OPPO Find X3 Pro review-a high-end flagship phone that can compete with Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra

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OPPO Find X3 Pro was launched in March 2021, so this review came a bit late. However, it is one of the highest-spec mobile phones this year, and the price tag matches, I don’t want to continue reviewing mobile phones of this caliber.

Due to the timing of this review, it is difficult to strongly recommend people to buy it. Unless you get a significant discount on RRP, you’d better wait for the 2022 flagship product that expires in the next three months to launch.

Although I might not recommend buying this phone, is it one of the best phones in 2021? Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra?

Specification

Design and display

OPPO Find X3 Pro is as attractive as a mobile phone. My sample is a charming blue with a matte effect.

This is a very thin phone, and it feels surprisingly light in your hand. It weighs 193 grams, which is lighter than most flagship phones, most of which weigh more than 200 grams. The overall size is very similar to OnePlus 9 Pro, although it is thinner and lighter. The 6.7-inch display of the two phones may be the same.

The front and back of the phone are Gorilla Glass 5, which is not as durable as Gorilla Glass Victus on other phones, but the phone comes with a pre-coated plastic screen protector and includes a free protective case, which is more durable than other phones. It can be said to be my Pixel 6 Pro.

I like the way the glass bends into the camera, rather than the standard camera bump that awkwardly protrudes.

This phone is equipped with a 6.7-inch AMOLED screen with a QHD+ resolution (or 3216 x 1440) and a maximum brightness of 1300 nits. Then the screen has a variable refresh rate of 120Hz. OPPO also claims that this is a 1 billion-color display with more than 100% DCI-P3 color gamut.

The display is curved, but not very deep curves, and I didn’t find it would cause any usability problems. In particular, the attached protective case will not affect the touch sensitivity on the side of the phone.

The end result is one of the best monitors I have used this year.

There is a small speaker grille at the top and bottom of the earpiece, which can use Dolby Atmos to produce stereo audio. I don’t use the phone speaker often, but it is better than average.

It is worth pointing out that it has a face unlock feature that Pixel lacks, and an excellent fingerprint scanner. Better than my Pixel, not as good as Galaxy S21.

camera

One of the main reasons you want to buy this phone is the camera specifications. Camera specifications and performance are what distinguishes these high-priced flagship phones from the more affordable flagship phones on the market.

Here is:

• 50 MP main camera with 1/1.56″ sensor and OIS
• 13 MP 1/3.4″ 2x optical zoom sensor
• 50 MP 1/1.56″ ultra wide-angle camera
• 3 MP microscope camera with 60x magnification

The camera specifications are very similar to OnePlus 9 Pro. Its main sensor is slightly different, 8MP 3.3x zoom telephoto, the same super wide angle, and then 2MP mono and microscope.

Compared with the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G, the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G has a more flexible telephoto setting, equipped with two different cameras, one is a 10MP 10x zoom periscope lens, and the other is a 10MP 3x zoom lens.

Due to the weather and COVID, I don’t have much opportunity to use the camera under various conditions, but the overall performance is excellent, which is what a phone worth 1,000 pounds would expect.

Both the main sensor and the ultra-wide angle perform well. I really like using high-quality sensors for ultra-wide screens, and I think this may be one of the factors that prompted me to buy this ultra-wide screen, rather than other phones with similar prices.

Low-light performance is good, but not top-notch. Huawei still does the best at dealing with very low light, and the Pixel is more suitable for a more natural appearance.

OPPO is the first company to launch a mobile phone with a periscope zoom lens. Therefore, when so many other brands have adopted it, it is a bit strange that they abandoned it this year. Therefore, the telephoto performance is a bit impressive. Using a 50MP Sony IMX766 and cropping the image may get similar results, if not better.

OPPO avoids the use of traditional single/bokeh/macro lenses, which are often relatively useless and are used to fill in the camera number. Instead, they include a 3MP microscope camera. It’s fun to try, of course better than a macro lens, but in the end it is inevitably rarely used.

Performance and thermal throttling

At this point, the performance of Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 and its thermal throttling problem have been fully proven.

In the real world, the daily performance is perfect, the application loads immediately, the UI is very smooth, and the phone is usually pleasant to use.

Compared to my Pixel 6, I recently noticed occasional delays. I’m not sure if this is a 90Hz monitor or a Google Tensor chipset, but the overall experience is not so smooth or fast. Of course, I only really noticed this when switching between phones.

