Hands-On, Smartphone

Oppo Find N2 Flip Hands-on: Refining the Foldable Flip Phone Design

After much anticipation, the Oppo Find N2 Flip is finally launched in Malaysia. It is the Chinese company’s first-ever foldable phone to be (officially) sold on our shores, and despite this being the brand’s first clamshell foldable phone, its refinement is on-par with the competition.

If you’re in the market for a foldable flip phone, you should really give the Find N2 Flip a consideration. It has a number of advantages compared to other clamshell-style foldable phones, and Oppo’s latest offering is priced quite well in the segment too.

Before we get to it, let’s talk about the price of the Find N2 Flip. For the Malaysian market, only one variant of the foldable phone is offered. Sporting 8GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage, the clamshell foldable phone is priced at RM3,999 on our shores. Two colour options are available: Moonlit Purple (pictured in this writeup) and Astral Black.

The Find N2 Flip is essentially Oppo’s answer to the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4. Compared to the latter, the Find N2 Flip sports a more sizeable 3.26-inch 720 x 382 AMOLED cover screen, while the primary display is a 6.8-inch 2520 x 1080 AMOLED panel with a 120Hz refresh rate.

Now, the primary screen is actually one of the biggest selling points of the phone – I’ll elaborate more later.

Beyond that, the Find N2 Flip features a Hasselblad-branded camera system, just like the larger Oppo Find N2. Of course, it’s not quite as sophisticated of a setup: the dual camera is made up of a 50MP primary sensor and an 8MP ultra-wide angle lens. Naturally, it features Oppo’s very own MariSilicon X NPU as well for improved camera performance.

Rounding out the specifications of the Find N2 Flip include a MediaTek Dimensity 9000+ chipset, a 32MP selfie camera, as well as a rather generous 4,300mAh battery with support for 44W fast charging. Interestingly, a faster 67W charger is actually provided with the phone.

Now, one of the most highlighted features of the Find N2 Flip is its 6.8-inch 1080p AMOLED inner display, and it has a couple of advantages over its main competition, Samsung’s Z Flip 4. For one, it closes completely flat. There’s no gap at all when the phone is in its folded state, which is quite impressive.

What’s even more impressive is the display crease of the Find N2 Flip. While it’s not completely invisible, it’s certainly a more minimal crease than the Z Flip 4’s. You can still see and feel the crease if you really look for it, but you’d be hard-pressed to notice it in normal use.

While we’re on the topic of display, the Find N2 Flip’s cover screen is nice and expansive, making it much more pleasant to use than, again, the Z Flip 4’s smaller outer display. What I especially appreciate is using the cover screen as a viewfinder to snap a picture of friends and families; the fact that they can also see the framing helps them get an idea of how the picture will turn out.

However, I do wish I could do more with the Find N2 Flip’s cover screen. While I can look at my notifications and interact with them – to some extent – I’d have to unfold the phone if I want to craft my own reply. There’s more than enough screen real estate on the cover display to fit in, say, a T9 keyboard, which would’ve been really useful to quickly reply to messages instead of picking from a list of pre-set texts.

Anyway, let’s move on to a more positive note: the battery life of the Find N2 Flip. Packed with a sizeable 4,300mAh battery, I can easily get through a typically workday with the phone so far in the review process. Evidently, the power efficiency of this phone is quite good.

And that can also be attributed to the MediaTek Dimensity 9000+ chipset of the Find N2 Flip. Yes, MediaTek chips are not as popular as Qualcomm’s offerings, but this is really quite a capable chip. It can provide a fast, zippy user experience, and I’d even say it’s comparable to the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 SoC found in the Z Flip 4.

Last but not least is the Find N2 Flip’s camera performance. Its Hasselblad-branded dual camera system (50MP primary + 8MP ultra-wide) can take some good-looking shots, even in low light conditions. The camera interface is also quite responsive, lending to a pleasant shooting experience. Rest assured, I will be putting the camera through its paces in the full review.

All in all, the Oppo Find N2 Flip is quite an attractive foldable flip phone. It has minimal crease on the main foldable screen, it offers a good level of performance, and its camera system is easily among the best…in the segment. It still can’t quite compare to traditional flagship phones, though I do enjoy photographing with the phone so far.

You can now pre-order the Find N2 Flip in Malaysia until 10 March 2023 for RM3,999. Early pre-orders of the flip phone will come with a slew of freebies, including a pair of Oppo Enco Air 3 wireless earbuds, a case, and a one-year extended warranty.

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