Tag Archives: Oppo

OPPO Find X8 Review: Slim, Sleek, and Subtle

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PROS:


  • Stylish and slim design with a very thin camera bump

  • Improved Triple 50MP camera output

  • Very large battery with fast wired and wireless charging

CONS:


  • Limited availability for now

  • Doesn't stand out from the OPPO Find X8 Pro

RATINGS:

AESTHETICS
ERGONOMICS
PERFORMANCE
SUSTAINABILITY / REPAIRABILITY
VALUE FOR MONEY

EDITOR'S QUOTE:

The OPPO Find X8 offers a more refined and stylish design without losing the charm and power of its flagship camera-centric smartphone.

The year is almost over but OPPO is far from done. Aiming to end the year with a bang, the brand has taken the veils off the OPPO Find X8 and the OPPO Find X8 Pro, putting a heavy emphasis on photography chops. Of course, there’s plenty of AI to go around, as well as the computing power necessary to support those features.

The late 2024 models, however, might feel a little iterative, at least if you simply read the specs and feature list. As they say, however, don’t judge a book by its cover, or in this case its technical details, so we dive in to test if you will “Find” some unexpected treasures where “X” marks the spot, terrible puns totally intended.

Designer: OPPO

Aesthetics

Although the basic structure of the OPPO Find X8 doesn’t deviate too much from its predecessor, you can immediately see and feel its more refined personality. If the Find X6 and X7 were toddlers and teens breaking new ground, the Find X8 has the air of a young professional establishing its presence.

Part of that sleeker and more mature charm is its thin body, only 7.85mm without the camera bump. Granted, it’s not the thinnest phone around, but the flat sides, contoured edges, and thin bezels around the screen all contribute to making it look more modern and elegant. It can definitely meet the demand for sophisticated and luxurious designs among today’s discerning consumers.

The biggest contributing factor, however, is the refined Cosmos Ring camera design. It’s no longer unusual to see circular camera bumps on smartphones, but few manage to get it right, including previous Find X designs. With the OPPO Find X8, however, the company managed to pull off a seemingly magical feat of making it incredibly thin, only 3.01mm. No longer will camera bumps look like obscene moles and just gently blend into the rest of the phone’s equally stylish rear.

The cameras themselves are also arranged in a more symmetrical manner, no longer an eyesore that will trigger one’s aesthetic sensibilities. There’s still a periscope-style telephoto camera hiding there, so it’s not sacrificing any functionality with its improved style. It seems that OPPO has finally got it right this time around, and hopefully, it will keep refining its design language for future Find X models.

Ergonomics

The OPPO Find X8’s thin profile comes with another benefit. At only 193g, it’s quite a light object, nesting comfortably in your hand. There’s still some debate over the ergonomics of rounded versus flat sides, but in this swing of the pendulum, the pro-flat faction seems to have won. Thankfully, that also seems to be the case in this case.

The Cosmic Ring camera design also brings its own added value. Since the large circle is located in the middle of the phone, the weight is more evenly distributed across the phone’s width. There’s no wobble when you put it down on a flat surface, and it isn’t as top heavy as other phones that cram all that hardware to a corner. Your index finger also rests gently on the edge of the textured ring, adding to the confidence of your grip.

The Find X8’s comfort extends beyond your touch. It has a screen that boasts extremely high-frequency PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) dimming at 3840Hz, which helps reduce the strain on one’s eyes. Given how much we use our phones even in the dark, that’s no small benefit. It’s not going to beat E Ink displays, of course, but those can never replace the vibrant colors and fast refresh speeds of regular displays.

Performance

While there has been a lot of media buzz around Qualcomm’s shiny new Snapdragon 8 Elite, OPPO went with the someone unusual choice of putting the equally new MediaTek Dimensity 9400 chip inside both the Find X8 as well as the Find X8 Pro. To be fair, the performance gap between these two giants of the mobile processor industry has narrowed over the past years, and MediaTek offers a competitive and accessible alternative to Qualcomm’s pricey products.

That can be seen in the OPPO Find X8, which doesn’t choke on the most grueling tasks, including mobile gaming. The new ColorOS 15, with its fancier graphics, animation, and AI features, performs smooth as butter, owing to the Dimensity 9400’s capabilities. There will definitely be cases where benchmark numbers will show it lagging behind the Snapdragon 8 Elite, but most people won’t feel the difference in everyday use.

The OPPO Find X8 has a bright and colorful 6.59-inch screen with bezels only 1.45mm wide on all sides, bidding goodbye to the notorious “chin” of yesteryears. In addition to the eye-friendly PWM dimming mentioned earlier, it also has a pixel-dense 1.5K resolution, a fast and adaptable 120Hz refresh rate for fluid videos and games, and ProXDR support for gorgeous visuals. Suffice it to say, it really puts your content front and center.

Of course, as a member of the Find X family, the main course for this smartphone is the camera system. Going with a triple 50MP setup, which miraculously fits in that thin ring, reduces the jarring change between wide, ultra-wide, and telephoto cameras. Of course, there are still differences in focal length, but the quality is more or less on equal footing.

