Oppo Find N3 Flip review: Is it really better than the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip5?

Handling, Display, UI and Features

Flipping off the competition

Oppo must be pretty confident about its new clamshell foldable with its S$1,499 (256GB) official price tag, marking itself as a direct challenger to its S$1,498 Korean rival, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip5.

Let’s take stock of what the Oppo Find N3 Flip offers. At a glance, it’s fronted by a 6.8-inch LTPO AMOLEDMain Screen that has a less obvious crease, along with a vertical 3.26-inch AMOLED Cover Screen with extreme utility thanks to its FlexForm Capture (for selfies) and support for nearly 30 third-party apps.

TL;DR:Samsung cannot afford to rest on its laurels. The Oppo Find N3 Flip is a great alternative for the same price, if you know what you want in your clamshell phone.

Flip over to the camera, and you get Hasselblad-branded shooters with a 50MP main camera, 48MP ultra-wide, and 32MP portrait camera with 2x optical zoom.

Topping it all off is IPX4 resistance against water, with the “X” signifying no dust resistance. Oppo also said its improved Flexion Hinge is rated for 600,000 folds, rounding off its durability.

The phone seems like it’s almost superior next to its Korean counterpart, until you realise it uses a MediaTek Dimensity 9200 chipset (while the Galaxy Z Flip5 uses Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2). The Cover Screen on Oppo’s flippy phone also isn’t as big as its opponent’s, and it lacks wireless charging for its 4,300mAh battery with 44W wired charging.

Putting it all together gives us an Oppo Find N3 Flip seemingly poised to be a clamshell foldable for power users who want both style and performance in one device. Are its perks and trade-offs enough to make people consider it over Samsung’s clamshell instead? Let’s find out.

	Oppo Find N3 Flip
Launch SRP	From S$1499
Operating system	Android 13 (ColorOS 13.2)
Processor	MediaTek Dimensity 9200
Built-in Memory	12GB RAMLPDDR5x
Display	Main Screen:6.8-inch / LTPO AMOLED / 2,520 x 1,080 pixels (403 ppi) / 1-120Hz adaptive refresh rateCover Screen: 3.26-inch / AMOLED / 720 x 382 pixels (250 ppi) / 60Hz refresh rate
Camera	Rear: 50MP main, f/1.8 aperture, 84 ̊ FOV, AutoFocus, OIS48MP ultra-wide, f/2.2 aperture, 114 ̊ FOV, AutoFocus, 4cm macro distance32MP telephoto, f/2.0 aperture, AutoFocusFront: 32MP, f/2.4 aperture, 90 ̊ FOV, no OIS
Connectivity	Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax, 5G (NSA, SA,NR), 4G (LTE) , Bluetooth 5.3, BLE, NFC, USB-C
Storage Type	256GB internal storageUFS 4.0
Battery	4,300mAh44W wired SuperVOOC, 15W VOOC 3.0 (5V/3A), 13.5W PD (9V/1.5A)No Wireless Charging
Dimensions	Unfolded: 166.4 x 75.8 x 7.79mmFolded: 85.5 x 75.8 x 16.45mm
Weight	198g

Almost better looking than before

To the untrained eye, the Oppo Find N3 Flip may seem similar to its predecessor. A closer look would reveal many little design details, making Oppo’s latest clamshell even more aesthetically and practically pleasing than its previous iteration.

Although we were given Sleek Black colourway for this phone review, we’d gladly pick Misty Pink or Cream Gold in a heartbeat; they all look fantastic with its high polish finish and smooth texture.

Find N3 Flip has a new Alert Slider added to its left rim, and is well thought-out. It has three levels (Silent, Vibrate, and Ring).

It’s impressive how Alert Slider is orientated to the display you’re currently on, inverting its controls when you flip to its other display. The Silent option always sits at the top, while Ring mode rests at the bottom. A lesser company would have neglected to orientate it correctly.

Oppo also did away with its logotype on the improved Flexion Hinge, replacing it with a beautiful wave pattern machined onto its polished metal bar. It adds a touch of class when they don’t put their brand name upfront. After all, true luxury or branded goods don’t need to advertise their worth. The Oppo logo is still prominent on the rear plate, but you can cover it up with a phone casing.

Another design gripe is the chunky Cosmos Ring with Starlight Track camera housing, ruining an otherwise sleek phone. Still, the increase in housing size is a worthy trade-off for getting high-powered Hasselblad rear lenses (more about its imaging performance later).

Finishing these details off are its glass platings on both sides with curved edges to resemble a compact makeup mirror, paired with an ultra-fast fingerprint sensor on its power button and a near-creaseless appearance for its inside panel.

The design of the Find N3 Flip is pleasing if only marred by an extra thick bezel for its Main Screen.

The 6.8-inch LTPO AMOLED internal screen at 2,520 x 1,080 pixels matches flagship alternatives thanks to its combo of 1-120Hz refresh rate, HDR10+ support, and 1,600-nits peak brightness. Helping it with its near-creaseless look is a new screen structure that reduces film reflection to 1%, which Oppo said is 5x less reflective than other foldable smartphones.

We’d say the Find N3 Flip edges out the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip5, appearance-wise. Samsung does have a tidier camera housing, but it still keeps the branding on its hinge and also has thick bezels for its internal screen. Of course, Oppo's finishing blow comes from its near-creaseless inner display that’s high in quality, making up a significant part of the premium user experience.

Mini-apps, major utility

With Oppo running ColorOS 13 on Android 13 for the Find N3 Flip, you’ll likely find it similar to most high-end or premium Oppo mobiles. Instead, we’ll look at the overhaul offered on the clamshell’s vertical 3.26-inch AMOLED Cover Screen (17:9 aspect ratio, 900-nits peak brightness).

While its size, shape, and orientation hardly changed since its predecessor, Oppo has made good on its promise to bring more third-party “mini-apps” to make the Cover Screen more useful than before.

Don’t be misled by the name — these mini-apps are mostly full-fledged apps crammed into the phone’s tiny outer display. There are almost 30 third-party apps available, cutting across key categories like messaging, digital payments, fitness tracking, and more. You can pin up to three on the first screen, but swiping right would give you the complete list of mini-apps you’ve enabled. To enable them, it has to be done in the Settings menu.

In comparison, Samsung’s more prominent display may be easier on the eyes, but it only had five mini-apps available at launch, with two of them being default SMS apps, severely limiting its practicality.

In our Oppo Find N3 Flip trial, we tried using Telegram, Grab, and Google Maps (among others) to great effectiveness. The mini-apps are full-featured versions of their full-screen selves. We mainly used the Cover Screen to check for updates, seeing how the narrow panel size makes it poor for typing.

It served as a great way to keep tabs on directions, read our group chats, or see the status of our food deliveries and ride-hailing arrivals without powering up the Main Screen.

Oppo’s Cover Screen supersedes Samsung’s in sheer practicality, but we did wish it had the same real estate offered by its Korean rival.

Other useful Cover Screen features included its notifications tab (which could display 4-5 full notifications at a glance), a customisable shortcut next to its clock, and a pull-down Quick Settings menu for adjusting brightness, Wi-Fi, etc. We did like the 3D interactive pet that lived on the display, but we also wished it had Samsung’s level of personalisation instead — replete with short videos as wallpapers.

Having tried both clamshells, we’re torn between choosing either foldable based on its outer display’s features. Why can’t they both have it all?

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