OPPO Find N3 Review: A New Standard for Foldable Smartphones

November 21, 2023, 09:55 AM
by Shahriar Rabab

UNB News
Publish- November 21, 2023, 09:55 AM
Shahriar Rabab
Update- November 21, 2023, 10:19 AM

OPPO Find N3

The Find series from OPPO has been their premium flagship range since the brand’s inception. It brought top-of-the-line features that competed for the best of what Android has to offer. Back in 2021, the N series was introduced as OPPO’s first take on foldable and flip phones. Fast forward to 2023, OPPO released the Find N3 foldable smartphone on 19th October in China. The N3 brings some big and effective changes compared to the N2. Let’s find out what those are.

Key Specifications of OPPO Find N3

Design and Build Quality

The Find N3 doesn’t really reinvent the wheel. It looks similar to the existing range of foldables from the likes of Huawei and Samsung. There is a distinct round camera housing on the back with Hasselblad branding that gives it its distinguishing look.

Coming to the design specifics, the curves around the hinges have been sharpened. It might be due to the hinge mechanism used in the N3. Speaking of the hinge mechanism, it now does an excellent job of dissipating the crease at the middle of the inner display. It’s still possible to feel the crease by touch, but visually it is much less pronounced compared to the Mate X5 or the Z Fold5.

The front glass and aluminum frame are complemented by a choice of either a glass back or an eco-leather back. The dimension comes in at:

Glass Folded: 153.4 x 73.3 x 11.7 mm
Eco-leather Folded: 153.4 x 73.3 x 11.9 mm
Glass Unfolded: 153.4 x 143.1 x 5.8 mm
Eco-leather Unfolded: 153.4 x 143.1 x 6.0 mm

The weight comes in at 239 g for the eco-leather option and 245 g for the glass-back variant. The front is protected by OPPO’s own Ceramic Guard protection with the inner panel being a plastic one as usual. The choice of ports and buttons are carried over from the N2 which means the 3.5 mm headphone jack didn’t make the cut. The power button doubles as the fingerprint scanner similar to the N2.

Another useful addition this time around has been the IPX4 splash resistance rating. Overall, the updated hinge mechanism massively improves the experience and alleviates the design experience of the device.

The Display

OPPO used the new state-of-the-art LTPO3 OLED panels for the N3. The cover screen is a 6.31-inch panel with 1116 x 2484 pixels with 431 ppi density. The panel supports 1.07B colors, Dolby Vision, 120Hz refresh rate, and 2800 nits of peak brightness in HBM.

On the other hand, the inner panel is a 7.82-inch Foldable LTPO3 OLED panel with 2268 x 2440 pixels resolution at 426 ppi. The panel supports 1.07B colors, Dolby Vision, 120Hz refresh rate, and 2800 nits of HBM. The screen-to-body ratio of the N3 comes in at 89.6%.

The best thing about the N3 display is the utilitarian design. The cover screen isn’t unnaturally tall like that of the Z Fold5. Rather it looks much like a standard smartphone. The inner screen is also 1:1 which gives it a square look. This display design enhances the usability all the while being a cutting edge panel.

Being an LTPO3 panel, the screen is everything one would expect from it. It has high contrast, great color, and amazing visibility under direct sunlight. And thanks to the new hinge mechanism, the inner crease also isn’t as distracting anymore.

OPPO Find N3

The Camera

There’s a triple camera setup on the OPPO Find N3. The main camera is a 48 MP one with f/1.7 aperture and a 24mm wide angle lens. It has multi-directional PDAF and OIS. The secondary sensor is a 64 MP f/2.6 70 mm telephoto lens with OIS and 3x optical zoom. And lastly, there’s a 48 MP f/2.2 aperture, 14mm 114˚ ultrawide sensor.

The camera tech on the N3 has been developed in collaboration with Hasselblad and it shows in color reproduction. Apart from getting crisp and sharp images every time, the colors also looked natural and on point with the subject. This might not appeal to the fans of popping colors but the color accuracy has to be one of its most impressive features.

The portrait shots on the N3 also stood out. It did a fabulous job with edge detection and subject focusing. And in a traditional OPPO way, there was slight skin smoothening and whitening on the images.

The ultrawide and the telephoto also performed well. Images taken at night time also came out on par with the daylight performance. There weren’t any exposure issues and the pictures had good details in them.

There’s a 20 MP (f/2.2) inner and 32 MP (f/2.4) cover selfie camera as well which performed well in both daylight and artificial lighting conditions.

The Find N3 packs a lot of videography. Users will be getting 4K@30/60fps, 1080p@30/60/240fps with gyro-EIS, HDR10+ and Dolby Vision support.

Processor and Performance

The processor on the OPPO Find N3 is the flagship Qualcomm SM8550-AB Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 based on the 4 Nm architecture. The chipset has an octa-core design with 1x3.2 GHz Cortex-X3 & 2x2.8 GHz Cortex-A715 2x2.8 GHz Cortex-A710 and 3x2.0 GHz Cortex-A510 chip arrangement. The processor is complemented by an Adreno 740 GPU.

The capability of the processor has also been alleviated with the use of UFP 4.0 storage and LPDDRX5 RAM. The device is a breeze to use in day-to-day tasks. From browsing the web to social media to watching content, everything feels fast and snappy. Also thanks to the “normal” sized cover screen, it is possible to get almost everything done with ease without having to open the device every time.

The gaming experience on the Find N3 has also been great. Games like PUBG, Genshin Impact, COD, and Minecraft ran smoothly. The 1:1 aspect ratio alleviates the gaming experience, especially for open-world games like Genshin Impact and Minecraft. Everything ran smoothly on max settings and there also weren’t any heating issues.

The Find N3 is running ColorOS 13.2 based on Android 13. The OS has been optimized for split-screen use and some other foldable-specific features. The bloatware has also been significantly reduced but it is still one of the points of contention on the N3.

Battery and Charge Time

The battery on the OPPO Find N3 is 4805 mAh. While it might seem to be low for a foldable smartphone, it can still churn out an entire day of use on a single charge thanks to the highly efficient processor. On top of that, users will be getting the 67W SUPERVOOCTM 2.0 charger which can take the device from 1 to 35% in just 10 minutes.

Pros and Cons of OPPO Find N3

Pros:

- Great camera performance
- Amazing display
- Upgraded hinge mechanism
- Proprietary fast charging
- Stereo speakers

Cons:

Presence of bloatware
No wireless charging.

Price of the OPPO Find N3

The OPPO Find N3 is available in 12/512 GB configuration. There is a collector edition with 16GB/1TB option. The prices of the variants are 9,999 RMB and 12,999 RMB respectively. The price roughly translates to around 1,54,441 BDT and 2,00,778 BDT respectively (1 RMB = 15.45 BDT). However, expect the price to change once it becomes officially available in Bangladesh.

OPPO Find N3

Verdict

The OPPO Find N3 is a strong contender for this year’s flagship foldable smartphone. The N3 is a significant upgrade over the N2 in terms of display, performance, and the camera system. The new hinge mechanism can even be considered as an industry-leading one.

The only noticeable drawback would be the OS experience. It has developed a lot but it is still not on par with the likes of Galaxy Z Fold5. In retrospect, the Find N3 is best suited for those looking to splurge the cash for an absolutely stacked foldable experience.