OPPO Find X5 Pro review

Sharing is caring!

Launched in February, the OPPO Find X5 Pro is an incremental upgrade to its processor.

At a quick glance, you probably won’t notice any difference in the specs, except Snapdragon 8 1st generation. However, OPPO developed its own MariSilicon X Imaging NPU, and the phone now benefits from Hasselblad color calibration, similar to recent OnePlus flagship phones.

On top of that, you also have a larger battery size, faster charging, and an improved Gorilla Glass Victus for the front display.

Not much difference, but OPPO Find X3 Pro One of the best phones of the last year, you could easily argue that there isn’t much to improve.

Specification

• exhibit:
  • 500 nits (typical), 800 nits (HBM), 1300 nits (peak)
  • 120 Hz refresh rate, 240 Hz touch sampling
• chipset:
  • Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1
  • Custom MariSilicon X Imaging NPU
• RAM: 12GB (this seems to be the only option in the UK)
• Storage: 256GB
• rear camera:
  • 50-megapixel main camera (Sony IMX766), f/1.7 (FoV 80 degrees) with dual OIS and 5-axis stabilization
  • 50-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera (Sony IMX766), f/2.2 (FoV 110.3 degrees), with 4cm macro mode
  • 13-megapixel telephoto camera, f/2.4 (FoV 45 degrees)
• Front camera:
  • 32-megapixel f/2.4 fixed-focus front camera
• Battery: 5,000mAh
• TOLL:
• Conservation/Building:
  • Glass front (Gorilla Glass Victus), ceramic back or eco-leather back, aluminium frame
  • IP68 dust/waterproof (up to 1.5m for 30 minutes)

Design and Display

The OPPO Find X5 Pro has a beautifully sculpted back and its unibody design wraps around the camera for an ultra-premium look. OPPO then sabotaged all these efforts with all unnecessary text and the CE mark. It seems that this is not the case for all colorways, the white ceramic model only has small brands.

As appealing as the phone is, the shiny ceramic is slippery, and due to my clumsiness, it’s impossible for me to use a phone worth over £1000 without good protection.

It does have a good level of built-in protection, the front panel is Gorilla Glass Victus, and it has IP68 water resistance.

The display is slightly curved, offering a good balance of aesthetics and usability. I’m also reviewing the Honor Magic4 Pro, which has a more aggressive curve, and some UI elements can bend into curves at the corners.

As you’d expect, the display is almost as good as it gets. A 6.7-inch screen is a perfect size for me, then runs at 1440×3216 pixels. It’s also LPTO, allowing it to offer dynamic refresh rates from 1Hz to 120Hz, with a 10-bit color range.

The screen brightness is excellent, I used it in Porto, where it was sunny all week, and it was much better than my Pixel 6, which I found struggled in the sun.

camera

For me, the camera is the main reason you should buy the OPPO Find X5 Pro. The main and ultra-wide lenses are great, but the zoom is a little tedious.

Curiously, OPPO decided to remove the 3-megapixel microscope camera on the X3 Pro.Usually these 4^th The camera is little more than a gimmick, but in this case, it does provide some interesting photo opportunities.

I’m a big fan of the ultra wide angle camera, it’s great for travel and urban photography. OPPO chose to use the same IMX766 sensor on this lens, which gives it a significant advantage over rival phones.

Both cameras perform well in a variety of scenarios, and low-light performance is excellent, I’d say as good as the Pixel 6, which is generally classed as one of the best cameras out there.

The zoom lens is only 13MP and 2x zoom. The quality of the photos is acceptable, especially when viewed on a mobile phone. You will most likely get similar or even better results by scaling and cropping standard photos. Zooming significantly beyond the 2x optical limit can degrade image quality and introduce a lot of jitter.

The phone has excellent video capabilities with support for HDR up to 4K 60fps.

photo sample

you can find more extensive OPPO Find X5 Pro camera samples are here.

