If you wanted a foldable phone over the past several years, chances are your only options were a Samsung Z Fold or Z Flip. Foldables from other brands (all Chinese), for whatever reason, have stuck to selling only inside China. This made for an odd situation where the foldable phone scene was highly competitive in one country. Everywhere else, there's a monopoly operated by Samsung.

The good news is that Chinese brands are finally ready to launch foldables internationally. Honor will do so very soon, and there are reliable rumors saying OnePlus may jump on the bandwagon too. But the first to officially "launch" outside of China is Oppo's Find N2 Flip. While it won't make it stateside, the fact it will sell in chunks of Europe and East Asia is important because the best phones will only get better with more competition.

I've been testing the phone, and the hardware is impressive, with several key hardware wins over Samsung's Z Flip 4. However, we must not forget that Samsung invented this clamshell foldable form factor, and Oppo is merely taking an existing formula and adding more polish and refinement. But as I've been writing/opining for over a year now, it seems like Samsung has let its foot off the gas pedal recently because some of the things the Find N2 Flip get right makes you look at the Flip 4 and ask, "why didn't Samsung do this?"

About this review: This review was written after 10 days of testing the Oppo Find N2 Flip provided by Oppo. The company did not have input in this review.

Oppo Find N2 Flip: Price and availability

• Only one configuration (8GB/256GB) for the international market
• Comes in either purple or black

The Oppo Find N2 Flip is priced at £849 in the U.K. for the 8GB RAM, 256GB storage model and preorders begin in the U.K. today. The product will roll out to the rest of Europe and Asia in the coming weeks. In China, the phone has already been on sale and retails for around 5999 yuan (which converts to $850).

Design and hardware: Sleek without a huge crease

• Sleek, compact, and stylish
• Larger outside screen is quite eye-catching
• The main display crease can only be seen at extreme angles — much better than the Flip 4's crease

The Oppo Find N2 Flip is essentially a very thin 6.8-inch "slab" phone that folds at the midway point. When it's unfolded, it operates just like any other Android smartphone. If you've seen the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3 or 4, you know almost exactly what to expect with the Oppo Find N2 Flip. Everything, from the display size to the location of the volume rocker and power buttons, is very similar.

The Find N2 Flip is slightly wider but thinner when folded, but if you closed your eyes and just picked them up, you might not be able to tell them apart unless you know how to feel out the camera lens placement or the slight gap at Samsung's folding point. (If you're wondering why the Flip 4 in the photo below has an unusual color scheme, it's because that's the China-exclusive variant named the W23 Flip.)

Yeah, I know, there's something unbecoming about one product almost lifting the entire hardware formula from another brand. This is why I went out of my way to credit Samsung for inventing this whole form factor at the beginning of this review. But I suppose Oppo can say Samsung's S Ultra phones are using Periscope zoom lens technology that Oppo first introduced to the world. This "copying each other" thing goes in all directions.

One of the biggest differences, though, between the Z Flip 4 and the Find N2 Flip is the hinge. Like the larger Find N2, this clamshell uses Oppo's second-generation "Flexion Hinge." Oppo says it has significantly reduced its bulk, which was a major reason why the Find N2 was able to shed significant weight. Here, Oppo says the space saved by the thin hinge allowed the company to place a larger-than-usual battery in the cell (4,300 mAh).

The hinge feels well constructed, requiring a bit of force to open, and it can also stay in place at any angle. When the Find N2 Flip is halfway folded in an L shape, Oppo calls this "FlexForm," and has designed software features to take advantage of this form factor. More on this later.

There's a volume rocker and power button that doubles as a fingerprint scanner on the right side of the device, and it sits on the top half of the phone when folded. Weighing 191g, the Find N2 Flip is lightweight, and the glossy finish feels elegant and soft to the touch, albeit a bit slippery.

Displays: Great by foldable standards

• The 6.8-inch OLED screen holds up against other foldables
• Has a small crease in the middle
• Relatively large 3.76-inch secondary display

If we're going by the insanely high standards set by the latest premium slab flagships, the Find N2 Flip's OLED screen isn't the most pixel-dense (1080 x 2520) or brightest (500 nits sustained or 1,600 nits peak). But when compared to foldable screens, particularly the one seen in the Galaxy Z Flip 4, the Find N2 Flips' 6.8-inch OLED holds up well. Maximum brightness still lags behind Samsung's, but in return, the screen doesn't have a deep groove and Oppo's software has more fluid animations. The variable refresh rate between 1-120Hz helps the screen remain efficient, and viewing angles are excellent with very little color shift, even at off-angle viewing.

Another major benefit of the barely-there crease is that when you run your finger up and down the screen, you only feel a slight dimple, not a harsh ditch like on the Galaxy Z Flip 4. There's no sugarcoating this: these Chinese foldables' faint crease make the harsh crease on Samsung's foldables look ugly by comparison. However, Samsung's reasoning for this can be that its foldables have an official water resistance rating. No Chinese foldables have such ratings yet. But there's no evidence or official statement from anyone that the crease is there because of water resistance.

