OPPO released their first foldable smartphone (for me, I consider the flip phones a different category), the Find N just two years ago, almost to the day, in 2021. It may have taken them a couple of years to release a foldable phone here but after using the Find N3 for the past couple of weeks I can say that it’s been worth the wait.
First let’s get the naming convention in order. Although the OPPO Find N3 does not have Fold in its official name you will often see it added to it by others to help describe what it is. It is a foldable device that is a direct competitor to the Samsung Galaxy Fold series. It has a normal-sized outer display and a large tablet-sized display on the inside when unfolded.
There may be some worries with Samsung’s patents over the Fold name which prevented OPPO adding that to the name but it didn’t stop them with the Find N3 Flip. Whatever the case, this Find N3 is for all intents and purposes the Find N3 Fold, albeit without an official Fold at the end.
Design + hardware
It’s difficult to know where to start with a foldable smartphone such as this behemoth. By behemoth I don’t mean (large in size) but what it is is massive. The concept is not new but its represents a massive leap in foldables (note. This is outside of China of course as there are some big players there with great foldables there that we never see here in Australia).
Never before have we seen a foldable smartphone with a ultra-premium imaging experience but that is what the OPPO Find N3 promises. It does all that with a thinness that we have never experienced in a smartphone before and a foldable display which has a near-invisible, near to unfeelable crease.
In the end, a foldable is all about making a bigger device smaller so let’s start with that.
Folded up, the Find N3 is just 11.9mm thick, 153.5mm high and 73.3mm wide. To put it in relative terms, that is 6mm shorter, 3mm less wide, and 3mm thicker than the iPhone 15 Pro Max. With the case on both of them they actually felt about the same size (width and thickness-wise) in the hand. This is incredibly impressive by OPPO given that foldables have traditionally been extremely thick.
Open up the Find N3 and hold it in your hands because at that stage you will be amazed at just how thin it is while open. Measuring a massive 143.1mm wide, it is incredibly thin at just 5.8mm.
It is apparently the same thinness as the Pixel Fold but we wouldn’t know that as Google decided Australia wasn’t a big enough market to release that here (they are probably right but that doesn’t mean many of us aren’t dirty on them for it). Only Honor and Xiaomi have released thinner smartphones (both foldables) ever. The Find N3 I found be be incredibly comfortable and light (239 grams) to hold, especially while open.
Inside the body of such a thin smartphone is nothing but the best with it powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 combined with 16GB of LPPDDR5x RAM and 512GB of UFS 4.0 storage. Fast, with plenty of storage – more than I could ever need but I’ll discuss this storage size later when discussing who this phone is for.
Other specs that are also top of the line include Bluetooth 5.3 support, dual SIM capabilities, Wi-Fi 6 support and NFC (der, of course).
In a bid to keep that thickness so thin, parts have had to be moved around so OPPO has opted to include a side-mounted fingerprint sensor in the power button. They use something similar to this (I am unsure if it is the exact same part number) in their mid-ringe smartphones so it is no surprise that it is quick, accurate and consistent.
When recording your fingerprints on it, it is best to think about how you will be holding the phone when you unlock it given that you will most likely be using it differently to how you would a traditional candy-bar smartphone.
OPPO has also included their face unlock which is the fastest in the business but a this stage does not pass Android security requirements for using it for secure elements of the operating system such as banking apps, Google Wallet etc. For this reason you will most likely need to lock your phone and then unlock it away from your face with your fingerprint when wanting to use any of these. The face unlock is far too fast otherwise and won’t let you make any secure payments etc.
One last addition to the Find N3 by OPPO is the alert slider. Synonymous with OnePlus since their first iterations of smartphones, it seems that OPPO has enveloped the alert slider when they enveloped OnePlus. This is a good thing with the alert slider button allowing you to quickly switch between Silent, Vibrate and Ring mode. Hopefully it becomes a staple for all OPPO smartphones in the future.
Displays
The reason for a foldable phone is to allow a bigger display to fit into a smaller form factor. The displays on the OPPO Find N3 are impressive to say the least, as you would expect, given the quality of the displays we have seen on their flagship smartphones in recent years.
The outer display is an impressive 6.3-inch 20:9 AMOLED display with LTPO and a resolution of 2484 x 1116 pixels. The LTPO means that the refresh rate of the display can be anywhere between 1 and 120Hz, configured by the software and based upon what is on the display and what refresh rate is required by it at that time.