The main 50MP Sonly LYT700 comes with a 24mm equivalent focal length and takes rather great photos even in overcast weather. It can support at least up to 2x zoom on its own, but you’ll really want to switch to the 50MP Sony LYT600 and its periscope telephoto lens for getting up close and personal. It supports 3x optical zoom, and you can even extend that to 10x with some help from the AI Telescope Zoom feature. Unfortunately, even at 3x, you will start to see some loss in detail under more difficult lighting situations.

The 50MP Samsung JN5 ultra-wide camera has a rather narrow 15mm focal length. That means less distortion around the edges, but also not as wide as other ultra-wide cameras on other phones. There’s also an inconsistency in brightness and white balance compared to the main camera, but that’s not unusual because of its smaller f/2.0 aperture. Regardless, the OPPO Find X8 delivers decent shots with every click, which is quite impressive when you consider how thin it is.

It would be remiss not to mention the other aspects of mobile photography that don’t rely on the hardware only. Like previous OPPO flagships, the partnership with Hasselblad yields special portrait modes that try to recreate the brand’s famed cameras through some software tweaking. There is also an abundance of AI-powered features for tweaking and improving photos, especially when filling in the gaps that can’t be captured by the sensors. There’s also a “Lightning Snap” feature that’s pretty much an AI-assisted burst mode to help with fast-moving cars and kids.

Powering all these features is a large 5,630mAh battery, definitely one of the largest for this phone size. To complement that size, OPPO has equipped the Find X8 with fast 80W SuperVOOC wired charging, which is admittedly just a little bit slower than the previous-gen 100W speed. It does support fast 50W AirVOOC wireless charging, though you’ll naturally need to use OPPO’s proprietary accessories for that.

Long story short, the OPPO Find X8 offers a well-balanced set of features that will delight hobbyist photographers and everyday users. There’s no shortage of AI buzz as well, including integration with Google Gemini and the now popular Circle to Search feature. That said, people are still coming to terms with what AI can do for them on their phones, so these are definitely not killer features for this generation.

Sustainability

OPPO is one of the few major phone brands that has a very strong sustainability program to reduce their negative impact on the environment. Unfortunately, that’s not directly seen here on the Find X8, at least not when it comes to using sustainable materials like recycled plastic or metal. Packaging size has indeed been reduced, but that’s pretty much it. It does ship with a charger, which you’ll really need since it uses a proprietary fast-charging technology.

Where the OPPO Find X8 does shine in this regard is its durability and longevity. It goes beyond the expected IP68 dust and water resistance rating and is actually certified for IP69, protecting it against sprays of water up to 80°C in temperature. It also has an MGJB 150.18A MIL-STD rating for shock protection and Swiss SGS certification for whole-phone drops. In other words, it is designed to last for a long time, at least under regular wear and tear, delaying any need to throw it away for a new unit.

Value

The OPPO Find X8 represents maturity in terms of design and function. It is now more elegant, more symmetrical, and more stylish while keeping the good things that OPPO fans have enjoyed for years. While there might be some inconsistency with camera output, it’s definitely no slouch in that area. It offers a solid contender in the smartphone market that could stand proud against other giants in the market.

The Find X8’s biggest rival, however, isn’t those brands. Ironically, it’s the Find X8 Pro itself that makes the non-Pro model a harder sell. It has nearly identical specs, just better and larger, and a fourth 50MP camera that tries to reach farther. The Find X8 starts at 4,199 RMB, roughly $580, which isn’t that far from the Find X8 Pro’s 5,299 ($730) starting price tag, both with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. At the moment, there is also no word yet on international distribution, which further diminishes the phone’s value in the global market.

Verdict

There’s no stopping the development of more powerful smartphones and more component smartphone cameras, but manufacturers always have to consider the effects these would have on a phone’s design. Some brands don’t really seem to care, opting to just cram as much power they can in the hopes that buyers would overlook the visible warts. Others, on the other hand, prioritize good looks even if it means cutting corners in terms of overall value.

Striking a balance between form and function in smartphones is definitely easy, but the OPPO Find X8 proves that it’s not impossible. After a few iterations, OPPO has managed to shrink not just the phone’s buddy but also that tricky camera bump down to something more aesthetic yet still very powerful. As a brand very conscious of product design, we’re hoping OPPO continues on this path, blazing a trail for others to envy and then follow.

The post OPPO Find X8 Review: Slim, Sleek, and Subtle first appeared on Yanko Design.

Motorola Edge 50 Neo leak shows off Pantone colors and minimalist design

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Smartphone brands have thankfully become more conscious of the design of their phones, or at the very least are now talking more about that aspect of the product. Not everyone gets it right, of course, especially if you look at some of the ginormous camera designs on phones these days. Once in a while, though, you come across a design that still delivers the promise of powerful cameras without being as in your face as their other kin. This year, Motorola’s Edge 50 series seems to have hit the target with a smooth and elegant minimalist design, as shown by leaked images of the upcoming Motorola Edge 50 Neo. Strangely enough, it calls to mind a design that we actually liked and wished stuck around longer.

Designer: Motorola (via Evan Blass/evleaks)

In 2022, we reviewed the OPPO Find X5 Pro which seemed to defy convention with a rear design that ditched the usual metal island that surrounded smartphone cameras. Instead, it used a gentler, curving slope that looked distinctive, less noisy, and more elegant, but it sadly didn’t last more than that year’s OPPO flagship. Whether by coincidence or by design (pardon the pun), it’s like that aesthetic has suddenly resurfaced where we least expect it.

