OPPO Find X7 Ultra review: Should you buy it?

I used to be massively impressed by the digital camera high quality and flexibility of the OPPO Find X6 Pro. Unfortunately, the telephone’s availability was extraordinarily restricted, however its pictures functionality nearly made it price importing for severe cell photographers. Almost. The OPPO Find X7 Ultra builds on the profitable method by introducing a 6x periscope zoom digital camera. It’s one other 50MP sensor — 4 in whole — though it’s a smaller sensor at 1/2.51-inches. The 2.8x zoom has a big 1/1.56-inch sensor and a narrower aperture than the telephone’s different lenses at simply f/4.3. Of course, constructing a sizeable long-distance zoom lens in a telephone is troublesome, however I’m not anticipating the extra periscope digital camera to be fairly pretty much as good as the opposite three, regardless of OPPO’s “Quad Main Camera” claims.

Still, its long-range specs are very akin to the most effective within the enterprise, and OPPO claims that its 4 high-quality cameras supply versatility you gained’t discover anyplace else, notably concerning correct focal lengths and fewer reliance on digital zoom. Let’s let some samples do the speaking. I additionally grabbed the well-regarded Google Pixel 8 Pro and the brand new Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra to see how the telephone stacks up.

Just just like the Find X6 Pro, coloration, element, publicity, and white steadiness are all very, superb throughout all 4 rear lenses. The telephone additionally performs admirably in low mild, even with out assistance from night time mode. But I’m paid to be pedantic: distinction and saturation could be a little excessive in some scenes, HDR isn’t fairly as strong because the Galaxy S24 Ultra, and the dynamic vary of the 6x periscope isn’t as fairly good as the opposite three lenses in trickier lighting. But none of those will destroy your photos.

My greatest criticism is the extent of chromatic aberration in brilliant daylight, a symptom of pushing these lens apertures slightly too far. Likewise, there’s some distortion on the edges of the ultrawide lens that once more factors to hitting the boundaries of such a small lens. Still, you’ll not often come away with a bad-looking snap, whichever lens you’re capturing with, and that’s greater than I can say for many different smartphone cameras I’ve used.

I like to zoom when capturing and spent numerous time shifting between the 4 lenses. I by no means as soon as fearful about receiving an inferior image by zooming to the improper degree. In truth, this 12 months, I felt rather more assured about pushing the telephone to longer distances with the brand new 6x periscope digital camera.

I discovered the brand new second periscope lens very usable at 10x and even slightly past, so it retains tempo with the competitors at a distance. But you additionally profit from the 65mm lens for macro and portraits, one thing you don’t get with the most effective from Google and Samsung. Even if you’re not a fan of the digital camera’s Hasselblad picture processing (I’m a convert to the latest much less saturated implementation), the consistency throughout lenses makes this digital camera array stand out.

Speaking of, the Find X7 Ultra excels at portraits, even when the selfie digital camera’s ultrawide area of view distorts face shapes considerably. While barely softer than opponents, primarily whereas utilizing the selfie digital camera, you’re at all times greeted with pleasing lighting and publicity, positive particulars however not overly sharp pores and skin textures, and strong pores and skin tones. Paired with the pure bokeh and 65mm focal size from the two.8x zoom lens, the Find X7 Ultra’s portraits are worthy of a average mirrorless. Especially when in comparison with the overly tough Pixel 8 Pro or overly punchy Galaxy S24 Ultra. It’s miles forward of the iPhone’s washed-out faces. If you’re large into taking photos of family and friends, the Find X7 Ultra is an outright winner.

While the pursuit of perfection could also be infinite, OPPO has come as shut as anybody with the Find X7 Ultra. Undoubtedly, this telephone has one of many extra constant and versatile digital camera packages in the marketplace. Combined with 4K60 recording capabilities on all lenses, strong video stabilization, and 10-bit HDR Dolby Vision, the Find X7 Ultra must be on each cell photographer’s and videographer’s radar, and raises the bar for flagship digital camera telephones.

