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OPPO’s brand new Flip phone is here – and it comes with a few upgrades here and there over the predecessor – the most notable one is the cameras. After spending some time and heading to Singapore.

So, after using it for about 2 weeks, I have quite a lot of things to share with you.

Design

By just looking at the phone, the OPPO Find N3 Flip looks to be very similar to the Find N2 Flip that was released… earlier this year – yeah. It’s only about 7 months since the Find N2 Flip was announced.

OPPO Find N3 Flip review

While it might look the same, the grip is very different. The edges of the phone are now more rounded, making it very comfortable to hold in the hand. And when I compare it with the Galaxy Z Flip5, I can feel that the Find N3 Flip is a bit thicker.

That might be for a few good reasons too – it has an alert slider at the side with up to 3 levels of toggle. This is a very nice addition. In addition to that, this phone is also available in a coral pinkish color – and I think this color will sell really well.

OPPO Find N3 Flip review

I’m just not a fan of this new big circular protrusion for the cameras…

OPPO Find N3 Flip review

Cover display

Looking at the screen though, this is where I am very conflicted. The screen is indeed beautiful but it is taking up about only 60% of the the front. Given how small this screen is, its functionality is definitely limited.

 

OPPO Find N3 Flip reviewWithin the settings menu, we can customize the cover display to use a few preset wallpapers with these interactive pets that loop across a few animations. Some of them are cute, like this dog here – but I’m more of a function over form guy – so I always use this weather wallpaper instead. It’s a combination of real-time weather report with a live wallpaper – and that’s unique.

OPPO Find N3 Flip review

You can even add a few widgets so you can quickly launch apps like camera, timer or even Pocket Player.

OPPO Find N3 Flip review

Yeah speaking of Pocket Player, we can also scroll to the right and see a list of apps that can run on the cover display. Spotify was added on the Find N2 Flip, and it is also present on this Find N3 Flip but it’s called Pocket Player. Cough Sorry, Spotify was suspended in the background. Gimme a moment. Ah – as I was saying, I have no idea why they don’t just call it Spotify but that’s what we have now.

OPPO Find N3 Flip review

We have the usual quick settings menu and also notifications. While we can read messages pretty well on the cover display, we can only reply using pre-defined messages.

But, that’s not always the case. You see, we can add other apps to the apps list so that we can use them directly on the cover display. Keep in mind that these are labeled as “labs” but in my opinion, they’re not even in the alpha stage.

OPPO Find N3 Flip review

For example – Telegram. The entire app runs on that mini display and we can even reply to messages – but the keyboard is… well, have a look for yourself.

OPPO Find N3 Flip review

Hinge

But now, let’s open up the device – but not completely. OPPO did upgrade their Flexion Hinge by allowing it to freely stand between 35° and 135°. But as you can see here… the hinge is rather floppy. It has some strange snapback. To be fair, the Galaxy Z Flip5 does have that snapback too, but it’s not that extreme. Have a look at it in action in the video at the top of this review.

OPPO Find N3 Flip review

One thing I do like is how small is, and OPPO also upgraded the phone to have IPX4. Some level of water resistance is better than none – and I am happy about that.

Screen

Once we open up the device, we have a 6.8-inch AMOLED screen with a resolution of 2520×1080 pixels with up to 120Hz refresh rate. I can definitely tell that this screen is a lot wider than the Z Flip 5. If you have big hands like mine, then using this phone one-handed is still possible, but I’ll have to shift my grip if I want to reach the other side.

OPPO Find N3 Flip review

And since this is a folding phone, we did two tests with our colorimeter – one at the top and another at the bottom. The color accuracy is consistent between the two halves, covering nearly 100% of sRGB and nearly 99% of DCI-P3 color gamuts, while having a maximum ΔE of less than 3, but the average ΔE is very, very low.

As for the maximum brightness, I’m surprised as we can get around 950 nits. Definitely not going to be an issue if we want to use this phone outdoors.

OPPO Find N3 Flip review
Looking at them through a polarized sunglass

By the way, OPPO said that they don’t have a polarizer filter on the screen this time, so we can wear a pair of sunglasses while looking at the screen without having any negative impacts.

