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00:00When I show people the Find X3 Pro, the reaction is a little bit like Marmite. You either love it or you hate it.
00:07Just like me then. But there's also more than a passing resemblance between this and this, the iPhone 12 Pro Max,
00:14particularly in this color. And actually if I bring it up to the camera, it is very similar.
00:19They've mirrored the camera module and then kind of melted the edges around it, or that's what it kind of looks like.
00:24But in a world of big, bulky phones with sticky-outy camera bumps,
00:28there's something refined and a little bit grown-up about the Find X3 Pro. And I think next to the S21 Ultra,
00:34it's much nicer to hold. It's thinner, it's narrower,
00:37it's a good deal lighter, and it's just more comfortable to carry around in your pocket. Although despite Oppo's
00:43Awaken the Color marketing campaign for this, I can't help it feels just a little bit, well, dull.
00:49I'll tell you what though, this actually kind of makes me miss last year's phone. I think I've got it. Yes, I do.
00:55There it is. It's almost like I prepared for this video. This guy,
00:58this is the Oppo Find X2 Pro from last year in this very snazzy
01:03orange vegan leather design. And love it or hate it, it does kind of stand out.
01:08But what do you reckon? Between these two, which one do you think looks better? Let me know in the comments.
01:12So I've really enjoyed using this for the past couple of weeks.
01:15I fully switched to it as my main phone, and there's a whole lot to like here. But spoiler alert, after this review,
01:21I'm probably going to take my SIM out and put it back in the S21 Ultra, or actually more likely the OnePlus 9 Pro.
01:28But that's, well, that's a different video. That's not to say that this is a bad phone at all.
01:32In fact, it is a really, really good phone.
01:34But I think for the price and what you're getting, it just doesn't quite keep up with some of its rivals.
01:40And well, hopefully by the end of the review, you'll either agree, or if you do disagree and think I'm a complete idiot,
01:45let me know in the comments as well. And if you do enjoy the video, don't forget to hit that like and subscribe button.
01:50So this will set you back a cool £1,099.
01:54I would give you the dollar price, but sadly it's not coming to the US at this point.
01:58And that's the exact same price as the iPhone 12 Pro Max, and just £50 less than the S21 Ultra.
02:05Although, once you factory in, the X3 Pro comes with 256GB of storage as standard, which is great.
02:10It's actually £100 cheaper than the equivalent Samsung.
02:13But that's still an awful lot of money for a brand that doesn't really have a whole lot of brand recognition,
02:19here in the UK at least. Of course, Oppo is huge in China and Asia.
02:22But in the UK, you've probably more likely heard of OnePlus than Oppo.
02:26Still, the X3 Pro does a lot really well.
02:29And you're getting flagship specs, a beautiful 120Hz Quad HD Plus 10-bit screen, a premium albeit divisive design,
02:37fantastic battery life, and also one of the best cameras on any phone.
02:41Although I am almost ashamed to admit it, the standout for me is this 3 megapixel microscope lens,
02:46which I've genuinely had a lot of fun with.
02:48Yes, it's a little bit gimmicky, and it can also be really awkward to use sometimes,
02:52as the focus is so narrow as you're hand shaking and you're trying to keep your subject in focus.
02:57Plus, you'll probably end up forgetting about it after you've, well, shoved your camera into every surface around your house.
03:02But it is genuinely unique, and it's kind of fun to relive your Honey, I Shrunk the Kid fantasies.
03:08So far, so good then.
03:09But if we dive a little bit deeper into this, for that £1,100 price tag, we are missing a couple of features that you would expect.
03:16Firstly, it's using older Gorilla Glass 5 rather than the latest Victus, which protects its rivals.
03:22We're also not getting 8K video, which is a bit odd because the Snapdragon 888 chip does support it.
03:27Plus, the selfie video around the front tops out at 1080p.
03:30They've also downgraded the zoom from last year's Find X2 Pro. The 5x optical is now a 2x optical.
03:37Although to be fair, most people prefer closer range zoom anyway, so that is a sensible choice.
03:42But for this kind of money and looking at what Samsung and Huawei are doing, why not both?
03:46Also, this isn't actually something I expected, but it's slower than every other Snapdragon 888 phone I've tested.
03:53It's not a night-and-day difference, but in benchmarks and even some real-world app launching tests, it just falls behind a little bit.
04:02And finally, Oppo says that they'll only support this with Android and security updates for two years,
04:08which isn't a lot when most big brands now are offering at least three.
04:12But it's not all bad news, and actually one of the surprising highlights for me of this is the battery life.
04:17In fact, I've just finished filming a big battery rundown test, which includes a couple of phones I can't show you just yet, hence the blur.
04:25But despite having a smaller 4,500 mAh battery versus the 5,000 mAh cell on the Samsung, it came out
04:32they were neck-and-neck. And in my real-world experience, by 11 p.m.
04:36I still have about 35% of my battery left.
