Oppo Find X5 review

ColorOS 12.1 on top of Android 12

Technically, this is the first time we get to see Oppo's new ColorOS 12 running on top of Android 12. The Oppo Find N got really close, but it had the Android 11 underlying the custom OS. We still know what to expect, and everything looks familiar.

And by familiar we mean nearly identical not only to the ColorOS 12 that came with the Find N but also to the recently introduced Realme UI 3.0. We are talking looks, iconography, quick toggles - pretty much everything. Most of the features are also translated into ColorOS 12.1. It's maybe part of BBK Electronic's approach to software development in an effort to make support and development much easier to handle for multiple devices. It's important to note that Oppo has pledged three major software updates for all of its flagship Find X series released from 2019 onward.

Anyway, if you've used ColorOS before, or Realme UI for that matter, you will feel right at home. The app drawer is enabled by default, the notification shade is in the usual order and the recent apps menu too. The main Settings menu features Oppo's colorful icons for easier navigation. The only difference we noticed compared to the Realme UI is the absence of an Auto brightness toggle in the notification shade. It's kind of annoying to look for the toggle deep in the settings menus instead of having one right next to the brightness slider.

Home screen, recent apps, notification shade, app drawer

The Icon pull-down gesture is still here, and it makes it way easier to operate with one hand on an overcrowded home screen with plenty of app icons. Just swipe down alongside the edge of the display to bring down the icons close to your thumb and select an app to launch. The gesture is consistent and useful.

Icon-pull down gesture

Android 12's new privacy features are implemented. You get a summary of all the apps that use your data, location, camera, microphone, etc., all in one place. It's called Privacy Dashboard and is something like Digital Wellbeing but privacy-focused. And in case you don't want certain apps to have your exact location, you might want to give them approximate location instead.

Privacy dashboard and other privacy features

For a more in-depth look at Android 12, we suggest reading our full Android 12 review as we will try to focus on the ColorOS itself in the following paragraphs.

Most of the UI elements on ColorOS can be customized. We are talking deep customization of app icons, accent colors, quick toggles and their shape, font, fingerprint reader animation, Edge lighting for incoming notifications0, of course, the Always-on display. Oppo offers quite a bit of Always-on presets, all of which are the same ones we saw in Realme UI.

UI customizations

We also liked the granular notification customization. The system allows for advanced notification handling in the drop-down menu such as instant replies or other suggested actions. Incoming notifications when the phone is in use will arrive with quieter sound and more milder vibration. Notification snoozing is another neat feature that lets you attend conversations or other apps later without having to keep them in the notification shade and clutter up.

For enhanced privacy, the system will hide the contents of the notification once the front-facing camera detects someone other than you. This requires the facial unlocking feature to be enabled and uses that data to match with your face.

We can't miss mentioning the excellent haptic feedback. Oppo uses an X-axis linear motor and calls the whole experience O-Haptics. You can set the vibration intensity as well as the touch feedback style - it can either be Crisp or Gentle. And that's just for the UI interactions and touches. The O-Haptics support customized vibration patterns for different people in your contact list - particularly useful for people relying solely on vibration instead of ringtones.

O-Haptics options

The Special features tabs hold the familiar Smart Sidebar and Flexible windows functions. They are both tailored towards better multitasking. When turned on, the sidebar offers quick access to some of your favorite apps. The system allows you to adjust the position of the sidebar, which is crucial because it might interfere with the back gesture if you are using the standard Android gestures. Anyway, tap and hold on an app icon enters split-screen mode while a single tap opens up the app in a floating window or, as Realme likes to call it, "Flexible window". The supported apps can be opened in small, draggable and size-adjustable windows.

Special features

The Quick launch function has been around on OnePlus' OxygenOS-powered phones for a while now, and it's nice to see it making its way to other brands under the BBK Electronics umbrella. Once enabled, you can set up to three apps that can launch as soon as the display is unlocked. Tap and hold on the fingerprint reader from a locked screen to open up the Quick launch menu.

The good old screen-off gestures that allow you to launch certain apps or the flashlight by drawing letters on a locked screen are here to stay.

The experimental features that Realme offers are nowhere to be found here. The fingerprint can't measure heart rate, nor can you stream sound to connected Bluetooth and wired headsets simultaneously. Those are hardly features to miss but are worth mentioning.

Synthetic and sustained performance

Oppo's decision to put last year's Snapdragon 888 makes sense if they are looking to cut cost without sacrificing performance. After all, the Snapdragon 888 SoC is a powerful one that handles pretty much everything you throw at it. It's also manufactured on a modern 5nm node. The CPU consists of eight cores clustered in the following manner: 1x2.84 GHz Kryo 680 (ARM Cortex-X1) & 3x2.42 GHz Kryo 680 (ARM Cortex-A78) & 4x1.80 GHz Kryo 680 (ARM Cortex-A55). The powerful Adreno 660 GPU clocked at 840 MHz is winging the octa-core CPU.

The Find X5 comes in various storage options, and its base one is 8GB/128GB for the Chinese market, while Europe gets the 8GB/256GB as an entry-level option. This artificially inflates the price even further, and other competing Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 solutions at the same price might be more lucrative for some.

Here are the usual set of benchmark tests.

