Oppo Find N2 Flip Review: An Impressive Debut

Oppo has long neglected the premium segment of the smartphone market in India. The Oppo Find X2 Pro (First look) arrived in 2020 and we haven’t had any other Find series phones until now. The Oppo Find N2 Flip made its global debut in February, and just a month later Oppo has launched it in India. The Find N2 Flip goes up against the only other vertically folding smartphones in India, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 and its predecessors, which up until now had gone unchallenged.

The Find N2 Flip follows the same formula as Samsung and Oppo has implemented similar software features too. Where it distinguishes itself is with its much larger outer display, higher resolution cameras, larger battery, and quicker charging. Are these features enough to make it worth picking over the established rival? Let’s have a look.

Oppo Find N2 Flip price in India

You get just one variant of the Oppo Find N2 Flip in India, with 8GB of (LPDDR5) RAM and 256GB of (UFS 3.1) storage. The latter is not expandable as the SIM tray only support two nano-SIM cards. Oppo has priced the Find N2 Flip at Rs. 89,999 (before discounts and offers), which coincidently is exactly the same as price of the base variant of the Galaxy Z Flip 4.

Oppo Find N2 Flip design

If you’ve used any Samsung Galaxy Z Flip phone, then the Oppo Find N2 Flip will feel very familiar. The phone weighs 191g, and when folded it is extremely compact. It should slip into most pockets with ease. It is thicker than most smartphones in its folded state, but there’s no visible gap between the two halves and I almost never had any lint or dust entering the folding display during my few weeks with this device.

The Astral Black unit that I used looks very slick, as the matte finish does not attract fingerprints and the texture feels good. The Moonlit Purple colour option also looks very nice in my opinion and has a more glossy sheen.

The Moonlit Purple finish of the Oppo Find N2 Flip is subtle and looks good

The aluminium frame is flat and has a polished finish, which does attract smudges easily. The dual-SIM tray, USB Type-C port and speaker are placed on the bottom half of the frame, while the top has some cutouts for the secondary microphone. The Oppo Find N2 Flip has a fingerprint sensor embedded in the power button, which is handy since face recognition struggles to work in very dim lighting.

Oppo is making a big deal about its new Flexion hinge which is supposed to reduce the crease of the folding display. We’re yet to do a proper side-by-side comparison with the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 to see just how much of a difference it makes. The crease is still visible on the Find N2 Flip when the inner display is viewed at an angle, and can still be felt with a finger. The hinge has received a durability certificate from TÜV Rheinland to last beyond 400,000 cycles of folding and unfolding. It has also been engineered to hold its position at angles between 45 and 110 degrees.

The Oppo Find N2 Flip is built well and feels premium

The outer display is one of the big attractions of the Oppo Find N2 Flip. At 3.26 inches, it’s the largest that we’ve seen so far on a vertically folding smartphone. This AMOLED display has a decently sharp resolution (720×382 pixels), a 60Hz refresh rate, and up to 800 nits of peak brightness under sunlight. It also has a pre-applied screen protector. Having such a large display allows you to do a lot more without having to unfold the phone.

You can preview most notifications, access the main quick toggles for Wi-Fi, Airplane mode, etc, and even use special widgets for the camera, voice recorder, weather app, and more. There’s also a quick reply feature for certain apps such as Slack, Telegram, and WhatsApp, but you can’t compose a custom reply directly from the cover screen. Sending replies in other apps such as Gmail still requires you to unfold the device. I would really like to see support for more apps in the future, and maybe even the ability to compose replies using your voice, if not a full-blown keyboard.

The inner display of the Oppo Find N2 Flip measures 6.8 inches when unfolded, and features a full-HD+ (2520×1080 pixels) resolution, a 120Hz peak refresh rate (1Hz to 120Hz variable), up to 1600 nits of peak brightness, and a layer of ultra-thin glass (UTG) for durability. You can use the phone half folded or anywhere within the prescribed range of angles. Certain apps will automatically adapt to that state, which we’ll go over in the next section.