The secondary display is perhaps this phone's biggest selling point over Samsung's Flip 4. Measuring 3.76 inches and with a 17:9 aspect ratio much closer to a normal phone screen, it attracts attention and can generally display more information than Flip 4's smaller 1.9-inch landscape screen.

Technically speaking, the secondary display is fine, producing punchy colors and being responsive enough to touches and taps. But it's not the highest-res screen. In fact, in the product shot above, you can make out individual pixels, although it's nothing too bad.

Processor and battery: A relatively large battery and fast charging

• Runs on MediaTek's Dimensity 9000+
• Has a larger 4,300mAh battery
• Can be charged at 44W speeds

The Flip N2 interestingly runs on MediaTek's Dimensity 9000+ SoC instead of a Qualcomm Snapdragon chip. MediaTek's chips are perfectly capable, and the 4nm Dimensity 9000+ is a flagship performer that can keep up with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1, but it isn't as powerful as the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. More importantly, the perception in the Android phone space is that only budget or mid-tier phones use MediaTek chips.

On the memory front, the Find N2 Flip only ships with one configuration: 8GB RAM with 256GB storage. The 8GB RAM is fine, but the storage uses UFS 3.1 instead of the newest UFS 4.0 that's been seen in several recent releases.

As mentioned, the Find N2 Flip has a large (for its size) 4,300mAh battery and it can be charged at 44W speeds with the included charging brick. Wireless charging and official IP rating (two things Samsung's Flip 4 offers) are missing here, however. Elsewhere, the phone has solid haptics and stereo speakers for a device this thin. Overall, the hardware package is excellent — if unoriginal.

Cameras: Natural-looking photos from a foldable

• 50MP main camera with a 1/1.56-inch image sensor is very good for a foldable
• The ultrawide and selfie cameras are solid but unspectacular
• Camera experience is not about raw optical prowess but the various fun ways you can use the phone

The Oppo Find N Flip 2's main camera is an IMX890 sensor with a 1/1.56-inch sensor and f/1.8 aperture. It's the same sensor used by the OnePlus 11 and the Oppo Find N2, which means this is a very good sensor for a small foldable phone, with a larger sensor than the Galaxy Z Flip 4's main shooter.

One of the new features of the IMX890 is its omnidirectional focusing, meaning every pixel in the sensor can lock focus and produce a somewhat natural-looking bokeh in photos with a clear separation between subject and background. Below are photos shot with this phone's main camera.

There are a few things I'd like to point out based on the samples above. For one, the colors, especially during the day, look very pleasing. They're slightly dialed up in contrast yet maintain a natural look. If you've been following Oppo or OnePlus phones, you may know this is due to the company's partnership with German camera maker Hasselblad, which created the so-called "Hasselblad color tuning."

The second is the bokeh in some photos with a subject in the foreground. But this can be hit-and-miss due to a combination of hardware and software trickery. In the first photo of Chinese dried sausages, the bokeh and focus dropoff is natural, but in the sixth photo of my friend holding the camera, the bokeh is unusually strong, as if I shot with Portrait mode (I did not). You'll also notice the last photo is a selfie, but it was still captured with the main camera because the Find N2 Flip's foldable form factor allows the main camera to double as a selfie camera.

The other lenses are less impressive in terms of hardware but still benefit from Oppo's excellent color tuning and polished software, including things like the responsive shutter. The ultrawide camera, for example, is just an 8MP lens, so images are generally softer on details, particularly in low light, but only if you pixel peep.

The 32MP selfie camera is fine, but why use it when the main camera is so much better and that secondary screen is large enough to be a functional viewfinder? Below are two sets of selfies, the first image captured by the main camera, then with the actual front-facing camera. The front-facing camera produces superior exposure and a much more detailed image.

Video performance is above average, with solid stabilization and real-time exposure adjustment if using the main camera. Oppo's custom imaging chip, MariSilicon X, helps keep noise level low. Video recording resolution/framework maxes out at 4K/60, but there's this weird bug that keeps switching the default setting to 1080/30 (more on this in the software section). Video samples can be seen in the video below.

Overall, the Find N2 Flip's camera system is very good for a clamshell foldable but isn't going to threaten to dethrone a premium slab phone anytime soon. But with these clamshell phones, their form factor and fully articulate hinge add to the experience. You can grab hands-free selfies, take group photos without asking a stranger to help hold the camera, or tilt the screen at an angle that allows you to film really high up or really down low without craning your neck. The form factors add to the overall experience. And yup, Oppo's camera app software takes advantage of the form too.

Software: Outside screen under-utilized

• ColorOS version of Android 13
• Excellent animations and customization features
• Cover screen usability very limited for now

Running on ColorOS 13 based on Android 13, the Find N2 Flip behaves exactly like a typical Oppo flagship when it's unfolded. Animations are buttery smooth and feel more fluid than most other Android UI (Samsung's OneUI only recently caught up in this regard with the S23 series), and ColorOS is full of shortcut gestures and customization options. In fact, Oppo/OnePlus pioneered many UI customization options that Google introduced with its Material You theme in late 2021, like the ability to change the overall UI color scheme from the notification panel down to the app tray. And once you've grabbed a screenshot with a three-finger swipe down, it feels unnecessarily complicated to go back to pressing the power and volume-up buttons simultaneously.

