Review Summary

Expert Rating★★8.0/10

Design ★★  8.5/10

Display ★★  8.0/10

Software ★★  7.0/10

Camera ★★  7.5/10

Performance ★★  8.0/10

Battery ★★  7.0/10

Pros
  • Crease-less display
  • Handy cover screen
  • Smooth performance
  • Versatile cameras
Cons
  • Bloatware
  • Lacks wireless charging
  • Pricey

It’s a fantastic time to be in the market for a new foldable smartphone since the industry is finally seeing some activity and there’s some options. OnePlus has just entered the fight with a new book-style foldable, while manufacturers like Tecno and Motorola have also entered the fray. Unsurprisingly, Samsung maintains a solid position. OPPO seems to be doubling down, and only a few months after launching its first foldable in the nation in the shape of the Find N2 Flip (review), it’s bringing its sequel, the Find N3 Flip, to our shores. The foldable market seems to have reached a point where incumbents are attempting to polish their offers by adding features and improving on basic components in order to make their devices more appealing to prospective purchasers. The OPPO Find N3 Flip adheres to the same philosophy, but with a bevy of enhancements. Let’s take a look inside to discover what’s new this time.

VERDICT

The OPPO Find N3 Flip is an evolutionary improvement that expands on the benefits of its predecessor by adding essential features such as a telephoto camera and an alert slider. The UI does come with a lot of pre-installed applications, and there is no wireless charging, but the device performs well in terms of cover screen use, design, construction, display, cameras, and speed.

DISPLAY AND DESIGN

The Find N3 Flip follows the same basic plan as its predecessor and other flip phones before adding enhancements and additions. The slim chassis folds flat without leaving an ugly gap in the center, and the body is softly curved at the back, giving it a premium, elegant feel. The huge, round camera module seems to be the most conspicuous design feature, apart from the massive cover screen. The camera module, which proudly bears Hasselblad branding in the center, is ringed by a metallic ring (called Cosmos Ring by OPPO), which gives it an industrial aspect and makes it stick out even more.

While the Find N3 Flip is available in Sleek Black, the Cream Gold variant I received for testing looks extremely nice with its iridescent sheen. The volume rocker and power button are on the right (when the flip is open), and a speaker, Type-C connector, and SIM tray are on the bottom. And there’s a new feature on the left in the shape of an alert slider. This is a helpful sliding key borrowed from OnePlus that allows you to easily choose between ring, vibration, and quiet modes without having to wake up the screen or open the flip.

The primary display is a 6.8-inch AMOLED screen with a refresh rate of 1-120Hz, PWM dimming at 1,440Hz, HDR10+ compatibility, and a peak brightness of up to 1600 nits. It’s a gorgeous display, with plenty of brightness, brilliant colors, and smooth response. The degree to which OPPO has been able to minimize the crease is astonishing. The brand’s Flexion Hinge is prominent here, not only lowering the appearance of the crease but also allowing the gapless construction and increasing overall longevity.

In fact, OPPO claims that the Find N3 Flip is more durable than its predecessor and has a 25% increase in load-bearing strength. I can’t confirm that, but I’m willing to accept TUV Rheinland’s Reliable Folding certification, which claims the Find N3 Flip can endure 6,00,000 folds. If you fold your phone 100 times each day, it equates to almost 16 years of use. Even if Instagram users double that amount by 200 times every day, the use duration would be 8 years, which I believe is more than enough. To demonstrate my arithmetic skills, I will tell you that 400 folds each day will lower the use duration to 4 years, which is still more than the phone’s life. But then I’d probably have something to say about your phone use as well.

COVER SCREEN

The cover screen and its usefulness are critical components of a foldable smartphone, especially a flip-style foldable. This is where the OPPO Find N3 Flip really excels. The 3.26-inch AMOLED display has a peak brightness of 900 nits, a resolution of 720 x 382 pixels, and a 17:9 aspect ratio. Aside from your standard fast settings, alerts, and widgets, you can run full-fledged applications on the cover screen, and not only OPPO apps.

