Oppo Find X6 Pro review

Why, Oppo, why?

I cherished the Oppo Discover X3 Professional in 2021 and was simply as taken with 2022’s Discover X5 Professional, two telephones that set a excessive bar for design, efficiency, and digital camera high quality on Android telephones.

They have been globally out there handsets I may simply suggest alongside Samsung or Google. However the Oppo Discover X6 Professional is simply formally out there in China, which makes it very tough to suggest anybody within the US or Europe purchase it.

That’s extremely irritating given the telephone has among the best smartphone cameras I’ve ever used. It doesn’t run the Google Play Retailer out of the field, instantly pigeonholing it as an fanatic’s curiosity within the West.

Design & construct

• Cumbersome design
• Large digital camera module
• Matt glass or vegan leather-based

The Discover X6 Professional takes a design change away from the Discover X3 Professional and Discover X5 Professional, not the glimmering silver metallic of these two telephones.

My evaluate unit was a inexperienced matt glass – engaging and Gorilla Glass 5 enforced, however extremely slippery. Fortunately there was an excellent high quality plastic case within the field with a vegan leather-based coating. There’s additionally a black model, each of that are 9.1mm thick.

I want the two-tone silver and brown vegan leather-based design of the opposite Discover X6 Professional choice to the one I reviewed, which is harking back to traditional cameras. This mannequin is 9.6mm thick. All three fashions are IP68 mud and water-proof.

If it wasn’t apparent cameras are the main target right here, Oppo circled the telephone’s principal characteristic with an enormous spherical module on the rear that homes three sensors, a few of it glass and a few of it textured. I don’t thoughts the look, and it’s good that it’s central because it means the telephone doesn’t rock when used flat on a desk, however it certain is big, and makes the gadget top-heavy within the hand.

Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry

There’s daring digital camera branding with ‘Hasselblad’ and ‘Powered by MariSilicon’ stamped onto the again, however in any other case this design is unusually restrained for Oppo, with a refined emblem and plain shiny inexperienced rails across the edges of the telephone.

At 218g it’s fairly heavy however notably lighter than the 240g iPhone 14 Professional Max. The Discover X6 Professional’s haptics are additionally glorious, with tightly clipped vibrations throughout the system that don’t rattle audibly.

The under-display fingerprint scanner works nicely too, and there’s 2D face unlock by way of the central selfie digital camera cut-out.

Display screen & audio system

• Nice 6.82in 120Hz AMOLED
• Vitality-saving LTPO tech
• Loud twin stereo audio system

The Discover X6 Professional has among the best wanting smartphone shows on the market with a pin-sharp 1440 x 3168p decision 6.82in AMOLED panel that refreshes easily at 120Hz.

With LTPO tech that refreshes the display dynamically to avoid wasting power regardless of the high-end specs, it seems to be and feels just like the premium display it’s. Apps and pictures look unbelievable, and there are granular settings so that you can change the color profiles and backbone.

Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry

It’s barely curved on the edges which I fairly like on a telephone because it makes the most important ones really feel slimmer in your hand. Oppo claims it’s the brightest display on a smartphone with a peak brightness of two,500 nits. I’m inclined to consider it, because the factor is blindingly vibrant at 100% setting.

That superior display is backed up by very succesful twin stereo audio system. Even blasting music out of them at over 50% quantity isn’t completely terrible, a lot to my shock, they usually’re nice for video calls and podcasts.

Specs & efficiency

• Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset
• 12/16GB RAM
• 256/512GB storage

You will get the Discover X6 Professional with 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 256GB of UFS 4.0 storage at a minimal, however there’s additionally a 16/256GB model, which I reviewed, and even a 16/512GB model.

That is backed up by the wonderful Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 throughout the board, a phenomenally highly effective chipset with nice power effectivity.

These specs mix with the software program to make the Discover X6 Professional exceedingly snappy to make use of.

Oppo Discover X6 Professional benchmarks

Every little thing flowed and loaded completely, and high-end cell video games are simply handled.

You additionally get bodily twin SIM slots, USB-C 3.1, and a lesser-spotted infrared distant management for turning up the amount of the TV at your native pub, clearly.

Connectivity comes within the type of 4G, 5G, Wi-Fi 7 assist, Bluetooth 5.3, and NFC for cell funds. Regardless of the shortage of native Google companies, I received Google Pockets working nice with my Mastercard debit card within the UK.

Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry

Digicam & video

• Wonderful 1in principal sensor
• Extremely-wide and periscope telephoto
• Oppo’s personal imaging chip

This whole part ought to simply be a large chef’s kiss GIF (my editor wouldn’t have allowed it).

The Discover X6 Professional’s principal digital camera sensor is one of the best I’ve ever used on a telephone, fingers down. Because of its giant 1in sensor measurement, I’ve taken pictures that I merely couldn’t have achieved on one other telephone – aside perhaps from the Xiaomi 13 Extremely and Vivo X90 Professional, which additionally use the identical sensor.

It’s not that I needed to have any images expertise, both. The telephone does all of the give you the results you want, combining glorious {hardware} together with the picture processing of Oppo’s built-in neural processing unit (NPU) that tweak the pictures to their finest.

This f/1.8 Sony IMX989 1in sensor is unprecedentedly giant for a telephone digital camera sensor, 156% bigger than the primary digital camera on the Discover X5 Professional. The sheer quantity of sunshine it may let in is elevated (up 142%), permitting it to raised render a scene with correct and sharp detailing, colors, and dynamic vary.

I’ll let it converse for itself:

After taking pictures, the MariSilicon NPU kicks in with some further magic, processing the pictures to nearly too-good high quality. The Xiaomi and Vivo competitors are good too, and it’s onerous to select a winner. Admiring the Oppo’s high quality helps if you view all of them by the telephone’s glorious display.

With a bigger than ordinary 1in sensor, the digital camera creates a pure bokeh (blur) impact the place different telephones should create the impact with software program – that’s why telephones have portrait modes within the digital camera app. The Discover X6 Professional doesn’t want a lot software program assist to shoot wonderful, pure bokeh pictures with the common Photograph mode:

Listed below are two portrait mode pictures utilizing the primary 1in sensor after which the 3x telephoto:

I might be glad if this telephone solely got here with simply the one lens, to be sincere. However Oppo spoils you right here with two supporting lenses that use the identical Sony IMX890 50Mp sensor – one ultrawide, and one periscope telephoto.

The ultrawide captures a good quantity of element and is without doubt one of the higher examples on the market with an f/2.2 aperture:

Henry Burrell / Foundry

The telephoto lens can optically zoom as much as 3x, which is sweet however not as far-reaching because the Google Pixel 7 Pro’s 5x or the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra’s 10x. Digital zoom goes up to a mad 120x.

This is what the zoom can do at various lengths:

Video is ably handled at up to 4K at 60fps on the main sensor, but the iPhone 14 Pro is still the gold standard for video clarity and processing at this price point.

A 32Mp Sony IMX709 front-facing camera doesn’t need the annoying beauty modes that Oppo has stuffed into the software and works very well in normal or portrait modes for photos or video calls, but it needs a bit of light or things are slightly washed out:

Henry Burrell / Foundry

Battery life & charging

• Incredibly fast 100W wired charging
• 50W wireless
• 5000mAh battery

Another feather to the Find X6 Pro’s bow is the huge 5000mAh battery and amazingly fast 100W wired charging with the included charging brick and cable.

I charged the phone from 0% to 56% in just 15 minutes, and to 97% in 30 minutes. For comparison, the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra can only hit 43% in 30 minutes at a maximum of 45W, and it doesn’t come with a charger in the box.

Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry

You can also wirelessly charge the Find X6 Pro at 50W with an Oppo AirVooc charger, or at a slower pace with any Qi charging pad. Flip the phone over, and you can share its power with reverse wireless charging to Qi compatible earbuds and other devices, even phones.

Oppo says the battery will maintain up to 80% of its original capacity even four years after normal use of the phone and its fast charging. I can’t test that, but it’s encouraging to hear given smartphone batteries can often degrade considerably over this period of time.

Software & features

• Color OS 13.1 based on Android 13
• No Google services out the box
• Chinese software hard to budge

If you live in China, the Oppo Find X6 Pro’s software is absolutely what you’d expect.

However, if you live outside of China, the Find X6 Pro’s software is different enough to be its Achilles’ heel, and the main reason not to buy the phone. It’s so ingrained in the Chinese ways of Android that Western buyers will simply be frustrated or hindered.