The retail box of the Oppo Find N2 Flip includes a power adapter and protective case

Unlike its rival, Oppo ships the Find N2 Flip with all the accessories one would typically need which includes an 80W power adapter and a hard-shell case.

Oppo Find N2 Flip specifications and software

The Oppo Find N2 Flip is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 9000+ SoC. It’s a 4nm SoC, similar to the Dimensity 9000 which we’ve seen in the Vivo X80 (Review), but with a higher maximum CPU clock speed of 3.2GHz. The phone supports a total of 17 5G bands in India, and comes with the usual connectivity features such as Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.3, NFC, and support for plenty of satellite navigation systems.

The phone has a 4,300mAh battery and supports 44W SuperVOOC charging. Wireless charging, sadly, is not supported. The Find N2 Flip does not have any official IP rating either, although Oppo has stated that the phone has some basic protection against moisture.

The Oppo Find N2 Flip runs ColorOS 13 which is based on Android 13. It’s slated to receive four years of “major” updates and five years of security updates. The UI is the standard fare that we’ve seen on other recent Oppo smartphones, with a few additional tweaks tailored for the Flip. The Settings app has a ‘Foldable feature’ menu which lets you customise the cover screen. You can choose from the preloaded wallpapers, your own image, or one of five “interactive pets”. Each pet has 15 animations or actions that they perform when you tap on them. This menu also allows you to customise which widgets you want on the cover screen and their order, and add your own quick reply templates to the preexisting ones.

The Oppo Find N2 Flip offers flexibility when it comes to capturing images or videos

Oppo has its own version Samsung’s Flex mode, which it calls FlexForm mode. It basically readjusts the layout of some apps when the phone is used in a semi-folded state. For instance, YouTube automatically increases the size of the video frame to fill the upper half of the display, while pushing comments and UI elements to the lower half. In the camera app, the viewfinder is pushed to the upper half while the controls are placed on the lower half. You can even swap these positions in order to better frame a subject at an awkward angle.

Oppo Find N2 Flip performance and battery life

I used the Oppo Find N2 Flip as my primary smartphone for about a week, and it was a very pleasant experience, mainly due to the practicality of the large cover screen. I could send basic replies to messages, view notifications, and access basic phone features such as the toggle switches and the camera quickly and without having to open the phone.

However, the outer screen is not being used to its full potential. The ability to compose a reply (either by voice or typing) in more apps, especially Gmail, could have been hugely beneficial. It would also have been super useful to be able to see turn-by-turn navigation in Google Maps or even the results of a Google Assistant query on the cover screen. I’m hoping Oppo adds more functionality with upcoming updates.

The SoC in the Oppo Find N2 Flip might be flagship-grade for MediaTek but it comes nowhere near the performance of Qualcomm’s current flagship processor, at least in benchmarks. The Find N2 Flip scored 710,743 points in AnTuTu, and 1,153 and 3,339 points in Geekbench 6’s single and multi-core tests respectively. There’s a big difference when compared against the AnTuTu scores of phones based on even the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 SoC, which is still being used in new 2023 smartphones.

Numbers aside, you’d probably never notice this performance difference in actual use because Android 13 runs very smoothly on the Find N2 Flip. Games such as Asphalt 9: Legends and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City looked great and ran well with steady framerates.

The Oppo Find N2 Flip offers plenty of customisability for its interface and Always-on display

Videos looked very good on the Find N2 Flip’s display too. HDR10 playback is supported in apps such as Netflix. Most videos tend to have black bars on the left and right sides due to the extra-wide aspect ratio of the folding display. The stereo speakers sound good and Dolby Atmos is permanently enabled when you’re using the speaker. The fingerprint sensor is quick and so is face recognition (under good lighting). The ultra-thin glass layer over the folding display seems fairly durable. I didn’t notice any flex when applying pressure with my fingers, however it will dent if you press down with a sharper object or even a fingernail.

