your ear, or mute incoming calls by flipping the phone over. Finally, we can turn on the screen just by picking up the phone and taking screenshots by swiping 3 fingers or by pressing and holding the screen with 3 fingers.

To the right of the screen there is a tab called smart sidebar that, if we drag it towards the center, displays a panel with several quick accesses to tools (screen capture, screen recording, screen translation and some apps)

We can customize these accesses to place the apps that we use most frequently, which can be useful for apps such as WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter or others that you use regularly.

The notification area shows six shortcuts at the top, which expand to a few more if we drag the screen down.

Below these accesses we find the screen brightness control and then the latest notifications.

It is possible to show only important notifications , either because we mark them manually or because the system determines it automatically.

Speaking of notifications, if you choose to reply to a notification when you’re using the smartphone horizontally, the default keyboard (and also Gboard) opens in a floating mode that doesn’t take up the entire screen. And if you get a notification when watching full-screen content, like a video, the notification is displayed in a small, almost transparent bar.

OPPO has included Smart Notification Hiding , which hides banner notifications when the front camera detects that someone else besides you is looking at your phone.

When accessing Tasks through the virtual button or the gesture, we can see the recently opened apps in the form of cards arranged horizontally.

If we drag one of the thumbnails up, we close the app, while if we click on the icons located above the app we can lock an app, activate a floating window or mini window or access the app’s settings.

While Block allows you to keep an app in memory when you click the Delete button in the Task view, it doesn’t really prevent the app from being closed by the system if it needs to free up memory.

ColorOS 12 brings Free Floating Window , the advanced version of FlexDrop introduced in ColorOS 11. Windows can now be resized and moved anywhere on the screen with actions like tapping and dragging.

The OPPO Find X5 is a rather large smartphone, so using it with one hand can be challenging.

Luckily, the one-handed mode makes it easier. Once activated, the screen shrinks to the bottom left or right corner, drastically reducing the distance you have to stretch your thumb to touch the screen.

Unlike other one-handed mode implementations, you won’t accidentally exit this mode by tapping outside the reduced area. The only drawback is that the way to activate this mode is through one of the shortcuts in the notification bar, which is not very useful because it is a difficult area to access with one hand.

The Share panel integrates OPPO Share, a file sharing solution that supports fast sending and receiving of files to and from OPPO, Realme, Xiaomi, Vivo, OnePlus, Meizu, and Black Shark devices. This functionality has less utility since Google implemented Nearby Share on all Android smartphones.

OPPO has made the panel scroll horizontally instead of vertically, which can make content sharing slower if you have a lot of apps installed.

We can also set rules to block calls and messages, as well as block certain numbers from contacting us.

It is possible to individually manage the permissions of each application for different purposes :

  • Energy consumption: It is possible to choose for each app if we want to allow or prohibit it from running in the background, as well as leaving the decision in the hands of the phone.
  • Notifications: It is possible to choose for each app if we allow notifications, and, if so, if we want them to be displayed on the lock screen and/or in the status bar, if we want balloons with notifications to be displayed on the icon of the app, if we want to hide the content of notifications if it is blocked, if we want to set them as unimportant notifications, if we want to allow notifications in Do Not Disturb status, etc.
  • Network access: It is possible to choose for each app if we want it to use WiFi and/or mobile data, as well as if we allow it to use data in the background.

In this way, we can have total control over the applications , and adjust their use to our needs. For example, we can decide that Twitter cannot run in the background to save battery power, or that a game cannot use the mobile data connection at all.

If you’re used to taking a lot of screenshots , you’ll be glad to know that OPPO comes with quite a few screenshot tools. For example, you can choose to delete the original screenshot after editing and saving it, take scrolling screenshots, use gestures to take screenshots, and take a partial screenshot.

Clicking on the mini screenshot preview that appears takes you to an editing interface with 4 options: Send, Crop, Notes or More options. The Notes option allows you to quickly draw on the image without opening the full screenshot editor. The Edit option takes you to the Photos app where you can edit the screenshot by cropping, rotating, blurring, and more.

When taking a screenshot, there is also a Translate option that uses Google Translate to translate the text that appears in the image and replace the text in another language with text in Spanish.