It has a peak brightness of 2,800 nits is even higher than that of the Pixel 8 Pro which has an impressive 2,400 nits. I was able to easily use the phone under any and all levels of outdoor brightness thanks to this. Keep in mind that the brighter it is though, the more battery will be eaten up by the display.
This outer display is as good as any premium smartphone display on the market. It is not set at vibrant as the Galaxy S23 Ultra but with the Pixel 8 Pro side-by-side the two are virtually identical. If you rarely open this foldable you could easily use it as a single display smartphone – which is what I did most of the time due to various reasons.
Open, the internal display is equally impressive. As for the outer display, the inner display is also an AMOLED display (this time flexible of course) with LTPO. It is a massive 7.8-inches in size with a display ration that is new to OPPO of 9.7:9. Previously their Find N foldables have been shorter making them more of a widescreen format but this year went for something between this (and the Pixel Fold) and the taller but not as wide Galaxy Fold.
The resolution is effectively double that of the outer display at 2440 x 2268 pixels making for an incredibly detailed display.
These days all displays on premium smartphones are impressive but what sets this foldable display apart from other foldable inner displays is the crease. With the display off but open, you can see a very small crease. Turn the display on an you have to search incredibly hard and thoroughly to be able to see the crease. Scrolling across the crease you would be forgiven for missing it. Yes, you can barely feel it.
I thought the crease, or lack thereof, was impressive on my Motorola Razr 40 Ultra but the Find N3 is next level. The Flexion Hinge created by OPPO has allowed them to somehow nearly entirely flatten out the centre of the unfolded display. I’m super impressed with it and if this development keeps going at this pace then we will have zero creases within a couple of short years. The crease is a non-element with the Find N3 though, that’s how small and inobtrusive it is.
One this about this display though, it offers amazing views of all media but in the end Android is just not optimised for it and I blame Google. YouTube, Netflix, Kayo, NBA etc all offered a slightly larger than a standard smartphone viewing experience but not by much. The advantage is that you can have other apps open alongside or over the top in a floating window at the same time.
What the videos do not do by default is to display the video in the upper half of the display when opened to 90 degrees. This needs to be coded into each app so it works for YouTube and Netflix but not for NBA (which does not surprise me – why would a billion dollar company such as the NBA ever spend the required time and money to properly code their app for their paying customers to enjoy) or Kayo doesn’t operate properly either.
I wonder if Google could somehow implement this better into the base OS to give the option to force apps or videos to do this – or OPPO but this should be Google doing this.
ColorOS 13.2
The OPPO Find N3 arrives with ColorOS 13.2 onboard and OPPO has this time stated that it will receive four years of software updates and five years of security updates. This should suit most people and their timeframes with this device.
We’ve gone over the ColorOS skin a lot in recent years and it works really well on this foldable with the launcher optimised quite well – although I would like the option of having a different home screen on the outside compared to the inside display. At the moment, the inside display shows the two main home pages as its home screen.
I touched on my next gripe above and I think in the end it is a Google issue (ie. an Android OS issues) and not OPPO’s fault. There are far too many apps (nearly every single one) which do not have a large foldable screen-optimised experience.
Everything from Gmail to even Reddit apps do not have a large foldable display view. I would much prefer apps scale to a tablet mode when the display is open because effectively that is what that large display is – a tablet display.
There is no way to force an app to open into tablet mode – I even tried messing around with the DPI but just couldn’t find that sweet spot to get the tablet implementation working on the apps. I love how Gmail, Relay for Reddit etc have the left hand panel in view at all times and this would work well on a foldable.
Instagram and WhatsApp have their tablet modes implemented in the foldable but there’s not many others. So who’s fault is this? OPPO *could* implement something to force apps to open in tablet mode but I dare say Google would not be happy with them messing with apps they have approved etc so it’s entirely on Google.
Google, if they want foldables to become more usable and mainstream, need to implement some kind of fix – even an option in the Settings to use table mode or phone mode for an app when the display is open – or just make all apps go into tablet mode (although not all apps have a tablet mode).
OPPO’s Foldable-specific Software
OPPO has done some decent work with their own foldable-specific software with their Boundless View which allows up to three apps to be placed side by side on the display, with each app able to fill nearly the entire open display. You can then move the displayed apps left and right to view each app as required.
