Having used foldable phones as a primary phone for close to two years has given me a better perspective of its practical use as well as its shortcomings.
We’ve documented a number of times before that the display technology of foldables are nowhere near the typical toughness/hardiness of a normal handset. That, and the hinge mechanism and crease at the fold.
Besides that, everything else seemed to have been ironed out with the current crop of foldables. Sure, they’re not as affordable as their non-folding contemporaries, but the charm of a folding display has certainly attracted many smartphone users and prompted them to buy into the novelty.
OPPO tried to address all these concerns and flexed its R&D muscle with the release of the Find N2 Flip.
Table of Contents
Design and Construction
The Find N2 Flip looks and works like your typical clamshell-type phone — it folds vertically in the middle with a hinge design that supports the bendable display on the inside. Once you unfold the device, it looks and feels like any other bar-type smartphone form-factor.
Expanded, it’s actually very thin at 7.45mm. Once you fold it close, it goes to 16.02mm which is actually acceptable for a foldable smartphone. Not too cumbersome to carry and not too heavy either (191 grams).
On the outside, you are first greeted by the large Cover Screen that spans 3.26-inches across at 720×382 pixels in resolution. Beside the Cover Screen are a pair of rear-facing cameras and LED flash.
The volume rocker and power button (serves as fingerprint scanner as well) are on the right side, noise-canceling mic and 2nd speaker grill up top while there’s nothing on the left side; the USB-C charging port, speaker grill and SIM card slot are at the bottom end.
You can fold the device at angles between 45-degrees to 110-degrees which allows you to use the phone in a sitting or freestanding position (OPPO refers to this as the FlexForm Mode). This opens up a lot of possibilities — from watching content to taking photos or shooting videos like a camcorder. No need for a tripod or selfie stick!
The Flexion Hinge is engineered so elegantly that you don’t even see a gap in between the display when the phone is folded up. It offers just the right amount of flex and firmness to adjust the hinge at an angle of your liking.
OPPO has also tested the hinge to be able to withstand up to 400,000 folds (certified by TÜV Rheinland). To put that into context, if you fold-unfold the device about 100 times a day, it will take you almost 11 years before that hinge finally gives up.
Over-all, the Find N2 Flip has a pretty solid design. The thin profile and form factor is just about right although it can be a bit cumbersome to use with one hand, even with as simple as composing a text message.
Display, Biometrics, Multimedia
Folded, the Find N2 Flip features a 3.26” cover screen (720×382 pixels), the biggest in its category. While it is limited to about 5 swipeable windows (Camera, Weather, Calendar, Timer and Messages), the Cover Screen provides a quick glimpse of your phone’s most frequent functions.
You will see most notifications and updates from the Cover Screen and can reply to text messages with canned responses that you can also customize.
The most frequently used function here is the camera — you can take photos, selfies, videos right from the Cover Screen and that also means you are using the main rear camera when doing so. You can also view the photos and videos from the Cover Screen and delete them from there right away.
We do hope that in the future, perhaps with a software update, you can also watch YouTube and Tiktok from this screen since it’s already big enough. That would be awesome, right?
Unfolded, you get a massive 6.8-inch AMOLED screen with a full HD+ (2520 x 1080 pixels) resolution. It is massive and actually matches the display sizes of most other flagship smartphones in the market.
The screen is vibrant, bright with great contrast and saturation. You don’t see the crease of the fold from viewing distance but will certainly feel it with your fingers when you swipe over it. It normally operates at around 500 nits but peak brightness can go up to 1,200 nits under sunlight (maxes at 1600 nits).
Both the Cover Screen and the inner screen have a maximum refresh rate of 120Hz that you can set down to 60Hz but that means it’s not adaptive and not very power-efficient after all.
The inner display is still made with a combination of ultra-thin glass (UTG) and plastic to make it flexible while the Cover Screen is protected by Corning’s Gorilla Glass 5.
To be completely honest, we had very little screen time with playing games on the Find N2 Flip because of the fear we would ruin (again!) the inner display just like what happened to our Galaxy Z Flip3 before.