OPPO offers another interesting feature called App Cloner that allows you to log in with two different accounts on the same app at the same time. This is useful for apps that don’t allow you to set up multiple accounts. Unfortunately, this functionality does not allow you to select any app, but only some such as Messenger, Skype, Telegram or WhatsApp.

Another functionality related to privacy is Safe , which allows you to keep photos, videos, music and any other content away from outside eyes. OPPO allows you to protect access to this content through a PIN or fingerprint, and it is possible to quickly open the safe with a long press on the taskbar in the Photos and My Files app .

If we only want to restrict access to one or several apps, we can make use of Application Lock , which allows us to protect access to an application by means of a PIN, fingerprint or facial recognition. It is even possible to hide the app icon on the home screen and the app drawer. For it to appear, it is necessary to enter a numeric code with the pound sign at the beginning and at the end (for example, #123456#) on the telephone dialer’s numeric keypad.

One of the ringtone options when setting an alarm in the Clock app is “Adapted to time”.

This option changes the tone of the alarm depending on the weather conditions when the alarm is activated. It’s a good way to vary the sound of the alarm so you don’t get too used to it, while also preparing you for each day’s weather conditions.

OPPO offers a feature called Clone Phone that allows you to quickly transfer all the data saved on the old phone (including photos, contacts, and apps) to the new phone.

If you have kids around, you’ll appreciate a feature called Kid’s Space that lets you restrict access to a few apps, limit usage time, and control what kind of settings changes kids can make on the phone.

In recent years, manufacturers have focused on the digital well-being of their users. In the case of OPPO, there is the OPPO Relax app . It is an app that provides music to help you de-stress, ambient sounds, and breathing exercises that can help alleviate some anxiety.

OPPO incorporates Do Not Disturb functionality , which puts the phone in silent mode (without vibrations) at certain times/days. It is also possible to allow notifications (from any app, filtering is not possible), messages or calls from certain contacts, mute multimedia content, as well as not mute a second call from the same number within a 3-minute interval. What is not possible is that this mode is activated automatically based on calendar events.

OPPO has added a functionality called System Cloner that allows you to use two different passwords (or fingerprints) to access two different systems, so you can save private data in one of them that will not be accessible from the other.

Of course, ColorOS 12 incorporates the privacy features of Android 12. So it comes with features like privacy dashboard, approximate location, and notifications about camera, microphone, and clipboard access.

There are also additional features like location-free image sharing and other metadata , so that sending images does not reveal your location, the time/date it was taken, and other sensitive information.

When entering sensitive information such as passwords, the system automatically switches to the OPPO Secure Keyboard , which does not record your input or connect to the network. When using privacy features such as secure keyboard, the system prevents screen capture or recording.

An exclusive feature of ColorOS 12.1 is “O-HAPTICS” , a new haptic for the linear motor on the X-axis that mimics the feel of real materials and natural interactions for a more realistic experience. You can increase the intensity of the vibrations and even adjust whether the vibrations feel “sharp” or “soft” under your thumb.

In the absence section, ColorOS does not provide a desktop-like interface in the style of Samsung’s DeX or Huawei’s EMUI Desktop.

 

Multimedia

The OPPO Find X5 has stereo speakers located on the upper frame of the screen and on the lower edge, next to the USB Type-C charging connector.

The speakers put out a fairly powerful volume with a good richness of tones and reasonably good bass for a smartphone.

Unfortunately, OPPO has not included a 3.5mm headphone jack, so if you are used to listening to music with headphones, you will have to resort to a USB-C to 3.5mm adapter, headphones with a USB-C connector or with a Bluetooth connection.

The OPPO Find X5 incorporates Dolby Atmos that provides greater depth to the sound when using headphones.

Four sound profiles can be selected depending on the context: Smart (matches the sound to the function being used at the time), Theatre/Cinema (provides true 3D sound and more powerful bass), Game (boosts the bass), and Music ( for a more vibrant and balanced sound).

It is also possible to select four sound modes according to the environment : indoor (can be used when there is not much noise), on the move (ideal for places with a lot of noise and people), travel (ideal for consuming entertainment on public transport) and flight ( ideal for enjoying entertainment on an airplane).

