[rwp-review id=”0″]
Oppo. That brand with the quirky swivel phone we have reviewed earlier. While perhaps not as omnipresent as Samsung is in the household, their devices are certainly not to be overlooked. The Find 7, in particular, is a force to be reckoned with – at least on paper – and it is indeed a very good phone, it being considered their high-end flagship and all.
Design & Hardware
The Find 7 feels premium. It is on the heavy side at 171g but, given its size, the weight is distributed such that it doesn’t get uncomfortable with long use. What can get uncomfortable, though, is its size; the display is 5.5 inches and while the bezels are thin, the phone is still massive.
To its credit, the back has a nice curve and the texture gives it not only a firm grip but a premium one. I did find the corners to be quite sharp (I prefer very curvey phones) but that is not detriminal to the experience at all. The phone is mostly made of high quality plastic, while the band that runs around the phone is made of brushed metal.
A nifty and elegant hardware feature is the notification light; at the bottom of the phone there is an invisible strip that would light up in a cool blue that pulses slowly whenever there is a notification. I personally found it to be elegant and gives the phone a subtle and functional design.
Inside the shell is a 2.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor, a whopping 3GB of RAM and 32GB of onboard storage (expandable with microSD).
Display
The 5.5 inch display is a beautiful QuadHD IPS display – 2560×1440 pixels and it looks unbelievably sharp with 538ppi. It’s ridiculous sometimes to look at; what kind of use does one need for all of this sharpness? And yet QuadHD display is something manufacutrers continue to pursue and boast about.
Colours are represented well although the saturation seems to be toned down just a little and the white balance takes on the cooler side; compared to any Samsung phone, the difference can be between light and day. I don’t particularly like the oversaturation of Super AMOLED and prefer the IPS colours. Screen response is good but I found that it’s unduly sensitive when it’s off; you can unlock the phone by double tapping, although holding the phone and shifting it in your palm seems to unlock it, as does keeping it in your pocket (but for that size probably not the best of ideas).
Software
I’ve touched upon the software in the N1 Mini review, and the same Color OS is present in the Find 7. Despite all the horsepower under the hood, it can get clunky at times. It definitely performs better on the Find 7 than it did on the N1 Mini, but software optimisations are in order. You can still skin the phone in all manners you like, and the gestures and other cool features of the Color OS are present. It’s a love/hate relationship I have with the Oppo phones. On one had it’s a combination of many different good UI elements I have seen across many implementations; on the other hand it bloats up the memory but thankfully the Find 7 has plenty of it.
Camera
Probably one of the main draws of the Find 7 is its camera. Oppo has thrown in an Ultra HD mode that would allow you to take a 50MP photo. While that sounds amazing, in real tests I found it to be more of a marketing hype; don’t expect Lumia 1020 photos from here.
That said, the 13MP standard camera is very good.
With a wide aperture of f/2 gives incredibly shallow depth of field in photos and works phenomenally well at night; in fact, I found the Find 7 to have one of the best night photos among most smartphones. What helps here is not only the wide aperture but also a powerful software that runs in the back to optimise the images. With some tweaking from the user, you can take some really good photos.
Standard photos are crisp and sharp and the colours have good contrast. HDR photos turned out to be good as well, and against rocks and other textured structures you will get a grungy yet properly saturated feel. With a well lit sky and day to day foregrounds, the HDR photos tended to be quite realistic (though you will get some HDR artefacts, such as the halo around objects). You also have your beautify and other modes, including Ultra HD.
The best mode though that is not available in other phones is the long shutter speed. With it, you can control how long the shutter remains open, giving you the creative freedom to pull of some really nice light trails at night. And since the shutter is open for longer, the ISO is down so there is much less noise at night images – combined with the software optimisations and provided you have iron hands or have the phone on a very stable surface, the night mode alone is worth the purchase.
Performance
In terms of raw processing power, the phone has a lot going for it. Although it is marginally hindered by the software, in normal use the phone is super fast and there was no lag in the applications I have used.
The 3,000mAh battery powers up the phone and the display and, quite frankly, it drains fast. Going out on the photo walk rendered the phone dead by noon, but standard use can push it to the afternoon. That said, the Find 7 has a charging system unique to Oppo called “VOOC” that allows for rapid charging – up to 75% in 30 minutes. It works, and it is only through the official packaged charger that this is achievable.
Overall Thoughts
The Find 7 is a big, slightly heavy but premium phone that has many things going right for it. Speed, processing power, design, and an amazing camera are guaranteed to keep you happy for a while. The Color OS is a subjective matter, but replacing the launcher with another one will alleviate some of the negative sentiments in that area.