The benchmark test is in line with expectations, but slightly lower than some other phones with similar specifications. Geekbench is slightly lower than Xiaomi Mi 11 and OnePlus 9 Pro with the same chipset, and Samsung Galaxy S21 with Exynos 2100.

3DMark Wildfire is basically the same as other devices.

The wild animal stress test showed that the stability score was 66%, and the score dropped in about 12 minutes. This is better than most devices this year, including OnePlus 9 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S21. It is significantly better than Realme GT and the Pixel 6 Pro which recently used the Google Tensor chipset. Only Xiaomi Mi 11 and RedMagic phones have better stability.

Battery

This phone is equipped with a 4500 mAh battery, the same as the OnePlus 9 Pro, but smaller than the S21 Ultra. It has 65W fast charging, which I like very much, and 30W wireless, both of which are faster than Samsung.

Unlike Samsung and Google, OPPO still includes a charger. This is a factor worth considering. Google’s 30W brick (no cable) costs £25, and OPPO sells an additional 65W SuperVooc 2.0 plug for £35.

Using the power-hungry Snapdragon 888 mobile phone, the overall battery performance may be better. For a phone at this price, I would prefer a 5000+ mAh battery, but this will make the phone thicker and heavier.

I cannot complete the PCMark battery benchmark test, and it crashes every time I run the application. It seems to reach about 9 hours, which is a bit better than OnePlus.

The actual usage is enough, and I can almost spend the day comfortably without recharging. If I go out and use a lot of maps and cameras all day, I suspect that I will be a little anxious and want to recharge before the end of the day.

software

I have seen many OPPO, Realme and OnePlus phones in the past few years, so I am already familiar with ColorOS, and I generally like it. I would even say that I prefer it to the stock experience on my Pixel 6.

There are some pre-installed apps that I wish I didn’t have. This includes AliExpress and TikTok, but they can be uninstalled.

Currently, this phone is running ColorOS 11.2 based on Android 11. The last update of the phone was on October 18, 2021, but when I wrote this review, I got another one, including November’s Security updates and some stability updates.

OPPO officials said that this and other X3 phones will get a security patch version every month. It seems that OPPO has already started to launch ColorOS 12 on Android 12. This started in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia at the end of November.

When I published this article, I just revealed that Android 12 will start to follow up in January in France, Italy and Spain. The UK is still classified as ongoing.

Although I no longer own a Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, Samsung seems to be more proactive in updating. They are running Android 12, and the phone received a stable upgrade to One UI 4 (based on Android 12) in early December. They also rolled out updates at the end of November and October.

Prices and alternatives

OPPO Find X3 Pro has a suggested retail price of £1,099, which is still the price of most retailers at the time of writing.Its lowest price on Amazon is £999

The Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra has a suggested retail price of 1,149 pounds, but it is currently priced at 968 pounds, with a minimum price of 900 pounds.

The Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra can only be purchased through Mi.com and is currently priced at £1,199.

Since so many new flagship phones will be launched later this year and in the next one or two months, I don’t recommend spending that much money on any of the phones listed above. I hope that the successor products of these three mobile phones will receive substantial discounts.

comprehensive

OPPO Find X3 Pro is undoubtedly one of the best phones of 2021, it can easily compete with the excellent Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra. It’s been a long time since I reviewed Samsung, and I can’t honestly say which phone I prefer, but the important thing is that OPPO is the best.

For Samsung, it has longer battery life, an excellent telephoto lens and a better fingerprint scanner. For OPPO, you have a significantly faster charging speed and an excellent ultra-wide-angle camera. It is also less bulky, and the weight is reduced by more than 30 grams.

I was very picky when reviewing Samsung Galaxy 21 Ultra’s performance issues at the beginning of the year. These problems subsequently existed in every flagship phone this year. Compared with SD865, SD888 caused worse battery performance this year. This is my biggest complaint about flagship phones in 2021. I don’t hope Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 will be much better.

Of course, due to the timing of this review, I do not particularly recommend you to buy a mobile phone, but it is worth considering second-hand. Amazon has an updated model that costs only £718, which may be a good choice; eBay has options under £600.

In the next few months, the new price should drop significantly. At the end of March 2021, the price of OPPO Find X2 Pro on Amazon has dropped to £799.

Last updated on 2022-01-07 / Affiliate link / Image from Amazon Product Advertising API