Oppo Find X3 Lite REVIEW – More for less

It only seems like yesterday that Oppo launched the Find X2, but 12 months and a global pandemic later and Oppo sent me the Find X3 Lite to review. As its name suggests, this is hardware aimed squarely at those not wanting to drop a sizeable pile of cash on a flagship phone, but who are still looking for bang per buck value.

While it might not be flagship phone hardware, it does come with some surprisingly decent specs given its pocket-friendly price tag. So, is the Find X3 Lite enough to put some lead in your pencil? We took it for a test run to find out.

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Design-wise, it’s an attractive piece of hardware. While its textured metallic Astral blue plastic back (it also comes in Starry Black) is a giveaway that it’s not a flagship device, it’s still smart-looking, which is a good thing as there’s plenty of competition in the mid-range smartphone market.

Specs-wise, the Find X3 does have a lot going for it. You get the capable Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G and a healthy 8 GB of RAM, for a start. This translates into the Find X3 Lite being up to almost anything, including many games that an average user would care to throw at it. Rounding the specs out is 5G support and a surprisingly competent rear quad-camera setup.

It feels solid, and I was impressed with its overall look and feel. While a glass rear panel would have lent it a more upmarket feel, the plastic back is textured, which helps with grip, and should see fewer involuntary drop testing and costly repair shop visits.

Another bonus is the 3.5mm audio jack located on its bottom. As handy as Bluetooth is, wired still delivers superior audio. Staying on the Audio front, it also sports a bottom-firing speaker. While it’s plenty loud, it’s still a mono speaker. A top speaker for some stereo sweetness would have been nice, but then I keep having to tell myself that the Find X3 Lite is the budget phone in Oppo’s Find series.

On the software front, you get Oppo’s Color OS skin overlaid atop of Android 11. Oppo has consciously moved away from aping IOS. The net result is a simple yet pleasing and intuitive Android interface with oodles of well-executed extras. While you get Android 11 (most phones at this price point are still shipping with Android 10), Oppo also confirmed that the Find X3 range will get two Android updates, making it an attractive futureproofed option.

Under the Find X3’s hood sits a Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G, 8GB of RAM, and a generous 128GB of storage. It’s a good spec that caters for most users, even if it is like what was found in the Find X2 Lite. That the Snapdragon 765G is again used 12 months later points to how capable it is, and this time you get 5G too.

Being an Oppo device, it comes with a decent battery. You get a 4,300 mAh battery, which depending on how you use it, can see the Find X3 Lite delivering up to two days of use. While it’s intended as a mid-range device, it still comes with 65W fast charging. In Oppo parlance, this is known as Super VOOC 2.0. You can go from 0 to fully-charged in just under 40 minutes.

The 6.4-inch OLED display on the Find X3 also feels more flagship than mid-range. It sports an FHD+ resolution at a crispy 90 Hz, which made for super smooth scrolling. The display is vivid, crisp, and bright enough to do double duty as tanning clinic equipment. Under the display sits an in-screen fingerprint sensor, which was very responsive and surprisingly accurate. The Color OS unlock animations were nifty too.

The Find X3 Lite’s cameras were also a pleasant surprise, consisting of a 64MP f/1.7 main camera, an 8 MP, f/2.2 ultrawide camera, a 2 MP, f/2.4 macro and a black and white camera. Shooting in typical Wellington overcast daytime conditions saw detailed photos that captured fairly accurate colours and exposure levels.

Oppo also got the zoom right. Even though there is no fancy periscopic zoom, 2x 5x and even 20x delivered decent results. Night shooting also saw the Find X3 Lites camera delivering the goods. Shooting in photo mode (instead of night mode) saw plenty of detail captured, with image noise remaining acceptable. Night mode further improved things by brightening images, keeping colours from becoming garish and reducing image noise. Considering its affordable sticker price, the cameras batted well above its budget price. Add in an Expert HD mode (which can capture 108 MP images), Panorama, Pro mode, and Portrait, the find X3 Lite camera offers plenty for anyone looking for an affordable but decent camera.

If that’s what is good, what’s missing? For a start, wireless charging is MIA. That said, however, you do get Oppo’s Supe Vooc 2.0 wired charging. Also, the 128GB of storage isn’t expandible. This is a real shame as a hybrid SIM/SD card slot as the second SIM would be a low-cost addition that’d add some serious value. Stereo sound via a top and bottom speaker would have been nice too, but again, keeping the Find X3 Lite affordable is likely to have nixed any second speaker. None of these is a showstopper, and they’re all nice to have instead of must-haves.

Oppo’s Find X3 Lite might have remarkably similar specs to last year’s model. Still, Oppo has made some crucial improvements while wisely choosing to keep what worked well. Its fast charging is even faster. The camera on the Find X3 Lite is vastly better than last year’s already decent shooter. Android 11 is also there, and Color OS feels even slicker to use too.

All told, this is not bad, especially when its $799 sticker price is considered. While all the nice to haves would have been good, I doubt that the price would have remained at $799. If you want a phone that delivers near-flagship performance but you’re on a tight budget, the Find X3 Lite is a good bet.

www.oppo.com