Oppo Find N2 Flip launches outside China, offering Samsung serious competition

If you live outside China, your choice of folding phones is limited. And if you prefer the retro appeal of a flip-open smartphone, your options are basically Samsung's Galaxy Z Flip 4 or Motorola's Razr 2022, along with the more specialist rugged Cat S22 Flip. 

Now these flip phones have some serious-looking competition from a leading Chinese manufacturer in the shape of the Oppo Find N2 Flip, which has launched internationally following its debut in China late last year.  

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Described on-stage in London on February 15 as ‘a new benchmark for flips', Oppo's first flip phone offers a large portrait-mode cover screen, a crease-free hinge for the 6.8-inch main screen and a high-capacity battery, along with a versatile camera system. 

In the UK, the Oppo Find N2 Flip with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage will cost £849, a price tag that undercuts the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 by £50. And if you order the Find N2 Flip from Oppo before 1 March, you'll get a free set of Enco X2 earphones and a premium case, worth £169 and £25 respectively. 

Here's how the Oppo Find N2 Flip stacks up against the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4: 

A headline feature of the Find N2 Flip is its 3.26-inch AMOLED always-on cover screen, which has a vertical orientation with 382 by 720 resolution. This is the largest cover screen on any current flip phone, Oppo claims, and it allows users to accomplish more tasks — replying to messages, adjusting settings, answering calls and more — without opening the phone's main screen. For comparison, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 has a 1.9-inch cover screen with 260 by 512 resolution. 

Available in (Astral) black and (Moonlit) purple, the Find N2 Flip has polished aluminum sides, a fingerprint-resistant glass cover, and a micro-etched wave pattern across the hinge. It weighs 191g and is 7.45mm thick when open, and 16.02mm when closed. 

The main screen is a 6.8-inch AMOLED panel with a 21:9 aspect ratio (2520 x 1080 pixels, 403ppi), with an LTPO-adjustable refresh rate up to 120Hz and typical brightness of 500 nits (1600 nits peak). 

Oppo makes much of its second-generation Flexion Hinge, which uses fewer components than the first generation, making more room in the chassis for other elements such as a larger battery. On-stage, Oppo talked about ‘the most invisible crease' when the phone is open, while the press release describes it as ‘incredibly subtle'. This certainly throws a challenge to Samsung, whose Galaxy Z Flip 4 has a noticeable crease.  

Oppo says that the Flexion Hinge has been independently certified (by TUV Rheinland) for 400,000 fold/unfold cycles, but although the phone folds flat with no gap between the halves of the screen, there's no mention in the specs of an IP rating for dust and water resistance (the IPX8-rated Galaxy Z Flip 4 can handle immersion in up to 1m of water but is not dust resistant). Some early reviews have quoted IPX4 for the Find N2 Flip, which is a much lower level of water resistance (‘splashing of water'). 

The Find N2 Flip has a versatile camera system, co-developed with Hasselblad, based around a 50MP f/1.8 main camera, complemented by an 8MP f/2.2 ultra-wide camera and a 32MP selfie camera with autofocus. With the phone closed, you can take selfies with the main camera, using the cover screen for previewing. The Flexion Hinge, which can hold angles between 45 and 100 degrees, enables what Oppo calls FlexForm Mode — low-angle shooting with preview on the lower half of the main screen, for example, or taking a hands-free video call. If you're taking a portrait with the main camera, Dual Preview lets your subject see a preview on the cover screen. A MariSilicon X imaging NPU helps the Find N2 Flip capture 4K video in low-light conditions. 

The Find N2 Flip runs on an optimized version of MediaTek's flagship Dimensity 9000+ SoC with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage. As with the Galaxy Z Flip 4, there's no external storage expansion via MicroSD card. The Find N2 Flip is powered by a high-capacity 4,300mAh battery for which Oppo confidently claims ‘reliable all-day battery life'. Wired 44W SuperVOOC charging should deliver 50% charge in 23 minutes, Oppo says, but there's no support for wireless charging. 

The Find N2 Flip runs Oppo's ColorOS 13 and will receive four years of OS updates and five years of security updates.

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As noted earlier, the Oppo Find N2 Flip will cost £849 in the UK for an 8GB/256GB configuration. It costs €1,099.90 in France and €1,049 in Spain, and will also ship elsewhere in Europe and beyond. However, there's currently no plan to release it in the US.