Oppo Find X3 Pro review: the smartphone with a microscope

The Oppo Find X3 Pro might just have the biggest little camera in the history of smartphones. Actually, scratch that – it does have the biggest little camera, in that the Find X3 Pro boasts a microscope macro lens built in.

That lets you – among other things – zoom right in and get very up close and personal to your subjects. Microscopically so.

Now, why has Oppo felt the need to add a microscope to its new flagship phone? Well, to stand out obviously. And that’s far from its only big feature; the Find X3 Pro also boasts an impossible curve design, and what Oppo calls a billion colour display.

If all these branded buzzwords are starting to sound a tad gimmicky, that’s because they absolutely are. So how do these features stack up where it counts? Do they actually make the Oppo Find X3 Pro a better smartphone?

Let’s find out

Oppo Find X3 Pro review: Design

On the front, the Find X3 Pro is nothing special. You get a very large screen, an under-screen fingerprint reader as well as a pinhole camera up top. Yes, it’s pretty – but not exactly revolutionary in 2021.

Flip the phone over though, and you’ll certainly notice the Find X3’s first party trick – what Oppo calls the ‘impossible curve’.

What it means by that, is that the back plate actually curves up and around the camera module. It doesn’t so much have a camera bump, but a camera bulge. And that curve is almost impossibly smooth. Oppo says that the unibody back plate was incredibly complicated to produce, and it shows.

That makes the phone pretty easy to handle. It’s lighter than you’d think, too. You get IP 68 water resistance, and the phone comes with a built-in silicon case for the accident prone.

Charging is handled via USB-C down the bottom, which sits next to a speaker grille and the sim tray. You also get volume buttons on the left, and a lock on the right.

Oppo Find X3 Pro review: Screen

Let’s move on to the next gimmick, Oppo’s one billion colour display.

For starters, it sits at 6.7-inches and boasts a whopping great resolution. That’s down to the OLED display, which can also natively swap between 60Hz and 120Hz. What does that mean minus the tech speak?

It means navigating around the phone is buttery smooth, and watching movies or playing games on this display is pretty incredible. It’s pin-sharp, and colour reproduction is punchy and yet natural. It also goes very bright – which is handy if you need to use it in bright sunlight.

What’s the one billion colour thing about? Well, that’s all a tad geeky. The entire phone – from screen to storage to camera module – makes use of 10 bit colour (most other phones only use 8 bit). That means it can display a whopping billion different colour combinations, as opposed to just (just!) 16 million.

Now, the fact that the human eye can only recognize ten million colours is something that Oppo has glossed over. However, what all this tech does make for is a seriously impressive class-leading display.

Oppo Find X3 Pro review: Camera

Now for gimmick number three – the microscope camera.

Most other smartphone-makers seem keen to add more and more zoom to their smartphones, meaning you can get up close shots from further and further away. Oppo took the direct opposite approach, and put in a macro lens that lets you get very, very close to your subject.

The macro lens comes with its own LED ring flash – which is important, as to use the camera you need to almost touch the thing you are trying to photograph. You will need a steady hand, too. And it will take a while to pull focus on whatever absolutely tiny thing you want to shoot. But once you get it right, the images are pretty fantastic.

In all honesty, while they might not be something you’ll regularly post to the ‘Gram, the microscope certainly is quite a lot of fun. And I can’t remember the last time I ran around my house photographing things with my smartphone, just for the hell of it.

Fortunately, the other cameras are pretty solid also. Both the main and ultra-wide make use of Sony’s 50 megapixel sensor, so you won’t see huge differences between them. Images are clear, and the sensor has good dynamic range. And while it doesn’t quite compare with Apple’s iPhone 12 Pro in low-light, it does have dedicated night-modes to make up for that.

Elsewhere, you get a 32 megapixel selfie camera and a 13 megapixel telephoto lens with 2x optical zoom, right up to 20x digital.

Oppo Find X3 Pro review: Performance

The Find X3 Pro comes with Qualcomm’s latest silicon; a Snapdragon 888. That – paired with 12 GB of RAM and 5G – means it can handle just about anything you can think to throw at it.

Do you want to swipe between games while watching the latest Netflix documentary? Easy. Have a hundred chrome tabs open while typing notes? Of course you do, and the X3 Pro can handle it. In short, you are really going to have to try hard to slow this thing down as in regular use it’s quick as hell.

Oppo’s custom Android skin – called ColorOS – is rather cheerful to use, and super customizable. But out the box most of its advanced settings are switched off by default, so it’s worth delving deep to see what takes your fancy. For example, you can choose to forgo onscreen navigation for swipe gestures if you so wish.

In terms of battery, you get a 4,500mAh under the hood that will give you a solid full day of use – and that’s if you really thrash it with multimedia. If used casually, and with the phone’s brightness down, expect almost two days.

But Oppo has been not-so-quietly working on rapid charging technology over the last few years, and the X3 is a great example of that. The so called ‘SuperVoox’ charger will take the phone from zero to 100 per cent in just 40 minutes.

Oppo Find X3 Pro review: Verdict

Gimmicks aside, the Oppo Find X3 Pro is a solid flagship smartphone. It has a great display, rock-solid performance and boasts a decent snapper. Not to mention it has a class-leading battery and makes good use of custom Android, to boot.

But you could say the same about any of 2021s flagship phones from the likes of OnePlus and Samsung. Which is where things like the microscope camera, impossible curve and billion colour screen come in to play.

While almost certainly gimmicks, they are pretty damn cool – and certainly separate the Find X3 Pro from the smartphone pack. Ultimately, this phone has top-notch specs, killer features and a freakin’ microscope bolted on to the back – all of which makes this almost certainly one of the best phones of the year (and it’s only April).