The device uses a side-mounted fingerprint sensor that is integrated into the power button. This is the best approach since you will also need the same sensor for unlocking the Cover Screen while still folded.
Otherwise, you can also enable the facial recognition feature to automatically unlock the device right after you unfold it.
With stereo speakers strategically positioned at the top and bottom ends of the phone, you get good sound balance for music playback. Volume is also loud enough when watching YouTube or Netflix movies from usual viewing distance. Over-all, it’s decent performance in the sound department but nothing to be too excited about.
There’s no 3.5mm output jack for earphones but you can use the USB-C for that. Problem, though, is that there’s no Type-C to 3.5mm adaptor included in the box, just in case you need it.
Camera
The Find N2 Flip only features two rear cameras — a 50MP main and an 8MP ultrawide. It might not be much, but considering the N2 Flip is a very slim foldable, there’s not much room there to place so many camera modules. Hence, the decision to put a main and a wide-angle camera is the best decision in our opinion.
Nevertheless, the photos taken by both cameras looked really good in our experience, all thanks to Sony IMX 890 sensor. Here’s some sample shots we took from Camp Netanya in Mabini, Batangas.
The second ultrawide camera features a Sony IMX355 with f/2.2 and a 112° field-of-view.
Photos are very crisp with a lot of detail, pretty good contrast and high dynamic range even with the high noon sun across the vast seascape in our sample photos above.
They managed to get all these great results from the combination of high-resolution sensors, an in-house MariSilicon X NPU and partnership with Hasselblad.
If there’s something that’s missing, it’s the optical image stabilization (OIS) on the main camera so you’d most probably get shaky videos while moving about and shooting.
Video recording capability goes up to 4K @ 30fps which isn’t that impressive but the lack of 8k or 4k@60fps video is somewhat compensated by great optics. Just look at the sample 4K videos we took below.
One of the more ergonomic features of the N2 Flip is that you can fold it halfway and have it sit on a flat surface to take photos and videos. No need for a tripod or something else to support it.
So, this time-lapse shot of the sunset and morning sun at Camp Netanya in Mabini, Batangas was all done by the N2 Flip and quickly set up without any problem.
You can definitely do the same with the front camera, and it will be very handy when you use it for video calls, taking selfies, or shooting your next viral Tiktok.
The front camera uses a 32MP f/2.4 Sony IMX709 sensor with video recording that maxes out at 1080p @ 30fps. Shots are decent to very good when on well-lit environments but degrades pretty quickly under low-light conditions. The redeeming feature here is that, again, the rear camera can easily be used for selfies and the like so we rarely find ourselves using the front-facing camera.
OS, UI and Apps
The Find N2 Flip runs on ColorOS 13, which is based on Android 13. For first-time users, you can get a little disoriented with gesture controls and navigation so the best option for starters would be the Drawer Mode.
Having used the Find N2 for a bit and currently using the OnePlus 11 for about close to 2 months now, I’ve pretty much gotten the hang of ColorOS/OxygenOS.
Between the Standard Mode (gesture-based navigation) and the old Drawer Mode, I prefer the latter. There are a lot of customizations here — from widgets, layout, icons, transitions and more. Some navigation features are only available when you are on gesture mode.
Even the Cover Screen has a simple user interface with 5 windows — Camera, Weather, Calendar, Timer and Messages. You can quickly access and manage these features right from the screen. Other apps that are supported in the OCver Screen via a floating player control include Spotify but weird that the native Music app is not. Pulling down the main window also shows the shortcuts to WiFi, Bluetooth, 5G connectivity and more.
Other special features include Split screen, Flexible windows, Smart Sidebar and Kids Space. There are more gesture shortcuts as well like raise to wake, flip to mute incoming calls and lift to ear to answer calls.
There’s a nice feature that allows you to record a video with the front camera when running screen recording. This would be nice for gaming wanting to do a screen recording of their game while commentating.