Performance and Thermal Throttling

I’m already in OPPO Find X5 Pro performance and benchmarks.

As far as benchmarking goes, OPPO takes a different approach to the phone’s performance than other brands like Honor. It scored slightly lower overall, but that gave it better-than-average battery life.

In terms of day-to-day performance, you won’t notice any difference. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 has such great performance that you don’t need to run at full speed in most situations.

If you play games and want the best experience, you can easily enable performance mode. This makes the Wild Life stress test about the same as other phones.

Battery

Because of the way the phone degrades performance, you can expect to see better battery life than many competing phones. On the PCMark battery test, its score of 11 hours and 32 minutes was significantly better than its predecessor.

You can then charge at 80W via the included wired charger, which will give you a full charge in 30 minutes. You can also use the OPPO wireless charger to charge at 50W, but you will need to pay for it.

Some phones are starting to offer faster charging speeds. The Honor in my hand can do 100W and 80W wireless.

I know some people are skeptical about superfast charging, I prefer slow charging at night. However, it’s very useful on days of heavy use when you may not have a power bank on hand. During vacations or work events, I always carry a fast charger with me to keep me fully charged during short afternoon downtimes.

software

Between OPPO, OnePlus, and Realme, it’s safe to say that I’m pretty familiar with ColorOS.

There’s more bloatware than I’d like. There should be no Aliexpress, Booking.com, TikTok, etc. on any phone at this price. OPPO is not the only guilty criminal, they can all be easily uninstalled. At least no security scanning apps with ads.

Other than that, I can’t fault ColorOS.

As you might expect, this is Android 12 running with ColourOS version 12.1. The last security update my phone got was April 2022, matching my Pixel.

Android 13 beta 1 is also available for download, a positive sign for the rapid rollout of the next-generation Android operating system.

Price and Alternatives

The OPPO Find X5 Pro is currently priced at around £1050 for the 12GB/256GB model.

Surprisingly, retailers are still trying to sell the OPPO Find X3 Pro for around £950, just £150 off the MSRP. While there’s not a huge difference between the two phones, considering the relatively small price difference, you’re better off going with the X5 Pro. There are some great deals on eBay that are worth considering.

The Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra with 12GB and 256GB costs a whopping £1,249, and even the lower 8GB/128GB model costs £1,149.

OnePlus 10 Pro £899 for 12GB/256GB. While it doesn’t look as pretty, it’s essentially the same hardware with a slightly different camera, and OPPO has a custom chip for image processing. Even the software is pretty much the same.

The Honor Magic4 Pro is a cheaper alternative worth considering, the ultra-wide isn’t quite as good, but the zoom is a little better. The battery is smaller, but charges faster. It’s also priced at £949 (£50 more than originally advertised).

Another dark horse could be the ZTE Axon 40 Ultra. Thanks to the newer, better Sony IMX787, this camera could be even better. However, the software and support are unlikely to be as good as the OPPO. It hasn’t launched in the UK yet, so pricing is unknown.

overall

Much like its predecessor, the OPPO Find X5 Pro is one of the best phones of the year, with great performance and a great versatile camera.

It’s also one of the most expensive phones of the year, so anything that isn’t great will be bad.

As always, this is a competitive market. The Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra is the main competitor, and unless you want stylus functionality, I’d go for the less expensive OPPO and Qualcomm chipsets.

It’s hard to ignore the fact that the OnePlus 10 Pro is nearly identical in hardware, as is the underlying operating system. However, OnePlus is around £150-250 cheaper (depending on the specs you choose). I haven’t used a OnePlus, but I have no doubts that the OPPO is a better phone and has the advantage of the MariSilicon X Imaging NPU. It’s certainly more attractive, but is £150 better?

Overall, if you’re not price sensitive, the Oppo Find X5 Pro won’t let you down, it’s an excellent phone.

Last updated on May 15, 2022 / Affiliate Links / Image from Amazon Product Advertising API