Software

And let’s talk about the software for a while. It uses the latest ColorOS 13.2 on top of Android 13 and as shown earlier, it does come with a few special features made specifically for foldable devices. OPPO has also finally added something called the Flex Form Mode – which is their version of Samsung’s Flex Mode – and it works for their Camera app now. That’s a huge deal for me as I think this adaptive UI is useful for those who want to use the phone as its own tripod.

OPPO Find N3 Flip review

Oh – OPPO is also promising a total of 4 generations of Android OS upgrades and 5 years of security patches. Again, this is a huge deal for everyone.

Camera

Okay, time for the cameras. This phone has the trifecta of cameras – the main camera, a telephoto, and also an ultrawide. All of these cameras are very high in resolution and also have the Hasselblad branding too – and from what I have tested before, I really like OPPO and also OnePlus’s cameras with Hasselblad’s color profile.

OPPO Find N3 Flip review

To have a look at all the pictures and videos taken with the OPPO Find N3 Flip, watch our video at the top of this review.

Performance

As for the performance though, the Dimensity 9200 chipset is okay for gaming. I mean, most people aren’t buying this phone for gaming anyway – but you can if you want to. As shown in our gaming test video, we’re getting good frame rates while playing Genshin Impact at the highest graphical settings at first – but then the frame rate drastically drops when it starts thermal throttling.

When thermal throttling happens, the skin temperature is around 42°C which is actually not that hot. And I already expect foldable devices to have high temperatures since it only has half of a phone’s available space to dissipate heat away.

OPPO did tell us that they have a brand new “cross-hinge heat dissipation layer” which literally means a heatpipe connecting both halves of the phone together. Does that actually help? Well, not really. As we’ve shown, it still thermal throttles. I guess the cross-hinge heat dissipation layer will have to be very thin so that it can bend when the hinge folds.

Battery life

As for the battery life, this phone comes with a 4,300mAh battery and using our standardized battery life test, we get around 12 hours and 40 minutes which is really good. Expect the battery to last you for one full day.

OPPO Find N3 Flip review

Charging speed

But the strangest thing about this phone though, is the charging speed. Sure, it comes with a 67W charger in the box – but this phone only actually supports up to 44W of fast charging via their own proprietary SuperVOOC charging.

OPPO Find N3 Flip review

That means the phone will take about an hour to charge completely, and the temperature has lots of shark fins and that is due to temperature control. The temperature goes up when the charging speed increases, but eventually it stops fast charging to let the device cool down a bit, then repeats the process over and over again.

OPPO Find N3 Flip review

I also redid the charging speed test with our USB-PD charger and unfortunately, the OPPO Find N3 Flip only supports up to around 13W, as reported by our wattmeter. That’s sad and it takes slightly more than 1.5 hours to charge completely.

OPPO Find N3 Flip review

Few more things to mention

Before we wrap up – here are a few more things that we need to highlight. This OPPO Find N3 Flip comes with a USB 2.0 port at the bottom and takes forever to copy files in and out of the device – and does not support display output over USB-C.

OPPO Find N3 Flip review

It does have double SIM card slots but no microSD card slot – like the other flip phone.

OPPO Find N3 Flip review

Should you buy OPPO Find N3 Flip?

Okay, so in the end, should you buy the OPPO Find N3 Flip? Well, it ultimately depends on what you want. I think between this and the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip5, I consider them to be on par with each other.

OPPO Find N3 Flip review

Cameras on the Find N3 Flip is obviously much better, and having an alert slider is just a big quality of life improvement. However, the Z Flip5’s larger cover display is more functional yet just looks better than the Find N3 Flip’s empty patch of space.

OPPO Find N3 Flip review

Both phones’ hinge are similar as they close with virtually no gap, but the Find N3 Flip has a weird snapback yet has a much shallower crease.

OPPO Find N3 Flip review

As for the price – it’s RM4,399. Slightly lower than its competitor, but like what we said earlier – there are definitely pros and cons between these two phones.

So, which one will you pick? The Find N3 Flip or the Galaxy Z Flip5? Personally, I’m not a Flip guy. I’m more interested in the OPPO Find N3 Fold. Hopefully, I can get my hands on it soon.

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