A serving of official-looking renders reveals the design of the Motorola Edge 50 Neo or at least its back, and we can’t help but get a sense of deja vu. Not that we’re complaining, since it’s quite a striking and unusual appearance, and it’s not even limited to this particular model. All members of the 2024 Edge 50 family bear this same design language, including the Motorola Edge 50 Fusion with only two cameras on its back.

Also like its other siblings, the Edge 50 Neo is Pantone-certified, a mark it bears proudly as well. This particular model will come in four color options: Grisaille (Gray), Nautical Blue, Poinciana (Red), and Latte (Beige). The images also suggest that the phones will bear the same textured material on their back, which not only gives them a luxurious feel but also improves their grip.

Other than these visual details, however, not much is known about the Motorola Edge 50 Neo just yet. It will have three cameras, and it might follow in the footsteps of the base Edge 50 model with a 50MP main camera, a 10MP 3x optical zoom telephoto camera, and a 13MP ultra-wide shooter. But as beautiful as this phone looks, consumers might end up a little bit confused as there will be not only two, not even three but four Motorola Edge 50 models to choose from when the “Neo” finally launches.

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OPPO Reno 12 Pro Review: Making AI Affordable in a Stylish Design

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PROS:


  • Elegant and stylish design, especially the Nebula Silver color

  • Supports a micro SD card for external storage

  • 50MP autofocus front camera can do 4K UHD videos

CONS:


  • Processor is a downgrade compared to Chinese model

  • No wireless charging

  • Glossy bottom plate is a smudge magnet (Space Brown, Sunset Gold)

RATINGS:

AESTHETICS
ERGONOMICS
PERFORMANCE
SUSTAINABILITY / REPAIRABILITY
VALUE FOR MONEY

EDITOR'S QUOTE:

The OPPO Reno 12 Pro delivers powerful AI experiences packed in a beautiful and soothing design.

AI is the buzzword in the tech industry, with mainstream media picking up on it and sometimes not in a good way. All the benefits that the technology brings, however, are for naught if only a select few can afford to use it. AI on smartphones promises quality-of-life improvements and exciting creative features, but only if you have the latest and greatest models with powerful specs and matching high prices. Fortunately, AI on mobile is such a hot topic that manufacturers are bringing those features to almost any new device. That’s pretty much the premise of the OPPO Reno 12 Pro, specifically the global edition that the brand just launched, one of the first few to advertise these AI benefits on what some would consider a mid-range model. But is it a potent combination or is the experience hampered by the Reno 12 Pro’s hardware? We take the phone for a spin to bring you the answers.

Designer: OPPO

Aesthetics

Companies avoid using the label “mid-range” or “mid-tier” for good reason. They often come with the connotation of lacking quality and appeal, which is definitely not something that can be said for the Reno 12 Pro. Right off the bat, you’ll be surprised by how enchanting the phone is, especially the Nebula Silver colorway we received for this review. OPPO utilizes what it calls Fluid Ripple Texture that gives the phone’s back a 3D visual effect of liquid gently moving underneath the glass. It even has something like a parallax effect that gives the illusion that there’s truly some solid mass despite having a completely flat surface. The play of light, shadow, and colors has a mesmerizing effect that gives the phone a more stylish and elegant air.

The other two color options, Sunset Gold and Space Brown, are no less attractive but have a different approach. They use a two-tone design that combines a matte section and a smaller glossy area separated by a chic metal-like ribbon running across the width of the phone. It’s a familiar composition, only arranged upside-down, giving the Reno 12 Pro a distinctive look. Unfortunately, this design has one rather critical flaw, the glossy part will always be where your palm rests, which means it will always have oils and smudges whenever you hold it.

The phone’s flat edges give it a modern look and its reflective surface gives the impression of a metallic nature. It is, however, a sleight of hand, given how the material is actually a new proprietary alloy that OPPO promises has the same durability but with less weight. All in all, the OPPO Reno 12 Pro definitely has a striking presence that’s almost on par with more expensive flagships.

Ergonomics

Given the phone’s large size, it’s almost shocking that the OPPO Reno 12 Pro weighs only 180g. Part of that is probably thanks to the absence of “real” metal in the frame, utilizing OPPO’s High-Strength Alloy Framework instead. On the one hand, this gives the phone a lightweight body that lessens the strain on your hand. On the other hand, no pun intended, it sometimes makes the phone feel a bit flimsy, lacking the substance you’d find on premium handsets.

Smartphone designs these days either go for flat edges or the more traditional curved screens, but the OPPO Reno 12 Pro finds a rather curious middle ground. Its sides are quite flat, but the screen isn’t exactly the same. It has a very minimal curvature not only on the left and right sides but also top and bottom but never goes over the edges. OPPO says this design delivers that same immersive viewing experience without the accidental touches that curved screens are notorious for. Along with more rounded corners, this design offers comfort and confidence in your grip, making for a more pleasurable smartphone experience.