OPPO Find X5 uses its own Music app as the default music player. This app organizes music into four tabs: Songs, Artists, Albums, and Playlists .

It is a fairly simple player, without the possibility of downloading covers or song lyrics. It is also not possible to play music stored on an external device (such as a NAS drive) or a cloud service. What it does offer is a sleep timer.

When viewing photos, the OPPO Find X5 uses its own Photos app that displays all the images stored on the phone and allows you to edit them.

This app is capable of creating memories (videos) from photos taken in the same place/date and can identify people in the photos that you can name to later search by person.

It is also capable of creating albums organized by places or themes by using AI to identify elements in the photo. In my album you have identified objects such as food, architecture, flower, grass, night, transportation, electronics, night, sky, snowy landscape, skirt, car, automobile, fruit, and electrical appliances. It’s not always right.

Both of these actions occur in the background when the phone is connected to power with the screen turned off.

One feature that I like is that there is a Recently Deleted folder where all the photos you delete go, in case you ever need to recover them. The photos remain there for 30 days before being completely deleted.

Video playback is good and the phone is able to play compatible files smoothly thanks to its processor.

I’ve tried playing some 1080p and 4K videos, both encoded with both H.264 and the newer, more efficient HEVC (H.265), and all four played smoothly.

You can also enjoy streaming services like YouTube or Netflix on the smartphone screen. Of course, the OPPO Find X5 has the necessary library to obtain the Widevine L1 certification and I have verified that it is capable of playing YouTube and Netflix content in HDR .

 

Camera

The OPPO Find X5 has a triple rear camera:

  • 50MP wide-angle main camera (24mm) (Sony IMX766, 1/1.56″) with f/1.8 aperture, AF and optical stabilization.
  • 50MP Ultra Wide Angle Camera (15mm, 110º) (Sony IMX766, 1 / 1.56 ″) with f / 2.2 aperture and AF. Macro at 4 cm.
  • 13 MP telephoto camera (52 mm, 2x) (Samsung S5K3M5, 1/3.4″) with 5P lens with f/2.4 aperture, and AF.
  • 3MP micro camera (60x) with f/3.0 aperture.

OPPO and Hasselblad have teamed up to jointly develop the OPPO Find X5 camera. As OPPO explains, Hasselblad’s natural color calibration provides more natural and accurate colors.

The camera configuration of the OPPO Find X5 is, on paper, the same as that of the OPPO Find X3 Pro, except for the absence of the microscope-type camera, which, on the other hand, is perfectly expendable.

OPPO has used the same Sony IMX766 sensor in the wide-angle and ultra-wide-angle cameras. One of the reasons for this choice is probably to ensure the uniformity of the color captured by both cameras.

OPPO offers the ability to save photos in 10-bit color format in Photo and Night modes using the rear camera. In this case, photos are saved in HEIF format and can only be displayed on a compatible device or application that supports 10-bit color. In practice, however, my eyes are capable of distinguishing between a photograph taken with 8-bit or 10-bit color.

Main camera (wide angle)

Starting with the main camera, OPPO has incorporated the 1/1.56″ sized Sony IMX766 sensor, which debuted with the Reno5 Pro+ in early 2021.

By default, photos are taken at 12.5MP using pixel binning technology that combines 4 pixels into 1 to reduce noise and improve low-light performance. However, it is possible to activate a super high resolution mode in which the captures are made at 50MP.

Below is an example of a crop of a couple of photos taken at 50MP and 12.5MP. The resulting image is somewhat sharper, although in my opinion it is not worth taking screenshots with this resolution unless you are very interested in doing a later crop since the file size goes from 4.6 to 14.7 MB in this example.

Crop comparison of photos taken at 50MP and 12.5MP

The camera offers a mode called AI Scene Enhancement that enhances certain image parameters based on the detected scene. In practice, what I have noticed is a greater saturation and contrast of the photographs, although it is quite subtle.

Comparison of photos without / with scene detection

To check the quality of the camera, I have tested the main camera in good lighting conditions . In the following images we can see that the OPPO Find X5 camera offers a good level of detail, vivid colors and a wide dynamic range with HDR mode in auto.

Pictures taken with the main camera in broad daylight

Below, I wanted to put the OPPO Find X5 to the test in low-light conditions , which is where smartphone cameras often struggle the most.

