OPPO Find X6 Pro hands-on impressions: The best 2023 phone you can't buy?

The OPPO Find X6 Pro has just launched, marking several significant changes to the flagship Android phone series. The slightly sci-fi curved glass design makes way for an all-new look. Meanwhile, the brand doubles down on all-important photography capabilities, boasting larger image sensors and custom silicon in a bid to best the competition.

But let’s get the bad news out of the way first; unfortunately, OPPO will only sell the Find X6 Pro in China as Android Authority understands that a global launch isn’t planned at this stage. While we shouldn’t completely rule out broader availability in the future, that does mean that unlike its predecessor, the OPPO Find X5 Pro, the new phone I got my hands on arrived sans the Google Play Store. Installing this yourself is possible via an APK, but you’ll still have to compete with a selection of pre-installed Chinese apps, keyboard, and other features. So our taste of the potential Western experience remains colored.

Looking past that, the phone comes with ColorOS 13, which we spent plenty of time using with the brilliant OPPO Find N2 Flip. It’s brimming with visual customization options, proprietary features of varying utility, and arguably too many settings toggles. Even the more bloated Chinese version of ColorOS is generally slick and functional. The Find X6 Pro also benefits from OPPO’s latest update pledge of four OS upgrades and five years of security patches. That’s better than Google and as good as Samsung.

But let’s step away from software and jump into the experiences that transcend regional differences. These are my impressions of the OPPO Find X6 Pro.

Luxury design

First things first, the design certainly stands out for several reasons. While not exactly unique, the circular glass and aluminum camera housing is humungous and sets the tone for the handset’s main focal point. It’s encased in a metal ring that OPPO says is inspired by luxury watch bezels. The return of vegan leather, which we haven’t seen since the OPPO Find X2 Pro, is a welcome one. Not only does it look and feel sublime, but it adds a level of grip you won’t find with a glass phone. It’s an all-around look that’s both premium and unique.

The OPPO Find X6 Pro is clearly chasing the luxury brand look, but it’s perhaps too busy when all put together. A full vegan leather back, rather than a partial metal-like glass accent at the top, would have been more to my taste. Likewise, the leather is a light tan, almost orange, but not quite. Again, I would have preferred a darker shade or a striking sunset orange, but that won’t stop others from instantly falling in love with this look (I’m still in the dating phase). If this isn’t quite for you, OPPO offers a traditional glass back in green and black colorways.

OPPO rounds out the top-notch design with an IP68 rating for water and dust resistance. Protection against drops is provided by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 on the front and Gorilla Glass 5 on the glass parts of the back. The total package comes in at a slightly hefty 218g weight, but that’s still lighter than the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra.

Much more than a pretty face

Pull your eyes away from the rear, as you’ll be equally impressed by the large 6.82-inch LTPO AMOLED display. With a variable refresh rate of up to 120Hz, a QHD+ display resolution, and HDR support via Dolby Vision and HDR10+, the spec sheet agrees with my eyes; this is one sublime-looking display.

Internal specifications are equally up to measure. The OPPO Find X6 Pro is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor, 12 or 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM, and either 256 or 512GB of UFS 4.0 storage. We were treated to the maxed-out model, which flew through all the benchmarks we threw at it. The graph below shows where the handset stacks up against other Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 phones and other rivals.

As we’ve become accustomed to with OPPO, the Find X6 Pro is a little conservative on the CPU side to improve battery life further, scoring just behind Samsung’s 2023 flagship. Still, there’s more than enough performance here for all your apps, and there’s a performance mode should you want to throw caution to the energy efficiency winds. Graphics is more impressive, offering sustained performance that’s in line with gaming phones and notably better than other mainstream flagship 8 Gen 2 handsets we’ve tested. We’re not worried about overheating and throttling here, thanks to a large graphite cooling system for both the chipset and camera.

OPPO prides itself on best-in-class charging capabilities too, and its latest technologies are accounted for here. The large 5,000mAh battery easily takes you through a day, if not two, of moderate use. If that’s not enough, the Find X6 Pro supports 100W wired charging (included in the box) and 50W wireless charging via its proprietary SuperVOOC technology.

Using 100W wired power (peaking at 66W actual) takes you to 25% in four minutes, 50% in less than 10 minutes, 75% in 16 minutes, and full in 27 minutes. 50W wireless is slower but still hits 25% in eight minutes, 50% in 19 minutes, 75% in 31 minutes, and full in 45 minutes. Clearly, the phone is no slouch if you need to top up in a hurry, regardless of your preferences for wired or wireless charging.

Importantly, OPPO claims that the phone’s battery is rated to last 1,600 charge and discharge cycles before falling to 80% of its initial capacity. That’s enough for a full daily charge for more than four years, which even the heaviest user would struggle to use up. As good as all that sounds, the Find X6 Pro doesn’t charge anywhere near as quickly with more common USB Power Delivery chargers. We clocked a peak of just 18W.

What about those cameras?

High-end specifications are, of course, wonderful to have, but that’s hardly a unique selling point today. Instead, the OPPO Find X6 Pro cameras and its Marisilicon X image processor set it apart. With three large rear image sensors spanning a 50MP wide (1-inch), 50MP ultrawide (1/1.56-inch), and 50MP 3x periscope zoom (1/1.56-inch), OPPO claims there’s no “primary” camera here; they’re all as good as each other.

I’ve only had limited time with the phone to take snaps, and some pretty rubbish UK weather to contend with, but you can check out a selection of hi-res image samples in this Google Drive folder. First, let’s check OPPO’s claim that it has successfully matched all three cameras in terms of color, dynamic range, and detail so that you really can use all three interchangeably.