Performance and Benchmarks
Powering the Find N2 Flip is a Mediatek Dimensity 9000+ chipset. This TSMC N4 (4nm-class) chip comprised of 1x Arm Cortex-X2 at 3.2GHz, 3x Arm Cortex-A710 up to 2.85GHz and 4x Arm Cortex-A510, paired with an Arm Mali-G710 MC10 graphics processor.
This is Mediatek’s most powerful and efficient chipset to date. It is paired with 8GB of LPDDR5 RAM with additional 8GB of RAM extension and then 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage (no microSD card expansion slot though).
This is a pretty good hardware combo and you will definitely get a very smooth experience whether you are running on multiple apps or playing games.
Antutu Benchmark V9.5.6 – 794,423
Antutu Storage: 1,593MB/s (read), 1,126MB/s (write), 257MB/s & 259MB/s (random read/write)
GeekBench 5: 896 (Single), 3,025 (Multi-core)
GeekBench 6: 1052 (Single), 2,560 (Multi-core)
PCMark Work 3.0: 9,370
Connectivity and Battery Life
The Find N2 Flip is complete with all the connectivity options we’d expect from a flagship phone — dual 5G, WiFi 6, Bluetooth, NFC and GPS.
With a combined 4,300mAh battery (3110mAh + 1190mAh), the Find N2 Flip carries the largest in any flippable smartphone in the market today. Expect a full day’s worth of battery life on a single full charge with moderate to heavy use. This is based on our normal usage of the device in the past 4 weeks but that could slightly change depending on your usage behavior (could be lower if you do a lot of gaming with it).
In our PC Mark Battery Test, the Find N2 Flip clocked in at 14 hours and 40 minutes at 50% brightness, 0% volume, and in airplane mode. That’s more or less above-average score compared to several other smartphones in this class and way better than the performance we got from the Galaxy Z Flip4 that only got a little over 10.5 hours in the same test.
The box comes with a 44W SuperVOOC 2.0 Flash Charge and claims up to 50% battery in 23 minutes. Not super fast, but good enough.
Conclusion
While foldable phones might not be everybody’s cup of tea, those who appreciate the style and novelty of flip phones will definitely love the OPPO Find N2 Flip.
It’s a versatile phone with great hardware and very good camera; and for a foldable phone, it offers more than what we’d expect from this category.
The Find N2 Flip is by no means perfect, but OPPO has definitely shown us it can push the boundaries of what foldable phones can offer. And, at a much more reasonable price too!
The OPPO Find N2 Flip is available today with a suggested retail price of Php49,999. Customers will also get an OPPO Watch Free and Enco Air3 TWS on top of a 10% cashback (capped at Php1,000) from Lazada.
Pros:
- Top-notch performance
- Solid design and construction
- Great camera quality
- Good battery life for a flip phone
Cons:
- No IP6X rating, simply splash resistance
- No camera OIS for video stabilization
OPPO Find N2 Flip specs:
6.8-inch FHD+ (2520 x 1080)AMOLED main display, 403ppi
3.26-inch (720 x 382) AMOLED cover display, 250ppi
UTG (main), Gorilla Glass 5 (cover)
120Hz refresh rate (main)
120Hz (cover), 240Hz (main) touch sampling rate
1600 nits peak brightness (1200 nits under sunlight)
MediaTek Dimensity 9000+ SoC
Arm Mali-G710 MC10 GPU
8GB LPDDR5 RAM
256GB UFS 3.1 internal storage
Dual-rear cameras:
• 50MP F1.8 main
• 8MP F2.2 ultra-wide
32MP F2.4 front camera
Dual-SIM
5G, 4G LTE
WiFi 6
Bluetooth 5.3
NFC
GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS, GALILEO, QZSS, NavIC
USB-C
Fingerprint scanner (side)
Stereo speakers
ColorOS 13 (Android 13)
4,300mAh battery w/ 44W SuperVOOC 2.0
166.2 x 75.2 x 7.5 mm (Unfolded)
85.5 x 75.2 x 16.2 mm (Folded)
191 grams (weight)
Astral Black, Moonlit Purple
