The Oppo Find X3 Pro is Oppo’s top device that should make the Samsung Galaxy S21 and Apple iPhone 12 fade. The manufacturer is so confident that it even launches the Find X3 Pro for a higher price (1149 euros). Is the device indeed the best choice? You can read it in this Oppo Find X3 Pro review.
Oppo Find X3 Pro
MSRP € 1149, –
Colors Black
OS Android 11 (ColorOS)
Screen 6.7 inch OLED (3216 x 1440, 120 Hz)
Processor 2.8 GHz octacore (Snapdragon 888)
RAM 12 GB
Storage 256 GB
Battery 4,500 mAh, charging with 65 Watt (usb-c) and 30 Watt (wireless)
Camera 50, 50, 13 and 3 megapixels (rear), 32 megapixels (front)
Connectivity 5G, bluetooth 5.2, wifi 6, gps, nfc
Format 16.3 x 7.4 x 0.83 cm
Weight 193 grams
Website www.oppo.com 7.5 Score 75 
- Pros
- Design
- Screen
- Complete specifications
- Charging options
- Negatives
- Recommended retail price too high
- Microscope camera feels like a gimmick
- Only two years of version updates
- Battery life
Oppo is releasing the Find X3 Pro as the successor to the Find X2 Pro, which left a good impression in our review last year. With the Find X3 Pro, the Chinese manufacturer is again aiming high. The smartphone offers impressive specifications for a price well above a thousand euros. I have used the Find X3 Pro for two weeks and will tell you in this review what the strengths and weaknesses are of the device.
Design
To start with the design: there are some. The Find X3 Pro is a smartphone with its own face, mainly because of the different camera module on the back. It is very nicely incorporated into the housing, so that the whole overflows into each other. The camera lenses are therefore less noticeable and do not protrude. The smartphone is heavy at 193 grams, which makes sense because of its large screen and used hardware.
The glass device feels sturdy, but it is smooth. The housing is waterproof and dustproof, has excellent speakers and uses two SIM cards. A micro SD slot is missing. The Find X3 Pro also uses its USB-C port to play music via a 3.5mm to USB-C adapter. A separate headphone connection is missing, as on almost all expensive smartphones.
A 10-bit screen
The screen of the Find X3 Pro is impressive. At 6.7 inches, the display is large and difficult to operate with one hand. The size is ideal for multimedia. The screen looks crystal clear, very sharp thanks to the qhd resolution and smooth thanks to the refresh rate of 120 Hz. Many competing smartphones, with the exception of the iPhone 12 (60 Hz), have a 120 Hz screen. Just like the rest, Oppo uses a very nice AMOLED screen. The innovation is in the screen type. The Find X3 Pro has a 10-bit panel and can therefore display 1 billion colors. A regular smartphone screen is 8-bit and can display 16 million colors. The Find X3 Pro can display more natural colors thanks to the wider color support. I don’t see the difference immediately, but the screen looks very nice.
The display has a small hole for the selfie camera. The selfie camera takes great photos, but it doesn’t do better than the competition.
Specifications
Oppo puts a Snapdragon 888 processor in the Find X3 Pro. This extremely powerful processor is also the beating heart of alternative devices such as the OnePlus 9 (Pro), Xiaomi Mi 11 and the foreign version of the Samsung Galaxy S21. The Find X3 Pro contains no less than 12 GB of RAM. That is an exaggerated amount and partly explains why the smartphone stores many apps in the memory and switches super fast between recently used apps.
The storage memory is also very large at 256 GB. Great, because that way you have less reason to use a micro SD card. That’s a good thing because a micro SD card slot is missing. Also absent is support for e-SIM, the digital SIM card technology. A pity, especially because some competing devices do support e-sim.
The Find X3 Pro is of course suitable for new functions such as 5G internet, WiFi 6 (802.11ax) and nfc.
Fast charging via USB-C and wireless charging station
The Oppo Find X3 Pro has two batteries of 2250 mAh, which together form a 4500 mAh battery. The choice of two batteries does not affect the user experience and enables Oppo to charge the battery faster. Fast charging is at 65 Watt, just as fast as the Find X2 series and still the max in commercial smartphones. The Find X3 Pro only needs half an hour to charge from 0 to 100 percent. It is also nice that the charger is included in the box. With competing devices such as the Samsung Galaxy S21 and Apple iPhone 12, you only get a USB cable for environmental reasons.
Fast charging the Find X3 Pro is nice, but a reliable and good battery life is more important. And on this point, the smartphone falls short. The battery life is unstable, both with me and with other testers. I have the feeling that the software ‘accidentally’ does strange things on some days and drains the battery. Hopefully Oppo can improve this.
