Well-known brand OPPO has recently released its vision of a foldable phone in the New Zealand market. It proposition is interesting: a pocketable design strong camera features, paired with high-end network connectivity.
Starting with size, when fully open it measures 166.2 mm x 75.2 mm x 16 mm. Fold it and you have a phone that measures 85.5 mm x 75.2 mm x 16 mm, making it a perfect size for pockets and bags. What is surprising is that even with a folding mechanism its weight is only 190g, less than some standard phones.
The design is superb, with an aluminium frame and glass on both front and back. The back is finished in a way that you won't see any fingerprints even when used without a cover.
The foldable mechanism is smooth and make it easy to open/shut the phone without having to push down the glass itself. It's satisfying to use, although for some things the external display is more than enough.
An external cover screen measuring 3.26 inches (720 x 282, 250 PPI, 30 - 60 Hz) is available and can be used in different ways: as an Always-On Display (AOD), camera viewfinder, notification centre or as a home for widgets. You can use it to reply to messaging notifications with a custom-defined list of replies for quicl interaction or to access some applications such as camera, weather, Spotify and others. You can also turn on/off some features such as Wi-Fi, Aeroplane Mode, Bluetooth, Torch and more.
The AOD feature allows you to show a clock, a wallpaper or even more interactive features like an animated pet or a Bitmoji that wil constantly change during the day, depending on time, weather, etc.
The main screen is a beautiful 6.8 inches AMOLED (2520 x 1080, 403 PPI, with a refresh rate from 1 Hz to 120 Hz). You can change its colour mode between different settings called Vivid, Natural, Cinematic or Brilliant, each with a different colour gamut. It also offers special settings to automatically brighten the video while playing HDR content or automatically upscale SDR to HDR.
The main camera has special features, developed with camera-maker Hasselblad. Its rear set contains a 50 megapixel camera (f/1.8; FOV 86°; 7P lens) with auto-focus plus a 8 megapixel ultra-wide angle camera (f/2.2; FOV 112°; 5P lens).
Together they provide quite a few different shooting modes, including Night, Video, Photo, Portrait, Pro (fuly manual control, including 10-bit RAW), Panorama, Slow-Motion, Time-lapse and the more interesting XPAN (65:24 ratio) - this one a take on the famous Hasselblad XPAN camera, which allows a rich panorama shot while using the standard camera and without having to move the phone left to right like other panorama photos require.
The camera also offers some filters that can be applied during the photo-taking, including a few "Masters" filters created in collaboration with Hasselblad "Ambassadors".
The resulting photos have really great colours and sharp contrast, including night shots - a few photos I took during a birthday party and having only candles as light source have clearly definied and sharp areas.
On top of this, you have the option of turning the external display into a secondary viewfinder so the subjects of your photos can see how they will look on the photos.
The OPPO Find N2 Flip supports two SIM cards or one SIM and one eSIM. It can connect to 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G networks in all New Zealand bands, with support for Voice over LTE (VoLTE) and Voice over WiFi (VoWiFi) in both SIMs You can independetly select which SIM will be used for voice, SMS or mobile data and both SIM cards can connect to 5G if wanted. It also supports WiFi 6, meaning it can get better performance when connected to wireless access points that support this modern standard.
Powering all this is a MediaTek Dimensity 9000+ processor plus an Arm Mali-G710 MC10 GPU. With 8 GB RAM and 256 GB storage, supported by an Android 13-based OS, the OPPO Find N2 Flip is fast and responsive, easy to use and well integrated with Google Play store support.
OPPO added two batteries to this phone, for a total 4300 mAh capacity. This can last well over a day with moderate usage but even if you need power, the super fast charge SUPERVOOC stard is supported, and a quick charge can get you going a long way.
After using the OPPO Find N2 Flip for a few weeks, there's one feature I miss: wireless charging, something I've got used to rely on with previous phones, mainly at night. Regardless, this phone is realy interesting because of all the features available in such a small package.