04:38And of course, with the 65-watt Super VOOC 2 charging, 0 to 100 takes just 30 minutes.
04:44Plus, we're also getting reasonably fast 15-watt wireless charging, which we didn't get on last year's Find X2 Pro.
04:51This 6.7-inch screen is also one of the highlights of this phone. In fact, it's probably one of the best phones
04:57I've... best phones? Best screens I've ever used on a phone.
05:00It has an ever-so-slight curve, just enough to look good, but without any of the normal curvy accidental touching issues.
05:07It's also bright, peaking at 1,300 nits with HDR.
05:10It's an LTPO panel, which means we get an adaptive refresh rate that can dynamically adjust between 5 and 120 Hz,
05:17depending on what's on the screen. And that goes a long way to help improve battery life.
05:20But the real geeky stuff is the 10-bit support.
05:23So, the camera, the software, and the screen all support the wider color gamut and the 1 billion colors you get with a 10-bit display.
05:31So you can snap a photo in 10-bit,
05:33it'll save the file in a very awkward-to-use HEIF file format,
05:37and then you can view it back on the screen with the full 1 billion colors
05:42compared to the usual 16 million you get with an 8-bit screen.
05:45So it's technically very impressive, and of course, looking at videos and photos, or even watching movies on this, it looks incredible.
05:52Although I don't think this feature alone would be enough to convince me to upgrade. As I say, that HEIF file format is
05:58incredibly hard to work with. Don't expect to share or edit them as easily as a regular old JPEG, and to be honest,
06:04I'm hard-pressed to notice any difference that I can see, at least, between an 8-bit and a 10-bit photo that I've taken on the phone.
06:12Although that doesn't take away from the fact that the screen is just stunning to look at, 10-bit or otherwise.
06:17And particularly when you put it in QHD resolution with that 120 Hz refresh mode, and paired with the pretty slick Color OS
06:2411.2 software, which is on top of Android 11, the OPPO is just lovely to use.
06:29And I think overall their software has come a long way in the last few years.
06:33Although it's still not quite as lightweight or slick as, say, OnePlus's Oxygen OS, but it's not far behind.
06:40Okay, let's talk about this camera, because while this microscope lens you can see here with the ring light around it is
06:46fun, what's actually more useful is the fact that both the main and the ultrawide lens use the exact same
06:5350 megapixel camera, the exact same sensor, albeit with a slightly different aperture.
06:57But the result is where you'd normally accept that
07:00ultrawide shots don't look quite as good as ones taken with the main camera, here
07:04they look just as good as each other.
07:06Detail, colors, white balance.
07:08So switching lenses while you're filming feels more seamless, or if you're just taking an ultrawide photo because you want the wider field of view,
07:15you're not sacrificing quality, which I think is a really smart move, and I'd love to see this set up on more phones.
07:21However, the telephoto lens feels like a bit of an afterthought. We're getting a 2x optical zoom with 5x hybrid,
07:28so it does struggle at long distance.
07:30Although up close it fares better, but I still had a few issues with some photos lacking in detail.
07:36So overall quality is really good, and in my S21 Ultra camera comparison, it traded blows.
07:41Although ultimately I still prefer the Samsung for its better zoom and its video options.
07:46Plus the Oppo's colors were sometimes a little bit off.
07:49Some photos looked far too saturated, and also in low-light the white balance in a couple of shots completely missed the mark.
07:56But most of the time I was pretty happy. And finally around the front we get a 32 megapixel selfie camera.
08:02Here photos can look a little bit flat and lacking in detail sometimes, and highlights often look overexposed and a bit blown out.
08:09So there's definitely room for improvement, but on the whole I still think it takes nice selfies.
08:14So with all that said, I do think the Find X3 Pro is a great phone.
08:17I really do, but I don't know how many people would pick this over say the S21 Ultra.
08:23In fact, let me know in the comments which one you would go for, although bear in mind
08:27this is about £50 cheaper. And actually not only that because also at this price point, as I say the exact same as the
08:34iPhone 12 Pro Max,
08:35I'm also expecting the upcoming OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro to undercut this and offer similar, if not slightly better features.
08:43So once again, I'm a bit afraid that the X3 Pro might just get forgotten about.
08:48However, with the microscopic camera, the
08:51uncompromised ultra-wide lens, great battery life, stunning screen and a design that at least sparks some debate,
08:57you definitely won't be disappointed if you buy this.
08:59And I think it's great to see some genuine competition to Samsung's hold on the high-end Android market.
09:05But I think to be really competitive, Oppo just needs to be more aggressive with the price.
09:10But what do you reckon? Would you be tempted to buy one of these? And if not, well, why not?
09:14Let me know in the comments below.
09:15If you did enjoy this video, as I say, give me a thumbs up and tap that subscribe button and the notification bell, all those
09:21annoying things. And I'll see you guys next time right here on The Tech Chat. Thanks for watching.