As nice because the OPPO Find X7 Ultra’s digital camera is, it takes extra to be an ideal smartphone, and this flagship doesn’t scrimp right here both. You’re handled to a brilliantly vivid 120Hz dynamic refresh AMOLED show, luxurious vegan leather-based casing on the again, acquainted OPPO trimmings like 100W SuperVOOC wired and 50W wi-fi quick charging, an IP68 ranking, and a speedy Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor.

On paper, the {hardware} is top-tier, and the telephone is equally beautiful. The fake leather-based is beautiful to carry, and OPPO has made the humungous digital camera housing look trendy. This is a severely luxurious smartphone.

However, we’ve reservations concerning the telephone’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 implementation. For starters, we couldn’t set up Play Store benchmark apps on our evaluate unit, and the spoofed APKs we put in scored fairly lowly in GeekBench 6 and PCMark 3.0 until placing the telephone into its high-performance mode. Worse, our graphics stress assessments brought on the handset to show an overheating message and drained a ton of battery. Still, I didn’t have any issues operating apps and video games on the telephone, however our outcomes counsel the Find X7 Ultra would possibly battle to maintain up with essentially the most demanding customers in the long run.

The Chinese model of Color OS 14 (Android 14) put in is equally disappointing. I finally navigated by Baidu and the finicky keyboard to put in the Play Store and my acquainted app ensemble, however it was a irritating expertise. Even after numerous work, you can’t take away all of the apps and companies which might be ineffective for a Western viewers. Potential importers beware. Looking previous the roadblocks, Color OS 14 is a superbly usable tackle Android 14, boasting loads of customization choices and barely overly aggressive battery administration.

The OPPO Find X7 Ultra turns issues again round within the battery and charging departments. The 5,000mAh battery is sufficient to take energy customers by a full day, however our benchmarks counsel the Find X7 Ultra doesn’t fairly have the longest battery life in a super-size telephone. The battery drain whereas operating our gaming benchmark is especially worrisome, however it’s doubtless the GPU is operating at full tilt, which doesn’t occur in most video games. Still, Color OS’ aforementioned aggressive background activity killing can take you right into a second day of lighter use. If you have to prime up, the telephone can draw 85W from the wall to hit full in simply half-hour. Speedy.

Overall although, the software program setup and lack of guarantee makes it unattainable to advocate the OPPO Find X7 Ultra to world customers regardless of the in any other case strong {hardware} package deal. Hopefully, OPPO’s latest settlement with Nokia will see its flagship smartphones return to Western shores within the close to future.

With OPPO Find X7 Ultra availability restricted to China, the telephone is out of attain of most customers. Thankfully, there are many sensible various flagship handsets to select from, even when they aren’t fairly as trendy as OPPO’s great vegan leather-based.

• Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra ($1419.99 at Samsung): If you’re on the lookout for an ultra-premium Android flagship you can buy just about anyplace on the planet, the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is tough to beat. As you’ve seen, it sports activities a strong quad digital camera setup, severe display screen actual property, cutting-edge Galaxy AI options, and an S Pen for added productiveness. Not to say acquainted high-end trappings that embody wi-fi charging, an IP68 ranking, and high-end efficiency because of its Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy chipset.
• Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max ($1199 at Amazon): For these keen to enterprise outdoors the Android ecosystem, Apple’s iPhone 15 Pro Max is a gargantuan telephone constructed for energy customers. With ultra-durable battery life, speedy A17 Pro efficiency, strong video recording capabilities, and a beautiful titanium construct, it is a positive decide when buying on the prime of the market.
• Google Pixel 8 Pro ($999 at Amazon): While not fairly in the identical worth class as the remainder of this checklist, it’s unattainable to disregard the Google Pixel 8 Pro when speaking about digital camera telephones. Google’s newest flagship is an extremely constant shooter that gained’t disappoint the discerning photographer. It’s not a top-tier gaming handset, however it boasts Google’s newest AI capabilities to assist get extra accomplished than your typical flagship telephone.