I found battery life to be more than satisfactory on the Oppo Find N2 Flip. On average, it lasted more than one full day with about five and a half hours of screen-on time, during which the main apps being used were Netflix, Slack, and WhatsApp. In our HD video loop test, the Find N2 Flip ran for 17 hours, 39 minutes before the battery drained completely, which is a good runtime. The phone supports a maximum of 44W SuperVOOC fast charging, even though it comes with an 80W proprietary adapter. I managed to get a 54 percent charge after half an hour, and up to 96 percent after an hour.

Oppo Find N2 Flip cameras

The Oppo Find N2 Flip’s cameras are assisted by Oppo’s dedicated imaging chip called MariSilicon X. There’s also a collaboration with Hasselblad for colour tuning when shooting in Pro mode. Just like with the OnePlus 11 5G (Review), you get special Master filters that were co-created with Hasselblad ambassadors, XPan mode, and an orange shutter button. Being a flip phone, the Find N2 Flip lets you capture better selfies when folded since you can use the main rear camera pointing towards you and frame your shots on the cover screen. Weirdly, videos recorded through the cover screen widget are restricted to 1080p, and there’s no way to toggle between resolutions.

The main rear camera has a primary 50-megapixel Sony IMX890 sensor, just like on the OnePlus 11 5G. The ultra-wide camera has an 8-megapixel Sony IMX355 sensor but without autofocus, which means no macro capability. You don’t get a telephoto camera, but you can zoom digitally up to 20X. The selfie camera embedded in the folding display uses a 32-megapixel Sony IMX709 sensor, which was also used in the Oppo Reno 7 Pro. It lacks autofocus but it does offer 2X magnification.

Oppo Find N2 Flip main camera sample (tap to see full size)

Oppo Find N2 Flip ultra-wide camera sample (tap to see full size)

Oppo Find N2 Flip main camera sample (tap to see full size)

In daylight, the main camera of the Oppo Find N2 Flip captures good photos. Detail is fairly good, dynamic range is decent, and close-up shots are sharp and well-defined. Colours overall are also quite accurate. The ultra-wide camera on the other hand is a bit weak on detail and colours tend to look bleak. 

Low-light images shot with the main camera look lively, with vivid colours and good exposure since the app automatically captures long-exposure shots. Details are fairly good even when magnified. The ultra-wide camera struggles to match the colours and exposure of the main camera, producing strictly passable pictures, that too provided there’s enough ambient lighting. In very dim lighting, even Night mode fails to deliver any redeemable results. 

Oppo Find N2 Flip main camera sample (tap to see full size)

Oppo Find N2 Flip ultra-wide camera sample (tap to see full size)

Oppo Find N2 Flip selfie camera samples in daylight (left) and low light (right) (tap to see full size)

The selfie camera can capture good results in daylight. Portrait mode mode works very well too and the results are pleasing. Selfies captured in low light look decent but skin tones are a bit of a hit or miss. 

Coming to video recording, the Oppo Find N2 Flip can shoot at up to 4K 30fps. In daylight, video quality and stabilisation are both good. Low-light videos tend to look heavily processed with weaker details and a bit of grain. The ultra-wide camera can only capture video at up to 1080p, just like the selfie camera, but the quality is much weaker than that of the main camera in the day and in low light. 

Verdict

The Oppo Find N2 Flip is a pretty strong first attempt at a vertically folding phone, and in many ways offers stiff competition to Samsung. The more practical outer display, faster charging, and higher resolution primary camera are some of the main reasons to consider it over the Galaxy Z Flip 4. You also get more storage, as the 256GB variant of Samsung’s Flip is priced higher.

However, I can’t ignore two big features that are missing from Oppo’s offering: an official IP rating and wireless charging. The ultra-wide camera is also a bit underwhelming, and I don’t think the outer display is being utilised to its full potential yet. Still, the launch of the Oppo Find N2 Flip in India means that buyers finally have a choice, and that’s always a good thing.