OPPO Find N2 Flip review: flips the cart

Name: OPPO Find N2 Flip
Item: OPPO Find N2 Flip
Rating: 8
Author: Deepak Dhingra

Published On: March 13, 2023

Review Summary

Expert Rating
★
★
8.0/10

I remember playing with the Huawei Mate X (first impressions), which was the very first foldable smartphone I got my hands on. That device was never launched in India officially, and apart from some not-so-strong efforts by Motorola, foldables have been Samsung territory for a while now, as far as the Indian market is concerned. There’s some meaningful competition coming in now though, thanks to OPPO. The Find N2 Flip has just landed, and I think it packs in enough to create a ripple in the foldables category, a segment that hasn’t changed much in the last three-four years apart from the annual upgrades from Samsung.

Verdict

OPPO’s offering might miss a couple of features that are expected at this price point — an IP rating and wireless charging — but specs aren’t everything, especially for a phone in this league. It’s the usage experience that matters and that’s where the OPPO Find N2 Flip delivers. It scores high on key aspects like performance and cameras, and adds interesting use cases via its large cover screen.

Design and display

The N2 Flip’s overall form factor looks quite familiar, with the concept being that of a phone that can be folded into half, thereby reducing its footprint to a compact slab that disappears into pockets and bags. The 6.8-inch, 21:9 E6 screen uses a foldable LTPO AMOLED display that refreshes at 120Hz, supports HDR10+ and can touch 1600 nits peak brightness. These are commendable specs, and suffice it to say that the device delivers as far as the viewing experience is concerned. The colours look punchy and the screen is legible under harsh lighting as well.

However, the most noteworthy highlight here is the fact that through some serious engineering wizardry, OPPO has been able to get rid of the crease to a very large extent — so much so that the N2 Flip’s display looks just like a conventional phone screen. Truth be told, the crease on the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip4‘s (the N2 Flip’s main rival) display never bothered me much, and I sort of gave in to the notion that display creases are a part and parcel of using a foldable smartphone. It’s only when I used the Find N2 Flip that I realised the extent to which the usage experience gets elevated when there’s no crease at all.

Moving on to the other key aspect — the cover screen. This is another feature which stands out quite a bit. You see, OPPO has equipped the Find N2 Flip with a 3.26-inch external display, and that adds to the usage quite a bit. The large cover display acts as a handy photography aid (more on that later) and can show weather info, run timers, start a voice recording etc… with these functions available as widgets. You can also accept incoming calls via the cover display and reply to messages using preset quick responses (customisable in settings), negating the need to open the flip phone. Notifications can also be viewed and quick settings are available by swiping downward.

Truth be told, I think OPPO could have added more functionality to the cover screen, such as providing a dialler for making outgoing calls, maybe even letting the user play basic arcade games on it. The ability to add Android widgets on the cover screen should also be extremely handy… I can imagine using it to flick through my Twitter feed or catch up on news headlines. As things stand currently though, acting as a photography tool is one of its main use cases. OPPO gives you a few options to customise the cover screen too. You can choose the widgets you want displayed from the limited list available, change wallpapers, and interact with a few virtual pets.

OPPO credits its Flexion hinge for being able to fit a 3.26-inch on the N2 Flip. As per the brand, the hinge features fewer parts, utilising a flexible stainless steel element and aircraft-grade carbon fibre polymer to add flexibility as well as strength. The Flexion hinge apparently enables the engineers to make the best use of the available space, letting them add a large cover screen and a bigger battery to the device. Now I can’t comment on long-term usage as of now, but the Find N2 Flip has been tested up to 400,000 folds by TUV Rheinland, which is the equivalent of over 10 years of use if you open and close the phone 100 times a day. That’s good enough for me. During my usage, the phone survived a 4-foot accidental drop to a hard marble floor and came out unscathed, so that does give me more confidence about its build quality. I feel the hinge should have been a little stiffer than it currently is, but the good part is that once it’s slightly open, I can unfold the phone fully just by flicking my wrist — which just seems like a very cool thing to do.

