OPPO Find X: Design and Engineering of the New High-End Flagship

After launching the Find X flagship smartphone at the Louvre in Paris earlier this month, OPPO has brought their latest device home for a launch in Beijing, China.

SEE ALSO: OPPO Find X: New Flagship with No Notch at €999, Lamborghini Edition at €1699

If the launch in France was a “show and tell”, then today’s event was more like an episode of “How It’s Made”.

OPPO shared in detail with many never-seen-before videos of what went into the design and making of their best work yet. The new Find X flagship smartphone is perhaps the only phone deserving of the descriptor “full screen”.

As OPPO shared today, they wanted to create a phone from the future. It is also the reason why the new flagship is named Find X, not the Roman numero ten, even though the last of the Find series was Find 7 released four years ago.

As four years is many generations in smartphone time, OPPO needed to come out with something so innovative that would really wow the world – something like the Find X.

With a mechanical slider to replace the notch, a 6.42-inch screen with an impressive screen-to-body ratio of 93.8 percent and the thinnest notch ever, the Find X is not like any smartphone currently available in the market. In other words, it is uniquely designed and engineered, which cannot be said of most new releases since the iPhone X.

The phone is made out of Corning Gorilla Glass 5 front and back. The glass is curved on both sides and the corners are structured with 2D and 3D curves as well to achieve seamless smoothness wherever you touch. Having gotten rid of all “unnecessary accessories” and the cameras on both sides, the phone spots no cuts or wholes except for on its sides.

So where did all the cameras and accessories go? All on the mechanical slider of course.

As shown in the above photo, the front of the slider already hides the infrared (IR) LED light, the IR camera, the distance sensor, earpiece, front camera, and the dot projector for facial recognition.

The slider is said to be able to endure well over 300,000 times of sliding up and coming back down. An average person would activate the function around 100 times a day. Even at rate of 150 times a day, the slider is said to last at least 5 years. To protect the slider in the case of a fall while activated, the team at OPPO has equipped it with a fall-prevention mechanism and will detect the phone being dropped and pull down the slider to protect it.

In terms of camera specifications, it has a 25MP front camera and dual rear cameras of 16MP + 20MP. The front camera features 3D AI selfie mode as well as the iPhone Animoji-like Omoji. Front camera also has HDR 2.0 and the rear – RAW HDR. Like all Android phones being released these days, it is loaded with AI camera features such as the AI portrait mode, AI scene recognition, 3D AI beautification and much more.

The new flagship runs on the Snapdragon 845 with AIE, has 8GB of RAM plus 256GB of ROM, and its ColorOS 5.1 AI intuitive system is based on the Android 8.1. The international version of the AI operating system offers many features and apps such as Google Assistant and Google Lens made in partnership with Google. With the Internet behemoth barely operating in China, the Chinese edition comes with OPPO’s own voice assistant that comes with many tailored features.

Also announced at the Beijing event was OPPO’s collaborations with Alipay for safe payment and the establishment of a joint innovation lab with the parent company and the most valuable unicorn in the world – Ant Financial.

The launch event would be incomplete without the limited Lamborghini edition released with OPPO’s new strategic partner. On top of its good looks, the black-and-gold phone has the new and exclusive technology of the Super VOOC fast charge which allows a full charge of the 3,400 mAh battery in just 35 minutes, or 4 hours of talk time after just 15 minutes of charging.

The price tag for the epic phone is a hefty 9,999 yuan or around $1561, which is much cheaper than the European price of €1699 or $1,968.

There was also a surprise treat exclusive to OPPO’s Chinese fans – the regular Find X with 256GB of storage and the Lamborghini VOOC super charge. Starting at 5,999 yuan, just 1,000 yuan more than the regular edition with only 156GB, it is likely the version of choice for those who cannot live without their portable battery pack. Also released at the event was the O-Free bluetooth earbuds that come along with the two colors of Find X sold at 699 yuan.

No matter how you look at it, the release of the OPPO Find X marks a milestone in the history of Chinese smartphones. Is this the turning point where Chinese smartphone makers no longer need to look west at the Silicon Valley for design inspirations? Maybe only if the sales figures of OPPO Find X are met with envy.