Performance

The OPPO Reno 12 Pro isn’t exactly new but it is only now making its way to global markets. That journey, however, seems to have taken a toll on the handset, and OPPO decided to use a custom MediaTek Dimensity 7300-Energy. This variant of the processor is geared towards more efficient battery use, but it’s still based on a rather mid-range silicon line. Fortunately, the phone still performs admirably, especially with 12GB of RAM, though you might see some stuttering or dropped frames in more intensive games. In exchange, however, OPPO gives the Reno 12 Pro a feature that’s all but gone from smartphones these days: a microSD card slot sharing space with the second SIM card slot.

Like any other smartphone these days, OPPO takes great pride in the Reno 12 Pro’s imaging system, and for good reason. It boasts two 50MP sensors, one for the main wide shooter and another for telephoto. These high-performance cameras produce impressive images, even on overcast days, bringing rich detail and accurate colors to every shot. These two cameras also work together to deliver beautiful bokeh effects in portrait mode, creating an accurate separation of foreground and background and giving the latter a pleasant blur. Sadly, the 8MP ultra-wide camera barely holds a candle to these two, but it thankfully still gets the basics right. Even more impressive, however, is the 50MP front-facing camera that not only has autofocus but can even take videos in 4K UHD quality.

Given that the main selling point of this generation of the Reno family is AI, we definitely have to say a few words about it. At the time of this writing, the rollout of some of the features is still ongoing or scheduled, but the complete set is definitely something worth waiting for. You have a combination of generative AI features across the board, from intelligently handling the performance of the phone to tweaking your photos to match a certain appearance with the AI Studio. Leveraging the power of Google Gemini, The Reno 12 Pro features an AI sidebar that can analyze the content displayed on the screen and offer relevant tools for it. It can, for example, summarize a long article into a few bullet points, recommend a text to post on social media, or even speak out the contents of a website. This is just the tip of the iceberg for the AI features that OPPO is bringing to everyone who can afford it, and the Reno 12 Pro’s price point makes sure of that.

Sustainability

While OPPO has had strong advocacy for the use of sustainable processes and materials on its phones, it’s not easy to see that on the OPPO Reno 12 Pro, at least not directly. It doesn’t mention any use of recycled materials, for one, and its new alloy material is unsurprisingly a big secret. It wouldn’t be surprising, however, if it had a considerable amount of plastic in the mix, which would be on par with most mid-range phones.

Instead, the company focuses more on the durability and longevity of its design, ensuring that the phone won’t meet an untimely end that quickly. It uses the latest Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 protection for the screen and boasts an IP65 dust and water resistance rating. Curiously, OPPO also talks about a biomimetic cushion for internal parts inspired by the structure of a sponge, further protecting sensitive components from bumps and falls. That said, only a proper teardown will reveal the true nature of that new protective layer.

Value

The OPPO Reno 12 Pro is quite a looker and it boasts plenty of AI features you’d only hear about on premium flagships. At the same time, it delivers a decent performance, especially for one that has the marks of a mid-tier market smartphone. The question, however, is whether all of these are worth the price OPPO is asking for.

To be fair, it isn’t asking for much, depending on the market. The Pro model goes for 599 EUR, roughly $650, which is far below the latest high-end offerings. That said, it isn’t the only player in this particular field, and OPPO is even up against the venerable Google Pixel 8a. The question then becomes one of availability as well as preferences, especially when it comes to the custom OPPO ColorOS Android experience. At the moment, though, the Reno 12 Pro is one of the few mid-range phones to offer such a variety of AI-powered features, but that number will only grow in the months ahead, giving OPPO plenty of competition in this space.

Verdict

There’s no escaping AI, at least for now, and it isn’t just in powerful PCs or the Web. Smartphones are the next arena for AI, whether you like it or not, but only if it’s something that more people can obtain and, more importantly, enjoy. Phone and chip manufacturers are naturally more interested in flexing their muscles to showcase powerful hardware to support advanced AI processes, but these won’t land in most people’s hands that easily.

The OPPO Reno 12 Pro represents a new breed of smartphones that is making AI more accessible to the masses with more wallet-friendly options. But it isn’t just its AI prowess that sets this phone apart. Its striking design is definitely a head-turner, and its promise of durability increases trust not only in the phone but also in OPPO’s brand. It definitely has some tough competition ahead, but at least for now, it is leading the pack with its combination of power, gracefulness, and, more importantly, price.

The post OPPO Reno 12 Pro Review: Making AI Affordable in a Stylish Design first appeared on Yanko Design.

OPPO generative AI features coming to all phone lines to make AI accessible to everyone

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Like it or not, and some definitely don’t, AI is the current buzz in the tech industry, and it will still be for quite a while. But as impressive and sometimes frightening as the advanced features of AI may be, the truth is that these features are only available to a very select few people who either have the high-end hardware to support them or the resources to maintain monthly subscriptions to services. For AI to truly become life-changing, it has to become available to everyone, even those with less expensive phones and computers. That’s the new commitment that OPPO is making, to bring generative AI features to as many as 50 million phones in an effort to make AI accessible to everyone.

Designer: OPPO

Up until recently, most of the talk about AI revolved around powerful computers and cloud-based solutions. After all, AI needs very capable hardware and loads of data to perform its magic. That said, making AI relevant to ordinary people requires actually putting the technology into their hands, and there is no better device for that purpose than one that they literally hold in their hands: their smartphones. It’s no surprise, then, that Google’s recent developer event focused on making AI features available not only through its Search engine but on smartphones as well.

