Oppo Find X3 Neo 5G, the non-pro that's high on performance and low on price
Oppo Find X3 Neo 5G. Picture: Noel Campion.
One of my favourite flagships of 2021 is the Oppo Find X3 Pro 5G. Like all flagships, it’s an expensive phone but delivers on all the key areas of battery life, camera quality, screen, and performance. However, for those not willing to shell out so much money on the latest and greatest, Oppo have a more budget-friendly option with near flagship-level performance and features in the Find X3 Neo 5G.
The Oppo Find X3 Neo 5G is stylish with ultra-thin bezels, a slim design and a gorgeous textured back that not only looks great but makes the phone easier to grip with less fear of dropping it. Additionally, you get a transparent silicone case in the box which is a welcome inclusion, along with a pre-installed screen protector.
Like its more expensive sibling the Find X3 Pro, the Neo has rounded corners around the screen and the glass curves over the sides however, the sharper corners around the body make it a more rectangular shape with a flat top and bottom.
My review model in Starlight Black has a textured matte back that doesn’t attract fingerprints like it would if it were glossy and it has a two-tone metallic look that’s fairly unique.
In the top left is the camera system which features a quad lens layout. Three of the lenses are stacked vertically while the fourth is much smaller and in a rectangular shape. Inside the raised camera module you’ll also find a dual-LED flash as well as a colour temperature sensor used to accurately measure white balance.
The Neo feels light and comfortable in the hand for a large phone at 184g. Compared to many large screen flagships it’s narrow enough to make it comfortable to hold and use single-handed — I don’t have petit hands. Measuring 159.9 x 72.5 x 7.99mm it’s not a small phone so those with smaller hands beware.
The front display is 6.5-inches FHD+ (2,400x1080px) AMOLED with a 92.1% screen-to-body ratio. The top left corner of the screen has a small hole-punch cutout for the 32MP selfie camera. On the bottom of the display is an in-screen fingerprint sensor. I found this reliable and fast to unlock but you can also use face unlock for those times when you don’t have to wear a mask.
The top bezel has a speaker while the bottom edge has a down-firing speaker that works in combination to provide stereo audio. Also on the bottom is the dual SIM tray, mic and USB-C charging port. The top only has a mic but there’s no 3.5mm jack. To Oppo's credit, they supply a decent pair of USB-C headphones in the box.
On the left side are volume up and down buttons while on the right is the power button which features a small green accent.
The 6.5-inch display has a 90Hz refresh rate that makes everything feel smooth and slick from scrolling through social feeds to playing the latest games. As you’d expect from a top-rate OLED panel, you get inky blacks and a partial peak brightness of 1,100 nits.
Everything looks excellent on this display with vivid colours and there’s support for HDR10+ for the best possible image quality for HDR content on streaming platforms such as Netflix or Amazon Prime Video. It’s hard not to be impressed by the image quality when you watch shows like Our Planet in HDR on Netflix.
The stereo speakers are decent too with support for Dolby Atmos and while it isn’t as good as the latest iPhones, it does provide a wide soundstage that enhances the experience.
A quad-camera system comprises a 50MP main camera, plus a 16MP ultra wide-angle
camera, a 13MP telephoto camera (5x hybrid zoom) and a 2MP macro camera. The main camera supports OIS and EIS image stabilisation. The front selfie camera is a 32MP shooter.
The Neo does an excellent job of being easy and quick to capture the moment. The main camera is the best of all the cameras as is the case with most phones but I was impressed at how well the colour temperature sensor managed to maintain colour consistency when shooting between cameras in good light. However, it didn’t always get it right with exposure shifting between cameras at times.
Night mode works on all three cameras but the main lens is sharper with better details in shadows and has less noise.
Other camera features include an excellent portrait mode, HDR, AI scene detection that works in both video and photo and a good selection of filters. You can also shoot in JPEG or HEIF file formats as well as H.265 or H264 video codec formats.
The 2MP macro lens is not great, as it is with every other phone I’ve used with a 2MP or even 5MP macro camera. It works fine but I find the main lens will do a better job if you crop in afterwards.
Video performance is excellent with impressive stabilisation, especially from the main camera. You can capture video up to 4K at 60fps but there’s no 8K which no one uses anyway.
The 90Hz display helps to maximise performance from the Snapdragon 865 chipset. This is paired with the Adreno 650 GPU, 12GB RAM and 256GB of storage but some may lament the lack of a microSD card slot. Personally, I’ve never required more than 256GB of storage but your mileage may vary.
With 12GB on my review device, everything was smooth and snappy. In everyday use, I never felt it was a step down from other devices equipped with the latest Snapdragon 888 chipset including the Find X3 Pro.
The Neo also supports 5G and WiFi 6 for future-proofing both of which are far from mainstream yet.
Battery performance is stellar too and with medium use, I never struggled to get through a day on a single charge. Unfortunately, there’s no wireless charging option but you do get a 65w charger in the box that can take you from flat to 100% in a little over 35 minutes thanks to Oppos SuperVOOC 2.0 Flash Charge technology. And, five minutes on the charger should provide up to four hours of video playback.
Oppo Ireland has a complete line of contemporary phones from the affordable A53 to their flagship the Find X3 Pro. The Find X3 Neo 5G sits right in the middle and offers many of the flagship features without flagship prices. You’re buying into a mature and feature-rich system in Oppo’s ColorOS that gets regular security and OS updates. On the downside, there’s no wireless charging or any official waterproof rating and at €729.99, it’s not the cheapest mid-range phone out there but it’s certainly one of the best.
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