Samsung, in a few short years, became the foldable phone company. For now. Rivals have either been unable to launch their own smartphone origami projects or simply failed to match against the Z Fold (the horizontal folding one) or the Z Flip (vertical folding ‘flip-phone’.)
Oppo has been taking notes, however. It revealed last year that its second generation of foldable phones would compete with the same form factors as Samsung. Now, while the west won’t be getting the bigger Find N2 Fold, in the UK and Europe, we will get the Oppo Find N2 Flip. I prefer the flip-phone iteration of foldables, so I’m glad this is the one heading out of China.
In many ways, the Find N2 Flip attempts to address some of the shortcomings of existing foldables. (And I’ll say it now: I loved the Galaxy Z Flip 4), but there’s always room for improvement. Oppo’s focus appears to be the external display, which at 3.26 inches, is currently the largest cover screen on a flip smartphone. While this more accurately replicates the orientation of a smartphone screen, don’t expect icons or an Android-style interface like the one found on Samsung’s Galaxy Z fold.
Mat Smith/Engadget
You will get a more functional area for previewing shots with the primary cameras, however. The 17:9 ratio makes more sense for framing your photos than on the Galaxy Z Flip, with its horizontal screen. You might think that Samsung’s implementation is better for notifications, but with a bigger outright screen, the Find N2 Flip can display up to six lines of text in your alerts – plenty for text messages and even email previews. There’s more space to peruse notifications, calendar entries and more, too – it can be a finickity task on the Z Flip 4. Oppo offers a handful of pre-programmed replies too, so you can subtly (or lazily) send a response without even opening the Find N2 Flip.
You can quick-launch the camera by double-pressing the volume down button – you just need to make sure the phone is in standby, otherwise, it will just lower the volume. The cover screen also features a cute animated animal mascot – you can pick between a dog, cat, an unidentifiable bird, hamster or rabbit – and they’ll come alive when you activate the front display. It’s a cute addition — it’d be nice if there was some Tamagotchi-style features, though, perhaps tagged to your step-count or even the device’s battery life.
One of the quirks of a flip smartphone is the fact that the primary cameras are also your selfie cameras. Like the bigger, China-only, Find N2 Fold, the array on the Flip consists of a 50-megapixel f/1.8 main camera, with an 8-megapixel f/2.2 ultra-wide camera. That’s a higher-res main sensor compared to the Z Flip 4. However, while testing it out for the week, the most noticeable difference has been a 2X zoom toggle, which is admittedly a digital crop – but still, it’s a benefit of having such a high-megapixel sensor to begin with.
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Mat Smith