The cover screen can function as a tiny phone, allowing you to utilize programs like as Gmail, WhatsApp, Telegram, and others not only to see emails and messages, but also to react using a QWERTY keyboard. Google Maps may be utilized for navigation, while YouTube can be used to play your favorite videos. Although the QWERTY keyboard is cramped, one may get by without having to open the flip. Then there are the virtual pets you may play with, which have now evolved into 3D counterparts from 2D ones before.

The cover screen also contributes in providing the FlexForm mode, which is particularly handy from a camera standpoint in this scenario. You may activate cover screen preview to snap selfies with the main cameras, grab group photos with palm gestures, experiment with low angles, shoot video with the phone half-open and camcorder-style, and so on. And they’re all fairly handy.

CAMERAS

The Flip N3’s cameras are one of its main selling points, particularly because OPPO has included a telephoto sensor, making it the first flip phone with a triple camera arrangement. A 50 MP Sony IMX890 with f/1.8 and OIS is available, as is a 48MP Sony IMX581 with f/2.2 aperture and 114-degree FoV, and a 32MP IMX709 sensor with f/2 aperture that supports hybrid zooming up to 5X, which is believed to be ideal for portraiture. For fine-tuning HDR shots, OPPO uses computational photography, and its ProXDR function promises to give up to eight times greater dynamic range. The selfie camera on the inside screen is a 32 MP Sony IMX709 with an aperture of f/2.4.

There is a wide range of shooting modes available, including my personal favorite, XPAN. This takes broad photographs that work well for landscapes and cityscapes, and can make any subject appear fairly dramatic depending on how you frame it, with its monochrome option proving particularly beneficial in some situations. Overall, the Find N3 Flip takes excellent photos in a variety of situations, with the extra telephoto sensor making the configuration considerably more adaptable than previously. Images have a decent amount of contrast and dynamic range. The N3 Flip excels at portraiture and bokeh in general. Low-light shots are a little soft, but they’re still fairly nice overall. The selfie camera performs its job, but the greatest thing is that you can capture selfies with the main camera’s capabilities, and they look really decent, particularly if there’s enough ambient light available.

BATTERY, SOFTWARE, AND PERFORMANCE

The flagship 4nm MediaTek Dimensity 9200 processor, 12GB of RAM, and 256GB UFS 4.0 storage ensure that the N3 Flip can handle even the most demanding workloads. It’s a smooth ride all the way, whether you’re using standard programs like email, social apps, instant messaging, and so on, or heavier ones. Benchmarks reveal that the N3 Flip can maintain 70 percent of its peak performance when running 50 threads for half an hour, which is rather remarkable given its tiny profile. There is also very little heating.

On the software front, ColorOS 13 runs on top of Android 13, providing the typical slew of applications with a plethora of customization possibilities. This is one area where the N3 Flip might be improved, since it comes with a slew of pre-installed applications, some of which continually popping up alerts that clog the notification panel.

The 4,300mAh battery is standard for a tiny flip phone, and as you would guess, it won’t last long if you use it often. However, for light to medium use, it may last a day, and unless you depend on the cover display to get things done throughout the day, you may need the charger by late evening. The bundle includes an 80W SuperVOOC charger, although the phone only supports 44W. It just takes around an hour to charge the phone from 0 to 100%.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The OPPO Find N3 Flip isn’t cheap at Rs 94,999, but it is a luxury flagship, and a foldable one at that, so the price isn’t much of a surprise. The nearest competitor is, of course, the Samsung Galaxy Flip5, a solid rival with excellent cameras and a robust software environment. It performs well in software and even has an IP68 certification and wireless charging. However, it falls short in other areas, like charging rates and cover screen usability. The Find N3 Flip is an evolutionary advance over its predecessor, which isn’t surprising, but it does come with some useful extras that sweeten the bargain, such as a telephoto camera and an alert slider. The software might need some work, and the absence of wireless charging is evident, particularly at this price range. The device, on the other hand, excels in critical areas such as cover screen use, performance, and cameras, with its build quality and hinge longevity contributing to its attractiveness. If you’re searching for a sleek and quality flip phone, you should examine your alternatives, but you’d be remiss if you didn’t give this item a full once-over before making a decision.