That has generated quite a lot of buzz on AI-powered features on the latest and greatest handsets, but that leaves the majority of the world’s population out in the cold. With dozens of millions of smartphones out in the market across all tiers, OPPO is in a unique position to change that situation, and it’s doing exactly that. It’s making a promise to push its generative AI features to all its smartphone product lines, from the flagship Find series to the camera-centric Reno to the mass market OPPO F and A lines.

In fact, it has already started that change by bringing features like AI Eraser, object recognition, and advanced image processing to many of its smartphones already out in the wild today. Granted, most of these focus on the photography side of the AI, but that’s just the beginning. Collaborating with key industry players like Google, MediaTek, and Microsoft, OPPO will be bringing smarter features across the board. The OPPO Reno 12, for example, will be able to harness the power of Google Gemini’s Large Language Models or LLMs for features like AI Writer and AI Recording Summary. Its collaboration with Microsoft, on the other hand, will bring more natural voice and text conversions to next-gen OPPO phones, as well as more seamless connectivity between phone AI and desktop AI, a.k.a. Microsoft Co-pilot.

Smartphones are already very powerful computers in our pockets, devices that are used not just for entertainment but also for work, education, and health. These are the very same areas where AI can shine best, making sense of large quantities of data to bring us the answers and information we need. Harnessing the growing power of on-device hardware as well as secure cloud services, OPPO envisions a future where everyone will be able to enjoy the benefits of AI, preferably on an OPPO phone, of course.

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Elegant, minimalist smartphone design meets appealing features and price tag

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Smartphone manufacturers are now thankfully more aware of the important role that design plays in a product’s success, especially its aesthetics and materials, but some tend to go overboard with that knowledge as well. We’ve seen pretty overbearing and garish phone designs that steal your attention in an aggressive way, particularly with camera bumps that make you feel like they’re the most important feature. The smartphone design landscape right now is dynamic, exciting, and sometimes a little too lively, so there are times when you want to take a breath of fresh air and settle down with something simple yet beautiful. That’s the kind of minimalist beauty that Motorola seems to be bringing with the new Edge 50 Pro, but it’s fortunately more than a pretty face, at least for a mid-range smartphone.

Designer: Motorola

Truth be told, the Motorola Edge 50 Pro’s design looks a bit familiar, at least if you’ve been keeping watch on the key market players for the past two years or so. Back in 2022, we reviewed the OPPO Find X5 Pro, a refreshing break from the design trends of its time. What differentiated OPPO’s flagship and this new Motorola entry is that their backs are made from a single, unbroken sheet of material with no visual or material break from the rest of the panel.

This trait gives the Motorola Edge 50 Pro a smooth and gentler aesthetic, exactly like how the cameras slope gracefully upward rather than being confined inside a metal enclosure. Other than the camera lenses and the iconic Motorola “bat logo” dimple, the phone’s back is pretty clean yet also attractive, a fitting tribute to the pervading minimalist design trend. Motorola also paid careful attention to the materials it used for the phone, which include soft vegan leather and eye-catching pearl acetate, surprising choices given the phone’s market segment.

The Motorola Edge 50 Pro runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 and has a decent though underwhelming set of cameras led by a 50MP main sensor. A similar 50MP selfie camera is housed in a rather noticeable punch-hole cutout on the forehead of the 6.7-inch 1220p 144Hz screen. A real killer feature, however, is the 4,500 mAh battery with a 125W super-fast charging speed and support for equally fast 50W wireless charging.

As a mid-range smartphone, the Motorola Edge 50 Pro thankfully comes with a matching price tag that starts at around $400, which is a pleasant surprise given its features. But just like the OPPO Find X5 Pro, limited availability and exposure might make this simply elegant smartphone fly under the radar despite the closer look it probably deserves.

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OPPO Air Glass 3 brings AI to your vision to improve your interactions

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Smart glasses, in contrast to AR headsets and visors, aim for a design that ideally should be indistinguishable from regular glasses. With today’s technologies and knowledge, however, that’s not easily possible, especially when you need to add powerful computing hardware to sophisticated optics. That’s especially the case when you need to offer some kind of smart assistant functionality, especially voice and speech recognition. In the past, you had to settle for rough translations and sometimes misinterpretations; comical but frustrating nonetheless. That definitely sounds like a job for AI, and that’s exactly what OPPO is bringing to the table, or rather to your eyes, with the newest iteration of its lightweight and discreet “assisted Reality” glasses that take a focused approach to wearables.

Designer: OPPO

AI is still the hot thing in tech today, in spite of and despite the bad publicity that misuse of the tool brings. Today’s AIs happen to be great at processing human language, both written and spoken, and they can now run the device itself with very little power, making them perfect for very small devices, including smart glasses. In its third iteration, the OPPO Air Glass 3 prototype harnesses the power of AI, specifically its own self-trained language model AndesGPT, to deliver a more natural way to talk to your glasses and get your job done.