In the following photographs we can see that the images captured in low light have a fairly good quality, with contained noise and good color reproduction — although a little dark at times.

Pictures taken with the main camera at night

One of the features offered by the OPPO Find X5 camera is long exposure shooting with Night mode , which allows you to take brighter night photos without a tripod.

The phone automatically selects Night mode when necessary, so you don’t have to worry about doing anything. This mode takes a little longer to capture the photo, depending on the surrounding lighting.

If you choose Night mode in the viewfinder of the Camera app, you have access to a tripod mode that assumes the phone is resting on a firm place and extends the capture time up to 8-10 seconds to take an even brighter image.

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Outside of Night mode, there is a long exposure mode that allows you to capture paths of lights (5 seconds), water and clouds (4 seconds), and light painting (unlimited time).

If you are an expert user, you will be happy to know that OPPO includes a Pro mode that allows you to manually adjust parameters such as ISO sensitivity, focus point, white balance, shutter speed and more. We can also save images in JPEG and RAW format for later editing.

ultra wide angle camera

The next camera is the ultra wide angle camera which, as we have already mentioned, has the same sensor as the main camera, although the aperture is more limited and it does not have optical stabilization.

An ultra wide-angle camera provides great versatility when capturing landscape or architectural photos. Personally I find this type of lens very useful as they allow you to take much more spectacular and creative photographs than the normal camera.

In general, it offers excellent results in both bright and low light conditions. In fact, OPPO Find X5’s ultra-wide-angle camera produces cleaner images than other smartphones in low-light conditions.

Below are some photos taken with the ultra wide-angle camera.

Photographs with the ultra wide angle camera

The ultra wide-angle camera can also act as a macro camera , being able to take pictures from 4 centimeters away, as can be seen in these examples.

telephoto camera

The 2x telephoto camera has a 13MP sensor and an f/2.4 aperture lens, but it lacks optical stabilization. Thanks to this camera, we can get closer to the details or simply make a better frame when we take a portrait-type photograph without having to get so close.

The lack of optical stabilization and the limited aperture mean that this camera is not suitable for taking photos in low light. In fact, when you take a shot with this camera at night, the photo is actually a cutout of a shot taken by the main camera.

For this reason, the only images I can show that have actually been captured with this camera are those taken during the day. Next, we can see some examples.

The following photos have been taken using the 2X camera but, given the low light conditions, the phone has chosen to crop the photo taken by the main camera, so they are not as sharp.

Portrait mode

The OPPO Find X5 is capable of taking Portrait mode photos , both with the wide-angle camera and the telephoto camera.

My recommendation is to take the portraits with the telephoto camera, since the wide angle camera is not ideal for taking close-ups. This type of lens tends to distort the face (especially the nose) when we get too close to the subject.

In my tests, the separation between the person and the background is very good, with few instances where foreground elements (such as hair) have been mistaken for the background.

Here are some examples of photos taken in Portrait mode using the telephoto camera.

Photos taken in Portrait mode

OPPO offers some filters that can be applied to Portraits in real time, although in my opinion it is better to stick with the original photo and apply filters afterwards with any app.

Unfortunately , OPPO does not save both versions of the photo — with and without the bokeh effect — so if the result is not good, you will not be able to use the original photo. Some manufacturers save both versions of the image and even, in some cases, allow you to alter the degree of blur afterwards.

Frontal camera

The front camera has a 32MP Sony IMX615 sensor (1/2.74″, 0.8μm) with f/2.4 aperture. It offers a beauty mode that allows you to smooth the skin, increase/reduce the size of the face, retouch the chin, enlarge the eyes, reduce the nose, etc. Although I am not in favor of using them.

Despite the lack of autofocus, the image quality is quite good. The captures offer a high sharpness, as we can see in these example selfies.

Selfies taken without Portrait effect

The front camera also allows you to take selfies with Portrait mode, with a good blur effect.

Selfie with Portrait effect on

Video recording

The OPPO Find X5 can record video at a maximum resolution of [email protected] with the rear and wide-angle cameras.

OPPO allows saving videos using a “high efficiency” codec (H.265) to reduce video size or a “more compatible” codec (H.264) that ensures video playback on older devices.

