Oppo Find N3 Flip review: Raising the bar one upgrade at a time

Oppo Find N3 Flip review: Foldable phones are slowly gaining popularity among the masses. While the category is expected to cross the 25 million units mark in 2024 globally, it is tipped to grow by more than four times to 35 percent in India in 2024. This positive outlook is based on the improvements that smartphone makers have introduced year-on-year, which in turn has not only instilled more faith among the buyers, but it has also encouraged smartphone makers to introduce generational upgrades to their foldable phones just as they do in case of their non-foldable counterparts. Riding high on this trend, Oppo recently introduced the Oppo Find N3 Flip in India. Also Read: Oppo Find X9, Oppo X9 Pro Leak Hints At Slim Design And Massive Batteries

The newly launched Oppo Find N3 Flip is the successor to the Oppo Find N2 Flip (REVIEW) that arrived in India earlier this year and it features several upgrades over its predecessor. In addition to what we describe as the ‘usuals’, that is, the processor and storage, the company has also introduced massive upgrades to the camera and the utility of the cover display. In addition to this, Oppo has introduced major design upgrades to its flip-style foldable phone that has not only made the Find N3 Flip’s hinge sturdier than its predecessor but also made the crease a whole lot invisible. You can check out differences between the Oppo Find N3 Flip and the Find N2 Flip here. Also Read: Oppo A6 Pro Launched With 7,000mAh Battery And 50MP Camera: Price, Specs, Features

That said, the question remains if the Find N3 Flip is designed to impress – or not? We will try to answer that and more in the detailed review below, so keep reading! Also Read: Oppo F31 5G Series Launching in India on 15 September: Price, Specs, and Everything You Need to Know

Oppo Find N3 Flip: Specifications

Primary display: 6.8-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 2520 x 1080 pixels, up to 120Hz screen refresh rate, 1600 nits of peak brightness

Cover display: 3.26-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 720 x 382 pixels, 900 nits of peak brightness

Processor: MediaTek Dimensity 9200

Storage: 12GB of LPDDR5x RAM, 256GB of UFS 4.0 storage space

Rear camera: 50MP primary camera rear camera with the Sony IMX890 sensor + 48MP ultra-wide-angle lens with the Sony IMX581 sensor + 32MP telephoto lens with Sony IMX709 sensor.

Front camera: 32MP camera with the Sony IMX709 RGBW sensor

Battery: 4,300mAh with 44W SuperVOOC fast charging tech

Connectivity: NFC, Bluetooth 5.3, Wi-Fi 7, 5G

Colours: Cream Gold, Sleek Black

Price: Rs 94,999

Image: Shweta Ganjoo/Techlusive

Oppo Find N3 Flip review: Design

Let’s talk about the design first. 

The Oppo Find N3 Flip features a design that is quite similar to that of the Oppo Find N2 Flip. This means that you get the same glass body with metallic chassis and curved edges in the Find N3 Flip that you got in its predecessor. You also get the same wavy-like design on the hinge on both the phones. In fact, it is difficult to distinguish the Find N3 Flip from its predecessor from the back, that is, if you keep aside the Hasselblad branding at the back and Oppo branding on the hinge. However, Oppo has completely transformed the front side of the phone by introducing an upgraded camera module that follows a different design philosophy.

To recall, last year’s Oppo Find N2 Flip sports a dual-rear camera setup with a chrome-ring design. This year, Oppo has added a third camera to the mix and introduced a cosmic-ring-style design along with Hasselblad branding – all while keeping the size of the cover screen unchanged. In effect, this upgraded design looks a lot more refined than the company’s second-gen flip-style foldable phone. It also gives the phone a more premium appeal. 

On the inside, the company has followed the ‘don’t change what’s not broken philosophy’ by keeping the hinge design unchanged. The Oppo Find N3 Flip features the company’s Flexion hinge design that folds the two halves of the display in a water drop shape. The result of this design is that you get a zero-gap flip-style foldable phone when folded and a creaseless display on the inside. That said, Oppo has made some meaningful upgrades to the hinge. The company has used aircraft-grade stainless steel in the core of the hinge, which the company says makes the Find N3 Flip 25 percent more durable than its predecessor.

In effect, the overall design of the Find N3 Flip is gorgeous, and the hinge mechanism is comfortable to use. However, one downside of the design is that it is quite prone to dust and smudges, which makes keeping the phone clean a real task. To manage this, Oppo ships a plastic cover with matte finish inside the box, which keeps the phone clean and pristine.

Image: Shweta Ganjoo/Teclusive

Oppo Find N3 Flip review: Display

Let’s talk about the main display first. Oppo hasn’t made any major changes to the main display of its third-gen foldable phone. This means that you get a 6.8-inch AMOLED display that is comfortable to use under the bright sunlight. So, whether you are writing emails on the go or catching up on your daily dose of social media, which I often do, the Find N3 Flip won’t disappoint you at all. 