AI might be the technical highlight of the new OPPO Air Glass 3, but its winning feature is going to be its design. OPPO is laying claim to the title of the world’s lightest binocular full-color glasses, and at 50g only, the claim does have merit. It looks just like regular spectacles with very thick frames, but nothing like those complicated and heavy mixed reality glasses. Despite that lightweight design, the Air Glass 3 still boasts a bright 1,000 nits display delivered by a tiny Spark micro projector, ensuring you can clearly see the virtual information even in bright environments. And with an ultra-thin waveguide, you don’t get the rainbow-like patterns that are often seen on optical see-through displays like these.

The OPPO Air Glass 3 manages to offer this more comfortable design thanks to its more focused functions. Rather than trying to cast its net wide with augmented reality, OPPO is instead focusing on “assisted reality” that emphasizes productivity over entertainment. You’ll still be able to see images if you want and control music playback, but the information that’s displayed in front of your eyes is limited to things like navigation, timers, translations, or even a teleprompter. In other words, it’s a sleek way to have all the important information you need right in front of you instead of having to fish out your phone from your pocket and get distracted in the process.

Of course, that means it will need to connect to an external device, particularly your OPPO smartphone. The Air Glass mobile app provides that connection you need with OPPO’s AndesGPT to ensure you’re getting the best performance possible without weighing your head down. OPPO is also laying the groundwork for more AI-enhanced features and experiences by investing heavily in its own AI center in the hopes of empowering all its products, especially its smartphones, with these features.

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Foldable Phone Designs are about to get more interesting but also less diverse

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The number of foldable phones launching each year is slowly rising, suggesting that these former novelty items are here to stay. To manufacturers’ credit, the phones are getting more reliable and attractive, even if their prices are still prohibitive for most people. With more players in the market, it’s bound to become a somewhat livelier place, with brands putting their own spins or changing designs to match or challenge their rivals. It now seems, however, that the still niche foldable phone category is about to enter another tumultuous phase with new designs that could shake up the market and some companies throwing in the towel, leaving only a few designs to stick and stagnate.

Triple Folding Phones

The biggest and perhaps only reason for a foldable phone would be to provide a device that can be used as a regular phone when wanted but can transform into a tablet when you want more screen real estate. The current crop of foldable phones does meet those requirements, though almost barely. As tablets, they’re painfully tiny even compared to the already small iPad mini and some 7-inch slates. As phones, some designs make them awkward to use because of their narrow and tall external screens.

One possible solution would be to have a large screen that can fold in three parts, turning into a phone-sized slab, albeit probably a bit thicker than even today’s foldable phones. Samsung has, in fact, been working on such a design for years and it finally showed off a prototype two years ago. It turns out that it might even launch its first tri-fold phone slash tablet later this year.

Designer: Samsung

This timeline is reportedly due to one of Samsung’s biggest rivals trying to make a move first. Huawei, who is rebuilding its empire in some markets, is rumored to be launching a foldable phone that transforms into a 10-inch tablet. Just for the title of being the “world’s first,” Samsung could be taking a big risk and making a leap of faith to get that triple foldable phone out the door quickly, even if it means repeating the mistakes of the first Galaxy Fold.

Stylus Support Inside and Out

One of the biggest draws of foldable phones is, of course, their big screens. They’re not just perfect for showing more content, but they’re also great for actually creating content. With tablets now being seen as productivity and creativity tools thanks to the iPad Pro, these foldable phones are truly powerful laptops you can fit in your pocket, at least in theory. Ironically, very few of the brands actually support such a use case with the right accessories. Even Samsung forces you to buy the S Pen Fold Edition if you want to scribble and doodle on your foldable phone like a notebook.

The newly launched mouthful that is the Honor Magic V2 RSR Porsche Design bucks the trend by actually including a stylus inside the box. Granted, the price of this limited edition would make you think it should include such an item, but you’re also paying for other luxuries at the same time. For example, you get two charging bricks instead of one. Some foldable phones other than Samsung don’t even advertise support for a stylus even if they’re capable of supporting one.

Designer: Honor

More interesting, however, is how the Honor Magic V2 RSR Porsche Design actually supports that active stylus not only on the large internal screen but also on the smaller cover screen. That one-ups even Samsung who is famed for its stylus-enabled Galaxy Note phablets, now sold under the Galaxy S Ultra brand. Honor is showing that such a set of features is possible, and it could lead to a long-overdue trend in the foldable smartphone market, presuming there’s still one in the next few years.

Design Monoculture

One of the reasons why the foldable phone market seems to have stabilized a bit is because of the number of players now in the ring. Of course, you have Samsung and Huawei leading the charge, but now you also have Xiaomi, OPPO, Vivo, Tecno, OnePlus, and Honor in the running. Unfortunately, there are whispers that two of these are bowing out of the race, and their absence could actually have an indirect though significant negative impact on foldable phones as a whole.

Those rumors claim that both OPPO and vivo are calling it quits in the foldable market. The cited reason is not exactly surprising, with both brands suffering significant losses in foldable phone sales last year and they don’t believe they can throw in more resources to recover. It’s unknown at this point whether OnePlus will also be following its cousins, though there’s a real possibility that these manufacturers will pull out sooner rather than later.

Designer: OPPO

While that indeed sounds like a win for Samsung and Huawei (and Honor), it might not actually be good for the entire market in the long run. Competition often breeds innovation, with these brands pushing each other to develop new designs and features at every turn. With only two contenders, each with their own separate kingdoms, there might not be enough incentive to push the boundaries, leading to stagnation and eventual death of the market.

