OPPO Find N3 Fold – the fold goes one better (smartphone)

19/10/2023
By Ray Shaw
In Announcements

The OPPO Find N3 Fold takes the fold format and rewrites the rules. A new Golden Ratio, 10-bit/1.07 billion colour display, pro-level camera, in a thinner (5.8mm) and lighter (239g) body, and that is just the start.

It is inevitable that people will compare this to the Samsung Galaxy Fold5. To make life easier, we have prepared an objective table, and the OPPO comes out on top in every category (OPPO Find N3 Fold versus Samsung Galaxy Fold5). It reflects OPPO’s focus on technology over price, yet the OPPO Find N3 Fold costs $2699 with 16/512GB and comes with a 67W SUPERVOOC charger – hundreds less than the Samsung.

The new OPPO Find N3 fold continues to push the innovation boundaries. It is not just a smartphone; it’s a gateway to a new era of mobile experiences. It will reshape the smartphone landscape in Australia as the epitome of excellence in the foldable market. Available from mid-November.
OPPO Australia Managing Director, Michael Tran

Some outstanding features of the OPPO Find N3 Fold.

There are three pro-grade camera sensors

48MP Sony LYTIA-T808 dual-stacked, ,f/1.7 lens, OIS (it is 52MP native and 48MP in 4.3)
48MP, Sony IMX581, Ultra-Wide and macro, f/2.2 lens, 114 degrees
64MP Telephoto, f/2.6 lens, OIS, 3X Optical, 6X lossless and 120X digital zoom with Hasselblad Portrait mode.

The Sony LYTIA sensor is dual-stacked, meaning that it captures as much light as sensors twice the size. This reduces noise and captures more details used in AI processing. The 64MP Telephoto (periscope) camera is three times larger than that used by the competition, and OIS enables blur-free zoom images.

Developed in collaboration with Hasselblad and OPPO’s computational photography prowess, the image matches the 10-bit/1.07 billion colour ProXDR screen. OPPO’s HDR mode captures the original brightness information and recreates HDR pixel-by-pixel to give a more natural image with maximum detail in the highlights and shadows.

Selfie cameras (cover and inner screen)

• External screen, 32MP, f/2.4 lens, AON facial recognition for added security

• Internal screen, 20MP, f/2.2 lens, AON facial recognition

Both selfie cameras exceed 4K vlogging standards and have a range of AI abilities and filters.

Internal screen –7.8” of gorgeous, accurate 10-bit colour

Where the competition uses an 8-bit/16.7 million colour screen, OPPO uses a 10-bit/1.07 billion colour AMOLED LTPO 120Hz display for amazing accuracy; what you see is what you get colour. This is particularly important for photo and video previews.

It supports both Dolby Vision and HDR10+ (the competition is HDR10+ only) and has an amazing 2800 nits peak (a new record). The typical brightness is 600 nits – perfect for daylight readability.

The Golden ratio is 9.7:9 (taller yet retains the widescreen ratio), which is perfect for productivity, Excel spreadsheets, Word documents etc. It is also perfect for video content consumption with three speakers Dolby Atmos speakers.

The Fold has an imperceptible crease. The hinge her been tested for over 1 million openings – nearly three times the competition.

External screen – 6.3” 20:9, 2800 nits peak.

There is no skimping here. It is the same 120Hz AMOLED LTPO with Gorilla Glass Victus protection with all its capabilities but optimised for 1080p content (2484 x 1116). The aim of this screen is to reduce the need to open the OPPO Find N3 Fold. It does everything an Android smartphone does.

Processor – Qualcomm Flagship SD8 Gen 2

This is currently the most powerful System on a Chip (SoC), supporting 16GB of the fastest LPDDR5x RAM and 512GB UFS 4.0 storage. It has the new X71 5G modem that supports dual active SIMS (SIM and eSIM), USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 10Mbps, Wi-Fi 7 tri-band, BT 5.3 and NFC.

OPPO has particular expertise in thermal management so that this SoC can achieve its true potential. It uses OPPO’s Dynamic Computing engine to keep over 40 apps active in the background.

It also has a dedicated privacy chip to protect data and logins, etc., at a hardware level.

Battery – easily all day and more

It has a 4800mAh dual battery (12.88+5.90Wh) with a battery health management system and a 1600 full recharge cycle life. A 67W SUPERVOOC charger is inbox (the competition does not include a charger) and will charge in 42 minutes.

Android 13 and Colour OS optimises for Fold

We won’t go into the new features in detail but suffice it to say they are aimed at multi-app (Boundless view), multi-tasking, and multi-screen productivity. The UBS-C port supports Alt DP audio/video/data/charge, so you can attach an external monitor over USB-C to HDMI.

Add to that four years of Android OS updates and five years of security patches; it is a keeper.

Build – superb

The Gen 3 Flexion Hinge has been tested to withstand 1 million folds. It enables the thin 239g, 5.8mm body and imperceptible Fold screen crease, something that the competition has not achieved. It comes in a Classic Black vegan leather finish.