ColorOS has been mostly well optimized for this form factor. Unlike the larger Find N2, there are no app scaling issues to worry about because apps do not need to jump between screens. The camera UI will take advantage of the phone's foldable nature and shift the camera viewfinder to the upper half of the screen as soon as the phone begins folding. YouTube will also automatically shift the video to the upper half of the screen. None of these software tricks are new, as Samsung has been offering them in the Flip series since day one.

There is one glaring bug, however: the camera's video recording resolution keeps defaulting back to 1080p anytime I activate the cover screen, even if I repeatedly set the resolution to 4K. This bug needs to be addressed soon.

Oppo also needs to improve its software for the outside screen. When I saw such a (relatively) large and upright screen on the outside of a clamshell, I was excited because I thought the phone would let us use it as a fully functional smartphone where I could scroll through Twitter directly. So far, however, the outside screen can only run widgets and worse, only first-party widgets. The options right now are quite slim: There are widgets for the calendar, clock, recorder, and camera. I can only read snippets of incoming notifications, and responding to a text is limited to picking from a canned response.

I'd expect these type of limited interactions on a smaller screen, like on smartwatches or the Flip 4's tiny cramped screen. It's, quite frankly, a waste of space on the Find N2 Flip's relatively large canvas. Oppo really needs to open up the support of third-party widgets at least, and ideally just let us run any app on the outside screen.

Performance: A good general device

• MediaTek Dimensity 9000+ performs absolutely fine as a productivity or multimedia device
• Below average as a gaming machine
• Strong battery life for a clamshell foldable

The MediaTek Dimensity 9000+ chip is more than fine handling this phone during my testing period as a general smartphone. I must admit I am not a heavy gamer, I wouldn't sit through a two-hour Genshin Impact session on any phone, let alone a small, thin clamshell not designed for the task. But I've spoken to two other media peers who are into mobile gaming, and they said the Find N2 Flip was good but not great. For example, it can handle PUBG at 60f FPS but not at the highest graphic settings.

I used the device for more mainstream smartphone tasks such as snapping photos, scrolling social media, texting, and reading words, and the phone obviously didn't suffer at all. No lag, no app crashes, and nothing out of the ordinary in 10 days of use (other than that video bug that keeps reverting to 1080 resolution). I edited a couple of 30-45 second video clips for Instagram Reels on the app PowerDirector and the rendering time was acceptable: not as fast as Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, but not any slower than the Pixel 7 Pro's Tensor G2.

I ran some benchmarks too, and the Find N2 Flip scored reasonably OK, with numbers falling below the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, obviously. The phone was able to finish a 20-minute "Wild Life Extreme Stress Test" on the app 3D Mark, which several 2022 flagships running Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 could not due to overheating.

Battery life can be considered great for a clamshell foldable. This phone lasted me an entire 13-14 hour day with about 4-5 hours of on-screen time on a single charge, which is something Samsung's Flip phones can't do. The lack of wireless charging will bother many, but I was fine with the omission, considering the phone charges much faster than Samsung's foldables too at 44W. The phone's lightweight and solid speakers make it a very good media consumption device during long bus rides and standing waiting in airport lines.

Overall, I have no real complaints about performance. If you're a heavy gamer, you probably will. But you should know not to use a clamshell foldable for that.

Should you buy the Oppo Find N2 Flip?

You should buy the Oppo Find N2 Flip if:

• You want a phone that can fold up into a compact size and fit easily into any pocket
• You want a clamshell foldable without a harsh crease and a larger cover display
• You like ColorOS

You should buy the Oppo Find N2 Flip if:

• You see no benefit in having a slab phone that folds in half
• You want to have IP water resistance rating for your foldables
• You want to play video games

The Oppo Find N2 Flip is, like the larger Find N2, a well-made, well-designed foldable with hardware construction and polish that can go toe-to-toe with anything made by Samsung. If you've been a fan of the clamshell form factor, the Find N2 Flip doesn't necessarily take it to a new level, but it does elevate it slightly thanks to the more useful cover screen size and aspect ratio.

The big question, though, is if the Find N2 Flip is better than the Z Flip 4. Oppo's clamshell has a better-looking screen and a stronger main camera, but Samsung's device has an IPX8 water resistance rating, wireless charging, and more polished software without any major bugs.

Where Oppo could have really differentiated itself the Z Flip 4 would have been with that much larger outside screen. One of my biggest gripes with clamshell foldables like the Flip 4 is having to unfold the phone 80-100 times a day just to respond to a text or check Twitter. Oppo built hardware that could have fixed this problem but didn't provide the software for it. If Oppo fixes this via a software update later, it would instantly elevate the phone above the Z Flip 4. I'd still pick the Find N2 Flip because of the crease-less display, but for the average consumer who may know the Samsung brand more, it's a much closer call.

Whatever the case, just the mere fact Oppo is selling this in countries like U.K., Portugal, Singapore, and Japan is huge because it effectively ends Samsung's monopoly on the clamshell foldable space. People can now walk into a store and see options for small foldables. That's a big deal.