Designer: Vivo

Uncertain Tomorrow

Of course, there’s still no confirmation that OPPO and Vivo are indeed making an exit strategy, but it does paint a picture that isn’t as rosy as these brands try to paint. Even with the popularity of clamshell-style foldables and with new models coming out year after year, actual sales might actually reveal a very different and less encouraging situation. Given the way technology is developing, foldable and rollable displays will eventually be a staple of tomorrow’s devices, but that doesn’t mean the market won’t experience a few flops first along the way.

The post Foldable Phone Designs are about to get more interesting but also less diverse first appeared on Yanko Design.

OPPO Find X7 Ultra Review: Inching Closer to Photography Perfection

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PROS:


  • Distinctive and stylish design with a nice touch of vegan leather

  • Impressive Quad Main Camera output

  • Bright and vibrant display

  • Excellent hardware performance across the board

CONS:


  • Available only in China

RATINGS:

AESTHETICS
ERGONOMICS
PERFORMANCE
SUSTAINABILITY / REPAIRABILITY
VALUE FOR MONEY

EDITOR'S QUOTE:

With four nearly co-equal cameras packaged in a gorgeous design, the OPPO Find X7 Ultra makes real the prophesied smartphone that could rival professional cameras.

Photography has become an important part of the smartphone experience to the point that it could be considered one of the most critical deciding factors in a purchase. Companies have been working left and right to provide an excellent experience, but no matter how good the output is, they still can’t compare with the flexibility of a dedicated camera, especially mirrorless and DSLR cameras. You can only cram so much inside the thin body of a smartphone without either compromising on quality or leaving a distasteful bump on the phone’s back. Technology, however, is starting to catch up with smaller but more powerful sensors and lenses that could really give cameras a run for their money. The OPPO Find X7 Ultra embodies that promise, so we give the smartphone and its cameras a good test to see if it’s worth that large disc on its back.

Designer: OPPO

Aesthetics

If you’re familiar with OPPO’s premium smartphone line, then the Find X7 Ultra will immediately look familiar. But even if you aren’t, you’re still in for a treat with one of the most beautiful devices to grace the market so far. Just like its predecessor, the Find X6 Pro, it bears a dual-tone color scheme and a large circular camera bump that others have dubbed the “camera Oreo,” though a resemblance with the top of a soda can wouldn’t be off the mark either. It’s a peculiar design, but one that has a reason and actually serves another purpose, intentional or not.

That said, the OPPO Find X7 Ultra isn’t just a rehash of the 2023 flagship. The colored vegan leather that makes up two-thirds of the rear area has a pleasant curve that arcs around the camera at a distance where the two elements intersect. It’s a subtle yet significant change that prevents visual elements from just abruptly cutting into each other. It also has the visual effect of giving the camera Oreo more prominence, with the leather seemingly giving way to this important part of the phone’s design.

The color options for the phone differ in more than just their hues this year, though. Both the Orange and Blue colorways do share a similar design, with the white top of the design looking like a familiar ceramic that OPPO has used in the past. The black colorway, on the other hand, has a few more interesting details, like the stitching on the vegan leather surface. Instead of ceramic, the top looks more like metal but still feels like glass. The mid-frame is also different, using some sandblasted finish that complements the phone’s darker looks.

All three do have the same basic design, with a back that curves at the sides toward the edges. On the flip side, the screen is mostly flat but does curve sharply at those same edges, typical of the premium design carried by phones in the past. Admittedly, it’s going to be a divisive design choice, given how flat is back these days. There’s no denying, however, that the OPPO Find X7 Ultra still looks great with this style and probably wouldn’t be as appealing if was completely flat all around.

Ergonomics

The OPPO Find X7 Ultra is a large piece of metal and glass, there’s no getting around that fact. As with any large smartphone, there will be a problem of straining your hand with its weight and making it less comfortable and stable to hold over time. Fortunately, the phone is also unbelievably thin at 9.5mm only, and at 221g, it’s not exactly a heavyweight. It also feels well-balanced and not top-heavy as you might suspect given the size of the camera bump.

Even better, the rest of the phone’s design also contributes to helping secure a more confident grip. The vegan leather, for example, provides enough texture for your skin to grip comfortably. Even that camera Oreo becomes a place where your index fingers can rest when holding up the phone, especially with a ribbed rim that, again, adds texture and friction to stop the phone from slipping out of your hands. You will still have some difficulty reaching higher areas of the screen if you’re holding it in one hand, but other than that, the size of the Find X7 Ultra doesn’t get in the way of an enjoyable experience when using it.

Performance

The OPPO Find X7 Ultra is a premium flagship through and through, which means it also bears the best of the best hardware available in the market to date. That means a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage, right at the top of the list. Suffice it to say, the phone isn’t wanting in terms of silicon power and it blasts through all kinds of tasks, including heavy gaming, without breaking a sweat. Your hands won’t be sweating either thanks to an impressive cooling system. Mind you, it does get a bit warm with heavier loads, but not to the point of making you want to drop it like a hot potato.

