Are phones ONLY about Style now? - Oppo Find X Review
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2019-05-06
·
1,319 words · ~6 min read
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I've been sitting on my review
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of the Oppo Find X for weeks now.
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Not because I didn't wanna do it,
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but because I've actually, in my opinion,
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very patiently been waiting for them to fix
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a game-breaking bug that has made the phone infuriating
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for me to use as a daily driver.
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Well, it's still not fixed, but the clock's run out
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and we're just gonna have to go ahead with this.
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Is the phone with arguably the world's sexiest design
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actually any good?
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Or are we just being expected to spend
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a thousand US dollars for a fashion statement?
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One of the first things I do with any new device
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that isn't an iPhone with Apple's Taptic Engine
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is turn off the haptic feedback.
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Android devices suck at this basically across the board,
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but the Find X's is particularly bad given the price point.
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And you guys are probably sitting there thinking,
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wow, that's an awfully nitpicky thing to open with
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on a device review, but it kind of sets the stage
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for my overall impressions of the Find X.
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More on that later though.
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First, let's get to the good stuff.
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Nothing, nothing I've ever touched feels quite as premium
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as the Find X.
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Oppo and by extension, their subsidiary OnePlus
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have spent years playing catch up to the Samsungs
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and the Apples of the world,
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but the Find X is clearly a statement piece
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that stands entirely on its own.
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The gentle notch on the back,
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and the way that the rear cover accent color shifts
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from subtle to bold depending on the angle
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gives it a truly distinctive look.
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And furthermore, the form factor,
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not to mention the balance of this thing
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is damn near perfect.
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With gently curved Gorilla Glass 5
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on both the front and back
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that tapers to a nearly seamless transition to the chassis
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that manages to fit comfortably in your hand
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pretty much no matter how you want to hold it.
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That is,
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assuming of course that you can keep a handle on it at all.
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This is an exceptionally slippery phone.
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My unit actually ended up falling off of a surface
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that was only very gently inclined
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minutes after I had placed it there
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because of subtle vibrations from a nearby speaker.
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Fortunately, there was no damage,
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which was a bit surprising,
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especially given the engineering marvel
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that is Oppo's front camera and facial recognition system.
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Simply swipe the lock screen or open up the camera app,
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and you'll be greeted with a competent little selfie camera
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and a sophisticated facial scanning array
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that managed to match the speed of the iPhone 10
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in my testing.
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And actually the good news keeps rolling here.
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The specs of the Find X are right on par
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with any other flagship phone on the market,
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meaning that you'll be enjoying the best experience
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that Android has to offer,
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and you'll look good doing it,
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at least until Snapdragon 855 shows up
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in the next few months.
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And, wait, hold on a second.
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Sorry, did I say the best Android has to offer?
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No, it's not that.
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It might be the best that Oppo's ColorOS has to offer,
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but ColorOS is quite frankly,
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not representative of the best that Android has to offer.
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There are just so many usability issues here.
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I mean, first up was the impossibility
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of setting up an Oppo account for recovery purposes.
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Long story short,
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I finally thought through the steps
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of multiple instances of verification
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with no copy paste allowed for whatever reason,
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and got to this Chinese site
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that according to my in-laws
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said something about being verified.
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And then I tried to log in
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only to be told the account isn't active,
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and it's still not active apparently.
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Then I was really impressed
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by the way that Oppo handles junkware installation,
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giving you the option on first boot to nuke it.
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That is until I realized that there's lots of things
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that Oppo can do.
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There's lots of stuff still on the phone,
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and there is no way to switch
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to an app drawer style home screen with the stock launcher.
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So what that means is that anyone who's not a power user
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is gonna end up with a useless junk folder,
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like on the iPhone.
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Let's continue.
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I'm not really one to complain
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about the visual style of an Android skin in general,
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and ColorOS mostly seems fine to me,
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but, and this one might actually be a first for me,
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the system font,
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really grinds my gears and not for like artsy reasons.
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I just have a much harder time telling at a glance
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if my messages are unread in my Gmail app, for example.
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Now to Oppo's credit, the Find X has great battery life,
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but I was pretty annoyed
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when I found out one of the reasons why.
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It turns out it's been putting my Hangouts app
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to sleep entirely without asking me
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if I wanted that behavior.
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Go ahead, David, send me a Hangout right now.
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So what happens is I just don't get my notifications
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until I open up the app manually,
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at which point I will get spammed
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by everyone who's been trying to reach me for the last hour.
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This is the thing I reported to Oppo three weeks ago.
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There's the ping.
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That currently has no ETA for a fix.
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Then buggy behavior in Chrome and that usual nonsense
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where Netflix has to be installed manually with an APK,
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instead of through the Play Store on some Chinese phones.
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It's just icing on the cake.
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I mean, yeah, every one of those things,
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except the Hangouts thing, that's really stupid.
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Every one of those things is a pretty minor issue
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on the surface.
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But the long and the short of it is a phone is,
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it's like your daily companion.
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You take it with you everywhere.
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It's about the experience.
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And I didn't like using this phone.
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It just cuts a lot of little corners
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for the sake of being sexy.
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Like that crummy vibration motor
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that I mentioned earlier.
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And it just doesn't do enough to redeem itself in my eyes.
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The camera launches quickly,
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but it can't be triggered with a double tap
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of the lock screen.
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And it is decent at best, especially given the price.
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And this pain train is just leaving the station, folks.
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The Find X lacks NFC,
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making two-factor authentication more of a chore.
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It's not waterproof or even water resistant,
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presumably due to the sliding camera mechanism.
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It doesn't have wireless charging.
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It doesn't have a micro SD slot for expansion.
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It doesn't have a headphone jack.
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It doesn't have an always on display
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or even wake on lift,
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meaning that you will need to unlock the screen
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and swipe it to activate their facial recognition
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every time you want to turn it on.
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And the display isn't HDR certified for Netflix,
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which results in noticeably worse image quality
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to go along with the degraded
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mono speaker listening experience.
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Bottom line,
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considering buying the Find X, get a Note 9.
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It's better in every measurable way.
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So thanks for watching, guys.
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If this video sucked or if you work at Oppo,
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you know what to do.
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But if it was awesome, get subscribed,
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hit that like button or check out the link
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to where to buy the stuff we featured
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in the video description.
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Also linked down there is our merch store,
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which has cool shirts like this one, yes,
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and our community forum, which you should totally join.