Oppo Find X8 Ultra review

Competition

The Find X8 Ultra is another installment in the series that will remain exclusive to the Chinese market, for better or worse. That complicates buying decisions to a large degree, as usual, with pros and cons needing to account for specifics beyond the usual. Or you could just accept that a China-only release is a China-only release, and look the other way. Either way, there's no shortage of capable high-end cameraphones to explore.

Starting with another Ultra that will not be going global, the upcoming vivo X200 Ultra will ditch the 1-inch sensor main cam in favor of a slightly smaller imager paired with a 35mm equivalent lens - if that's your preferred focal length, the vivo could be your thing. It's got a single telephoto, but it's almost as good as two separate ones.

Then there are the internationally available alternatives to those Ultras - the Find X8 Pro is a notch behind its stablemate in all camera metrics, but you'll be living a more trouble-free software life. Similarly, the vivo X200 Pro will get you a global software experience, with some concessions in the imaging department.

The Xiaomi 15 Ultra will require no compromises from you - it's running global software, it has a 1.0-inch main camera and two telephotos, one of them with a huge sensor (like the vivos). Unless you want something entirely specific that you've found out that only the Find Ultra can give you, the Xiaomi's Ultra is probably the better cameraphone option overall.

Obviously, a Galaxy S25 Ultra should also be on your shortlist - it's about as global-friendly as they come, it has a capable camera system, and there's also the S Pen, if you're into that.

vivo X200 Ultra • Oppo Find X8 Pro • vivo X200 Pro • Xiaomi 15 Ultra • Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra

Verdict

The Find X8 Ultra brought us few surprises - in the most positive way possible. It improves on an already excellent camera system, adding refinement and polish at both ends of the zoom range, while also taking much needed strides towards camera hump compactness (it's obviously all relative, of course). Perfectionists would always find grounds for complaint, but they'd need to look long and hard here.

Oppo's push for bringing size down is manifested in other areas too, and the handset is reasonably thin, but is still premium as ever, and dust and water-tight as much as the best in the business. Battery life didn't suffer in the process and neither did fast charging, so that's a couple more wins. The Quick Button may not necessarily be to everyone's taste, if you like it, it's there for you.

Going over the previous pages, we can still find a few things that could use improvement. Oppo doesn't seem too interested in playing the numbers game in the display brightness field, but it's reached a point where it's falling behind, and we could use an extra few hundred nits. The typical flagship throttling is also present, with a little bit more heat reaching our hands than we're used to, and frequent travelers will find the lack of eSIM support limiting.

But as usual, it's the fact that the phone is only officially available in China that will be the biggest hurdle to owning one. Even if you can set aside gray importing and warranty risks, you'll still need to live day in and day out with software that's tailor-made for a single market and that's not your market - small and bigger issues, foreseen and unforeseeable ones, could sour the experience.

That said, if you know what you're getting into and have some tolerance for inconvenience, the Oppo Find X8 Ultra's cameras may very well be worth it all.

Pros

• IP68/IP69 rating, relatively slim design, high-quality feel.
• The camera Quick Button may be useful for some photogs.
• Class-leading charging speed, battery life is improved over the previous generation.
• Supremely capable camera system for stills, day and night - excellent main camera, great zoom action from both telephotos, surprisingly good ultrawide.
• Standout video stabilization.

Cons

• China-only release - not available elsewhere over official channels, China-specific software, some limitations with popular apps.
• The display is behind the curve in terms of max brightness.
• Tendency for overheating under prolonged load.
• No eSIM support.