Original OPPO Find X FindX 256GB 8GB Smartphone Dual SIM 6.42'' Full Screen Octa Core LTE Dual 16 MP+20 MP Camera 3730 mAh Support Google By-（REAL STAR TECHNOLOGY） (Boedeaux Red 8G 256GB)
A satisfied customer who purchased this phone through Amazon app gave a thumbs up to Oppo Find X. Here is what he says:
This review is for the Chinese domestic model of this phone in Bordeaux Red with 8gb of RAM and 256gb storage. Let me start by saying I have strong mixed feelings about this phone - many things I love, and a few things I hate. From what I have read, the "International" or "Regional" (e.g. India, Australia etc) market versions of the phone mitigate or eliminate most of the things I hate.
First let's talk about the negative items. All are software and support related and could be deal breakers for many - hopefully OS updates will resolve most of these over time
• Because this is the Chinese Domestic Model (CDM), it is illegal to sell with Google apps on the phone. So the phone comes centered around the OPPO app store, services, and applications rather than Google services and applications, and it will always be that way. Many of these are in Chinese or connect to Chinese services so may present some difficulties to non-Chinese speakers/readers. Also many of the core services require the creation and use of an OPPO Cloud account which is very difficult to set up without a phone number with a China area code (you have to do it from a PC and Google translate will be your friend). Any warrantee or support will likely have to come through the place you bought the phone rather than the manufacturer.
• While OPPO makes it very easy to download the Google Play Store, Google Services, and most of your favorite Google Play apps, they will always be sitting on top of OPPO stuff, and never be able to replace or supersede the OPPO stuff. As one example (there are lots more) you can use a Google Chrome browser, but click on a browser link and the OPPO browser is going to start. You can't make Google apps the default for core OPPO supplied functionality. They just have to be used in parallel. Its tolerable but not the best experience.
• The Color OS skin sitting on top of android (Color 5.1, Android 8.1) is very heavy, very complex, terribly organized, and offers no native search within the settings. Things you would expect to see grouped together are buried all through the settings (wide and deep), and there are often multiple paths to the same functionality. At this time, you can't install an alternative launcher. There is no app drawer so everything is on the home screen(s) like iOS. Very time consuming to learn how to navigate the settings maze and 5 minutes after you change something and discover you need to change it again, it will be hard to remember how you got to that setting in the first place and waste more time finding it again. Settings are very granular and many are at the application level.
• The worst aspect of this phone is the hyper restrictive and aggressive performance and power management functionality that you can't completely get away from. For instance you are restricted to a maximum of 5 applications to auto start on boot. By default, no other applications will auto start at any time - want something running and you have to manually run it. And even then, by default you likely won't get any notifications from them and they will be subject to aggressive sleeping and freezing in the background. With a lot of work and settings and screens for each application you can mitigate much of this. But ultimately once your phone sits idle for a period of time, everything but actual carrier phone calls will get put to sleep and you won't receive any notification until you pick up your phone and wake it (sometimes you even have to go past the lock screen or even into an actual application before you'll see the notifications for a particular program). Bottom line is, if you depend on real time notifications, and you aren’t actually actively using your phone all the time, don't buy this phone.
I'm normally a function over form type of person and the above "hates" would have me immediately returning this phone (or at least trying to exchange it for a non CDM version). But its innovation, quality, aesthetics, and uniqueness, have me wanting to keep it and reward the manufacturer for their efforts. The non CDM version of the phone does not include the nice case the CDM version comes with, and the charger that comes with the non CDM version is bulkier with a European style 220v plug you need an adapter for to use in North America.
As to the things I like:
• It's one of the most attractive phones I've ever seen. It has a unique high quality clean look and feel. It will stand out as different and rare from the mass quantities of other models in common use.
• The screen to body ratio is its most outstanding feature beyond look and feel. Lots more screen than normally found in a phone with this size body. And it’s a fantastic quality screen (Samsung produced AMOLED - need I say more).
• Facial recognition is very fast and accurate (rivaling Apples latest iPhones). I would have liked to have seen a fingerprint reader as well, mostly because many apps will currently accept a fingerprint as a security validation, but many do not support facial recognition yet, and will require a PIN on this phone.
• Even with the heavy Color OS skin, this phone is amazingly fast and easily the most responsive phone I've ever used. The storage is equally fast - faster than any phone I've used when copying large files to or from it. Same for charging - this is the fastest charging phone I've ever had and its much faster than Qualcom fast charge or my S8+ or Pixel2XL
• The cameras are very fast into action (despite having to raise them out of the body) so from the time you start the camera app until the point the app is ready to shoot is on par with any other fixed camera phone. The camera app is quite nice with a lot of modes (including a PRO mode that lets you set everything manually). Pictures in good lighting are of excellent quality, and pictures in lower light are very good. I have not tried the video
• Actual phone reception is decent but not spectacular and calls are of good quality when reception permits.
• The sound from the single internal speaker is loud and clear, and the headphone audio offers enhancements that include an equalizer.
• In a masochistic sort of way I'm enjoying exploring and overcoming the differences in a CDM phone. And I've come to mostly like the notifications quirk that gives me notifications when I pick up the phone rather than constantly interrupting me all the time. Of course that can be a very bad thing if an important notification is delayed because you got engrossed in a long task and forgot to periodically pick up your phone.
