Oppo Find X7 Ultra
The Oppo Find X7 Ultra looks to be an impressive-looking bit of kit with an equally capable camera set-up, making the fact that it’s not being released outside of China all the more disappointing.
Key Features
- Quad main camera systemThe Oppo Find X7 Ultra has an impressive camera setup with four 50MP cameras including a main, ultrawide and twin 3x and 6x periscope lenses that cover most bases.
- High-end 6.82-inch displaySporting a 6.82-inch AMOLED panel with premium tech like a QHD+ resolution, LTPO, support for Dolby Vision and an eye-watering max brightness of 4500nits, the Find X7 Ultra delivers an impressive viewing experience.
- Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 powerThe Oppo Find X7 Ultra makes use of Qualcomm’s latest and greatest mobile chipset, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, for impressive performance.
Introduction
Oppo has lifted the lid on the top-end Oppo Find X7 Ultra, an impressive camera-focused 2024 flagship smartphone with all the bells and whistles you’d expect from a top-end phone.
However, there’s a big problem: it’s not being released outside of China. That causes all kinds of software issues, not only when it comes to localisation but also a lack of access to the Google Play store – by default, anyway. It also means you’ll need to import the phone from abroad if you decide to take the plunge.
While I’m not yet ready to deliver my final thoughts on the Oppo Find X7 Ultra, I have spent a few hours playing with the phone, testing out the display, camera and other elements. With that said, here are my initial impressions of the Oppo Find X7 Ultra, with the full review to follow in the coming days.
Design and screen
- Updated two-tone design
- IP68 dust and water resistance
- 6.82-inch 120Hz AMOLED screen
The Oppo Find X7 Ultra sports a similar two-tone design to last year’s Oppo Find X6 Pro, albeit with new colour options including Tailored Black and Ocean Blue alongside last year’s popular Sepia Brown finish.
The Ocean Blue variant I’ve been provided for review is particularly eye-catching, with a nice contrast between the navy blue vegan leather bottom half and shimmering white top half. I don’t even mind the absolutely huge camera bump that straddles the two materials, but there is a very good reason why it’s so big. I’ll get to that in a bit.
The shining star of the design is, of course, the huge 6.82-inch AMOLED display. Its pixel-packed QHD+ (3168 x 1440) resolution was instantly noticeable as I turned the phone on and began swiping around the OS, with crisp text and images that looked great.
Throw in premium tech like 120Hz LTPO support for super-smooth scrolling, support for Dolby Vision, HDR10+, ProXDR and Ultra HDR, a peak brightness of 4500nits and low touch latency for gaming and you’ve got what looks to be a phenomenal smartphone display – but I’ll save my final thoughts for the full review.
The phone is slightly curved at the edges, which helps the 6.82-inch smartphone sit more comfortably in the hand, although this will likely be a two-handed device for many people. Measuring 9.5mm thick and 221g, it might sound slightly unwieldy, but I haven’t found that to be the case during my limited time with the phone so far.
It also covers all the flagship bases when it comes to durability, with toughened Gorilla Glass Victus 2 protecting the screen and IP68 dust and water resistance to keep it safe if you take a trip to the beach or pool.
Cameras
- Quad 50MP camera system
- Second-gen 1-inch sensor powering main camera
- Dual 50MP telephoto lenses
One of the biggest upgrades with the Oppo Find X7 Ultra compared to the Find X6 Pro is the camera – and that’s a bit of a surprise considering just how good the X6 Pro’s camera tech actually was. That’s because the X7 Ultra boasts a quad main camera system, which is essentially Oppo’s way of saying all four rear lenses are of main camera quality.
The primary camera is a 50MP snapper equipped with a second-gen 1-inch sensor (Sony LYT-900), surpassing the size of sensors found in popular alternatives like the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra and iPhone 15 Pro Max. It also boasts a fast f/1.8 aperture, OIS, and lens reflection reduction technology to boot.
Complementing this, there’s a 50MP ultrawide camera with a 1/1.95-inch sensor, OIS, and an impressive f/2.0 aperture, making it among the fastest ultrawides in the market as of early 2024.
