It’s into this potential user-unhappiness minefield that China’s Oppo has launched its new Find N2 Flip, which folds horizontally in the middle. It works quite well, adding that appealing physical flipping feeling that non-foldable phones cannot provide.
There are some compromises made though. Keeping the device slim, and halves closing without a gap, limits what tech Oppo could stuff into the N2 Flip. Fast-charging at 44 Watts is via a USB-C cable only with no Qi induction pad support to top up the 4300 mAh battery.
The 50-megapixel main and 8-megapixel ultrawide camera system has nice Sony sensors and Hasselblad calibration, but no optical stabilisation. It does have Oppo’s MariSilicon X neural processing unit for computational photography which, among other things, improves low-light shooting.
Pictures and video from the N2 Flip are nevertheless rather good, and the selfie camera on the main screen has 32 Mpixel resolution (which you can’t change for smaller image sizes) and autofocus.
The N2 Flip has a largish 8.28-centimetre screen on the case with 720 by 382 resolution for notifications and basic functionality for notifications and operating the camera: for example, when the N2 Flip is folded up.
Open it up, and the folding display is a 2520 by 1080 pixel 17.27 cms, with 1-120 Hz refresh rate, and HDR10+ for video colour fidelity.
Oppo made the big screen with a shallow sunken swale instead of an outwards crease so you don’t feel and notice it as much as on Samsung’s devices. The colour shift at different viewing angles and the light in the middle are still noticeable however.
Then there’s the complicated slim Flexion screen multi-angle hinge, which would’ve taken Oppo’s engineering team many hours to design and test to ensure its durability. If you feel you need it, Oppo supplies a phone case in two parts with the phone.
Inside, the N2 Flip has an eight-core Mediatek chipset, which benchmarks place way behind - for example - a Samsung Galaxy S23 or an Apple iPhone 14 Pro. It’s not that the N2 Flip is slow per se, but that flagship smartphones offer huge performance. If that’s what you’re after, the N2 Flip isn’t for you.
Internal storage is an adequate 256 gigabytes. The N2 Flip has 8 GB of memory, 5G of support of course, and a biometric authentication with fingerprint sensor on the power button, and face recognition. Oppo’s customised Android is called ColourOS, and Oppo promises four years of system software updates, and five years of security patches, which is commendable.
The foldability goes beyond being a gimmick. Having two touch screens, one of which folds, opens up new photography and video possibilities, for example.
While I think it’s a shame that Oppo didn’t put the case screen on the other side so that you could use the N2 Flip like a compact camera, it’s great for high-quality digital narcissism (selfies). The cover screen can also preview the object that’s being photographed with the N2 Flip folded open.
Partly fold the N2 Flip at different angles, and the split view on the main display goes onto the top or bottom of the screen. This means you can sit the half-folded phone on a surface without a stand, hold it like a camcorder, or like a Hasselblad camera with a waist-level viewfinder.
So there is merit to the foldable form factor, but the key to the N2 Flip not turning into a fl-Oppo will be durability.
Oppo has tested its screens at the independent TüV research organisation in Germany, and say the display will last for 400,000 folds, which is double Samsung’s rating.
I toyed with the idea of testing this, but that’s a lot of folding and it is a $1679 phone, costing just $179 less than Samsung’s Z Flip4 equivalent.
Only four phonemakers field foldable phones currently. The screen tech probably needs to develop further with much better viewing angles and no band of light in the middle for foldables to go mainstream.
Neither’s a dealbreaker though, if a “foldaphone” appeals, and Oppo’s Find N2 Flip is a solid take on the concept.
