The Oppo Find X3 Neo takes great photos, looks fantastic, and zips along – but it’s not without its weaknesses.
Is the Oppo Find X3 Pro a little too rich for your blood? Well then may we introduce the Oppo Find X3 Neo, the mid-range model in the line – below the Pro but above the Oppo Find X3 Lite in terms of performance and price. In many ways it gets close to the ideal mix of affordability and power, but exactly where that sweet spot is tends to be different for everyone. Pitting the Pro directly against the Neo in the Oppo Find X3 range, the Neo we’re looking at here has a slower Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 processor (versus the Snapdragon 888), a smaller 6.55-inch screen (versus 6.7 inches), and a less impressive rear camera. For these and other more minor compromises (including no wireless charging support), you pay a not-insubstantial £400 less in the UK – the official retail price of the Neo is £699. As well as an alternative to the Oppo Find X3 Pro, this handset is a successor of sorts to the Oppo Find X2 Neo, a phone that we were very much impressed with last year. Not a huge amount has changed on the newer model, though it packs more battery capacity, a faster processor, and a slightly improved rear camera. The design has been upgraded too, in our opinion, but the Find X2 Neo still represents a good deal if you can find it on sale for a competitive price. The highlights of the phone are undoubtedly its design – including a superb-looking screen – and the quad-lens rear camera. The camera might be a downgrade from the Pro model, but it’s not a huge step down, and it’s still capable of capturing some great photos and video for you. The Neo even takes low light scenes in its stride, and there aren’t many other phones at this price point that are this good in the camera department. Speaking of price, it’s perhaps just a touch on the high side – considering the phone comes carrying a processor that launched last year, and lacks wireless charging and IP68 waterproofing, you’re spending a lot of money to get it. You can pick up the Pixel 5 and the OnePlus 9 for slightly less, the iPhone 12 mini for the same price, and the Samsung Galaxy S21 for a little bit more: there are a lot of great phones around for this amount of money. The strength of the competition could be the biggest problem for the Oppo Find X3 Neo, because otherwise it’s a fantastic phone that we really enjoyed using. If you’re in the market for one of the best phones around this year, then we’d recommend taking a long, hard look at this one. You can preregister your interest in the Oppo Find X3 Neo now, but the phone doesn’t actually ship until April 14. When it does arrive, it’ll cost you £699 (around $950, AU$1,250) putting it firmly on the border between mid-range and flagship. In the UK you can get the handset direct from Oppo and from networks including Three and EE, but there’s no sign of the handset going on sale in either the US or Australia. The Oppo Find X3 Neo is a fantastic-looking phone. It is – dare we say it – even easier on the eyes than the more expensive Pro model, with a textured, matte back to the casing that feels great to the touch and doesn’t show every single fingerprint. We had the understated Starlight Black color for our review model, though a more glitzy Galactic Silver option is also available. It’s hard to find a single fault in the aesthetics of the phone. The front display is only interrupted by the punch hole, kept out of the way in the top left corner, while the rear camera array looks neat and compact. There is a noticeable camera bump, but it’s not a major problem, and even the Oppo logo is tastefully handled. The fingerprint sensor is embedded under the front display, which again helps the minimal and clean aesthetic of the phone. The curves and the lines of the handset are all in the right place, with a slight curve to the sides of the screen. The buttons – power on the right, volume on the left as you look at the Neo – are small but easily accessed, the overall size feels like it hits something of a sweet spot as far as today’s smartphone market goes: big enough to hold its own, but not so big that you’re going to struggle to hold it one hand. Those dimensions in full are 159.9 mm x 72.5 mm x 8 mm (that’s 6.3 inches x 2.9 inches x 0.3 inches), and at 184 grams the phone is just a touch lighter than the Pro.
