A Great iPhone for Android Lovers

File this underneath “telephones that I want had been out there within the U.S.” Now out there in over 50 international locations, the Oppo Discover 8X Professional (£1,049, 16GB of RAM, 512GB onboard storage) is a revelation. A modern flagship that’s additionally pleasantly sturdy, the Discover 8X Professional is critically spectacular. Boasting highly effective Hasselblad cameras, the smartphone can positively take a reasonably picture. And the 6.78-inch show is without doubt one of the brightest I’ve encountered up to now. It additionally has an 80W charger for fast recharges. Plus, its MediaTek processor handed the Discover 8X Professional an sudden win over the iPhone. And, after all, there are a number of AI options baked in.

Talking of the iPhone, the Oppo drew closely from one of many best smartphones within the recreation. It even has a programmable Motion button that defaults to snapping pics. Heck, even the icons in its Colour OS 15 UI are iPhonesque. Oppo’s even made transferring recordsdata to an iPhone simpler through the use of a easy faucet. Nonetheless, heavy iPhone influences apart, the Oppo Discover 8X Professional is a wonderful smartphone for people who find themselves uninterested in the same old suspicions of flagships.

Oppo Discover 8X Professional Assessment: Design

I’ve dealt with loads of smartphones in my day, however that is the primary I’ve seen with a lot pearlescence. And I’m smitten. The matte Pearl White glass rear panel has bands of silky end that produce comfortable glints at any time when it catches just a little gentle. There’s a big flash within the high left nook, proper subsequent to the huge round silver steel module that homes a quad of digicam sensors. “Oppo” is written in sterling lettering. The telephone can be out there in Area Black, a coloration discovered on iPhones.

The entrance of the telephone is sort of all display screen because of the Infinity View show. A 32MP shooter sits on the high of the show, with an built-in fingerprint reader in the direction of the underside. The Discover 8X’s sides are wrapped with silver steel. A pair of sunshine grey stripes sit close to the highest, demarcating the quantity rocker on the correct and the alert slider on the left. The Energy and Fast buttons are additionally situated on the telephone’s proper. The latter button acts just like the iPhone 16’s Motion button, permitting you to snap a photograph with a fast press. The USB-C charging port and microSIM slot reside alongside the Discover 8X Professional’s backside.

Each side of the telephone are sturdy and manufactured from Corning Gorilla Glass to guard towards scratches and potential cracks. However that’s not the place the sturdiness ends. Oppo outfitted the Find8X with IP68 and IP69 safety. Meaning the telephone is dust- and water resistant. Relating to the water element, the Discover 8X Professional can survive half-hour of submersion in water as much as 1.5 meters deep.

The Oppo weighs 7.6 ounces and measures 6.4 x 3 x 0.33 inches, which is barely lighter than the Google Pixel 9 Pro XL (7.8 ounces, 6.4 x 3 x 0.3 inches), iPhone 16 Pro Max (7.9 ounces, 6.4 x 3.1 x 0.32 inches), and Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra (8.2 ounces, 6.4 x 3.1 x 0.33 inches).

Oppo Discover 8X Professional Assessment: Show

Slim bezels, daring, nearly lurid coloration with a stunning brightness. The Discover 8X Professional’s 6.78-inch, 2780 x 1264p, OLED Infinity View show is a sight. Whether or not watching episodes of Dan Da Dan, Discovered, or taking part in Lifeless Cells or Alien Isolation, I loved vivid hues with sharp particulars and inky blacks. In case you don’t just like the display screen’s default look, you may go into the Show Settings menu and select between one of many two modes. Or you might alter the colour temperature from heat to chilly or one thing customized. Nonetheless, as a flagship telephone, the decision may very well be increased.

As for brightness, you may need to seize a pair of shades or hold the adaptive brightness on. The Discover 8X Professional’s minimal brightness begins at 800 nits and tops at a ridiculous 4,500. At max brightness, I’ve seen that lighter colours and blacks can get washed out, and in some cases, they will look just a little grey.