But even on days when the battery seems to be doing ‘normal’, the battery life is on the short side. Before going to sleep, the smartphone is already almost empty, which is inconvenient if you still want to use it in the evening. Competitive devices last longer.
The Find X3 Pro is Oppo’s first smartphone that can charge wirelessly. The manufacturer is very late, because this function has been in more expensive devices from other brands for years. Oppo does make a good impression by providing the Find X3 Pro with a 30 Watt wireless fast charging function. That is a lot faster than the iPhone 12 series and Samsung Galaxy S21 series (15 Watt). To charge with 30 Watts, you do need Oppo’s special charger. It can be bought separately. With a different Qi wireless charger, the Find X3 Pro charges more slowly.
The Oppo Find X3 Pro cameras tested
The back of the Oppo Find X3 Pro houses four camera lenses. Much attention is paid to the main camera, which uses a new 50-megapixel sensor and should shoot better photos and videos than previous smartphones. Oppo also puts a 50-megapixel wide-angle camera in the Find X3 Pro. It should shoot clearer and sharper photos and stretch objects and people less than other wide-angle cameras. The smartphone also has a 13 megapixel zoom camera, although it is less advanced than the telephoto lens of previous expensive Oppo phones. That is striking and what a shame. The zoom function of the Find X3 Pro is somewhat limited, but it is useful for getting the image a few times closer. I will come back to the fourth camera, the 3 megapixel microscope lens, later.
In the comparison below you can see the difference between the main camera (left) and the wide-angle lens. The difference in quality between the lenses is limited. The wide-angle lens hardly distorts the photo, copes well with the bright sunlight and has – as you might expect – a nice large field of view. I am therefore very satisfied with the wide-angle camera. The same applies to the regular camera. It shoots sharp pictures with beautiful colors and also takes clear pictures in the dark.
Below you can see how the main camera performs in the dark. On the left the automatic mode, on the right the night mode. It takes about four seconds to take a picture and delivers clearer images with more detail and colors that are more in line with reality. Compared to the Samsung Galaxy S21 and OnePlus 9 Pro, the Oppo Find X3 Pro takes more natural night photos, which appear darker and do not show an overly clear sky. I like that, although the pictures of the competition are a bit clearer and more expressive.
What can the microscope camera do?
The biggest camera innovation on the Find X3 Pro is its microscope camera on the back. This 3 megapixel camera has a ring with LED lights around the camera lens for the correct exposure and can enlarge the image up to sixty times. I have to admit, I was skeptical about the quality, but the feature surprised me.
Below you see a normal photo above and a picture taken with the microscope camera below. The function is fascinating and fun to amaze your friends and family along with yourself. But how long? After almost three weeks with the Find X3 Pro, I feel like I have recorded everything with the microscope lens and I wonder how often I will still use the camera. A good zoom camera – like in the Oppo Reno 10x Zoom – would have seemed more useful to me in the long run.
Software
The Oppo Find X3 Pro runs on Android 11 with ColorOS 11. This software shell differs significantly from the standard Android version, but less than the previous ColorOS variant. That is positive and version 11 works well. Nevertheless, the shell takes some getting used to and I find the amount of apps included on the high side. A subjective thing, but a point of attention.
Update May 2021: Oppo has announced that the Find X3 Pro will receive three years of security updates. Previously, the manufacturer promised security updates for two years. The Find X3 Pro is still receiving two version updates. Below the original text.
Oppo’s update policy can also be improved. The manufacturer promises two years of security updates and two version updates (to Android 12 and 13) for the Find X3 Pro. That is meager for such an expensive smartphone. After all, a 149 euro Nokia phone will receive updates for the same amount of time. Samsung models from 350 euros can count on three years of version updates and four years of security updates. With such a device you benefit longer from new functions and – more importantly – you are protected against resolved vulnerabilities in the Android operating system. It does not feel logical and very simple that one of the most expensive devices of the moment no longer receives software support after two years.
Conclusion: Buy Oppo Find X3 Pro?
The Oppo Find X3 Pro impresses with its beautiful design, beautiful screen and powerful hardware. Charging is also very fast, the primary and wide-angle camera are very good and the microscope lens is a great innovation. However, the smartphone also fails. For example, the battery life is changeable and below average, the zoom camera is limited and the software only gets two years of version updates. And although Oppo blows over the top of the tower about the revolutionary microscope camera, I mainly wonder how often you will use it. Bottom line, the Oppo Find X3 Pro is a very good smartphone, but not a blind recommendation due to its points of interest and remarkably high suggested retail price (1149 euros). For example, I think the comparable OnePlus 9 Pro is a nicer phone, and it starts at 899 euros. The Xiaomi Mi 11, Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra and Apple iPhone 12 are other interesting alternatives.