Oppo looks to fill the gap vacated by Huawei with the $1,599 flagship Find X2 Pro – EFTM goes Hand’s On

While Huawei are still very much alive as a company and as a brand, their ability to sell mobile handsets in Australia has been severely limited by the US & China trade war. Enter Oppo, who have been gradually increasing the specs, quality and price range they play in and in 2020 they’re looking to jump right into the gap left by Huawei.

With no flagship Huawei devices, the telcos and retailers don’t have much at the high end other than Samsung, and while Samsung dominates, sometimes offering an alternative is a great thing for retail.

Originally scheduled to be announced a week ago in Barcelona, Oppo today hosted a global “live stream” announcement of the Find X2 Pro – their latest flagship device.

And as Oppo’s Aussie boss Michael Tran points out, this is all about 5G “With the announcement of the Find X2 Pro, we are setting a new standard for smartphones in the 5G era,”

“In 2020, we expect 5G to drive an explosion in streaming high-quality videos and mobile gaming. The smartphone will remain the centrepiece of our new connected world,  so it’s essential to have one that can meet all the demands of 5G. The Find X2 Pro does just that, and more.”

Oppo say they have 2500 5G related patents, and proudly spruik having made the first 5G Video call, and first 5G Internet connection.

Chip supplier Qualcomm say there will be 200 million 5G phones sold in 2020!

Oppo’s Find X2 Pro features both standalone and non-standalone networking, meaning it’s going to work now, when a 4G connection starts the process of getting onto 5G, plus it will work in a future fully 5G connected space.

It also features 12 antenna’s around the body, 8 of them for 5G alone.

While the Find X was innovative with its pop up camera, the Find X2 Pro goes back to regular style selfie cameras, with a punch hole in the display, and a triple-lens camera system on the back.

Those rear cameras are a 13MP Periscope camera capable of 10X Hybrid Zoom and 60x Digital Zoom. A 48MP ultra-wide camera with 120-degree field of view and an amazing 3cm close macro mode, and finally a 48MP wide-angle.

They’ve already had it DXOMark rated where it scores 124, equal number 1 with the Xiaomi Mi 10 Pro.

Oppo are proud of the screen, featuring a “true billion colour” range, and a 120Hz refresh rate. There’s also a higher sensitivity on the touch screen so there’s a real push to gaming on this one.

Powered by a 4260mAh battery, this will be an all-day workhorse. Forget to charge it? No worries, 38 minutes to charge it fully. That’s crazy stuff.

And, Oppo themselves say “supports the full ecosystem of Google Mobile Services” I wonder what they’re getting at there? 🙂

Available in Ceramic Black (Grey) and “Vegan” Orange leather, it’s a good looking phone.

But it’s also $1,599.

That’s in the range of the Galaxy S20+ with 5G. I struggle to see how Oppo compete head to head with Samsung S20+ here and think this should be around $200 cheaper, but, hey, they know the market, perhaps the lack of competition is driving their chance to up their game on price and market share.

Time will tell.

It will ship before the middle of the year, we’ll have a full review when that gets closer.