There’s no Google Play Store out of the box. It’s possible to install, along with system-level support for Google services, but it took me two tries with a factory reset halfway through by installing Google Chrome from Oppo’s App Market app store, then downloading an APK for the Play Store.

If you want Google apps and services and don’t know what an APK is, you really won’t want to buy this phone.

Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry

In my three weeks with the Find X6 Pro things did work normally though. I got all Google apps working, and every app I installed from the Play Store worked no problem.

It’s more that the system is full of Chinese characters and pop-ups in places you might not expect, remnants of a phone that’s not been designed to run outside of that country.

System apps display in Chinese whereas you might expect them to run in English. Screensavers display Chinese news, landscapes, and adverts. ColorOS widgets are indecipherable.

It’s a real shame, as ColorOS 13.1 over Android 13 looks great, and is pleasingly playful, akin to Google’s Pixel software. In this instance though, the experience for a Western user is much better on the OnePlus 11.

I did my best to strip the phone back to essential Western and Google services, and it worked. But I felt annoyed at how often the phone reverted to Chinese when I didn’t expect it, and I wouldn’t want this experience for the asking price.

While Google apps and services play nice on the X6 Pro for now, there’s no guarantee of this into the future when you must sideload them in the first place.

Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry

Price & availability

The Oppo Find X6 Pro is only available in China and costs ¥5,999 for the 12GB/256GB model, which is about $830/£650 at the time of writing.

The 16/256GB model is ¥6,499 ($900/£700) while the 16/512GB model is ¥6,999 ($970/£760).

You can buy it direct from Oppo China.

The phone is not officially for sale in the US or UK, or any other country other than China for that matter. If you want to import it we suggest trying trusted consumer technology exporters such as Giztop, but you might find the prices are higher than the converted Chinese retail price.

Despite that, I don’t recommend importing the phone. You will struggle to claim on any manufacturing warranty if you buy a phone from a region outside of the one you live in, and especially from a grey market exporter.

Great alternatives to the Oppo Find X6 Pro come in the form of the best phones out there: the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, iPhone 14 Pro Max, and Google Pixel 7 Pro – phones with large screens, big batteries, and nearly-as-good cameras.

You should also consider Oppo stablemate OnePlus’s OnePlus 11 – a fine phone at a very reasonable $699/£729, though the cameras are a way off being as good as the Find X6 Pro.  

Verdict

The Find X6 Pro is Oppo’s best-ever phone and has one of the best, if not the best, main cameras of any phone ever made. If it was on sale in the Western market this publication is aimed at, this would be one of the best phones to buy. Probably a rare five-star rating – the camera is that good.

As it stands, I can’t recommend the phone to most people because you won’t get a proper warranty if you import it, and because of its Chinese software. If money is no object and you can afford the phone – and might only use it as a camera, not your main phone – then go for it. I got the phone working with all my apps, and you probably will too with time and effort.

But it’s an annoying experience daily with Chinese apps and script popping up frequently because you can’t truly disable all their instances. I would not want to rely on the phone always seamlessly supporting Google services either, and it’s a pain to keep the Play Store updated when it’s sideloaded rather than baked into the software.

It pains me because this really is the best main camera sensor on a phone I’ve used. Though, 1in sensors will probably make it to Western phones soon and those will be the ones you should buy.

For now, you should approach the Find X6 Pro with caution.

Specs

• Android 13 with ColorOS 13.1
• 6.82in 1440 x 3168 120Hz LTPO AMOLED
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2
• 12/16GB LPDDR5X RAM
• 256/512GB UFS 4.0 storage
• Cameras:
  • 50Mp f/1.8 1in main sensor, Sony IMX989
  • 50Mp f/2.6 3x periscope telephoto optical zoom, Sony IMX890
  • 50Mp f/2.2 ultra-wide sensor, Sony IMX890
  • 32Mp f/2.4 front facing camera, Sony IMX709
• In-screen fingerprint scanner
• 2D face recognition
• Wi-Fi 7/6/5
• Bluetooth 5.3
• GPS
• NFC
• 5G
• 4G LTE
• IP68
• USB-C
• 5,000mAh non-removable battery
• 100W wired charging
• Up to 50W wireless charging
• Glass model: 164.8mm × 76.2mm × 9.1mm
• Vegan leather model: 164.8mm × 76.3mm × 9.5mm
• 218g/216g