However, the standout feature lies in the dual 50MP periscope lenses. The two periscope lenses, offering 3x and 6x magnification, create an optical range from 3x to 10x and beyond, providing an impressive 120x digital zoom capability.
Notably, the 3x 50MP periscope lens features a substantial 1/1.56-inch sensor, currently the largest in any periscope lens, which should translate to enhanced image quality and improved low-light performance – but I’ll have to put that to the test in the coming days to find out for sure.
The Find X7 Ultra’s second periscope lens, a 50MP 6x snapper with a sizable 1/2.51-inch sensor, enables digital zoom of up to 120x, though the practicality of such high zoom levels remains to be seen.
I’ve yet to begin my full camera testing in earnest, but I did wander around London on a cold winter’s morning and snapped a few photos using the four rear lenses to get a sense of what they’re capable of.
As you can see from the gallery below, there’s some potential for great quality photography with very little difference in overall quality or colour tone between the lenses, so much so that it’s sometimes difficult to tell which lens was used to take the shot.
Of course, these were all shot in near-perfect bright daylight, conditions that allow even sub-par cameras to produce something half-decent. What I’m most interested in is how well the phone performs once light levels begin to drop, as that’s where elements like fast aperture, large sensors and OIS really come into play. It’s something I look forward to testing for the full review, that’s for sure!
Performance and battery life
- Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 power
- Plentiful storage and RAM
- 5000mAh battery with 100W fast charging
Being Oppo’s top-end 2024 flagship, it’s not surprising to see the ultra-powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset powering the experience, coupled with a generous 16GB of LPDDR4X RAM and 512GB of UFS 4.0 storage that should be plenty for the vast majority of users.
It has certainly felt rapid over my few hours of use, opening and closing apps with not even a hint of stutter, and image capture is near-instantaneous too. I’m confident that this could easily run the vast majority of the apps and games I use – well, it would be able to if I could easily download the apps in question.
It certainly looks promising on the benchmark front, especially given how well other Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 devices like the RedMagic 9 Pro have performed, but I’ll reserve judgement for now.
Powering the experience is a rather standard 5,000mAh cell. Given how power efficient the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is said to be, combined with elements like battery-saving LTPO tech, should all help to deliver strong battery life from the flagship – but just how long it can last on a single charge is yet to be seen.
The good news is that with 100W SuperVOOC charging support and a 100W adapter included in the box, you can go from flat to full pretty quickly. I’ll be testing exactly how long that takes for the full review, so head back soon.
Software
- Android 14 with ColorOS
- Poor localisation with Chinese ColorOS
- No Google Play by default
The Oppo Find X7 Ultra comes with Android 14 out of the box, but it’s not stock Android, instead sporting Oppo’s ColorOS UI atop the base Android 14.
However, the China-only focus of the smartphone means that the software looks very different to what we’re used to seeing from the westernised version of ColorOS, down to the core design and features.
Even after switching the language to English during the initial setup, there’s still plenty of Chinese text smattered across the OS, not just in unsupported pre-loaded Chinese apps (of which there are many, by the way) but even in elements like the Settings app and notification shade – and, as far as I can see, there’s no way to change that.
There are also a bunch of features and services not seen in the western version of ColorOS, but most of these are unusable outside of China.
The bigger problem for us in the West who want to import the phone from China will be the lack of Google Play Services on the smartphone. To be fair to Oppo, you can enable GMS from within the phone’s Settings app, but you’ll still have to sideload the Google Play app to get things moving.
Even once I did that, I still found that some apps – like Gmail and Slack – would only half-work, suggesting that there’s still something missing from the GMS sideload compared to the version of ColorOS you’ll find on western-focused Oppo smartphones.
Simply put, the hardware might look near-perfect, but the software will likely drive all but the most dedicated Western Oppo fans up the wall within a week or two.
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Initial impressions
The Oppo Find X7 Ultra looks to be an extremely capable flagship-level smartphone with a unique design, a lovely-looking display and a quad camera system that I can’t wait to test more thoroughly.
However, the lack of an international launch means that most Western users will likely get frustrated with the China-focused software experience, even once you manage to sideload Google Play. Whether that’ll ultimately be enough to put users off is yet to be seen, but I’ll deliver my final thoughts soon.
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