When shooting videos at 30fps, you can double-tap an object on the screen to lock focus on that object and have the phone track if it moves. This functionality is not available when recording at 60fps.

Another interesting feature is the audio effects. Stereo sound can be recorded when shooting videos horizontally, and the sound volume of the recorded object is automatically adjusted when you zoom in on the video. This mode also helps reduce wind noise.

The video offers good image quality and excellent stabilization, as can be seen in these videos recorded during the day.

4K videos recorded with the main camera during the day

Below, we can see some videos taken in low light conditions, where the quality is also quite good, although the image looks a little darker than I would like.

4K videos recorded with the main camera at night

A curious aspect is that the two videos, recorded at [email protected] and [email protected], have the same bitrate of 50 Mb/s, even though one of them is recorded with double the FPS rate. This means that the image quality of the [email protected] video is lower than that of [email protected] as more compression is performed.

The OPPO Find X5 offers an Ultra Stabilization mode when recording video in 1080p resolution. This mode is especially useful if we are going to record video with a lot of movement on our part (for example, if we are riding in a car). The drawback is that it eliminates the edges of the image, so we have a narrower viewing angle.

Lastly, OPPO includes a recording mode called Movie that captures video in a 2.35:1 cinematic format. It offers advanced controls that allow you to adjust the exposure, focus, white balance, shutter speed, sensitivity, the use of HDR, the high-sensitivity LOG format and choose the camera with which we want to record.

 

voice calls

In the tests that I have carried out , the quality of the voice during the calls is correct and I have been able to hold conversations perfectly in moderately noisy environments without difficulties.

 

Price

The OPPO Find X5 is officially on sale at a price of € 999 in Spain.

Within the same family, we find the top model OPPO Find X5 Pro ( €1,299 ), which has a 6.7″ WQHD+ Super AMOLED screen at 120 Hz, Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor, 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM, 256GB of storage UFS 3.1, wide angle (50MP, f/1.7) + ultra wide angle (50MP, f/2.2) + telephoto (13MP, f/2.4) rear cameras, front camera (32MP, f/2.4) and 5,000 mAh battery with fast charge at 80W.

Also part of this family is the OPPO Find X5 Lite with a 6.43″ 90 Hz AMOLED screen, MediaTek Dimensity 900, 8GB RAM LPDDR4x, 256GB UFS 2.2, wide-angle rear cameras (64MP, f/1.7) + ultra-wide angle (8MP, f/2.25) + macro (2MP, f/2.4), front camera (32MP, f/2.4) and 4,500 mAh battery with 65W fast charge.

A reasonable question is whether it is worth getting the OPPO Find X5 compared to the OPPO Find X3 Pro ( €764 ), with whom it shares many features. Facing east, the OPPO Find X5 has a smaller screen (6.55″ vs. 6.7″), a new NPU, a fingerprint reader that is easier to reach, and a larger battery (4,800 vs. 4,500 mAh) with faster charging. (80W vs. 65W). The decision between

 

Conclusions

The OPPO Find X5 has an attractive and original design , with a large screen surrounded by fairly narrow and symmetrical frames. The front camera is located in a hole in the upper left corner, which helps it not interfere with the content on the screen when held horizontally.

The screen is curved on the sides , which helps hide the side frames at the cost of making the sides look a bit darker when looking at the phone from the front. The screen is protected by Gorilla Glass Victus, the latest and best version of Corning’s coating.

The back is made of glass that is also curved on the sides, which helps make the phone look slimmer. This glass is protected by Gorilla Glass 5.

The most original aspect of the back cover is its camera module , integrated into the glass and irregularly shaped.

Unlike other camera modules that look like a glob placed on the back glass, the OPPO Find X5’s camera island has no cracks or bumps , but is instead a continuation of the glass .

The camera module protrudes slightly from the surface and makes the phone dance when touching the screen when it is placed on a table.

The OPPO Find X5 is available in black or white finishes with a matte finish, so fingerprints are hardly marked. Its frosted glass has a very smooth and uniform texture to the touch — too much for my taste.

We are facing a rather bulky smartphone, since its thickness (8.7 mm) and weight (196 grams) exceed other competitors with similar screen sizes.

