Chinese smartphone company Oppo is a decent alternative for those looking to move away from the Apple/Samsung-dominated market. To make its newest device stand out from a crowd, Oppo's 2018 flagship phone, the Find X, packs slide-out 3D cameras that hide inside the body when not in use, and backs it up with decent specs and an edge-to-edge screen.
In a way, the pop-up camera seems like a logical next step for Oppo. In 2013 the company released the N1, a phone with a hinged camera module that could swivel to the front or back. A year later, the next model motorized that hinge to swivel in response to touchscreen gestures or tapping the fingerprint sensor.
For the Find X, Oppo has built what it calls "stealth" cameras. Most of the time that mechanism is buried inside the body of the phone, but when you open the camera app, it springs out from the top ready to go. Those cameras are nothing to sneeze at either: the front-facing one packs 25 MP, while dual cameras on the back capture the world in 16 MP and 20 MP.
With no fingerprint sensor to be seen, the front-facing camera enables facial recognition to unlock the phone. A 3D Structured light module projects 15,000 dots onto a user's face, building a detailed 3D model that, Oppo says, has a false acceptance rate of one in a million. If that performs as advertised, this system shouldn't be fooled by a photo, like others reportedly have been.
The cameras have some AI backup as well, with image recognition systems that understand what the camera is pointing at and optimizes the photo mode to get the best snaps for the subject.
Hiding the camera away when not in use also helps the Find X follow the trend of ditching bezels from the front. In just a few short years, phones with bulky black bars around the screen have started looking outdated, but the need for a camera lens and flash has made it hard to completely banish them.
The Find X gets the closest, apparently sporting a screen-to-body ratio of 93.8 percent. That's a good 10 percent higher than that of the Samsung Galaxy S9+, and better still than the iPhone X and its divisive "notch".
The Find X isn't all for show, either. Under the hood, the phone is running a Snapdragon 845 processor, packs a meaty 256 GB of storage space and 8 GB of RAM, and is powered by a 3,730-mAh battery.
Along with the gradient color options of Bordeaux Red and Glacier Blue, the Find X also comes in a special Automobili Lamborghini Edition. This model has been designed to call to mind the style of the iconic sports car, donning a carbon fiber texture on the body, a 3D engraved logo, and a woven pattern on the charging cable. Feature-wise, the Lamborghini Edition is also the first phone to introduce Oppo's Super VOOC flash charge tech, which can push 50 W of power to charge the phone from dead to 100 percent in 35 minutes.
Oppo plans to release the Find X in August, and while the company hasn't announced US pricing just yet, it will sell for £999 in the UK, or £1,699 for the Lamborghini Edition. For a ballpark figure, that's about US$1,315 and US$2,240, respectively, when converted at the current rate.
Source: Oppo