Oppo Find X8 Pro review

Competition

The Find X8 Pro does a fine job of balancing between offering a high-end experience and leaving enough room to breathe for an upcoming Ultra. Being among the first releases of what's essentially next year's premium Android segment, the Find faces competition that is either a year old, or not quite out yet (where we are, at least), making our lives a little too hard when it comes to comparisons.

So while still in this realm of uncertainty, we'd probably name the Find X8 Ultra first. Not even official yet, the company's ultimate offering may not get a global release at all, but if it does, it will be the all-out cameraphone to get from Oppo. And even if it remains a China-exclusive, it might be enticing enough to make a certain type of customer accept the tradeoffs of gray-importing one and living with a sub-optimal software build.

Pivoting hard into the here and now, the Find X8 non-Pro might also be an option - only in the opposite direction when it comes to cameraphone prowess. Not that it's bad, it's just not as good. It's got the same chipset, only slightly smaller battery, and a flat display, which could be just what you're looking for.

The iPhone 16 Pro Max is about as current a competitor as the Find has. There's the obvious OS divide that should be the first thing to settle this, but if you can look past that, the Find has every chance of being the better cameraphone on account of its low-light performance, two zoom modules, and close-up capabilities. Both have great battery life and powerful chipsets with a knack for gaming too. Better than usual water resistance in one way or another is also something that unites them, as are their respective camera control buttons. More similar than they are different, it seems.

The Galaxy S24 Ultra is one of the select few two-tele cameraphones and it just might be better for photo and video capture than this Find, though even if it is, it's probably not by a big enough margin for that to be the deciding factor. The Galaxy wins for versatility thanks to its S Pen and some of OneUI's unique features (take DeX for example). The Find scores higher in the endurance department, and runs on a next-gen chipset too. Now, the S25 Ultra will change some of that, but we're looking at roughly two months before that one shows up.

The vivo X200 Pro is another camera-centric offering out of China that should be going global sometime soon. This one matches the Find for IP rating, has the same chipset, and broadly similar battery life and charging capability. The vivo just might be a better cameraphone though, where it's specific type of single telephoto solution can have its advantages over the Find's two-module one.

Xiaomi's Pro model from the 14 generation was missing from the global scene, and the recently announced 15 Pro's fate outside of China is still unclear too. It's only got a single telephoto, but the 5x zoom unit might be more your thing than the 3x+6x combo. The Xiaomi's got a big battery too, the Snapdragon Elite could be a point in its favor, and maybe a case could be made for its flat display. Well, maybe we'll know more if a review unit comes our way.

Oppo Find X8 • Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max • Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra • vivo X200 Pro • Xiaomi 15 Pro

Verdict

The Find X8 Pro's flaws are few, smalish, and of somewhat lesser importance than the things it's actually great at. Just because Oppo is choosing to stay away from a brightness competition, doesn't mean you'll be strapped for nits, and unless you absolutely must game above 60fps, you'll be perfectly fine with a Find. The camera system has a few imperfections in our experience, but you can expect that from the Pro when there's an Ultra on the way.

Those relatively minor things aside, the Find X8 Pro is a thoroughly competent all-round flagship smartphone. The super powerful chipset is about as good as they come, the battery life is towards the top of the class, the newly-standard next-level water sealing brings extra peace of mind, the camera key can't hurt. And there's the top-tier camera camera system that struck us as better than most at low-light video, while also being great in general.

Of course, we'd probably like the Find X8 Ultra more than the Pro - but there are many unknowns around that one. The Find X8 Pro, on the other hand, is here now and it's quite alright.

Pros

• IP69 rating - so you can pressure wash it, if you want.
• The camera button may be useful.
• Excellent battery life, particularly good at gaming.
• Mediatek SoC at least as good as the latest Snapdragon, possibly even slightly better at prolonged GPU load.
• Competent camera system overall, great zoom action, nice closeups, surprisingly good low-light video.
• Wi-Fi 7; eSIM support, Infrared port.

Cons

• The display is behind the curve in terms of peak brightness; gaming comes with frame rate limitations.
• Somewhat unreliable 6x camera performance in the dark.
• No high framerate gaming possible.