Oppo's Find N3 foldable goes big on displays and durability
Oppo's first two horizontally folding phones caught our attention with their shorter 9:8.4 "golden" aspect ratio, but with the brand new Find N3, the company sided with a more conventional design, which is backed by some new software tricks to boost the multitasking experience. Not to mention an upgraded set of Hasselblad-branded rear cameras, a vastly improved folding durability, and the alert slider inherited from OnePlus - as we've already seen on the recent Find N3 Flip.
The new foldable AMOLED display on the Oppo Find N3 comes in at 7.8 inches wide, with a resolution set at 2,240 x 2,268, which ends up being a pixel density of 426 ppi. As far as crease goes, it's even less visible than before, so it's definitely fair to call it "virtually crease-free" this time round. The more interesting feature here is the new self-healing coating, which can apparently smooth out scuffs to keep the panel in pristine condition for a little longer.
With the increased body height, the Find N3's cover display features a more familiar - and arguably more practical - 20:9 aspect ratio (though it's still shorter than, say, the Xiaomi Mix Fold 3). Here we have a flat 6.3-inch, 2,484 x 1,116 AMOLED panel (431 ppi), and much like the flexible screen, it supports 1,440Hz PWM dimming for less eye fatigue, 1-120Hz refresh rate, Dolby Vision, HDR10+, up to 1,400 nits in High Brightness Mode and up to 2,800 nits peak. This is noteworthy, considering that many earlier foldable phones have weaker display properties on the inner screen.
The Find N3 is built with Oppo's third-generation Flexion hinge, which consists of zirconium-based liquid metal for compactness, as well as the company's self-developed aircraft-grade steel for strength. The flexible screen is also backed by carbon fiber support plates for structural strength, making the device "36-percent more resistant to warping than past-generation foldables." Better yet, Oppo got TUV Rheinland to certify the Find N3's 1,000,000-fold durability, which is more than double that of the Find N2's "mere" 400,000 folds, let alone the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5's 200,000 folds. The fold counts remain at 100,000 for both the 50C (122F ) and -20C (-4F) tests. While there's no Ingress Protection Rating here, Oppo has applied a weather-sealing process to make the Find N3 splash-proof.
Photography is also a significant upgrade here. Find N3 is the first smartphone to pack Sony's 48-megapixel (4:3), 1/1.43-inch LYTIA-T808 sensor (it's actually 52 megapixels, 1/1.35 inches in full - 20-percent larger than the main rival's). This is apparently the first sensor to feature a two-layer transistor pixel structure, which is a cunning trick to let each pixel receive more light, thus more image detail. Sony goes as far as claiming that this chip "rivals the high-quality 1-inch type sensor." Additionally, this f/1.7, 24mm-equivalent main camera comes with optical image stabilization.
There's also a 64-megapixel, f/2.6 periscope telephoto camera with an unnamed 1/2-inch sensor - one that's apparently three times larger than what you'd get on a main competitor's foldable. With this 70mm-equivalent lens, you get 3x optical zoom and 6x "lossless" zoom (by cropping), both of which are assisted by optical stabilization via a floating prism structure. You can use the same camera in Hasselblad Portrait mode.
Last but not least, the 48-megapixel, 14mm equivalent ultra-wide camera packs a Sony IMX5811/2-inch sensor, which Oppo claims to be 130-percent larger than key rival's. It comes with an f/2.2 lens, a 114-degree field of view and macro shot support down to 4cm.
To complement the photography hardware upgrade, the Find N3 packs a new Oppo Computational Photography (OCP) feature, which captures the original brightness information for fine-tuning each HDR shot "pixel by pixel." The result is supposedly "a more natural image with rich highlights and shadows." This sounds somewhat like what the now-retired MariSilicon X imaging neural processor would have handled in the past, but Oppo has yet to dive into the technical details on OCP. On a related note, the ProXDR display mode in the gallery app leverages OCP details to optimize the screen's peak brightness, in order to make the photos pop; but you can also long-press the ProXDR button to see the photos as-is.
For video calls, you also have the option to use either the external 32-megapixel f/2.4 selfie camera (1/3.14-inch, 22mm equivalent), or the internal 20-megapixel f/2.2 counterpart (1/4-inch, 20mm equivalent).
As for the remaining core phone specs, the Find N3 is unsurprisingly packing Qualcomm's flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor, along with 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM, 512GB of UFS 4.0 storage, a dual SIM tray, NFC, a triple-speaker system (with spatial audio support) and a larger 4,800mAh battery. With 67W SuperVOOC charging support, the device reaches over 80-percent charge in 30 minutes, or a full charge in 42 minutes. You'll find the new alert slider (silent, vibrate and ring) located right next to the volume rocker, which is above the side-mounted fingerprint reader. The whole package comes in at 239 grams heavy and 5.8mm thick when opened - not record-breaking numbers but still impressive in this category.
On the software side, Oppo justified its shift in aspect ratio by adding some handy multitasking features. In this ColorOS 13.2 (based on Android 13), the new "Global Taskbar" offers an "App Library" button on the far left, which toggles a pop-up menu for quickly launching an app or even dragging it into a split-screen view. There's also a "File Pocket" button next to that, which is another pop-up menu showing your recent files, images and clipboard items, so that you can easily drag and drop into an active app.
Another powerful multitasking feature is "Boundless View," which is basically split-screen on steroids. By tapping the top bar above your desired app in split-screen mode, you can click on "Expand View" which then automatically widens said app, but still leaving a small portion of the other app in view, thus letting you quickly swipe between apps. Similarly, you can also have up to three apps in this horizontal split-screen view - just drag the third app from the dock to the center of the screen. By expanding all three apps in this split screen, you'll be creating a "15-inch Boundless View" layout, and you can get an interactive overview with a four-finger pinch at any time. Much like the usual split-screen mode, you can save these Boundless View app combos for quick access on the home screen.
My favorite handy features from before, namely two-finger split screen (swiping down the middle of the screen) and "FlexForm Capture" (partly open the phone while in the camera app), are here to stay. As a bonus, Oppo promises four years of software updates and five years of security updates for the Find N3.
The Oppo Find N3, available in "champagne gold" and "classic black," will be rolling out to global markets soon, with pre-orders starting in Singapore on October 20th. The damage is S$2,399 (around US$1,745) which, to our surprise, is a big jump from the Find N2's price for the same 16GB RAM and 512GB storage configuration. The China version is offered as a premium kit, which is asking for 12,999 yuan or about US$1,777, and it comes with a kickstand case, a car charger and other accessories. Luckily for folks over there, they also have a more affordable 12GB RAM and 512GB storage variant for just 9,999 yuan (about US$1,367), but this is still a lot pricier than last year's base model. It'll be interesting to see how the supposedly near-identical OnePlus Open foldable - launching later today - will differentiate itself from its Oppo twin, be it pricing or software.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/oppos-find-n3-foldable-goes-big-on-displays-and-durability-094134290.html?src=rss