GeekBench 5 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 13 Pro
  4687
• Xiaomi 12 Pro
  3682
• Samsung Galaxy S22+
  3528
• Realme GT2 Pro
  3501
• Realme GT2
  3487
• Samsung Galaxy S21+ 5G
  3476
• Oppo Find X5 Pro
  3433
• Oppo Find X5
  3331
• Google Pixel 6 Pro
  2831

GeekBench 5 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 13 Pro
  1709
• Realme GT2 Pro
  1238
• Xiaomi 12 Pro
  1169
• Samsung Galaxy S22+
  1165
• Realme GT2
  1131
• Oppo Find X5
  1110
• Samsung Galaxy S21+ 5G
  1091
• Google Pixel 6 Pro
  1042
• Oppo Find X5 Pro
  1002

AnTuTu 9

Higher is better

• Oppo Find X5 Pro
  1012896
• Xiaomi 12 Pro
  985226
• Realme GT2 Pro
  966251
• Samsung Galaxy S22+
  886916
• Oppo Find X5
  810715
• Realme GT2
  810512
• Apple iPhone 13 Pro
  794348
• Google Pixel 6 Pro
  719815

3DMark Wild Life Vulkan 1.1 (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• Oppo Find X5 Pro
  9758
• Xiaomi 12 Pro
  9664
• Realme GT2 Pro
  9487
• Samsung Galaxy S22+
  7405
• Google Pixel 6 Pro
  6602
• Realme GT2
  5879
• Oppo Find X5
  5851
• Samsung Galaxy S21+ 5G
  5757

GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (offscreen 1080p)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 13 Pro
  119
• Xiaomi 12 Pro
  96
• Realme GT2 Pro
  95
• Oppo Find X5 Pro
  94
• Samsung Galaxy S22+
  76
• Google Pixel 6 Pro
  70
• Oppo Find X5
  69
• Realme GT2
  68
• Samsung Galaxy S21+ 5G
  66

GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S22+
  68
• Apple iPhone 13 Pro
  60
• Realme GT2
  56
• Oppo Find X5
  55
• Samsung Galaxy S21+ 5G
  54
• Realme GT2 Pro
  48
• Xiaomi 12 Pro
  46
• Oppo Find X5 Pro
  44
• Google Pixel 6 Pro
  39

GFX Aztek Vulkan High (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 13 Pro
  60
• Samsung Galaxy S22+
  51
• Realme GT2 Pro
  39
• Oppo Find X5
  38
• Realme GT2
  38
• Samsung Galaxy S21+ 5G
  37
• Xiaomi 12 Pro
  37
• Oppo Find X5 Pro
  36
• Google Pixel 6 Pro
  26

GFX Aztek Vulkan High (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 13 Pro
  50
• Realme GT2 Pro
  46
• Xiaomi 12 Pro
  45
• Oppo Find X5 Pro
  44
• Samsung Galaxy S22+
  34
• Oppo Find X5
  30
• Realme GT2
  30
• Google Pixel 6 Pro
  30
• Samsung Galaxy S21+ 5G
  26

GFX Aztek ES 3.1 High (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• Realme GT2 Pro
  42
• Xiaomi 12 Pro
  41
• Oppo Find X5 Pro
  40
• Samsung Galaxy S22+
  31
• Google Pixel 6 Pro
  31
• Samsung Galaxy S21+ 5G
  28
• Oppo Find X5
  27
• Realme GT2
  27

GFX Aztek ES 3.1 High (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S22+
  50
• Samsung Galaxy S21+ 5G
  43
• Oppo Find X5
  40
• Realme GT2
  40
• Realme GT2 Pro
  36
• Xiaomi 12 Pro
  36
• Oppo Find X5 Pro
  35
• Google Pixel 6 Pro
  28

The benchmarks show that the Oppo Find X5 utilizes the Snapdragon 888 to its fullest with no significant deviation from the expected results. Naturally, the chipset falls short only to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and the Exynos 2200 from this year and trades blows with last year's Exynos 2100, depending on the nature of the test.

You may notice that in some cases, the Find X5 is showing better performance in GPU-heavy and combined workloads, and that's because of the screen resolution. Other flagship phones with Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and 1440p displays show lower results due to the bigger resolution. That's usually a thing only in AnTuTu (being a combined test) and other on-screen GPU tests (GFXBench, for example).

Sustained performance

Oppo is particularly proud of its passive cooling solution on its Find X5 series. The company doesn't go into much detail, but it says that it uses a huge vapor chamber and thin 3D graphene films. That last bit could be crucial as graphene has excellent heat dissipation properties. Now let's put that to the test.

We started off with a 60-minute long CPU stress test at 100% load. The phone maintained about 90 to 100% of the chip's maximum performance fora short while before falling at about 90%. A couple of minutes before the 30-minute mark, the CPU throttled to around 80% and remained there for a while. After 30 minutes, the system went back and forth from 90% to 80%. The curve might look a bit wavy, but we believe that those sudden performance drops are quite limited and somewhat normal for a flagship phone.

CPU throttle test: 30 minutes • 60 minutes

Outer temperatures weren't that extreme either. The glass back and the metal side frame exude some heat, but they are definitely okay to hold. In short, the Find X5 showed excellent sustained performance, and that appears to be a theme among BBK Electronics-made phones. The Realme GT2, GT2 Pro and the OnePlus 10 Pro all seem to handle their powerful chipsets quite well.

We also ran the 3DMark Wild Life stress test as well. After all the loops that lasted about 20 minutes, the system received a 63.7% stability score, which is pretty good and was just as warm as during the CPU stress test.

3DMark GPU stress test