OPPO has given the phone IP54 resistance to splashes, so you should be careful not to accidentally drop it in the bathtub or swimming pool.

The OPPO Find X5 has a 6.55″ AMOLED LTPS panel with Full HD+ resolution , which implies a pixel density of 402 dpi, more than enough to guarantee high sharpness.

According to my measurements, the screen reaches a maximum brightness of around 749 nits with the screen illuminated at 100% when under strong light such as the sun. This is a high value, although it is below what some flagships reach.

The color gamut is wide as it covers 100% of the wide DCI-P3 space, which is only covered by high-end smartphones. It is compatible with HDR10 + and, in my tests, I have been able to play HDR content from Netflix and YouTube.

Of the different color modes it offers, the soft and cinematic modes offer excellent color fidelity relative to the sRGB and DCI-P3 gamut respectively, but most people will prefer the vivid or bright modes which display more vivid colors (although less realistic).

The screen offers a refresh rate at 60 or 120 Hz to enjoy greater smoothness, but it does not have an adaptive rate, so if you choose 120 Hz, autonomy will be affected. Other smartphones may lower their refresh rate to 10Hz (or less) when displaying static content to save battery life.

Of course, the Always On Display is present , so we can see the time/date, battery level and notifications at all times. In addition, it is possible to customize the design of this screen and for how long we want it to be active.

OPPO has integrated an under-display fingerprint reader that unlocks the phone quickly and reliably. In addition, it also incorporates 2D facial recognition, which works quickly but is not as secure as fingerprint or 3D facial recognition systems from other manufacturers, and it does not work in the dark.

The OPPO Find X5 has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 processor , which was the most powerful last year, but has been surpassed by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 (which the OPPO Find X5 Pro does incorporate). As a novelty, OPPO has included its own N PU MariSilicon X, which offers high performance in AI operations with great energy efficiency.

Accompanying this chip we find 8 GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 256 GB of UFS 3.1 storage with no option to expand via micro-SD.

In the benchmark tests that I have carried out, the performance of the smartphone has been very good , as expected given the hardware that it incorporates.

On a day-to-day basis, the OPPO Find X5 moves very smoothly and at no time have I suffered any stoppages. 3D games run smoothly and I’ve measured stable 60 FPS rates on titles like Asphalt 9 , Call Of Duty or Real Racing 3.

On the connectivity side, the OPPO Find X5 supports Wi-Fi 802.11ax (WiFi 6). Bluetooth 5.2 and NFC and GPS (but not dual). It lacks FM radio and infrared emitter.

It is compatible with 5G networks , both NSA and SA, with support for the international sub-6 GHz bands, but does not support mmWave. Now it is not a problem but it is expected that in the coming years the use of these frequencies will increase.

OPPO offers a space for a second SIM card , so you can enjoy Dual SIM. It is also compatible with eSIM.

The smartphone has a 4,800 mAh battery that offers good autonomy. You will have no problem getting to the end of the day with normal use of the phone, but if you use it very intensively you will have to charge the phone or activate one of the energy saving modes.

If you run out of battery, you’ll be glad to know that it offers 80W SuperVOOC fast charging .

OPPO incorporates a charger of this power in the box, which manages to fully charge the phone in 39 minutes and reaches 50 percent in just 13 minutes. It also offers AirVOOC fast wireless charging at 30W and supports reverse wireless charging at 10W.

The OPPO Find X5 offers Dolby Atmos stereo sound and has two speakers, one located in the upper frame and the other next to the USB Type-C connector, which sound quite powerful. Now, it lacks a 3.5mm headphone jack.

At the software level, it comes with Android 12 and, above the operating system, OPPO has incorporated its own ColorOS 12.1 customization layer.

This layer adds a large number of features that complement Android such as creating wallpapers from photos, granular permissions for apps, cloning of applications for multi-account, gestures on the screen off, smart sidebar, application lock, keyboard safe, hide apps on desktop, safe to protect files and hide banner notifications when looking at the phone with another person.

When it comes to enjoying games, OPPO includes a feature called Game Space , which improves game performance by allocating more hardware resources, limiting network access to other apps to improve latency, prevents automatic brightness adjustments , open Messenger/WhatsApp/Discord in a window and record screen with audio and front camera during games.

