Oppo Find X2 review

Competition

The Find X2's competitors aren't hard to pinpoint for two reasons - its high-end hardware, but also its €1000 price. Aside from a couple of outliers like the Galaxy S20 Ultra and Oppo's own Find X2 Pro that go for about €200 extra, you're pretty much looking at the cream of the crop here.

Let's start with a close relative of the Find X2 - the OnePlus 8 Pro. OP's entry for this Spring comes with a lot of the bits of the Find X2 Pro's camera system - the main and ultra-wide modules are the same, and they're superior to the Find X2's for the most part. The 8MP '3x' zoom module of the OP is neither here nor there, compared to the Oppo's 2x 13MP tele, so that's hardly a decider. The two have what is likely the same display, and OP8P has a marginally better battery life - but with wireless charging to go with it. It's also properly IP68 rated, for a change.

The Mi 10 Pro comes next on this list. It's got more, and generally better cameras than the Find X2, plus it can do 8K video recording if you're that type of person. Some of the best speakers you can find on a phone are also a big one in Mi's favor. You stand to gain some endurance if you go for the Xiaomi over the Oppo, but then the Find X2's display beats the Mi 10 Pro's in both resolution and refresh rate. Another tough one this.

OnePlus 8 Pro • Xiaomi Mi 10 Pro 5G • Samsung Galaxy S20+ • Huawei P40 Pro

It doesn't get easier against the Galaxy S20+. The Samsung matches the Oppo for display refresh rate and resolution, only one at a time, so yes - the Find X2 has the superior display. Battery life is a toss-up, but the Galaxy has wireless charging, while the Find charges faster from a cable. Then the Galaxy has the water resistance, to the Oppo's splash-only half-there approach, and the Samsung will also take a microSD card - the only phone here that'll do that, for that matter. Despite Samsung's questionable approach to zoom this year, we'd still prefer the S20+ camera system over the one on the Oppo.

Then comes the Huawei P40 Pro, with the one obvious caveat that you need to be adventurous, hate Google, not use their services, be in a country that doesn't have them or a subset of those - whatever the case, the P40 Pro simply doesn't have Google backing. That out of the way, the Huawei high-end phone has the Oppo beat in most things camera-related, loses out in display resolution and refresh rate but edges back ahead in battery life. There are other goodies on the P40 Pro like fast wireless charging, memory expansion (sortof proprietary NM cards though), IP68 rating, and 3D face scanning (though at the expense of an unsightly pill-shaped cutout in the display). Would have been so easy to settle this, had it not been for the Google thing.

Verdict

It's virtually impossible to make a bad €1000 smartphone, and the Oppo Find X2 is far from one. It is, in fact, a chart-topper in key areas like display, performance, and battery charging. But with the X2's steep pricing and Oppo's choice not to disturb the Pro at the top in terms of features, the Find X2 ends up too expensive to be competitive. We really like the Oppo Find X2 in isolation. At this price though, we'd just pick one of the competitors.

Pros

• Premium design and build.
• Possibly the best display on the market.
• Class-leading charge times, battery life you can live with.
• Excellent thermal management, exemplary sustained performance.
• Versatile camera setup for daylight images and video.

Cons

• IP54 rating not up to the competitors' standard, no protection against submersion.
• No wireless charging.
• Low-light image quality leaves a lot to be desired.
• The ultra wide cam's 16:9 native aspect is more a nuisance than a feature.