Like most trendy flagship smartphones, the Oppo has an adaptive refresh price starting from 1Hz to 120Hz. That is splendid for gaming, because it kicks the refresh price to most and drops it to decrease, extra power-efficient charges when studying or browsing the net.

Oppo Discover 8X Professional Assessment: UI

That is my first Oppo telephone evaluation, so it’s additionally my first brush with Colour OS, and to date, I feel I prefer it. Primarily based on Android 15, Colour OS 15 is a person interface with a couple of AI components and streamlined sharing with iPhones. The UI additionally boasts smoother interfaces in comparison with earlier iterations because of the Luminous Rendering Engine, which boasts over 800 animations and 18% sooner contact response. It’s additionally uber customizable as you may decide between unified and break up notifications/fast toggles panel views. You can too personalize the standing bar’s look.

Colour OS 15 interface

Colour OS 15 navigation doesn’t differ a lot from inventory Android. There are gesture controls or the traditional three-button setup. The icons and widgets are much like these on an iPhone. Navigation could be very easy, and as an Android fan, I discover the interface snug and acquainted.

AI options are grouped underneath the corporate’s Oppo AI umbrella, overlaying productiveness and picture enhancing. We’ll kick issues off with the AI ToolBox, encompassing AI Communicate, which reads emails and notifications for you aloud. Then there’s AI Abstract, which summarizes highlighted textual content, and AI Author, which provides a little bit of polish to your writing whereas contemplating your writing type. Talking of summaries, the Recorder app creates concise summaries of transcription. Paperwork provide summaries in seven languages, whereas Notes summaries and restructure codecs.

For pictures, Oppo has a number of AI-powered picture remastering instruments together with AI Readability Improve which upscales low decision photos, AI Unblur highlights finer particulars like hair and pores and skin. And for these photographs with distracting glare, there’s AI Reflection Remover. AI Studio shortly grew to become my favourite because it let me create AI avatars of myself so I might see myself as a futuristic area soldier or a magnificence queen in numerous types.

Oppo additionally made certain the Discover 8X Professional performs good with the iPhone. The smartphone’s Contact to Share characteristic lets iPhone and 8X Professional house owners switch recordsdata with a fast faucet so long as the Apple machine has Oppo’s O+ Join app. And talking of iPhone, Oppo cribbed off of Apple’s Dynamic Island Alerts with ColorOS’ Dwell Alerts because it shows real-time updates centered across the punch-hole digicam.

Oppo Discover 8X Professional Assessment: Efficiency

The Oppo Discover 8X Professional is the primary smartphone with MediaTek’s Dimensity 9400 processor. The three-nanometer chip works with the Trinity Engine, a proprietary system structure designed to enhance the telephone’s efficiency and effectivity. The Discover 8X Professional additionally has a vapor chamber with a graphite layer and thermal gel designed to dissipate warmth, maintaining the smartphone’s parts cool and operating at peak efficiency.

I didn’t maintain again with the Oppo Discover 8X Professional. I launched over 50 tabs in Google Chrome and had various apps open, together with Adobe Photoshop Categorical, Netflix, and some G-Suite apps. The Oppo didn’t decelerate as I navigated by means of pages or switched between apps, and the animations had been simply as easy. The telephone additionally held its personal once I performed Lifeless Cells for an hour. The telephone stayed comparatively cool, and I lived to die fairly a couple of deaths.

I additionally ran Geekbench 6 to see how the Oppo would fare towards different flagships, and it held its personal. The Oppo scored a single-core end result 2,818 and a multi-core end result of 8,434. It obliterated the Pixel 9 Professional XL (1,920 single, 4,208 multi) and even gave the iPhone 16 Professional Max a run for its cash (2,975 single, 7,438 multi). It’s one of many few telephones I’ve seen this yr to route the iPhone.

Oppo Discover 8X Professional Assessment: Digital camera

What’s in a reputation? If it’s Hasselblad, it’s a world-renowned digicam model synonymous with glorious cameras and lenses. Oppo teamed up with the Swiss firm to create Discover 8X Professional’s quad digicam set. Every of the 4 cameras has 50 megapixels and a pair of telephoto shooters. Oppo says the Discover 8X Professional is the world’s first smartphone with dual-periscope telephoto cameras.

