Oppo Find X8 Pro review: Has that ‘X’ factor

Oppo Find X8 Pro review

Smartphones today have become much more than just a device for taking calls or sending and receiving messages. The phone in your hands is a full-fledged multimedia device, a web browser, a gaming console and also a camera. Over the years, it has become difficult for smartphone brands to make a phone that justifies all its purposes without some major limitations or setbacks.

Oppo recently launched its flagship smartphones – Find X8 and Find X8 Pro and the company claims that this is one of the most powerful and feature-rich phones that you can buy.

The company has packed these two phones with enough features and attention to detail to make it the flagship phone that can do it all. For instance, the Find X8 and Find X8 Pro are powered by MediaTek’s most powerful chip – Dimensity 9400 – and it is paired with up to 16GB RAM and fast storage.

Not only this, the company is also continuing its partnership with Hasselblad to tune the camera setup. The Find X8 Pro has a quad camera setup. All the sensors are 50MP units and that’s something not that common, even in flagship phones.

Adding cherry on top are the IP68 and IP69 ratings that make them the most durable phones you can buy today.

Does the Find X8 Pro have what it takes to be called a “true flagship” smartphone or there are a few niggles and limitations that set it back and leave wanting for more? To find the answer, I used the Find X8 Pro for several weeks as my daily driver and here’s what I think about it:

Oppo Find X8 Pro design: Modest design and new Quick button
Oppo makes some good-looking phones and the Find X8 Pro certainly falls in that category. The design is more mainstream with a curved display and rounded corners. More importantly, it has that right-in-hand feel that one would want from a premium and flagship device.

Gone are those leather-back treatments that the Find series used to come with. The two colour options – Space Black and Pearl White – feel premium with the glass sandwich design. In fact, my personal favourite is the new Pearl White colour. It feels fresh and every variant will have a different texture and pattern which makes each unit unique in its way.

The matte and smooth finish that the back panel has is also quite appealing. It not only adds to the premium feel but also adds to the grip and does not feel top-heavy while holding. Also, the massive circular camera housing is much slimmer than the previous generation and protrudes a lot less than the Find X7. The camera housing is also small enough to not get in the way while holding the phone.

That’s not it, the phone is also slimmer by 0.7mm and lighter by 6g compared to the previous generation and all this while packing a bigger 5910mAh battery.

There’s a new Quick Button on the right side of the phone. This is Oppo’s take on Apple’s Camera Capture button and I feel that Oppo’s implementation is slightly better and less complicated than Apple's.

Why I say this is because, the Quick button is not flushed like on Apple iPhone 16, second, it is longer as well. This allows users to quickly access the button and start the camera and the bigger touch point makes it easier to operate even if you have tiny hands. It is also positioned better than the iPhone 16 series.

Oppo Find X8 Pro review quick button

That’s not it. Oppo’s decision to make the toggle button limited for accessing the camera and zoom is the way to go for it. For me, it was much easier to operate and use the button than on the iPhone’s fiddly double-press action to access more camera controls.

However, there’s one thing that I would love to see here with the Quick button and that’s the customisation option. Right now, there’s no way to change what the Quick button can do apart from accessing the camera and zoom. But I would have loved it even more, if there was a way to change the zoom controls for something else – changing modes, etc.

Among other design elements, the right side has the power and volume buttons, the left side has the sound toggle, bottom of the phone has a SIM tray, primary microphone and speaker. The top of the phone has a secondary microphone and an IR blaster for controlling ACs, TVs, set-top boxes, etc.

Oppo Find X8 Pro display: Bright and vibrant

Oppo Find X8 Pro packs a 6.8-inch AMOLED display with super-thin and symmetrical bezels (1.9mm to be exact). The display also has a 120Hz refresh rate with 4500 nits of peak brightness, Dolby Vision support, HDR10+ and ProXDR support.

Oppo Find X8 Pro’s display is beautiful and is one of the best displays in a flagship phone. The colours are vibrant, brightness and viewing angles are top notch and in fact, the blacks and contrast levels are simply on point.

