Oppo Find X5 Pro review

Nowadays, there’s a number of things you can expect from a top-of-the-range flagship phone. You can expect it to take good pictures, boast fast performance, have a vibrant, sharp display and have a battery that will last all-day. Oppo’s Find X5 Pro meets all these criteria.

The standout feature here is the battery. The Find X5 Pro has one of the best batteries on the market. Compatible with 80W charging it fully charges in 12 minutes and is way faster than its competitors.

Its camera array is lacking though. If you’re looking for a phone for zoomed photography, this isn’t it. Samsung’s S22 Ultra and the iPhone 13 Pro Max are better. That said, the Find X5 Pro still takes great photos that you’re going to love, but the 2x telephoto lens for zoomed photography is behind the competition.

In short: If you want a premium phone you can fully charge over a morning coffee, the Find X5 Pro is best in class. Everything else is on a par with the competition – the display is vibrant, the performance is fast and the design is elegant and sleek. The only thing holding it back is its cameras…which are still pretty good. 

See also: iPhone 14 release date

Price

The Find X5 Pro costs $1999. At this price you’re getting 256GB of storage and 12GB of RAM. This is a little cheaper than the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra with 256GB of storage and 12GB RAM which costs $2,099, and the iPhone 13 Pro Max with 256GB of storage which costs $2,199.

The price difference isn’t large enough to claim the Find X5 Pro is significantly cheaper than the competition, but it’s competitively priced.

Design

Nowadays phone manufacturers like to make their flagship phones big. Both the iPhone 13 Pro Max and the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra are big devices. The Find X5 Pro maintains that trend.

This is a long and slim device measuring 163.7 x 73.9 x 85mm and weighing 195g. It doesn’t feel as chunky as other devices, but it does feel longer. It’s a good centimetre longer than my iPhone 13 Pro but I didn’t have any issues with this. It sat nicely in my pocket and it was just as easy to use as any other phone.

The Find X5 Pro has a futuristic, “space-age” style that’s elegant and polished. The device comes in two colours, Ceramic White and Glaze Black. For our review device we were given the Glaze Black version. It’s simple and minimalistic, perfect for my tastes, however if you like your phone to look more flashy, unfortunately there’s no other colour options.

The back of the device boasts a ceramic metal that Oppo claims is twice as hard as glass. While I wasn’t brave enough to test its strengths, it feels sturdy and strong in hand. I did notice the ceramic material was shocking for collecting fingerprints and smudges though. The material is reflective and it gives off a shiny, chrome sheen that I spent a lot of time wiping to get rid of marks.

The front display is made from Gorilla Glass Victus which is the toughest available. The phone has an IP68 resistance rating meaning it’s splashproof, waterproof and dustproof. It will survive 30 minutes underwater at a maximum depth of 1.5m and you won’t need to worry about sand or dirt damaging the phone so you can take it to the beach or park without worry.

The camera bump nicely blends into the back of the phone. It’s only slightly raised and the ceramic back curves up, forming a seamless array. It also has little subtleties that I liked. The bottom edge of the bump has a 75° angle so it rests naturally on top of the index finger when holding the phone, making it a comfortable hold and preventing touching the lenses with fingers. 

I didn’t like the amount of writing embedded on the back of the device. In the bottom right there’s Oppo and Hasselblad in big letters, further up there’s a smattering of words highlighting Oppo’s HQ address in China and above that are some large icons that feel unnecessary. It all takes away from the minimalist, stylish look. It can be covered up with a case but you shouldn’t need a case to make a phone look better.

Display

The Find X5 Pro boasts a 6.7-inch AMOLED, 120Hz display at 1440 x 3216 resolution and a max brightness of 1300 nits. This is the same display found in the Find X3 Pro.

While Oppo hasn’t introduced any improvements or upgrades with the display, it’s still a brilliant screen. It’s bright, vibrant and smooth to navigate.

The display has curved edges which gives the illusion of a bezel-less device. It looks and feels massive boasting a 92.7% screen-to-body ratio.

Underneath the display there’s an in-screen fingerprint scanner. This feels more responsive than the scanner found in the X3 Pro and was a nice improvement. 

Camera

The Find X5 Pro has a 50MP f/1.7 main camera, a 50MP f/2.2 ultrawide and a 13MP f/2.4 telephoto lens with 2x optical zoom.

Other than the F-stop values, this is almost identical to the camera array found on the Find X3 Pro. It doesn’t have the “microlens” camera though. While this felt a bit gimmicky and I struggled to find any “real” uses for it when testing the Find X3 Pro, it’s never nice to have something removed.

In this comparison between the Find X5 Pro and the iPhone 13 Pro 1x images, we can see that there is very little to seperate them. The Find X5 Pro produces a more saturated image, the colours look more vibrant while the iPhone 13 Pro produces a more realistic portrayal of the colours. There is no clear winner here, it’s down to personal preference.

Similarly, when comparing the Find X5 Pro with the S22 Ultra we can see the Find X5 Pro produces a more saturated image

There’s no denying this phone can take great photos, but there are areas where other flagship phones are better. The most obvious is zoomed photography. Compared to the S22 Ultra and the iPhone 13 Pro Max, the Find X5 Pro struggles. The 2x telephoto lens isn’t nearly as good as the S22 Ultra’s industry leading 10x telephoto lens and even the iPhone 13’s 5x telephoto is better for zoomed photography.

When comparing the Find X5 Pro with the iPhone 13 Pro at 3x zoom, the iPhone produces a sharper image. The best way to see this is if you look at the edges of the Lego minifigures. At 3x zoom the Find X5 Pro is no longer relying only on its maximum 2x telephoto lens. It needs to use AI algorithms to predict colours and shapes and it the result is a less-sharp looking image. With that said, the differences are only minor.

