OPPO has pulled out all the stops for 2022, and the OPPO Find X5 Pro and OPPO Find X5 are its tools to conquer the high-end. The ambition in photography is greater than ever, signing an agreement with Hasselblad, developing its own NPU to process images, and promising significant improvements in the final results of its camera.
Passes through our analysis table the OPPO Find X5 Pro, OPPO’s flagship and firm candidate to be one of the best mobiles of 2022. Power, 80W fast charging, and cameras that promise, let’s see if it is as good as its technical sheet promises.
Design
The OPPO Find X5 Pro follows the line of its predecessor, the Find X3 Pro. We are facing a phone finished in ceramic and aluminum, having especially liked the oleophobic treatment of its back. Despite not being matte, but glossy, it hardly picks up fingerprints, so it is quite difficult to get it dirty when we use it without a case.
The finish is “glossy”, but neither slippery nor dirty. The OPPO Find X5 Pro has one of the best glass treatments in the high-end range.
As it is usually associated with mobiles that get a little dirty, it does not slip too much, something that helps quite a bit in the experience with ergonomics. OPPO is managing to treat the glass as the high-end deserves, and the Find X5 Pro is the clearest proof of this.
The camera module is quite different in terms of design compared to what we are used to seeing in the high-end. It is more refined in terms of lines compared to the last generation, and now the lenses are fully integrated into the module, without protruding the slightest.
The aluminum side is well treated, repeating the curvatures seen in the OPPO Find X5 Pro. Here, curiously, we were more convinced by the treatment of its twin brother the Realme GT 2 Pro, with aluminum coated in matte, somewhat less dirty. On the Find X5 Pro we still get a premium finish on the bezels, but they do get dirty easily.
The keypad is more than solid, with volume buttons at a reasonable height and a slightly high power button, but that does not cause much of a problem. There isn’t a bad finish, a gap between glass and bezel, or the slightest hint that the X5 Pro’s construction process hasn’t been exquisite.
The SIM slot, speaker, and C port are located at the bottom, leaving the upper part without elements. In short, great news both on the sides and on the back: it is a premium phone at the height of what is expected in its price range.
If we look at it from the front, we have a good exercise in frontal utilization. Specifically, 89.6% The lower chin is minimal, the sides are well utilized, although there has been no improvement over the previous generation. In fact, they are exactly the same frames and front utilization numerically speaking.
| HEIGHT (MILLIMETERS) | WIDTH (MM) | THICKNESS (MILLIMETERS) | WEIGHT (GRAMS) | SCREEN (INCHES) | DRUMS | SURFACE (CM²) | VOLUME (CM3) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OPPO FIND X5 PRO | 163,7 | 73,9 | 8,5 | 218 | 6,7 | 5.000 | 120,97 | 102,82 |
| HUAWEI MATE 40 PRO | 162,9 | 75,5 | 9,1 | 212 | 6,76 | 4.400 | 122,99 | 111,92 |
| IPHONE 13 PRO MAX | 160,8 | 78,5 | 7,65 | 238 | 6,7 | 4.352 | 125,59 | 96,07 |
| SAMSUNG GALAXY S22 ULTRA | 163,3 | 77,9 | 8,9 | 228 | 6,71 | 5.000 | 127,21 | 113,21 |
| XIAOMI MI 11 ULTRA | 164,3 | 74,6 | 8,38 | 234 | 6,81 | 5.000 | 122,57 | 102,71 |
| SONY XPERIA 5 III | 157 | 68 | 8,2 | 169 | 6,1 | 4.500 | 106,76 | 87,54 |
| ONEPLUS 9 PRO | 163,2 | 73,6 | 8,7 | 197 | 6,7 | 4.500 | 120,12 | 104,5 |
If we talk about the compactness exercise, we are facing a large and heavy mobile, with more than 16 centimeters high and almost 220 grams in weight. It is still somewhat lighter than an iPhone 13 Pro Max, Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra, or Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, but it is inevitably a huge phone. Its ergonomics are enhanced by the good grip on the back, but it is not a comfortable phone to use with one hand.
In short, the OPPO Find X5 Pro has a design aligned with the premium high-end: it is huge, well built, and has premium materials.
Display
From the settings, we can calibrate the panel in natural and intense modes, plus a Pro ‘Cinematic’ mode that forces the P3 profile and another Pro ‘Bright’ profile that promises to be the most faithful color reproduction. We found ourselves comfortable with the warmer, natural mode without too much saturation, and while it falls far short of perfect calibration, it does its job well.
OPPO is once again betting on a 6.7-inch AMOLED panel, with Quad HD+ resolution and LTPO type tee to achieve adaptive refresh. The promise is 800 nits of typical brightness and a maximum peak of up to 1300. In the panel, we have not noticed an improvement over last year’s model, something that is not bad news. We have a very sharp screen, with a decent maximum brightness outdoors and with correct calibration.
