Device Review: Oppo Find X3 Pro

At over £1,000 the Find X3 Pro plays firmly in the premium segment and should be considered as an alternative 

A few months after the release of the Oppo Find X3 Pro, Mobile News put the smartphone through its paces.

As the third Find X phone in the series, expectations were fairly high ahead of testing out Oppo’s flagship smartphone series.

Last year I was able to test out the previous iteration, when I reviewed the Oppo Find X2 Pro. 

I was a big fan of that particular model, rating the phone a 4.5/5 at the time, so anticipation was high to see if the Find X3 Pro can achieve similar status.

At just over £1,000, the Find X3 Pro is one of the pricier smartphones on the market and pushes big hitters Apple and Samsung for price.

At such a price, I was expecting the phone to be high quality and I was excited to use the phone to catalogue my recent trip to Dubai. Could the high-price tag be justified?

Specs

The standout features from the Oppo Find X3 Pro includes the quad camera setup and sizeable 16GB of RAM.

Below is a list of the full specs that the Oppo Find X3 Pro comes with:

OS: Android 11 with ColorOS 11.2

Processor: Qualcomm SM8350 Snapdragon 888 5G (8 nm)

Screen: 6.7-inches

Resolution: 1,440 x 3,216 pixels

Memory: 8GB, 12GB or 16GB RAM

Internal storage: 256GB or 512GB

External memory: n/a

Rear camera: Quad camera 50MP + 13MP + 50MP + 3MP

Front camera: 32MP

Battery: 4,500mAh

Dimensions: 163.6 x 74 x 8.33mm

Weight: 193g

Design

I’ll try to avoid comparing the Find X3 Pro with last year’s Find X2 Pro, but I must admit I prefer the design of the latest model.

On the face of it, the Find X3 Pro looks similar to the Find X2 Pro, with it’s punch-hole camera in the left corner of the screen. And at 6.7-inches is the exact same size as last year’s model.

However it’s on the rear where I think the Find X3 Pro looks really sharp, with it’s camera set up showing off the rear quad camera (see image below), while the back of the phone is made of glass.

I did find the phone slightly heavy, although I am used to using iPhones which weigh a lot less and are much smaller in size.

As you’d expect with most flagship smartphones now, there’s no headphone jack, while the SIM card slot sits on the bottom of the phone, next to the charging port.

Camera

My expectations for the camera were high and thankfully the Oppo doesn’t disappoint.

With a quad camera on the rear, of which the main snapper is a 50MP camera, I was able to take some amazing shots, both during the day and at night.

The camera was able to bring colours to life and really offered a big improvement on my day to day iPhone 8 (yes, I know I really should get an upgrade!).

It’s complimented by a 50MP ultra-wide lens, a 13MP telephoto lens and a 3MP micro-lens. On the front there’s a 32MP selfie camera, which was also able to stand up well.

Below are some sample shots I was able to take in Dubai and our recent Mobile News Golf Day at The Warwickshire.

One of the things that impressed me the most with the Oppo Find X3 Pro was the night mode feature.

I’ve often been underwhelmed when using this feature on a range of phones in the past, but I was really impressed with the Find X3 Pro’s ability to make photos look brilliant in such dark conditions, so much so, that it looks like day.

If I could have any qualms with the camera on this phone, it would be around the Zoom feature. I found it difficult to stabilise when using beyond five times zoom. The phone can go up to 20x zoom.

However I’d be happy to overlook this as it’s not a game changer of a feature for me.

Performance

Being powered by the Snapdragon 888 chipset, the Oppo Find X3 Pro had the latest and greatest processor at the time of launch.

This performance of this kit was certainly noted as the phone performed effortlessly and so fluently throughout my usage.

More importantly though the battery life was more than up to the task for the long days of usage.

I found that I could use the phone quite heavily for nearly two days before having the fear that my phone might die. And with a 4,500mAh that’s the very least that you can expect.

Even when I did need to charge the Find X3 Pro, charging was a painless experience as the 65W speeds allowed for instant charging, with zero to full in close to 40 minutes.

Another important feature of this phone was the very generous 256GB of storage and RAM, with either 8GB, 12GB or 16GB available.

Summary

At such a high price-point, the Oppo Find X3 Pro is aiming to challenge big names such as Apple and Samsung, and with this smartphone, Oppo has every chance.

I found the phone to feel very premium – which you’d expect at such a price – and was blown away by some of the killer features, such as the quad camera, which is by no means a new thing in the mobile space.

But it was the way the camera worked together, which was well demonstrated through some of the photos I was able to take. Night mode in particular was a winner for me.

The performance of the phone with its long-lasting battery and slick design were also plus points for the Find X3 Pro.

Maybe the phone could be slightly cheaper, but overall my experience of using the Find X3 Pro was really enjoyable.

Verdict

Overall 4.5/5

Speed 4.5/5

Camera 5/5

Battery 5/5

Design 4.5/5

Value 4.5/5

Availability: O2, EE, Carphone Warehouse, Virgin Media, Vodafone, Amazon and on OPPO’s e-store

Pricing: £1,099

Colour availability: Gloss Black, Blue, White, Cosmic Mocha, Mars Edition, Photographer Edition