The principle sensor has a ƒ/1.6 aperture, with a 1/1.4-inch sensor. The primary telephoto lens presents 50MP decision, a ƒ/2.6 aperture with a 3X optical zoom, whereas the second telephoto digicam (ƒ/4) presents a 6X optical zoom. Subsequent, you might have the ultrawide lens with a ƒ/2.0 aperture and the entrance digicam, which deviates from the remaining with 32MP (ƒ/2.4). I’m itching to do a shoot-off between this, the Pixel 9 Professional XL, and the iPhone 16 Professional Max as a result of my testing yielded some spectacular outcomes.

Broad photographs

My favourite is a large shot of a hornet’s nest. Zoomed into 3x, you may see the person ridges of the nest clearly, together with the tree’s pods. I additionally captured a couple of photographs of my puppies, precisely capturing their adorableness. Regardless of being an motion shot, there’s not loads of blurring, and when you zoom in, you may see Natasha’s (on the left) eye coloration and brindle sample.

Zoom photographs

Now, relating to digital zoom, the Discover 8X Professional offers the Samsung Galaxy S24 Extremely a run for its cash. The previous boasts a 120x digital zoom to the latter’s 100x. However as you’ll uncover with each telephones, maxing out the zoom results in extremely blurry photographs. Oppo makes an attempt to struggle this with its AI Telephoto Zoom, which, as you may see in my shot, is the highest of a far-off skyscraper. Though you can also make out the define of the constructing and a few of the lights, the picture is finally actually blurry.

Selfie photographs

The selfie cam isn’t any slouch, both. The entrance shooter produced clear particulars, displaying the intricate design in my boyfriend’s pocketwatch and the person hairs in his beard. His pores and skin tone was heat with purple undertones, offset by his olive-colored T-shirt.

Oppo Discover 8X Professional Assessment: Battery

After I ran the Gizmodo battery take a look at, taking part in a 24-hour YouTube video with the show brightness set to 50%, the Discover 8X Professional lasted 19 hours and 42 minutes. Nonetheless, the battery life will differ relying on how you utilize the telephone. I squeezed 12:29 out of the telephone with mixed-use, together with scrolling by means of social media, watching the most recent episodes of Dune: Legacy, streaming music from Spotify, taking part in Streets of Rage 4, texting, and making a couple of calls right here and there.

The smartphone is able to 80W wired quick charging or 50W wi-fi. Nonetheless, you’ll must fork out some further money for Oppo’s proprietary wi-fi charger.

Oppo Discover 8X Professional Assessment: Verdict

That is my first time with an Oppo telephone, and I like a lot of what the Discover 8X Professional presents. It’s acquired a singular, eye-catching design, a shocking show, and an important set of cameras. Whereas the Colour OS person interface is Android software program, it presents options much like trendy iPhones. Hell, Oppo even made certain that the telephones play good when transferring recordsdata. Plus, a number of AI options run the gamut of productiveness and picture enhancing. This is without doubt one of the few smartphones which have upended the iPhone 16 Professional Max when it comes to efficiency. The telephone additionally has nice battery life, relying on what you’re doing.

Nonetheless, when it comes to a few of the options and the interface, Oppo’s flying a bit too near the iPhone’s solar. And whereas imitation is the sincerest type of flattery, the Discover 8X Professional is toeing the road of derivativeness. Relating to the show, if this can be a flagship, I anticipated the next decision for the worth. Then there’s the brightness. 4500 nits is the very best I’ve seen on a smartphone, and though meaning you’ll not often have issues studying something on this display screen, it may be an excessive amount of of a very good factor at occasions, as the acute brightness can wash out some colours.

In case you’re in search of a flagship Android smartphone with heavy iPhone affect, nice efficiency, endurance, and a beautiful show, the Oppo Discover 8X Professional is it.