It would be such a shame and a waste if those specs were matched with a mediocre screen and, fortunately, OPPO didn’t fail to impress here either. The huge 6.82-inch LTPO AMOLED display is bright, fast, responsive, and vibrant. It perfectly complements the phone’s luxurious back with an equally gorgeous display that supports the industry-standard HDR10+, OPPO’s own ProXDR, and soon, Google’s new Ultra HDR. Given you’ll want to view the photos you take on this screen, OPPO really needed to make sure that it was up to the task.

OPPO crammed a 5,000mAh battery inside, which is both common yet also mildly disappointing. With all its capabilities, a higher capacity would have been a better choice, but that would have also weighed down the phone considerably. Fortunately, it does last a day on a single charger, at least with constant use, and the super-fast 100W charging is enough to bring it back to full in about half an hour. 50W wireless charging is also plenty fast, which is a rarity in this regard.

Quad Main Camera and HyperTone System

Much of OPPO’s rhetoric revolves around the OPPO Find X7 Ultra’s Quad Main Cameras, and to be fair, it does deserve some praise for pulling off what comes naturally to professional cameras but not to smartphones. DSLRs and mirrorless cameras can easily change lenses when they need a different focal length or field of view while keeping the same high-quality imaging sensor built into the camera. Smartphones, on the other hand, use a different camera for different focal lengths, but due to space and price constraints, also use different sensors that aren’t always up to the task.

What the OPPO Find X7 Ultra accomplishes is to have four different cameras with different lenses, all of which have 50MP sensors. Yes, these sensors have different sizes and specs and, therefore, different overall quality, but the differences are very marginal at best. No longer do you have to sacrifice quality just to jump from wide to ultrawide to telephoto, nor will you get that jarring effect whenever you switch between cameras.

The phone’s mighty camera roster includes a 1-inch 50MP Sony LYT-900 with a 23mm focal length equivalent, a 1/1.95-inch 50MP Sony LYT-600 ultrawide (14mm equivalent), a 1/1.56-inch 50MP Sony IMX890 3x periscope telephoto (65), and a 1/2.51-inch 50MP Sony IMX858 6x periscope telephoto (135mm). With this set, the OPPO Find X7 Ultra practically covers the whole range of lenses used by photographers, including 10x zoom at 270mm with some computational photography. OPPO’s software also allows users to select more common focal lengths, like 35mm for the wide (main) camera, though it does that with a bit of cropping.

As you might have already noticed with the camera samples, these aren’t just numbers or empty words. OPPO definitely delivered on its promise of professional-quality photos in any field of view, zoom, or even lighting condition. Part of that magic is thanks to its partnership with Hasselblad, which also led to the Computational Photography aspect of its HyperTone camera system. In a nutshell, it tries to avoid oversharpening, overexposure, and other exaggerations that most camera software apply to compensate for poor image quality, resulting in more natural-looking photos you might have never thought came from a smartphone instead of a pro camera.

Sustainability

As one of the world’s top 5 smartphone vendors, OPPO has taken its responsibility for preserving the environment quite seriously. In addition to a few models that made use of recycled or sustainable materials, the company also has a concrete program for reducing the negative impact its business has on the planet. That involves reducing its carbon footprint, optimizing its packaging and logistics, and offsetting its harmful emissions.

Unfortunately, the OPPO Find X7 Ultra itself doesn’t have the clear marks of a sustainable phone. Sure, it uses vegan leather across all models, but that synthetic material isn’t completely environment-friendly either, despite the name. One upside is that the phone is IP68-rated, which is one of the highest dust and water resistance levels for smartphones, promising a mostly durable product that should last you quite a while before you have to throw it away, responsibly, of course.

Value

If you’re anything of a mobile shutterbug, it’s hard not to get excited over the OPPO Find X7 Ultra. Although it’s not going to dethrone an expensive DSLR, it really comes close to it with its HyperTone Quad Main Camera System. And all that imaging hardware is packed into a thin and stylish device that you can also use for more than just taking photos. What’s not to like?

Unfortunately, the product’s value takes a nosedive because of the fact that, as of this writing, OPPO has no plans yet to bring the OPPO Find X7 Ultra to international markets, making it exclusive to a Chinese audience. Yes, you can probably import the phone through other channels, but that won’t change the fact that the version of ColorOS software running on it isn’t made for global users. Yes, you can install Google Play Store unofficially, but that still won’t give you access to some basic platform capabilities you’d expect from international versions of these devices. It’s definitely a shame that such a treasure would be out of reach, and hopefully, OPPO will change its mind very soon.

Verdict

Smartphones are sometimes a victim of their own success, or at least of marketing hype. It wasn’t that long ago when they were said to devour the lower end of professional cameras, but they haven’t managed to surpass the bulkier and more powerful shooters in terms of flexibility and quality. It’s just impossible, given the restraints on design, price, and engineering, so smartphones have to make do with workarounds and software solutions.

The OPPO Find X7 Ultra, however, comes pretty close to that ideal. It still can’t change lenses physically, but it provides almost the same experience through a perfect combination of hardware and software. Of course, it’s not just a digital camera, and it manages to excel in almost every field with very few flaws. It’s tragic that most people won’t be able to experience all of that, though, but hopefully, they will soon be able to get their hands on what could very well be this year’s most beautiful and most capable smartphone camera.

The post OPPO Find X7 Ultra Review: Inching Closer to Photography Perfection first appeared on Yanko Design.