Skip to main content area Oppo Find X5 Pro hands-on review: A bit of a beauty Mobile phones Nathan Spendelow 24 Feb 2022
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Price when reviewed 1,049inc VAT
With a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, triple Hasselblad cameras and 80W charging, the Oppo Find X5 Pro is set to be a stunning Samsung Galaxy S22 rival
Appearing just ahead of this year’s MWC trade show, Oppo’s latest high-priced flagship is butting heads with our favourite top-end handset of 2022 so far, the Galaxy S22 Ultra. And while it doesn’t come bundled with a stylus, the Oppo Find X5 Pro is every bit as special.
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With a UK release looming, I’ve spent some time with Oppo’s newest flagship over the last few days. Like its predecessor, it makes a spectacular first impression, but does it stand a chance of becoming a mainstay of flagship design, with the hope of pushing Oppo firmly into the limelight?
Oppo Find X5 Pro review: UK price, release date and specifications
- 6.7in, 120Hz WQHD+ (3,216 x 1,440) AMOLED screen
- Octa-core 3GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1
- 12GB of RAM
- 256GB of storage
- Triple rear cameras: 50MP (f/1.7), 50MP (f/2.2) 110-degree ultrawide, 13MP (f/2.4) 2x telephoto
- Selfie camera: 32MP (f/2.4)
- 5,000mAh battery
- 80W wired charging
- 50W wireless charging
- IP68-rated waterproofing
- Glaze Black, Ceramic White
- UK release date: 24 March
- UK price: £1,049
Oppo Find X5 Pro review: Design, key features and first impressions
Like 2021’s Find X3 Pro, this year’s model is an especially formidable flagship. Overflowing with features, the Find X5 Pro – Oppo skipped the Find X4 – also happens to be the sort of phone that draws admiring glances when you pull it out of your pocket on your daily commute.
The Oppo Find X5 Pro’s design really is one of a kind. The unibody form factor returns, albeit with subtle tweaks to the overall construction. A ceramic sheet seamlessly wraps around the rear camera housing, replacing the glass panel of the previous model. Blending in nicely with the rest of the handset, this makes for a phone that looks just as lavish as its four-figure price suggests.
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Another slight change is that the angle of the bottom edge of the camera housing is now ergonomically grooved to fit your index finger when you’re holding the phone. This not only makes the phone more comfortable to hold in one hand, but it also helps to alleviate potential finger smudges on the rear camera lenses. Not to mention that it gives the Find X5 Pro an extra bit of visual panache.
The Find X5 Pro comes in a choice of two colours: Glaze Black and Ceramic White. I was sent the black model for review, and while its mirrored finish left a good impression, it was a bit of a fingerprint magnet. As you can probably tell, I lost the battle trying to take smudge-free pictures of the phone for this preview.
As you’d expect for a phone that costs as much as this, the Oppo Find X5 Pro is IP68-rated against dust and water ingress and, unlike the equally expensive Huawei P50 Pro, it can connect to the 5G network in the UK. A fingerprint scanner is embedded under the screen, but it also supports face unlocks. The circumference of the selfie camera lights up whenever it tries to scan your face, too, which is a nice touch.
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The phone’s screen is a 6.7in AMOLED affair, with a WQHD+ resolution and a maximum refresh rate of 120Hz. Oppo says that the display’s peak brightness is now measured at 1,300 nits, with support for 10-bit colours, HDR10+ and a 1,000Hz touch-sampling rate. Like the S22 Ultra, the minimum refresh rate has also dropped to 1Hz, which should help boost battery life when performing simple actions such as reading an ebook.
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On that note, the Find X5 Pro’s battery has increased in size from 4,500mAh to 5,000mAh. The phone’s wired charging speeds are now rated at a maximum of 80W (the fastest we’ve ever seen), with super speedy 50W wireless charging. It can also wirelessly reverse-charge devices up to 30W if you place them on the back of the phone and enable the setting in the notification drawer.
Oppo says that a new multitier cooling system is in place this year, which consists of a 75% larger vapour chamber covering the CPU and battery, with a graphene film placed on top of the motherboard and charging coil. Another ultra-thin graphene film is placed under the screen. This should (hopefully) help it run for longer between charges.
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The Find X5 Pro is also one of the first smartphones to be powered by Qualcomm’s newest flagship mobile chipset, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. Clocked at 3GHz, this new CPU is built on a 4nm fabrication process, promising superior performance and power efficiency compared to the Snapdragon 888 it replaces. This new CPU works with 12GB of RAM, as well as 256GB of non-expandable internal storage.
A big chunk of my briefing was reserved for the Oppo Find X5 Pro’s cameras, and for good reason. There are three cameras on the rear of the handset, consisting of a main 50MP (f/1.7) sensor, a 50MP (f/2.2) 110-degree ultrawide and a 13MP (f/2.4) 2x telephoto zoom. A single 32MP (f/2.4) selfie camera sits on the front of the handset, located in a hole-punch notch in the top-left corner of the display. This uses a new “Intelligent FoV” system, which can switch between 80 and 90 degrees, depending on how many people are in the frame.
Oppo’s brand-new dedicated imaging NPU, MariSilicion X, sits separately from the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 on the motherboard, and this handles all of the image processing. According to Oppo, in diverting computing power away from the phone’s main Qualcomm chipset, this new NPU allows for a new feature called 4K Ultra Night Video, which can shoot in lighting conditions as low as 5 lux, with better colour distribution, higher dynamic range, increased detail and less visual noise.
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The main camera also uses a five-axis optical image stabilisation system, which consists of a three-axis sensor shift and a two-axis lens shift. What this means is that video should look rock steady, and it allows for longer exposures without blurry images. The new RGBW sensor can also gather 60% more light than the previous version, supposedly with increased detail capture.
The Hasselblad partnership is purely on a software level, however. The Find X5 Pro launches with three “Hasselblad Master Styles”, which are essentially different camera filters created in partnership with three different Hasselblad photographers. The new Hasselblad XPAN mode allows you to shoot in a vintage “letterbox style” aspect ratio of 65:24, and the UI is similar to Hasselblad’s full-frame camera interface.
Oppo Find X5 Pro review: Find X5 and Find X5 Lite
Rather than settling with just one flagship, Oppo also announced a pair of cheaper models. Not only is the design of the regular Find X5 (£749) slightly different – lacking the ceramic finish – but the basic version comes with the previous Snapdragon 888 and 8GB of RAM. The AMOLED screen is slightly smaller at 6.55in, with a lower FHD+ resolution. It also comes with a 2x optical zoom sensor, ultrawide and a 50MP main camera.
The cheapest Oppo Find X5 Lite (£419) is even more different. A MediaTek Dimensity 900 powers things, with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. There’s a 6.43in FHD+ 90Hz AMOLED screen on the front, and there are three rear cameras: a 64MP main, 8MP ultrawide and 2MP macro.
Oppo Find X5 Pro review: Early verdict
The Oppo Find X5 Pro is shaping up to be a bit of a beauty. Just like its predecessor, it’s a stunning piece of hardware, with top-end componentry and a terrific suite of cameras. Perhaps the best thing, however, is the price. At £1,049, Oppo is undercutting the Galaxy S22 Ultra, so there’s a good chance that we’re on to a winner here.
I’ll be delivering my final verdict in the coming weeks, so watch this space.
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