Oppo has been one of my favorite phone brands for a while. It entered the New Zealand market with mid-range phones offering close to premium-range features, which quickly had me enamored with the brand. In the last few years, they have started releasing premium phones that vary from the powerful to the foldy. Last year they dropped the Oppo Find N3, and I was glad to finally take one for a test fold.
It’s foldy
I had used the Oppo Flip before, which I liked thanks to it taking up less height space in my pocket. The problem was it felt a lot more like a gimmick and only helped with a specific use case. The Oppo Find N2 folds the other way, meaning you hold and use it like a normalish sized phone. But then when you want some more real estate, you open it up and BAM, it’s like a mini tablet.
Have you ever been watching a video on YouTube or Crunchyroll and wanted to Google something or send a message and be annoyed when the video closes? Well, when you are using this bad boy with both sides open, you can run a different app on each half. It’s so easy to use and so damn handy on those long train rides. One quirk is if you open the phone to get more real estate. It gives the option to increase the app’s size. If a game isn’t optimized for this, you wind up cutting off the sides.
How about when you are lying down and want to watch a video and have to find something to lean your phone on? This bad boy can half open, and you are enjoying those sweet YouTube videos from your bed.
Camera and battery
Since I first used the Oppo Reno 10x Zoom, one thing that has consistently impressed me with Oppo was the battery life and cameras in their price range. Now a lot of competitors have stepped up both, and given this is a high-end device, it gets less leeway.
The battery life is solid; I regularly had 20% or more when I plugged in to charge, and that was using the device heavily throughout the day. When I say heavy, I would be flipping the phone open, watching videos, listening to podcasts all day, and playing games on the train. I mean heavy. Best of all, it takes less than an hour to fully charge it.
Then there is the camera. The cameras on the back stand out like crazy, and that’s because there is some serious power under the hood. I was able to zoom in to 120x zoom to take photos that were shockingly good. Not good, but good for 120x zoom. When you are zoomed in this much, the biggest issue is trying to photograph what you are aiming for, as pressing the button would move it too much.
One of the challenges in this space is that other competitors offer similar specs. I would lean towards the Oppo, but it’s through preference and not overly for the stats.
And there’s more
Out of the box, it comes with a case. The case covers the back with one piece, and the second piece is a little frame around the front screen. This makes sense because you still need to be able to use the phone when it’s open and closed. I liked the inclusion of this given the phone is such an odd shape. The hard plastic, though, did mean it was more susceptible to chipping. I may have taken a little piece off when I fell on a slippery rock when navigating a waterfall in Thailand. Whoops, sorry, Oppo. The good news is the phone is damn well built, so it was only the case that chipped, and the fall hurt, so the phone impact did get tested.
Being a premium phone, it also includes eSim support which is handy if you want to use it for a work and personal phone, or want to buy a data sim when you travel. The sound quality is surprisingly solid as well, belting out decent tunes for a phone.
Should you get one?
For up to $3,000, it is an expensive phone. Though at this point it is regularly on sale. I would say it is worth the price, as I love this phone. Given the cost of living these days, the real question is if you would get the value from the folding feature, as you can get damn good phones from Oppo and Motorola for around the $1000 mark.
The Find N3 is an awesome foldable phone.
The only real drawback is that it's an expensive as phone.
