Oppo Find 7 review: Dark horse

Unboxing the Oppo Find 7

If the retail package of the Oppo Find 7 looks familiar, that's because it's identical to the one we saw with the Oppo Find 7a. Its hardened plastic is of excellent quality, with compartments for the Find 7 itself, A/C adapter, headset, and microUSB cable.

What you get in the box is a rather large charger (it's a high-current, fast charging unit capable of 4.5A output), a separate microUSB cable for connectivity and a single-piece headset.

The Oppo Find 7 retail box and its contents

The compartments of the box can be removed, making it an excellent box to store all sorts of memorabilia.

Oppo Find 7 360-degree spin

The Oppo Find 7 measures 152.6 x 75 x 9.2mm, which is the exact same measurements as the 7a. The only difference that the sharper screen makes is weight - not that anyone would notice a single gram worth of a difference.

Actually, a mere gram of added weight is even more impressive if you keep in mind that the battery capacity has also been increased by 200mAh to 3,000mAh.

The Oppo Find 7 is almost as big as the Note 3 phablet and bigger than Samsung's Galaxy S5.

Design, build quality and handling

The Oppo Find 7, like its 7a counterpart, is a premium device thanks to its solid construction, pleasantly-textured back panel, and thin profile.

Oppo continues to insist on the assertive, angular styling the Find 5 introduced to the series, and we don't mind that at all. The most notable difference between the two generations is the absence of a "chin" - on the Find 5 the white finish of the back extends to the bottom front, which was a very nice accent. The 7 has a more conservative all-black front.

Oppo Find 7 • Oppo Find 7a

The entire front is covered with what looks like a proprietary factory installed screen protector though it seems it can be removed. Sony ships their phones with a similar screen coating, though non-removable, for shatter proofing the screen in its Xperia line. The Oppo Find 7 has the latest Gorilla Glass 3, of course, but we don't mind the extra touch of care - especially when it's up to the user to keep or get rid.

The back panel of the Find 7 is made of textured plastic, which is even better than the finish we've seen on some other Oppo handsets. The Find 7 is really a pleasure to handle, while having an almost rugged feel and great grip.

The rugged plastic back

The Oppo Find 7 has one foot in phablet territory with a big 5.5" screen. Still, we found it reasonably easy to operate, its controls (lock key, volume rocker) conveniently placed and accessible with just one hand too.

Handling the Oppo Find 7

Controls

Speaking of controls, let's take a closer look at the Oppo Find 7 and see what's included.

Above the screen we see the standard pieces of equipment around the earpiece: a 5MP front-facing camera, along with proximity and ambient light sensors.

A peek above the screen

Below the display is the usual set of three capacitive keys - Menu, Home and Back. Those have a very faint and dim blue backlight and are barely visible even when the backlight is set to always on. We initially thought this was a hardware problem with our Find 7a, but as they have shown up in our Find 7 as well, we can safely assume that the keys are dim on purpose.

The capacitive key • the notification LED

Finally, just below the bottom deck of controls is a notification light strip, which lights up gradually for a nice visual effect.

The right side of the Oppo Find 7 features the volume rocker and a tiny pinhole near the bottom to release the battery cover. You'll need a pointed object to release the battery cover - a normal ball pen tip usually does the job.

The Power/Lock key is the only control on the left. We find its location a bit hard to get used to as most smartphones meant for the European and US market have it on the right-hand side but it's not a deal-breaker.

The Oppo Find 7 right and left sides

At the bottom of the phone is a microUSB port and the mouthpiece. At the top is the 3.5mm audio jack.

microUSB port and mic pinhole at the bottom • 3.5mm audio jack on top

The 13MP camera lens is at the back, along with a dual-LED flash and a loudspeaker grille. There's also a tiny secondary microphone above the camera.

The Oppo Find 7 has the so-called Super Zoom feature to create a 50MP image out of four 13MP shots.

A look at the phone's back and 13MP camera

Removing the battery cover reveals the 3,000mAh user-replaceable Li-Ion battery. The micro-SIM compartment and microSD slot are also around, but you'll have to remove the battery to access them.

The cover release key • a peek underneath the rear cover