Oppo Find X8 Pro display

The addition of Dolby Vision and ProXDR makes things even better for viewing. Then there’s this PWM Dimming which makes things better for low-light viewing and reduces eye fatigue as well.

Oppo Find X8 Pro performance: Rock-solid
Initially, when I heard that Oppo had opted for MediaTek Dimensity 9400 SoC, instead of Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 8 Elite, I was a little sceptical about the performance and consistency. It’s a new chip, after all, and Oppo is the first one to go for it.

The moment I started using the device, things and perspective changed. The Dimensity 9400 paired with better optimised Trinity Engine for improved performance and efficiency, the Find X8 Pro is a charming device and it will want you to push to its limits. The phone also has 16GB RAM and 512GB of storage.

The phone is smooth like butter, except for some occasional stutters under a super heavy load. Oppo has also added a bigger vapour chamber to keep thermals in check and even though, I was using the phone pretty heavily, the phone kept its calm.

However, the phone does get a little warm when capturing back-to-back photos or videos for a longer duration. But not once it reached the level of discomfort.

Gaming is another strong suit of the phone. I played Genshin Impact, CoD Mobile, BGMI and some lightweight games like Subway Surfer and Candy Crush. Well, lightweight titles aren’t a problem here and neither were the triple-A titles. All the games ran with pretty good frame rates and Genshin Impact – one of the most demanding titles – ran at 60fps with dropping in frame rates even after 90 minutes of continuous gaming.

Oppo Find X8 Pro camera: A treat for photography enthusiasts

Oppo has put a lot of effort into Find X8 Pro’s camera. The phone moves beyond the conventional setup where the primary sensor is of the best quality and then we get lower-resolution telephoto and ultra-wide lenses. Oppo Find X8 Pro has quad camera setup and all four of them are 50MP sensors. The primary is the 50MP 1/1.4-inch Sony Lytia LYT-808 sensor with OIS, there’s a 50MP 1/1.95-inch Sony LYT-600 with 3x optical zoom with OIS then there’s another 50MP telephoto camera with 6x optical zoom, and a 50MP ultrawide-angle sensor.

Oppo Find X8 Pro camera housing

Oppo also mentions that they’ve made the zoom to 6X seamless. What this means, is the entire camera setup zooms the photos without switching to the digital zoom till 6x.

In my experience, this is one of the most versatile camera setups in a flagship smartphone. The primary 50MP sensor delivers vibrant, sharp and detailed output with full dynamic range. Both 3X and 6X telephoto lenses are one of their kind in a smartphone and both deliver similar quality shots full of details and sharpness and colour are impressive too. The ultra-wide sensor is also good, has less distortion and keeps the colours and details in check and the credit goes to Hasselblad for offer its colour tuning to all the sensors on Find X8 Pro.

Oppo has optimised the camera setup enough that even while switching from one lens to another, the difference in the colours and white balance does not deflect much.

Find X8 Pro camera sample: Sunrise

But, that’s just one part of the camera. It is not just about the photos and videos that the phone captures. It is also about the experience and the first thing users notice is the shutter lag and Oppo has made it to ‘zero’. There’s no shutter lag even if you try to capture back-to-back shots one after another. In fact, there’s this feature that starts capturing as soon as you touch and hold the shutter button and uses AI to find the best shot for you to keep.

Other than this, the phone’s zoom goes all the way to 120x. To my surprise, the phone retains good details up to 20x. Beyond that, it does start losing some details, but till 50x photos are more than usable or I should say social media worthy.

I also tried to capture a lot of moving subjects and every single time the phone clicked photos with zero blur. Take a look at firecracker shots if you don’t believe me.

Find X8 Pro camera sample: Fast moving subject

Portrait shots are also good with multiple portrait zoom modes. In fact, it is the only phone in the market that allows users to capture portrait photos at 6X zoom or 135mm which adds to the natural-looking bokeh at the back. All the modes in portrait mode deliver a natural blur effect and precise cutout. The skin tone also remains true and well-optimised. There’s beauty mode, in case you want to use it.