Overall I really like this phone and for me the good outweighs the bad. But I expect anyone outside of China would be better off with the non CDM version if that’s an option - so I would recommend that version over this (but it tends to cost more, and lacks a case and a charger with a North American plug).
Bravo to OPPO for producing it!
This review is for the Chinese domestic model of this phone in Bordeaux Red with 8gb of RAM and 256gb storage. Let me start by saying I have strong mixed feelings about this phone - many things I love, and a few things I hate. From what I have read, the "International" or "Regional" (e.g. India, Australia etc) market versions of the phone mitigate or eliminate most of the things I hate.
First let's talk about the negative items. All are software and support related and could be deal breakers for many - hopefully OS updates will resolve most of these over time
• Because this is the Chinese Domestic Model (CDM), it is illegal to sell with Google apps on the phone. So the phone comes centered around the OPPO app store, services, and applications rather than Google services and applications, and it will always be that way. Many of these are in Chinese or connect to Chinese services so may present some difficulties to non-Chinese speakers/readers. Also many of the core services require the creation and use of an OPPO Cloud account which is very difficult to set up without a phone number with a China area code (you have to do it from a PC and Google translate will be your friend). Any warrantee or support will likely have to come through the place you bought the phone rather than the manufacturer.
• While OPPO makes it very easy to download the Google Play Store, Google Services, and most of your favorite Google Play apps, they will always be sitting on top of OPPO stuff, and never be able to replace or supersede the OPPO stuff. As one example (there are lots more) you can use a Google Chrome browser, but click on a browser link and the OPPO browser is going to start. You can't make Google apps the default for core OPPO supplied functionality. They just have to be used in parallel. Its tolerable but not the best experience.
• The Color OS skin sitting on top of android (Color 5.1, Android 8.1) is very heavy, very complex, terribly organized, and offers no native search within the settings. Things you would expect to see grouped together are buried all through the settings (wide and deep), and there are often multiple paths to the same functionality. At this time, you can't install an alternative launcher. There is no app drawer so everything is on the home screen(s) like iOS. Very time consuming to learn how to navigate the settings maze and 5 minutes after you change something and discover you need to change it again, it will be hard to remember how you got to that setting in the first place and waste more time finding it again. Settings are very granular and many are at the application level.
• The worst aspect of this phone is the hyper restrictive and aggressive performance and power management functionality that you can't completely get away from. For instance you are restricted to a maximum of 5 applications to auto start on boot. By default, no other applications will auto start at any time - want something running and you have to manually run it. And even then, by default you likely won't get any notifications from them and they will be subject to aggressive sleeping and freezing in the background. With a lot of work and settings and screens for each application you can mitigate much of this. But ultimately once your phone sits idle for a period of time, everything but actual carrier phone calls will get put to sleep and you won't receive any notification until you pick up your phone and wake it (sometimes you even have to go past the lock screen or even into an actual application before you'll see the notifications for a particular program). Bottom line is, if you depend on real time notifications, and you aren’t actually actively using your phone all the time, don't buy this phone.
I'm normally a function over form type of person and the above "hates" would have me immediately returning this phone (or at least trying to exchange it for a non CDM version). But its innovation, quality, aesthetics, and uniqueness, have me wanting to keep it and reward the manufacturer for their efforts. The non CDM version of the phone does not include the nice case the CDM version comes with, and the charger that comes with the non CDM version is bulkier with a European style 220v plug you need an adapter for to use in North America.
As to the things I like:
• It's one of the most attractive phones I've ever seen. It has a unique high quality clean look and feel. It will stand out as different and rare from the mass quantities of other models in common use.
• The screen to body ratio is its most outstanding feature beyond look and feel. Lots more screen than normally found in a phone with this size body. And it’s a fantastic quality screen (Samsung produced AMOLED - need I say more).
• Facial recognition is very fast and accurate (rivaling Apples latest iPhones). I would have liked to have seen a fingerprint reader as well, mostly because many apps will currently accept a fingerprint as a security validation, but many do not support facial recognition yet, and will require a PIN on this phone.
• Even with the heavy Color OS skin, this phone is amazingly fast and easily the most responsive phone I've ever used. The storage is equally fast - faster than any phone I've used when copying large files to or from it. Same for charging - this is the fastest charging phone I've ever had and its much faster than Qualcom fast charge or my S8+ or Pixel2XL
• The cameras are very fast into action (despite having to raise them out of the body) so from the time you start the camera app until the point the app is ready to shoot is on par with any other fixed camera phone. The camera app is quite nice with a lot of modes (including a PRO mode that lets you set everything manually). Pictures in good lighting are of excellent quality, and pictures in lower light are very good. I have not tried the video
• Actual phone reception is decent but not spectacular and calls are of good quality when reception permits.
• The sound from the single internal speaker is loud and clear, and the headphone audio offers enhancements that include an equalizer.
• In a masochistic sort of way I'm enjoying exploring and overcoming the differences in a CDM phone. And I've come to mostly like the notifications quirk that gives me notifications when I pick up the phone rather than constantly interrupting me all the time. Of course that can be a very bad thing if an important notification is delayed because you got engrossed in a long task and forgot to periodically pick up your phone.
Overall I really like this phone and for me the good outweighs the bad. But I expect anyone outside of China would be better off with the non CDM version if that’s an option - so I would recommend that version over this (but it tends to cost more, and lacks a case and a charger with a North American plug).
Bravo to OPPO for producing it!
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