New flagship phone takes the fight to the Oppo-sition

The Oppo find X5 Series launched globally last week Thursday to widespread acclaim from regular mobile phone enthusiasts to super-users all over the world.

The former budget brand’s latest offering is packed full of the most up-to-date tech you’ll expect from a flagship device, like the snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip, and two of Sony’s IM766 camera sensors.

You also get 3 cameras – a wide, an ultra-wide and a 12MP telephoto. The wide and ultra-wide are your two “main” 50MP shooters, the primary which has a 5 axis-OIS stabilizer, and the latter which gives you an ultra-wide angle. These are paired with their in-house NPU (Marisilicon X Imaging NPU a Neural Processing Unit).

All this means that you’ll get to take breathtakingly sharp and colour accurate photos of all the things you love, and it will even be possible to shoot 4k at night. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

I had the opportunity to speak to the team behind the device during a live stream last Saturday, and they assured me they were taking notes of what users want.

One of the most important elements of their new approach is Oppo’s commitment to a greener future.

This means every effort was made with the environment in mind, from the packaging material, to materials used to make the phone, and especially the 80w SUPERVOOC charger, which when paired with the 5 000mAh battery has increased the charging cycles up to 1 600.

This doubles the previous generation of the Find X’s battery lifespan, which ultimately means you’ll get to keep the device longer.

This really excites me, as it means less e-waste and make sure even us tree-huggers can celebrate the launch of a new electronic device.

Of course, more can still be done and I’d like to see even less e-waste in the future such as a device which lasts a lifetime.

I can dream, right?

This is an important step in the right direction though, and the innovation can only bode well for the future.

Unfortunately, the unit isn’t cheap and will set you back around R20 000.

Can OPPO justify this price tag considering all the other options you have out there?

Well, it must be said that the rival options aren’t much better in price and OPPO is one of the fastest-growing smartphone manufacturers in the world.

So, considering the specs on offer, the Find X is a tempting premium device, and is sure to become strong OPPO-sition for the established brands like Apple’s iPhone & Samsung’s Galaxy range.