Oppo Find 5 Review: A Phone Of Firsts From A Brand To Watch

By Dorian Black, Tarun Iyer
published

Has a relatively unknown Chinese manufacturer of high-end home theater equipment actually created a flagship Android smartphone capable of going head to head with the industry's established heavyweights? We take Oppo's S4 Pro-powered Find 5 for a spin.

Benchmark Results: Battery Life Tests

In order to allow comparison across the various device platforms, our battery benchmark currently only includes a single metric, looped playback of the Sintel 1080p trailer with all devices set to a standardized brightness of 200 nits and volume muted.

Unsurprisingly, given its battery-draining five-inch 1080p display and relatively small 2500 mAh battery, the Find 5 resoundingly comes in last place, managing a run time of just over five hours. As with all battery metrics, this test only indicates the battery life in this specific usage scenario, and the phone's real-world results will vary considerably due to external factors such as the applications run, background processes, screen brightness, timeout settings, volume, notifications, calls, switching tasks, etc.

Dorian Black
18 Comments Comment from the forums
  • khaledegy200
    looks quite good.
    btw The audio and storage rows in the first page are mixed up.
    Reply
  • Mr Fender
    Hey guys, you forgot about their ColorOS - now it's basically the official firmware of OPPO Find5.
    Reply
  • marclee37
    I live in Hong Kong ssp, I see there are much many other China brand good looking good quality Android phones- 2gb ram is a norm, 3gb ram started to appear. 1080 screen, 5" screen, 13M cam, these are basic general spec, for price no more than US$320.
    Reply
  • house70
    Being unlocked, it is a perfect go-to phone for trips abroad. As far as hardware, the only "downside" is the lack of LTE bands in it's radio.
    SOftware is where it lacks, though. I got this because Oppo promised frequent updates to the OS, and TBH the Android-based variant it came with was not too bad of an experience. Then it became clear that the development team does not really know what they're doing (same minor but annoying bugs with every release, now barely coming through with 4.2, etc). They could have given CyanogenMod the kernel and drivers and let them pick up the development. CM-based ROMs are functional, but still plagued by bugs that come from lack of access to proprietary code.
    Basically, their approach (at one point there were 2 or 3 versions of ROMs in development, none out of a beta state) stretched them way too thin, and it shows.
    Last but not least, ignoring many requests of just embracing AOSP and let the plethora of apps do the rest was not a smart move on Oppo's part.
    Reply
  • danlw
    As an Audioholic, I have heard of the Oppo name. Their Blu-Ray players are considered by many in the high-end community to be top quality. In fact, Lexicon, a maker of ultra-elite electronics, actually stuck a $500 Oppo BDP-83 inside a new case and sold it for $3,500! (Audioholics: Lexicon BD-30 Blu-Ray Player (Oppo BDP-83 Clone) Review)


    With this phone, however, I doubt Apple will stick it inside their own chassis and call it ther own. It is mildly interesting, but as is often the case, forays into new market segments by otherwise high quality manufacturers are often precarious.

    By all means, get an Oppo Blu-Ray player. As far as the phone, they need to get through their growing pains.
    Reply
  • batman4u
    why a review on a phone thats been on the market for a whole year already
    Reply
  • programit
    Why isn't the phone compared to current versions of others. I see you put it against the latest iphone and a 16 month old dates Samsung S3. Why not the S4 or Note3 which are current models and hence what it is up against.
    It seemed a bit biased and not truly giving a comparison with current market phones.
    Reply
  • UVB076
    @programit, this phone is a year old.
    Reply
  • nebun
    got to love the iPhone 5s....like it or not....it's the best all around...the benches speak for themselves...did it mention "NO CRAPWARE and FAST OS UPDATES"
    Reply
  • allanitomwesh
    About damn time! Now write something about the Find 7 and it's 2K display.
    Reply