In addition to this, you also get an exceptionally comfortable viewing experience while watching TV series and movies on various OTT platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Videos, thanks to the HDR10+ support that the Find N3 Flip comes with. I often catch up on shows that I want to watch while I am travelling back home after a long day at work. During my time with the Oppo Find N3 Flip, I watched several shows, such as See You in My 19th Life and What’s Wrong with Secretary Kim, on my way to home and I found the balance of colour and contrast enhancing my overall experience. Cherry on top of the cake was the bigger display with a near creaseless design that gave me more space to watch content without necessarily adding bulk to my pocket or denting the picture in the middle.

Coming to the cover screen, this is where Oppo has made major improvements this year. While the screen size and other aspects have mostly remained unchanged, Oppo has made the cover display a lot more utilitarian this year. While the cover day in the Find N2 Flip lets users respond to messages using quick replies and check emails and other notifications comfortably, the cover display of the Find N3 Flip lets you access over 40 apps in a way that is similar to how you access these apps on a more traditional display. In effect, you can respond to emails, navigate on Google Maps, record audio and even play games comfortably. Simply put, you can do a lot more with the Find N3 Flip than you could ever do with the Find N2 Flip, which adds to the overall utility of this form factor.

Image: Shweta Ganjoo/Techlusive

Oppo Find N3 Flip review: Camera

Next comes the camera, which also happens to be the area where Oppo has made some most noteworthy changes. To begin with, Oppo hasn’t made any significant changes to the front camera of the phone. It gets the same lens and the sensor as last year’s Find N2 Flip. However, the company has tweaked its image processing algorithm a bit this year such that it doesn’t ‘beautify’ your facial features too much. While it does smoothen your skin tone in the regular mode, the effect doesn’t alter the features to fit in the algorithm’s preset conditions. On the contrary, selfie images clicked from the front camera in the portrait mode have a good isolation without the smoothing effect on the skin.

Now comes the rear camera, which is where the focus has been this year. As mentioned before, Oppo has added a telephoto lens to its foldable phone this year, making it the first flip-style foldable phone, at least in India, to come with a triple rear camera setup. What this third camera has done is that it has given the Find N3 Flip and users more tools and a better range to capture images under a variety of conditions. In usage, the Find N3 Flip does a good job in capturing details and reproducing colours in the daylight conditions. For instance, the phone accurately captures the white flower amid the light-green-coloured leaves without over-brightening the greens or missing out on the details. Similarly, it does well while capturing the veins in the leaves of the brinjal plant and the change in lighting condition on a winter morning. It also does a decent, if not exceptionally well, job in capturing details and reproducing colours in the indoor lighting conditions. 

Coming to the low-light conditions, the Find N3 Flip does an exceptionally good job while capturing the details and the colours during the night. Be it a crowded city street or a quiet garden, the phone appropriately balances details with colour while capturing the shadows. This is also true for images captured using the wide-angle lens and the selfie images captured. Check out some of the camera samples here: 

Oppo Find N3 Flip review: Performance and Battery

Now, let’s talk about the second most important part of this conversation – how well the phone performs in day-to-day usage.

I used the Find N3 Flip as my daily driver for a few days and I found the overall experience to be smooth and blip-free. Whether it was working through endless emails and messages on the weekdays or binge watching TV series over the weekend, the Find N3 Flip showed no signs of heating or slowing down even as I multitasked while using a bunch of different apps at the same time – a quality it borrows from its predecessor. Another thing that I like about the phone is its nifty biometrics. While smartphone makers have perfected the biometrics game over the years, it can be a little tricky with the foldables, since the category is fairly new right now. The Oppo Find N3 Flip comes with a side-mounted fingerprint sensor and facial unlock features. Both the features unlock the phone in less than a second without faltering each time. The cover display does a particularly good job as it unlocks the phone in no time irrespective of how you are holding the folded device.  

On the software side of things, the Find N3 Flip runs Android 13-based ColorOS 13.2. While it doesn’t ship with the latest Android 14 mobile operating system, Oppo says that the phone offers three years of support, ensuring that the Find N3 Flip gets Android 14, Android 15 and Android 16 updates when they become available publicly. Apart from this, the phone ships with a lot of additional apps, some of which you will need, some of which you won’t. This is by design for ColorOS 13.2. Thankfully, it’s not difficult to remove these apps from the phone and free up some additional space for your use.

Lastly, the battery. Oppo has made no major upgrades to the battery this year. This is not necessarily a bad thing as the battery easily lasts for a little over a day in day-to-day usage. But this will vary with your individual usage. Coming to the charging, the Find N3 Flip charges up to 50 percent in around 30 minutes and it takes a little more than an hour to juice it up completely.

Image: Shweta Ganjoo/Techlusive

Should you buy the Oppo Find N3 Flip?

The answer to this question is a simple yes. When we reviewed the Find N2 Flip earlier this year, we wrote – “The Oppo Find N2 Flip is a powerful and a well thought out foldable phone. It intelligently uses the space available to it and provides all the features and some more that are available in clam-shell style foldables.” The Find N3 Flip takes this a notch up by making the cover display a lot more useful and cameras a whole lot better – additions that help you make the most of a foldable phone. So, if you are planning to buy a premium phone or give foldables a shot, the Oppo Find N3 Flip would be a good place to start.