Other than that, the design includes a slim profile, a side-mounted fingerprint scanner integrated with the power key, volume rocker, and Hasselblad branding on the rear panel. The bottom holds the Type-C port, speaker and SIM tray. Overall, the device feels extremely sleek, premium and well-made, justifying its positioning as a foldable flagship.

Cameras

Co-developed along with iconic camera brand Hasselblad, the shooters on the OPPO Find N2 Flip comprise a 50MP Sony IMX890 primary sensor, along with an 8MP ultrawide shooter. The punch hole on the main screen integrates a 32MP selfie camera. Also on board is OPPO’s in-house MariSilicon X NPU which brings the AI chops and promises to deliver improved HDR, low-light performance, dynamic range and sharpness, and cut down on noise, among other things. Hasselblad’s Natural Colour Solution promises to optimise colour accuracy and tone. I did find Hasselblad’s XPAN mode that captures images with 65:24 aspect ratio quite interesting and useful, especially for cityscapes and monuments.

Shots turn out nice and crisp, with ample detail and dynamic range. The colours seem true-to-life as well. Wide-angle shots are fine too, without any warping or distortion around the edges. Low light images look pretty good, though some of the shots tilt towards warmer colour tones. The 32MP selfie shooter takes decent images, retaining natural skin tones. Other than the fact that the OPPO Find N2 Flip shoots well across different lighting conditions, its unique form factor combined with the large cover display and the special features OPPO has baked in can help take photography to a different level too.

For one, the camera widget accessible via a left swipe on the cover display allows you to shoot without flipping the phone open. Next, if you do unfold the device and access the main camera app, you’ll notice an additional icon on top left of the viewfinder screen that opens up an image preview on the cover screen, mirroring the viewfinder display. This can be helpful when you’re shooting human subjects as they can see and frame themselves better using the cover screen. The same method can be used for self-portraits by opening the flip 90 degrees and placing the phone like a laptop on a flat surface. Via camera settings, the phone can be set to click pictures after a 3-second interval when it detects an open palm — it’s an easy, convenient and fun way to click selfies, utilising the flip form factor to eliminate the need for a stand or a tripod. In fact, this can be used to shoot some creative perspective shots by placing the phone in tent mode on the ground too.

Software, performance and battery

On board is ColorOS 13 running atop Android 13. The platform brings with it an interface which is largely free of clutter and yet, offers immense customisation options. Special features on offer include an option to run two apps simultaneously using split screen, running apps as flexible windows, and a smart sidebar that gives you quick access to favourite apps and functions. There’s some bloatware and OPPO even preloads its own App Market on the phone though. Unwanted notifications from Hot Apps and Hot Games threaten to impact usage experience till one realises there’s a quick, one-step way to make them disappear for good via settings — no harm done. Still, it’s one extra step to tackle an issue that shouldn’t have been there in the first place, especially considering this is a premium phone. OPPO does promise four years of Android and five years of security updates.

The 4nm MediaTek Dimensity 9000+ that powers the smartphone is a flagship-grade SoC and delivers smooth performance, without any stutter across different apps. You get 8 gigs of RAM, and 256GB storage. The N2 Flip is not a gaming phone, but the device can handle some gaming as well, though there’s a little bit of throttling evident. The 4,300mAh battery delivers a day’s worth of juice with medium usage, and if your usage is heavy, you might end up needing a top-up charge by late evening. The 44W SuperVOOC charging comes in handy, juicing up the phone from nought to 100 in a little over an hour. Worth mentioning that OPPO includes an 80W charger in the box.

Final verdict

If recent announcements are any indication, the foldable smartphone segment will see a lot of action this year, with the likes of Tecno, OnePlus and Realme planning to launch their own offerings. A Pixel foldable can probably be expected too. Now that’s great, but for the here and now, I think OPPO has been able to come up with a capable clamshell flip foldable in the form of the Find N2 Flip. The phone, priced at Rs 89,999, misses out on a couple of features one would expect from a phone of its class, like IP rating and wireless charging. However, it scores where it really matters, ticks all the essential boxes in terms of aspects like performance and camera, and adds niceties with its barely-there crease and the large cover screen that enables new and interesting use cases. A fine foldable this.