OPPO Find X3 Pro review: An almost flawless flagship

If you’re after a flagship phone that truly impresses, the OPPO Find X3 Pro has you covered. From its mindblowing camera and futuristic design to its snappy performance and stunning display, it's an absolute joy to use with plenty of pros and very few cons.

It’s not often these days that a smartphone surprises me. While some brands do release the occasional new innovation, the formula for most flagship devices is pretty standard - a big, almost bezel-less screen, a top-of-the-range chip, a high-quality tri- or quad-lens camera setup and an eye-watering price tag to top it all off.

OPPO likes to do things a little differently, however, whether that’s creating a futuristic rollable smartphone or bringing insanely fast charging to the masses. Now, they’ve ramped things up yet again by bringing the most unbelievable lens we’ve ever seen in a smartphone to their flagship device, the OPPO Find X3 Pro. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

When we’re talking about flagship smartphones, it’s pretty much a given that you’ll end up forking out somewhere between $1,200 and $2,000. As OPPO’s flagship device, the Find X3 Pro is no friendlier on the ol’ bank account, so let’s rip the bandaid off nice and fast, shall we? At an RRP of $1,699 at launch, it’s priced smack-bang in the middle of the Samsung Galaxy S21 Plus and S21 Ultra and the same price as the iPhone 12 Pro.

You can buy it outright from JB Hi-Fi and Harvey Norman, otherwise, your best bet is to grab it on a plan through Optus or Telstra.

One of the features we loved most in last year’s OPPO Find X2 Pro was its Orange Vegan Leather colour. It’s not a colour I would normally choose, but the vegan leather backing felt so premium, so grippy and so comfortable to hold, it could have been neon green for all I cared.

With the Find X3 Pro, however, OPPO has started completely from scratch, and as a result, it shares very few design similarities with its predecessor. Instead of the Find X2 Pro’s vegan leather back (or ceramic, if you chose the black version), the Find X3 Pro is decked out in a super-sleek, super futuristic curved backing, which incorporates the camera bump into the same single backplate, rather than cutting out a space for it as though it were a bit of an afterthought - something many other phones tend to do. It kind of looks like a tiny spacecraft, which I, for one, am here for.

One teeny, tiny issue I had with the Find X3 Pro is that its super-glossy, mirror-like design, though beautiful, isn’t the easiest to keep clean. A light tap on the back isn’t enough to leave a noticeable fingerprint, but if you’ve been holding the phone for a while, you may notice some marks. It also tends to attract a bit of dust, which is fine and easy to rectify, but I’m a clean freak and dust makes me sad.

Anyway, those sexy curves also make their way to the front of the device, with the Find X3 Pro mimicking the curved display found on the Find X2 Pro. Because of these curved edges and minuscule bezels, the front of the Find X3 Pro is pretty much all screen, interrupted only by its hole-punch selfie cam. On the downside, OPPO has opted for the older Gorilla Glass 5 both for the screen and the back, which is a downgrade from the Find X2’s Gorilla Glass 6 front.

One of the Find X3 Pro’s biggest selling points is its 6.7-inch, 120Hz LTPO AMOLED screen. Thanks to what OPPO is calling its “Full-path 10-bit Colour Management System” and “True Billion Colour Display”, the Find X3 Pro is the first Android phone capable of capturing, processing and displaying 1 billion colours right from the device. Fancy names aside, it makes for a truly stunning screen that produces rich colours, deep blacks, almost blinding brightness and ultra-smooth scrolling.

As per usual with OPPO phones, the Find X3 Pro comes with a screen protector pre-applied, as well as a protective case - this time a matte black silicone cover, as opposed to the usual clear plastic case that OPPO tends to provide with its cheaper devices.

Here’s where things get really interesting. OPPO has always had a knack for creating highly capable cameras, but at first glance, the Find X3 Pro seems like any other flagship lens setup. There’s a 50MP wide-angle lens, 50MP ultra wide-angle lens, 13MP telephoto lens with 2x optical zoom and 32MP selfie cam. If that’s where it stopped, it’d be pretty similar to the camera setup found on its predecessor. But the Find X3 Pro has another little surprise up its sleeve - a 3MP microscope lens.

Capable of 60x magnification, this microscope lens is the first of its kind ever found on a smartphone, and it can produce some pretty mind-blowing snaps. To do so, you’ll need to get up-close and personal with your subject and steady hands are a prerequisite, but once everything’s in place, you’ll end up with photos that look literally out of this world.

Will you use it every day? No. Is it a little gimmicky? Yes. But is it something you’ll want to show off to everyone you meet? You bet.

Even without the microscope lens, the OPPO Find X3 Pro is still home to one of the most proficient shooters you’ll find on a smartphone. Colours pop without being oversaturated and unrealistic, low-light images shine with Night Mode, portrait photos are beautiful, macro shots incredibly detailed, selfies on point, and videos smooth, clear and high quality (up to 60fps 4K, to be exact).

You’ll have no issues with the Find X3 Pro’s camera overall, however it is important to note that it maxes out at 20x digital zoom compared to the 60x zoom found on last year’s model. It still takes some decent distance shots, but we would have liked to see something a little stronger.

The OPPO Find X3 Pro runs OPPO’s ColorOS 11.2 (based on Android 11) on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 5G chipset. It also packs an Adreno 660 GPU, 256GB onboard storage and a generous 12GB RAM. Together, these juicy specs make for a zippy user experience whether you’re flicking between apps, playing Call of Duty: Mobile or editing 4K video.

That zippiness also applies to the Find X3 Pro’s biometrics. The optical under-display fingerprint sensor is fast and accurate, though you can combine it with face unlock for even easier access.

Battery life is as good as can be expected and pretty much on par with that of the iPhone 12 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra. Turning on the 120Hz refresh rate had very little impact on battery life, which was a nice surprise, and since my area doesn’t have 5G yet, I could comfortably squeeze up to two days out of this bad boy. Unfortunately, according to our pals over at WhistleOut, the Find X3 Pro is not immune to 5G’s notorious battery drain issues. We’ll keep you posted as soon as we’re able to test out 5G for ourselves.

Thankfully, for those who do plan on using 5G all the time, a quick juice is all the Find X3 Pro needs to return to 100%. It doesn’t exactly make up for the reported 5G battery drain, but being able to fully charge in around 40 minutes is still impressive. Oh, and you’ll be happy to know this device actually comes with a charger.

It’s also capable of 30W fast wireless charging, with the catch being that you’ll need a compatible wireless charging pad (as most tend to cap out around 15 or 20W). Additionally, with 10W reverse wireless charging, you can top up those earbuds even when you’re out and about.

There’s no denying that the OPPO Find X3 Pro is expensive, but it’s no more expensive than the top-of-the-range iPhone 12 or Samsung Galaxy S21, and if you’re already looking at those two devices, we’d strongly encourage you to consider the Find X3 Pro. From its flawless display and space-age design to its snappy performance and the most exciting camera lens we’ve seen in a long time, it’s by far my favourite Android smartphone of 2021 so far.