It’s a similar story when comparing the Find X5 Pro with the S22 Ultra at 3x zoom. The S22 Ultra produces a sharper image. If you look at the holes in the board that the Lego is sitting on top of, you can see they’re sharper and more defined in the S22 Ultra image.

Neither of these images are great. At 10x zoom, both the 2x telephoto lens in the Find X5 Pro and the 5x telephoto lens in the iPhone 13 Pro are being assisted by AI algorithms to produce the image. The iPhone 13 Pro does a better job at making the image clearer.

The S22 Ultra with its 10x telephoto lens is still the market leader for zoomed photography. At 10x zoom it doesnt have to rely on AI algorithms to predict images and instead uses hardware built into the lens to produce a much clearer image than both the Find X5 Pro and the iPhone 13 Pro. If you look at the figure in the center you can easily see the freckles on his face in the image taken by the S22 Ultra, whereas the Find X5 Pro image is significantly less detailed.

In low light conditions there’s very little to separate the two phones. The iPhone 13 Pro produces a slightly brighter image and that’s about it.

Similarly there isn’t much to separate these images however the S22 Ultra does a better job of lighting up the subject in low-light conditions.

Portrait photos look great. There’s an easy to use slider that makes the background less or more blurry. It can be tweaked and adjusted to take the perfect image. If hairs in a selfie are a little bit blurred, adjust the levels and bring them into focus. It’s that easy. This isn’t groundbreaking technology but it was easy and effective.

An area where the Find X5 Pro is very good is recording videos. The Find X5 Pro can record video in 8K and up to 4K at 30fps and 60fps. When recording in 4K the Find X5 Pro utilises Oppo’s own NPU, MariSilicon X. This chip uses AI to reduce noise in dark areas while retaining details in bright areas at 4K resolution. It also enhances the performance of the sensor to produce a greater dynamic range. Basically what that means is, if you’re filming in unfavourable lighting conditions the chip will use AI algorithms to light up the subject and make the video look a lot better.

The device also has very good optical image stabilisation capabilities. The 5-axis stabiliser does a great job of keeping footage smooth. Shots where I was moving looked less bumpy and janky as a result. Unfortunately, the most advanced stabilisation, Ultra Steady Pro, is only compatible with 720 or 1080p filming. It would’ve been great to see this with 4K footage but the technology doesn’t seem to be there yet as it’s the same for the S22 Ultra. 

Performance

As you’d expect from a premium device, the Find X5 Pro flies. It has the same chipset as the Samsung S22 Ultra, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and it’s a powerful, efficient device.

Whatever you throw at it, the Find X5 Pro is going to handle it. Combined with the MariSilicon X NPU real-time RAW photo processing is quick and efficient. This is something that historically can slow devices and it was a breeze here. I was able to play graphically demanding games like Genshin Impact without any stuttering and navigating the device was seamless.

The Find X5 Pro uses Android 12 and has its own ColorOS layered on top. I like this combination. It’s easy to navigate, everything is easy to find and ColorOS allows for a significant amount of personalisation. There’s an always-on display that can be customised with personal pictures, you can change the pattern the fingerprint sensor makes when unlocking the phone and a lot more.

Battery

The battery inside the Find X5 Pro is one of the best on the market. It’s not a ridiculously large battery at 5,000mAh but it easily lasts all day for general use. Gamers or performance users might be able to drain the battery quicker however for normal use it’s fine.

If you are a performance user you’ll be happy to know the Find X5 Pro is compatible with 80W SuperVOOC charging. This is easily the best charging capabilities available on the market, charging the Find X5 Pro from empty to 50% in only 12 minutes. This speedy charging meant I didn’t have to leave the phone on charge overnight and if I had forgotten to charge it I could plug it in, make a morning hot chocolate and it was full, ready for the day.

To put this in perspective it’s almost twice as fast as the S22 Ultra’s 45W charging capabilities and four times faster than the iPhone 13 Pro Max’s 20W capabilities.

It also supports 50W AirVOOC wireless charging which again is ridiculously fast. It’s faster than the S22 Ultra and the iPhone 13 Pro Max’s wired charging speeds. Oppo simply has the best charging capabilities on the market.

If you’re worried about this high-wattage charging frying the battery, Oppo claims to have doubled the charging cycles of the Find X5 Pro from 800 to 1600. This means you can charge the device 1600 times from 0 to 100% before you’ll see any decline in performance. I love this. It means you won’t need to buy a new phone for 3-4 years.

The Find X5 Pro also comes with an 80W charger in the box. Something I’ll always be a fan of.

Verdict

Oppo’s Find X5 Pro is a premium device that hits all the marks. It has a vibrant display, it’s fast and efficient and it’s a sleek, stylish phone. 

The battery capabilities, especially the 80W SuperVOOC charging, is what makes this device standout from the competition. It comes with a charger in the box and can be charged from 50% to 100% in 12 minutes. It’s very impressive and much quicker than both the Samsung S22 Ultra and the iPhone 13 Pro Max.

You can take great photos with this device however the camera hardware is behind the competition. The 2x telephoto lens is lacking when compared to the 10x and 5x capabilities of the S22 Ultra and the iPhone 13 Pro Max. If you’re using your phone for zoomed pictures, Samsung’s flagship device still leads the market. 

The Find X5 Pro is slightly cheaper than the competition, it boasts competitive performance and can do everything you want it to do. If you’re a performance user who churns through your phone’s battery, you can’t beat the Find X5 Pro.