Multitasking works well but I would like a bit more power to enforce apps into multidisplay. I can put the NBA app streaming a game in the top half of the display but I cannot put a different app at the bottom to work or read something at the same time – well, you can put it there but normally cannot resize it. This is where boundless view can help.
The Cameras
Never before have we seen a premium-quality camera in a foldable smartphone but that is what OPPO has done with the Find N3. The rear trplie camera setup not only suggests that with its specs but also with the quality of images it produces.
OPPO has included a “customised ultra-thin periscope system” for amazing telephoto and zoom images and to make these long range shots stable has included advanced OIS for the camera. The Find N3’s 64MP periscope telephoto makes a 3x optical zoom, 6x lossless zoom by cropping within the sensor, and up to 120x digital zoom possible.
Rear camera specs
- 48MP wide camera – Sony LYTIA-T808
- 48MP Ultra Wide – Sony IMX581
- 64MP Telephoto
External selfie camera • 32MP
Internal selfie camera • 20MP
I took the Find N3’s camera for a spin around Melbourne in various lighting conditions with some side by side with the iPhone 15 Pro Max and the Pixel 8 Pro and was impressed with the results.
As you would expect, that with a foldable smartphone and a premium triple rear camera on the back it be best to use this premium rear camera for “selfies” and it is indeed relatively simple to do so. Open the phone out, switch the camera app to the front viewfinder and it will automatically use the rear camera system. The results were a lot better with this than the other selfie cameras, which were no slouch of course but best suited to video calls etc.
Battery life and charging
The battery life on the OPPO Find N3 is good but not great. I was able to eek out a day or my standard high use but that depends on how much you use the internal, folded out display. I use it mostly at home but if you are out and about using it a lot for work you will likely need to plug it in during the day sometime.
Luckily, OPPO has included their SuperVOOC 67W fast charging which is about it. I would have liked 80W (or more) instead and given that the Find X5 Pro from 2022 has 80W it does surprise me that this phone more than 18 months on goes back to 67W charging – likely a heat issue but that is just me guessing.
One last gripe – wireless charging. Although in the past OPPO has included fast wireless charging (up to 50W!) along with fast wired chaarging in their smartphones, their sub-brand OnePlus has not, instead stating that wireless charging is not required when you have wired charging this fast.
That is one argument you could make. The other is that wireless charging is so much a part of most people’s tech arsenal with even cars including it nearly as standard in 2023 that why would you remove this? Size I dare say. This phone is so impressively thin that something had to give I dare say and the wireless charging was one thing that made way for the thinness.
Can I live without wireless charging on the Find N3? Of course. For me it’s not a massive issue with my day job taking me out and about on the road all day.
Final thoughts and who should buy this?
To take Trevor’s words: “Oppo’s biggest issue with the Find N3 Fold will be price. At $2,699 it’s not cheap – at all. It’s $100 less than the equivalent capacity Samsung, but there are so often discounts that you’re definitely going to pay less for a Samsung, however, if you are genuinely platform agnostic, I think the Oppo is a better choice of the two.”
I couldn’t agree more, with all of this. The OPPO Find N3 is an amazing smartphone. Both displays are top notch and with the outer display approximately the same size as that on a standard smartphone it makes it easy, and a pleasure, to use either way, open or closed.
Opening up, the Find N3 offers a big beautiful display that is great at multitasking thanks to OPPO but the overall experience isn’t what iot could and should be, thanks to Google. Being able to force tablet mode for some/all apps would solve a lot of these issues immediately.
The OPPO Find N3 finally brings an ultra-premium photography experience to a foldable device with the triple rear camera capable in all light conditions with amazinbg detail and colours in both day and night environments.
I would really really like to buy an OPPO Find N3 but the price holds me back — although it is a standard price for a folding smartphone. I don’t really NEED one for work — but if work wanted to buy me one I would not say no — and although using the inner display when sitting on the couch surfing the socials or watching the basketball is a great experience I can do the same with my tablet. Spending what you’d spend of a quality desktop PC for a phone is a tough sell but something I’m going to try and figure out how to get past the CFO.
In saying that, the foldable smartphone obviosuly has a place with Samsung doing well with their fold. OPPO has improved on the Samsung Galaxy Fold in so many ways so if you were to buy a folding smartphone, then the OPPO Find N3 is in your future. For many professions a larger display and the ability to multi-task are essential and it is for these people that foldable phones should currently be for — until prices drop.
