Oppo’s foldable phones take on Samsung with a foldable phone and a tablet

Oppo has a new set of foldables with a number of interesting designs: Meet the Oppo Find N2 and the Oppo Find N2 Flip. Like Samsung’s lineup, these are large and small foldable phones, but both offer something unique.

Firstly, the Oppo Find N2 is the company’s foldable flagship. It’s a phone that opens into a tablet for 7,999 yuan (about $1,147). This one is only available in China for now, but there’s always a chance that Oppo’s sister company, OnePlus, will make it right all his plagues and jumps into the foldable market with a similar design.

We should first talk about the dimensions of this phone, because they are very different. When folded, the phone measures 132.2 × 72.6 × 14.6 mm. That’s a normal width, but the phone is extremely short. Due to the height of 132 mm, the Find N2 is the same size as an iPhone 13 Mini. The short height explains the 120 Hz, 5.54-inch OLED display on the front. I don’t know if it’s right to call this “small” since at 72.6mm it’s still as wide as a normal smartphone, but it’s a unique form factor.

Open the phone and you get a nearly square 132.2 × 140.5 × 7.4mm device with a 120Hz, 7.1-inch flexible OLED. Oppo’s foldables use the same “flexible glass” cover as Samsung, meaning there’s a very thin layer of glass in the center of the screen, while the outside is a plastic non-removable screen protector. Inside is a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, 12GB RAM, 256GB UFS 3.1 storage (there’s also an upgraded 16GB RAM, 512GB SKU), and a 4,520mAh battery with 67W charging. There are three cameras on the rear: a 50MP main camera, 40MP ultra-wide camera and a 32MP, 2x telephoto. There are two 32 MP hole-punch cameras for selfies and video chats – one in each screen. You also get a side-mounted fingerprint sensor.

A big part of Oppo’s sales pitch is the weight of this device, which is just 233 grams – 42 grams less than the similarly sized Find N1. That’s in the realm of a normal smartphone – one of the heaviest mainstream phones is the iPhone 14 Max, which weighs 240g.

The Oppo Find N2 Flip is Oppo’s answer to the Galaxy Flip and is a full-sized smartphone that folds in half for 5,999 yuan ($860). Officially, the Flip is coming to “most countries in Europe” in Q1 2023, and who knows when OnePlus might decide to raid the Oppo parts bin for similar devices. This makes sense, given that the Flip 4 is Samsung’s best-selling foldable phone.

For specs, you get a 6.8-inch 120Hz, 2520×1080 flexible OLED, a Mediatek Dimensity 9000+ SoC and a 4,300mAh battery with 44W charging. The Mediatek chip is a rare sight on our desks, but it’s a 4nm chip with one ARM Cortex X2 CPU, three A710s, four A510s, and an ARM Mali-G710 MC10. It’s basically a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 with a worse GPU.

The 4,300 mAh battery is impressive. A major drawback of Samsung’s flip phones is the battery life. The hinge in the middle of these phones takes up a lot of space and cuts the battery in half, so the Galaxy Flip 4 can only handle a 3,700mAh battery. A solid phone of this size would have a battery of around 5,000mAh, so it’s still a trade-off, but Oppo is closer than ever to a reasonable battery size.

The display on the front looks like a small smartphone! It’s a 3.23-inch 60Hz, 720×382 OLED. Instead of squinting at a scaled-down smartphone UI, it runs a custom interface with little mini apps that show things like weather, music, camera finder, and notifications.

For cameras, you get a 50MP main camera on the back, an 8MP ultrawide camera on the back and a 32MP selfie camera. There is also a fingerprint sensor on the side.

I’ve called these new era flip phones “Fashion Phones” before because the form factor drives up the price and doesn’t really add anything in terms of functionality. When open, they usually feel like a normal smartphone, just with a smaller battery and fragile screen. Oppo is really leaning towards the “fashion” vibe with the N2 Flip: check out the optional leather cover that turns the phone into a small handbag, complete with a small hand strap. It’s cute.