The refresh rate works particularly well: when we don’t touch it, it goes down to 1 Hz, and as soon as we make contact with the panel, it goes up to 120 Hz. Playing video also jumps between 30 and 60 Hz, measured from the terminal’s own developer options.
The viewing angles are also good (though not excellent), with the main problem of curved screens: shadows on the sides as soon as we move the phone. The curve is not a problem, but it doesn’t add anything beyond the visual. We haven’t had any phantom touches or too many problems with the gesture system, but Quad HD+ panels without a curve are starting to arrive, and these do fully convince.
The OPPO Find X5 Pro has been conservative with the panel. We do not approach the 2,000 nits of the maximum peak, the refresh rate is not increased and no experiments are made: it has opted for what already worked, and it has not been a bad decision.
OPPO Find X5 Pro spec sheet
| OPPO FIND X5 PRO | |
|---|---|
| DIMENSIONS AND WEIGHT | 163,7 mm x 73,9 mm x 8,6 mm 226g |
| SCREEN | 6.7 inches 120 Hz adaptive resolution Quad HD+ AMOLED type LTPO Gorilla Glass Victus |
| PROCESSOR | Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 |
| MEMORIES | 12 + 256 GB (UFS 3.1 / DDR5) |
| REAR CAMERA | 50 MP 50 MP UGA 13 MP 2X telephoto (5X hybrid) |
| FRONT CAMERA | 32 MP |
| SOFTWARE | Android 12 ColorOS 12.1 |
| DRUMS | 5,000mAh 80W fast charge 50W AirVooc |
| CONNECTIVITY | Dual 5G WiFi 6 NFC GLONASS QZSS |
| PRICE | 1.299 euros |
Performance
Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, 12 GB of RAM and 256 GB of internal memory: the perfect formula for an Android to fly. The OPPO Find X5 Pro is one of the fastest phones on the market, without a trace of lag, with superlative performance in games and with opening times in apps practically instantaneous.
The OPPO Find X5 Pro flies: games run spectacularly, apps open fast and there is no trace of a lack of optimization.
ColorOS helps a lot with this feeling of fluidity, and despite being a newborn mobile is highly optimized, the animations fly and the user experience is outstanding. We have not noticed significant increases in temperature, although the degrees rise quickly when we demanded proposals such as ‘Genshin Impact’.
The OPPO stands out for the good work that is done at the level of sustained performance, and it is that the FPS does not fall too much even if we have been playing for a few minutes. It is a mobile to enjoy playing (as far as the battery allows, small spoiler) and using applications intensively.
For lovers of benchmarks, these are the data that the OPPO Find X5 Pro has produced in the tests:
| OPPO FIND X5 PRO | HUAWEI MATE 40 PRO | IPHONE 13 PRO | SAMSUNG GALAXY S21 ULTRA | XIAOMI MI 11 ULTRA | SONY XPERIA 5 III | ONEPLUS 9 PRO | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PROCESSOR | Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 | Kirin 9000 | Apple A15 Bionic | Exynos 2100 | Snapdragon 888 | Snapdragon 888 | Snapdragon 888 |
| RAM | 12 GB | 8 GB | 6 GB | 12 GB | 12 GB | 12 GB | 12 GB |
| GEEKBENCH 5 | 968 / 3.385 | 921 / 3298 | 1.736 / 4.518 | 991 / 3.272 | 1.031 / 3.538 | 1.132 / 3.634 | 1.105 / 3.603 |
| 3D MARK (SLINGSHOT) | (Maxed out) | (Maxed out) | – | 9.226 | (Maxed out) | (Maxed out) | (Maxed out) |
| PCMARK (WORK) | 11.701 | 9.173 | – | 14.043 | 11.113 | 11.857 | 11.919 |
Software
Android 12 right out of the box, with little bloatware and customization everywhere. ColorOS is one of the ROMs that has evolved the best over time, and in the Find X5 Pro, the experience is once again outstanding. On a visual level, it is a ROM that is increasingly far from Asian, it reminds us at a customization level of what has already been seen in sister ROMs such as OxygenOS, and the preloading of applications is not aggressive.
ColorOS is a clean ROM, which respects part of the Material You line of Android 12 and with very little application preloading.
We can customize the status bar icons, the Always On Display mode, and the system colors, we have Material You to adapt the accent color to the wallpaper, animation speed, etc. It is the right balance between customization and simplicity.
As we already anticipated in the performance section, one of the strengths of ColorOS is the general refinement of the ROM. There are no bugs, everything works quickly, the animations are especially fast and we don’t lack anything at the operating system level. Full marks to OPPO here.
