The need to cram as much screen into a device as possible is one of the leading trends in the phone industry. Oppo’s new Find X, combines a number of new design ideas, plus some even newer tricks, to fit an extremely large 6.4-inch display into a phone that you can still hold in one hand. The Find X’s design is space efficient with Oppo claiming it has a screen to body ratio of 93.8 percent. And it does all this without utilizing the notch.
The most interesting aspect of Find X’s design is its camera system, which is completely hidden when the phone is off or the camera app is closed. When you turn the Find X on and open the camera app, the entire top section of the phone motorizes up and reveals a 25-megapixel front-facing camera, 3D facial scanning system, and 16-megapixel + 20-megapixel dual rear camera. Close the camera app and the whole assembly motors back into the phone’s chassis. According to Oppo, the camera can open in just 0.5 seconds.
Oppo’s Find X and Vivo’s Nex are the two most recent and exciting Android devices of the year. Well, they bring us closer to the dream of a truly bezel-less phone, and they do it in dramatic style. Instead of putting a notched area at the top of the screen, both of these phones hailing from China have given us pop-up selfie camera modules. The difference is that Vivo’s is like a miniature periscope, while Oppo’s Find X elevates the entire top of the phone.
One has to take a second to appreciate the fluid synchronicity between the on-screen animation when unlocking the Oppo Find X and the physical elevation of its slider. It’s a thing of beauty, hardware engineering meeting software design in a harmonious way.
Appart from its screen, the phone has all the features expected on a new phone in 2018. It uses Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845 processor, has 8GB of RAM, and offers up to 256GB of storage. It has a 3,730mAh battery with Oppo’s VOOC fast wired charging that’s similar to OnePlus’ Dash Charge.
That said, adding mechanical parts to phones is a retrograde maneuver, which, in all honesty, creates a lot more issues than it solves. The phone lacks a fingerprint sensor to unlock but features a facial recognition system. This system depends on the camera to function will means that the retractable panel has to come up every time you need to unlock your phone further raising an issue of how much power the panel consumes.
The phone is also not exactly waterproof and poses a higher risk of breakage especially when dropped with the panel slid out.
