Oppo Find X2 Lite REVIEW

Chinese phone maker Oppo is an interesting brand. They release great phones that deliver amazing value for money and have fantastic designs. There’s usually a killer feature or three thrown in for good measure too. You’d think they’d be huge news, but alas they’re still one of New Zealand’s best-kept secrets.

That could soon be set to change, thanks to the ultra-affordable and 5G capable Find X2 Lite.

While nutters were busy burning down cell-towers, Oppo focused on making 5G phones affordable. With Vodafone launching 5G, Oppo’s timing couldn’t have been better. The only 5G handsets on sale at the time required you sold your first-born or a kidney. Thank goodness the Find X2 Lite comes in at a wallet pleasing $799.

The find X2 Lite is a slinky wee number. A gorilla glass screen and underside got sandwiched between an alloy band. It also has plenty of soft curves, which make it a comfy fit in the hand. Oppo also earns brownie points by bundling a transparent silicon case.

Its bright and vivid AMOLED screen comes close to being bezel-less. This is thanks to a tear-drop front camera notch and an ultra-slim front-facing earpiece speaker. Around the back sit four cameras (more on these later) and a flash. The fingerprint sensor is an under-screen number. The only other controls are the usual power and volume buttons.

There are also a few small design flourishes. These range from the razor-thin slim earpiece, to a power button with a recessed anodised green strip. It may look good but it also gives you a tactile means of locating the on/off button.

Under the hood, the Find X2 Lite delivers. As with other Oppo phones, the battery setup has had a lot of thought put into it. It sports a large 4025mAh battery. While the battery is big, it ran down fast when testing Vodafone’s 5G network in central Wellington. That’s not a huge surprise. 5G is a power-hungry beast and that equates to more power being consumed. Streaming 4K PrimeVideo was part of testing and this would have seen both the radio and screen hammering the battery. When on 4G (or Wi-Fi at home) I typically wrung out under two days with light use and a day and a half with heavier use. Oppo’s Vooc fast charging is also present. After spending 20 to 30 minutes with a wall-socket and a charger, the Find X2 Lite was back at 50 percent charge. Not bad.

The phone packs a Qualcomm SDM765 Snapdragon 7nm 765G CPU too. It’s an Octa-core monster, in a big/little configuration. This equates to a 2.4 GHz and a 2.2 GHz core for heavy lifting. For lighter chores, there are 6x 1.8 GHz energy efficient (but less powerful cores). In practice, this setup is plentiful for almost any app you’re ever likely to use on this phone. You also get 128GB of storage (ample for those with decent media collections). There’s also 8GB of RAM (which makes for smooth multi-tasking). Considering its sub $800 sticker price, this isn’t a bad spec at all.

The camera setup isn’t lacking either. For the price, you get a front-facing single shooter whose sensor weighs in at 32MP. For a selfie shooter, this isn’t too bad at all. The rear cameras consist of a quad-camera array. This has a wide, ultra-wide, depth sensor and main camera. The rear megapixel count totals up to 48MP. It isn’t only about lots of megapixels, though.  Oppo has a night shooting mode plus a tonne of other smarts. These all help complete photographic ignoramuses (like me) capture decent snaps.

So, while a lot is happening specs-wise, you’d be right to ask, “what got trimmed?” It’s a good question, especially considering the reasonable sticker price. The short answer is that while little is missing, an SD card expansion slot is MIA, so you’re reliant on the 128GB for storing apps, photos and media.

For $799 you get 5G and crucially, a decent spec. All told, the Find X2 Lite is great value for money. This combination makes it ideal for anyone not wanting to drop $2k on a 5G flagship. Because of this, the Find X2 Lite earns a 10/10.

https://www.oppo.com/nz/