Biometrics: lightning-fast facial recognition
At the biometric level, we repeat the configuration of last year. We have a fingerprint reader under the screen fast and with hardly any errors. It recognizes the finger in practically any circumstance and, after this week of use, it has not failed us beyond a couple of times.
OPPO’s facial recognition is not the most secure, but it is one of the fastest. In addition, it works with a mask at the same speed.
But where OPPO shines is in facial recognition. It is not the safest method, but despite this, it marks its distance from its competition on Android. It’s surprisingly fast and unlocks with skin. The speed of operation reaches such a point that, in our use, the fingerprint reader has ended up becoming a complement to facial recognition, when the opposite is usual.
Autonomy: lights and shadows
And we come to autonomy, a key point in any phone, even more so in one that cries out for us to take photos, play games, and bring the brightness to high. Here we have not found much evolution compared to the OPPO Find X3 Pro, a model that had 4,500mAh. The Find X5 Pro has 5,000mAh, but in recent reviews, we are finding that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is quite a eater when required. Despite the increase in milliamp hours, there is no improvement in screen times compared to the previous generation
We thus obtain a wide range of screen hours. If we do not give it too much cane, we are under a WiFi network and we move away from the game, we can get to exceed seven hours of screen time. By the time we connect to mobile networks, turn up the brightness, and give it heavy use, we’re stuck for close to five hours. Identical figures to the last generation under our tests.
Where there has been a slight improvement is in fast charging, which goes from 65 to 80W. To reach 50% charge, 12 minutes are enough, fully charging in half an hour. With this increase in charging power, we obtain the same charging times, despite having 500mAh more. We also have 50W wireless charging, a figure more than worthy to charge away from the cable.
Sound:
The sound of the OPPO Find X5 Pro is vibrant, remarkable at maximum volume, and delivered through a double stereo speaker. However, there is a lack of work with the bass and nuances, and the feeling here is that it sounds strong, but not with the highest quality. It is a sound along the lines of the high range, but it is far from the best exponents in audio. The sound in OPPO is a point to improve. It’s loud and punchy, but there’s a lot of distortion at high volume ranges and a lack of bass
We also do not have a headphone jack, as expected in this range, so we have to resort to wireless audio or physical adapters in case we want to enjoy analog audio. We would like to see a jump in sound in OPPO’s high-end, as it is one of the few weak points that this phone has.
Cameras:
If lenses, due to obvious space limitations, do not have the possibility to evolve more on a smartphone, one must work on electronics to increase the already excellent results achieved by top-of-the-line models. So did Oppo, which equipped its phone by integrating for the first time its MariSilicon X, a processor dedicated exclusively to image processing. This 6 nm NPU thus offers essential computing speed that allows artificial intelligence to intervene by improving photos and videos, especially in difficult situations such as night scenarios. The result is significantly more defined and detailed images with very low noise, even when we are almost in the dark. An outcome is even more tangible in 4K videos up to 60 fps even in Ultra HDR, which really require impressive computing speed.
The Find X5 Pro mounts two rear 50-megapixel wide-angle and ultra-wide-angle cameras, both equipped with Sony IMX766 sensors with a sensor size of 1/1.56″ and 2um pixel binning. The specifications are the same rooms as the Find X3 Pro but are actually not identical to the previous model, here there is in fact Hasselblad’s intervention on color gamut management and most importantly there is now effective 5-axis optical stabilization on the main sensor.
Also on the roll call is a 13-megapixel telephoto lens with 2X optical zoom and the ability to take macro images from a distance of 4 centimeters. Front-facing we find mounted a good 32 MP camera, a bit wider-angle and with fixed focus.
Video
The video has not convinced us so much, despite the inclusion of the NPU that promises a better HDR. Stabilization is good on the main sensor, but if we shoot with telephoto or ultra-wide-angle, there are some corrections that are too aggressive. Nor can we change the sensor while recording and, at the level of color and exposure, the work can be improved.
Our Opinion
The OPPO Find X5 Pro is a refined OPPO Find X3 Pro. A mobile that does not invite the jump if we come from the previous model, but that is in line with what we ask of a high-end in 2022. However, considering that the base price is 1,300 euros, we would have liked to find a better hearing section, a camera system with more ambition in the zoom, and a more competitive portrait mode.
Saving these points, the OPPO Find X5 Pro has managed to shine in the most premium range. Performance conquers, camera processing is more fine-tuned than ever, and the software experience is a delight.
A favor
- Performance is excellent.
- The main camera performs very well.
- ColorOS continues to conquer, especially with Android 12.
Against
- We miss a little more ambition in the zoom.
- The sound is not outstanding.
- Video recording still has room for improvement.