OPPO also includes a functionality called System Cloner that allows you to use two different passwords (or fingerprints) to access two different systems, so you can save private data in one of them that will not be accessible from the other.

In the photographic section, the OPPO Find X5 has a triple rear camera co-developed with Hasseblad consisting of a wide-angle camera (50MP, f/1.8 OIS), a 2x telephoto lens (13MP, f/2.4) and an ultra-wide-angle camera (50MP, f/2.4). /2.2). This set of cameras seems to be the same as the OPPO Find X3 Pro.

The main camera with a 50MP IMX766 sensor uses pixel binning to capture 12.5MP photos, although it offers a super high resolution mode that takes advantage of the full 50MP resolution to achieve slightly sharper photos (but take up much more space). ).

In good light conditions, the images taken by the main camera look sharp and colorful and, when the light is poor, the camera maintains the type quite well and achieves captures with a fairly contained noise.

Like any self-respecting camera, it offers AI scene detection capabilities as well as a Night mode capable of taking photos in low light that is automatically activated to improve the quality of the captured images.

The ultra wide angle camera is ideal for taking pictures of landscapes or monuments, as it offers a totally different perspective. OPPO has also used the Sony IMX766 sensor in this camera, and the result is excellent image quality, above what we are used to seeing in other ultra wide-angle camera smartphones, especially in low light conditions.

The 2x telephoto camera does not have a very high degree of magnification, but that is not a problem in my opinion. The limitation of this camera is the lack of optical stabilization, which prevents taking photos at night — trying to take 2x zoom photos at night results in a cropping of the image captured by the wide-angle camera. This camera is useful, however, for taking Portraits.

The OPPO Find X5 can record 4K video at 60 fps with good image quality and stabilization, which is further improved with one of the ultra-stabilization modes it incorporates. There is a Pro mode that allows you to adjust recording parameters and record in HDR / LOG.

The front camera has a resolution of 32MP, so it is capable of capturing selfies with great clarity and a wide dynamic range thanks to the use of HDR. This camera also allows you to capture photos in Portrait mode with good result.

The OPPO Find X5 is officially on sale at a price of € 999 in Spain.

Is it worth buying the OPPO Find X5? If you are looking for a smartphone with an original design, an excellent screen, powerful hardware (but not the latest), software with a large number of customization options, a battery with very fast charge and a competent camera, the OPPO Find X5 is a good one. option.

The best:

  • Full screen design with fairly narrow frames surrounding the screen and Gorilla Glass Victus protection.
  • Aluminum chassis and glass back cover with a matte finish that prevents fingerprint marks.
  • AMOLED screen with high sharpness, high refresh rate (120 Hz), excellent contrast, good maximum brightness, wide sRGB/DCI-P3 color gamut, HDR support and always-on display (AoD).
  • Fluidity in the use of the phone thanks to its Snapdragon 888 chip, 8 GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 256 GB of UFS 3.1 storage.
  • 5G connectivity with SA/NSA support in the sub-6GHz band (but not mmWave). Dual SIM capability and eSIM support.
  • ColorOS 12.1 software with features that extend Android features: app cloning, app encryption, screen gestures, safe, hide apps, driving mode, game space, system clone for a second private space, hide notifications in presence of other people, etc.
  • Fingerprint reader under the screen that unlocks the phone conveniently and quickly. 2D facial recognition.
  • Good image quality on the main, ultra-wide and telephoto cameras in good light conditions. Good performance of the main and ultra wide-angle cameras in low light thanks to the night mode.
  • Excellent video recording with a competent stabilization system.
  • Good Portrait mode performance (although you can’t edit blur afterwards) with both front and rear cameras.
  • Good autonomy and fast SuperVOOC cable charging at 80W, AirVOOC wireless charging at 30W and reversible charging at 10W.

The worst:

  • Screen with a fixed refresh rate (60 or 120 Hz), which does not adapt to the content displayed.
  • 2x telephoto camera without optical stabilization that is not suitable for shooting in low light.
  • A single storage configuration (256 GB) without the possibility of expanding it via microSD
  • Splash resistance (IP55) but not immersion in water (IP67/68)

Note: The OPPO Find X5 phone has been kindly provided by OPPO for this review.

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