Moving to low-light photos, Find X8 Pro excels in that department too. Take a look at this hotel building shot. Look at the sky, it’s dark because I captured it at night. There’s zero hint of over-processing here. But, the building is well-lit and has sharp and vibrant colours.

Find X8 Pro camera sample: Portrait

Then, there are two Auto modes – Stage and Fireworks. The phone detects the situation automatically and suggests users capture and enable it. I used both modes and they work fine.

There are several other shooting modes as well and most of them work as you would want them to. But there’s one feature that people should know – tripod mode – in low light. When you mount your phone on a tripod and turn the tripod mode on, then the phone automatically switches to a slower shutter to capture even more details and light in the photos and those photos are absolutely stunning.

Find X8 Pro camera sample: Shutter speed

The camera setup sounds too good to be true. Yes, it does and there are few niggles that one should keep in mind. Inconsistency in colour processing at times. If you try to capture the same shot one after another then you’ll notice that the phone processes them all a little differently in terms of colours.

However, all three photos look good and pleasing. So, that’s not a problem. However, if Oppo somehow fixes this with a software update, the camera setup on the Find X8 Pro will be more consistent. Another issue that I think should get fixed is the ability to change focus in the Portrait photos.

Overall, the Find X8 Pro’s camera prowess is worth the applause as the phone delivers on all fronts without any major compromise.

Find X8 Pro camera sample: Low light

Oppo Find X8 Pro camera samples

If you are out there looking for a camera-first flagship phone that does all the other things without major limitations, then Find X8 Pro is worth the consideration.Oppo Find X8 Pro software: Refined and AI features

ColorOS 15 based on Android 15 is what the phone runs out of the box. It has become more refined and smooth in terms of animations. The features and customisation options are plenty and allows users to make full use of them and make the phone feel more personal.

Oppo has also added some AI features to the mix. There’s this new AI-powered object removal feature in the Photos app. The feature allows users to remove the distractions from the image. The tools work well and are also refined and polished in most cases. There’s an AI reflection removal tool that removes reflection from glass and it works as expected.

Oppo has also added the Circle to Search feature that lets users to search anything from any screen without leaving the app just by tapping or circling the area.

Then there are AI writing tools that summarise the context from a PDF file, or website and even it can write something based on the command. I feel the feature needs a little improvement as sometimes I felt, it missed out on some crucial information.

Oppo Find X8 Pro battery: Lasts all day and more
Oppo has switched to Silicon carbon battery technology. Although silicon carbon batteries are a little more complicated to manufacture and execute, it allow users to pack bigger batteries in the phone while retaining the slimmer profile. Oppo has done it and the phone comes with a 5910mAh battery. In my testing, the phone managed to last the whole day long with browsing, checking emails, texting, listening to music, watching videos, capturing photos and videos and even playing games. If you are anywhere between light to moderate users, then the phone can easily last for around two days.

Oppo has also packed an 80W SuperVooC fast-charging brick in the box. The charger takes around 45 minutes to charge the phone from 0 to 100%. Also, there’s a 50W wireless charging support as well. But for that to work, you’ll need a compatible wireless charger.

Not only this, Oppo has also added magnets at the back for better wireless charging and for other magnetic accessories.

Oppo Find X9 Pro: Verdict

Let’s circle back to the main question: has Oppo managed to deliver a phone that ‘does it all’? Well, the answer is yes. The Oppo Find X8 Pro has everything that takes a phone to be called a flagship. The phone’s camera is a delight. Its design is also premium and robust with both IP68 and IP69 ratings. Plus, the battery life and vibrant and bright display just make the user experience better.

All of these features come at a cost of Rs 99,999. That’s no ordinary price and Oppo is playing in the territory of iPhones and Galaxy S series phones. Both have had more stable flagship phones for years.

However, Oppo’s entry with Find X8 Pro shouldn’t be taken lightly as the company has put everything into the phone that it has to offer and most of them are practical and functional.