Oppo Find 7: Four Vital Facts You Should Know If You're Considering An Oppo
Do you need an unlocked smartphone? With powerful specs, an impressive screen and a fast charging system? If you answered 'yes' to all of those questions, then the Find 7 just might be worth the plunge.
By Sadho Ram — 31 Jul 2014, 04:48 PM — Updated about 10 years ago
Some four months ago, Oppo, a Chinese phone maker with a surprisingly solid phone lineup, unveiled its flagship phone Find 7
The Find 7 pairs top-notch performance with one of the highest-resolution screens you will find on a mobile today. But is it worth the USD599? Is Oppo really a mobile force to be reckoned with? Let's figure it out.
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While the Find 7's body is 152.6 mm high, 75 mm wide, and has a depth of 9.2 mm, (12% thinner than an average smartphone), with a weight of 171 grams, it's somewhat heavier than average
With its squared-off corners, flat sides and plain black face, the whole thing is almost unapologetically monolithic. The only real concession to the notions of grippability and comfort is the gently curving (and removable!) backplate.
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Before we go further, there is one thing that's clear: Smartphone displays don't get much sharper than this!
1. SCREEN FACT: The Oppo Find 7's IPS LCD display is 27.9% larger than the average for all smartphones
This also means that for most users, the phone will be difficult to use with one hand vs phones with smaller screens.
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The Find 7 has a 5.5 inch IPS LCD screen, placing it on the larger end of smartphone screens. Because its screen is 5 inches or larger, this phone also qualifies as a phablet.
If there's one spec, one technical tidbit that makes the Find 7 such a desirable piece of kit, it would be that 5.5-inch Quad HD (2,560 x 1,440) IPS display. Oppo's design philosophy this time around seems to reflect that very fact -- the Find's face is so unassuming that there's nothing for your eyes to lock onto except for the screen.
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That's why it's a bummer to have to proffer this reality check: For all the commotion the Find 7's screen has caused in geekier corners of the web, it still has its share of flaws. It's just as crisp as advertised, with individual pixels that are impossible to pick out with the naked eye, and viewing angles that'll make you popular with your airline seatmates. If all you care about is pure pixel density, the Find 7 won't leave you high and dry.
But how about color reproduction? Erm, it's a little wonky: Whites tend to take on a cooler cast, which means every image is just a little bit off in terms of accuracy. Is it a dealbreaker? For a staggering majority of people out there, the answer's a definitive "no way." Most will just ooh and aah over the screen's crispness, and will never plop the Find 7 down next to another phone to see where those color differences lie.
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However, it's persistent trouble with brightness is what's troublesome. You'd expect that a screen with so many pixels squeezed into it would fare well outdoors. You'd be wrong, mostly.
Cranking brightness up to the maximum is almost always a necessity once you take the Find 7 out on the town, and even then it's not always enough to outshine the sun's harsh rays.
thedroideffect.com2. SPEAKER FACT: The Find 7 is rocking MaxxAudio speakers, said to be the first smartphone in the world to have
When it comes to speakers, expecting much from most phone speakers is vain. With manufacturers cutting corners and taking shortcuts on a crucial part of the media experience, but you're in for a surprise with the Find 7's rear speakers.
There's a single grille drilled into the 7's back plate, but it actually obscures a pair of speakers that renders audio with a clarity that's downright unusual for a smartphone. That's not to say they're perfect. Mounting speakers on a device's back cover is an accepted practice, but it also means you'll occasionally shoot sound directly into your mitts.
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The other issue here, though, is one of depth... or the lack thereof. The Find 7's speakers get plenty loud for when you need to power all those mobile dance parties and what does come out is undeniably crisp. After a few moments of listening, however, you'll probably start to notice an absence of forcefulness in that sound, even in tracks that roll and thrum with energy. Par for the course for smartphone speakers? Sure, but it can still be a bummer.
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3. BATTERY FACT: The Find 7 comes with a new fast-charging technology called VOOC that will charge up the device from 0% to 75% of its capacity in just 30 minutes
When it comes to battery life, with a standard video-rundown test, the Find 7 lasted for a solid 10 hours and 13 minutes before needing a top-up, reports Engadget
Just be sure to keep the included VOOC charger handy. With it, the Find 7 goes from absolutely bone dry to fully charged in just over an hour. Most of that electrical magic happens pretty early on, too: Leaving the phone plugged in for 30 minutes should get you back up to around 70 percent.
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Furthermore, a mere 5 minute charge is enough for users to make a 2-hour call. Not only that, but you will not feel any heat on the device while it is charging, thanks to its five layers of thermal protective coating.
mobile88.comThe downside is that the power adapter is bulkier than a standard microUSB charger. Once the Find 7 is charged, its large 3,000mAh battery lets the phone run for more than 10 hours with continuous use.
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4. CAMERA FACT: It has a 13 megapixel primary camera, with "Ultra-HD" feature, which essentially takes a series of 10 shots and stitches the four best together into a single 50-megapixel image
While the primary sensor and the six-element lens aren't exactly unique to the Find 7, Oppo's nifty imaging app makes up for some of the camera's shortcomings
It's easily one of the cleaner camera interfaces you'll come across: Separate shutter and video-recording buttons are nestled along the screen's right edge, and a simple settings grid can be invoked with a tap on the lower-left corner of the screen. Changing modes -- from slow shutter to GIF to panorama to HDR -- is handled by a separate menu that hovers near the shutter buttons, though you'll want to proceed carefully.
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Consider HDR mode, for instance: Photos tend to look a little too lurid even for me, so I've come to prefer the undersaturated results from Auto mode just a bit more. And then there's the ballyhooed "Ultra-HD" feature, which essentially takes a series of 10 shots and stitches the four best together into a single 50-megapixel image. Sounds impressive, no?
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The whole thing works better than you'd expect since blurry or otherwise subpar photos get axed from the mix immediately, but the six- to seven-second delay means you're sometimes better off just snapping a few shots and calling it a day. Oh, and the Find 7 shoots 4K video too. As you might expect, the end product is always acceptable, but never outstanding, thanks to some autofocus wonkiness that usually forces you to tap on subjects manually if there's too much going on.
In conclusion, the Find 7 is Oppo's best phone to date. Its combination of strong performance and a Quad HD screen make it a worthy choice, besides price wise also, the Find 7 is way affordable compared to the LG G3.
It's nearly impossible to look at the Find 7 and not draw a comparison to the LG G3. It is, after all, the only other smartphone on the market right now that features the same sort of super high-resolution display as the Find 7. The two phones may share a near-identical spec sheet, but LG has made some serious strides when it comes to a thoughtful user interface and industrial design that make it a much more attractive option than the Find 7.
In the event you're still not so keen on Quad HD screens, there's always the HTC One M8 and the Samsung Galaxy S5 to consider. They're the de rigueur recommendations for high-end smartphones, but that's because they're reliable
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BONUS FACT: The name "Oppo" means "a friend." So if you possess an Oppo phone, you can call it "an old oppo of mine." Now, how cool is that?