Instantly, we note robust exposure, color matching, and solid HDR capabilities across all three lenses, with detail present in the sky and shadows. If I didn’t know better, I could genuinely believe these were captured with a single zoom rather than three cameras. Closer inspection reveals that details are a bit softer, the shadows a fraction darker, and the white balance a little warmer (the most common difference) between the wide and ultrawide. Importantly, there’s minimal chromatic aberration with the wide or periscope lens, though you will spot a very small amount of distortion on the very left of the ultrawide snap above.

Likewise, we obtained the same level of success in the low-light snap above. Colors, exposure, and even detail are a lock, regardless of which lens you opt for. The solid dynamic range and low noise floor in the ultrawide and 3x telephoto snaps are particularly impressive, as rival phones regularly struggle to reproduce the quality of the main camera across their other lenses. The combination of Marisilicon X for noise reduction and HDR, along with three large sensors and wide apertures, scores a solid hit in the opening salvo, so let’s look at some more general themes.

Colors are quite punchy, but thankfully not as oversaturated as we’ve seen from other Hasselblad-branded phones from OPPO (and OnePlus). While a tad overdone for my personal taste, this is about the right level of processing that ensures good-looking results for social and sharing without needing to mess around with editing. White balance is virtually always spot on, although the camera is stuck with scene-wide rather than subject/spot exposure balancing (even in Pro mode), which leads to the odd subject underexposure. Another thing to note is the very shallow depth of field from the 1-inch, f/1.8 wide camera. While great for light capture, it can leave your macro shots a little out of focus. The phone has an auto-macro mode to pull in data from the ultrawide, but then you miss out on the nice natural bokeh. You can’t have it all.

The periscope zoom camera makes a welcome return and is my favorite lens on the phone (as you can probably tell from the snaps above); it’s worth taking a closer look at. As we’ve discussed, the dynamic range is sublime, thanks to the large IMX890 sensor and wide f/2.6 aperture paired with robust processing. This is one of the largest image sensors found in a smartphone zoom setup, and it pays off both in terms of light capture and a pleasing natural bokeh, which is great for portraits and macro. The comparison shot below shows how well OPPO’s setup compares against the Galaxy S23 Ultra’s 1/3.52-inch, f/2.4 3x telephoto lens in low light. The difference in color capture and noise is readily apparent.

OPPO also implements a lossless 6x zoom option by cropping from the 50MP image, just like Google does with the Pixel 7 Pro’s 10x mode. The level of detail at 6x isn’t quite as sharp as at 3x, so forget the talk of lossless. You can push the camera to 10x in decent lighting and come away with passable results, at least at full frame, but anything beyond is a step too far. We’re not talking Galaxy S23 Ultra long-distance capabilities then, but the phone is more than competent across the all-important 35-70mm focal ranges. Bundle the HDR, low light, detail, and flexibility all together, and you can be seriously creative with the zoom lens alone.

The phone’s portrait mode is as robust as the rest of the package, with good skin textures and reasonable tones. Although the camera’s propensity for color pop does make this a bit more hit-and-miss for some skin tones, depending on the scene and lighting. The selfie snapper also earns a thumbs up in good lighting but is a little on the softer side in dim conditions. Portrait edge detection can be a little aggressive, though, cutting stray hairs and even ears a little too close on the odd occasion, but it’s competent overall.

My only virtually insignificant complaint is with the camera package’s detail processing. Although highly consistent across lenses and lighting conditions, there’s a slightly jarring contrast of sharp lines yet soft, almost unfocused textures. That sounds like an odd complaint because it is unusual. It’s likely a side-effect of OPPO’s AI noise reduction and SuperHDR, as you’ll occasionally see halos around moving subjects too.

The pro is that there’s very little noise in any of the pictures I’ve taken, but equally, the level of detail is not quite as crisp as you might expect from a large, high-resolution image sensor. The effect is even more noticeable when shooting in the 50MP mode (which, impressively, works on all rear cameras). Still, OPPO’s approach is preferable to the oversharp, painted messes we often see, but I think the two crops below highlight the unconventional approach to detail processing. Nothing is glaring wrong as such, but the high-contrast edges and soft textures make it not quite flawless either.

Overall, even a short time with the OPPO Find X6 Pro camera is sufficient to come away impressed. While exposure and detail are not always flawless, the flexibility of OPPO’s flagship across a range of lighting conditions and zoom levels is undeniable. It’s shaping up to be a serious photography contender that might even best some of the market-leading camera phones.

OPPO Find X6 Pro specs

OPPO Find X6 Pro hands-on review:

As we’ve come to expect from OPPO, the Find X6 Pro boasts exquisite hardware and rock-solid software (Chinese features excluded), but it’s the design and camera that really stand out. Circular lens housings seem to be in right now, such as with its sister brand’s OnePlus 11. But although you can find somewhat similar looks elsewhere, the vegan leather option certainly lends a uniquely premium feel to the phone.

Throw in the familiar assortment of flagship-tier hardware and a long-term update promise, and there’s a very compelling smartphone here. Unfortunately, consumers outside of China won’t get the chance to experience it. As mentioned, there’s (currently) no global launch planned for the OPPO Find X6 Pro. Disappointing, then, especially given the wider availability of previous OPPO flagships for the past few years.

More frustrating is that a truly robust camera package has been the only missing piece of the Find X puzzle in the past few years. 2022’s Find X5 Pro camera was good but not quite great. OPPO has more than addressed issues like oversaturated colors with the Find X6 Pro, producing a comprehensive wide, ultrawide, and zoom setup that, based on our short time with it, looks set to rival the best in the business. As a bit of a camera obsessive, this is a phone I’d like to spend a lot more time with, were it not for the software situation.