Here’s a hands-on of the OPPO Find N5, the world’s thinnest foldable phone at time of writing, done in 7 parts over a week. No tech jargon!
Part 1
The first thing that struck me when I unfolded the Oppo Find N5 was that I could read text on a phone without my reading glasses. The squarish inner screen is about 8-inches diagonally, and that is a lot of real estate for text in large font sizes.
We middle-aged geezers all know the pain of using conventional smartphones when you get afflicted with presbyopia (i.e. you can’t see stuff up close). With my candybar Samsung S23, I hardly look at the screen unless I am wearing my reading glasses. And even if I do put on my glasses, I don’t like to read ebooks on a narrow screen.
A foldable phone effectively doubles the display area of a candybar phone, and I was very chuffed* to read my Kindle ebooks on the Oppo’s inner screen. In fact, for the past few days that I’ve been testing the Oppo, I hardly used the 6.6-inch cover screen because I would always flip open the phone by default. The Oppo could easily replace my main reading device: the 8-inch Lenovo Legion tablet.
The next impressive thing is the svelteness of the Find N5. I’ve avoided foldable phones since I saw the first commercial model by Royole at the Consumer Electronic Show in 2018. Foldables have always been too thick and too heavy for me, especially since I hold my phone while jogging.
When folded, the Find N5 is 8.93mm thick, just slightly more than the 8.25mm iPhone 16 Pro Max. That makes the Oppo the thinnest “book-style” foldable ever, and it weighs in at 229g, about the same weight as the iPhone.
But it’s even more impressive in the real world when you install the bundled phone case. I put the Oppo next to my Samsung S23 (the smallest model in the Galaxy range), both with their cases on, and the Oppo was just slightly thicker. The toughest test is to put the phone in my jeans pocket and the Oppo slid in nicely without fuss.
Thank you to Oppo for letting me try out the Find N5. This is not a sponsored article. I’ll share more about the Oppo’s horsepower and photography chops in coming posts.
*chuffed = ancient word for very pleased
Part 2
Here’s an unedited photo of the view outside my window after the rain today. It’s taken using OPPO’s latest flagship (the world’s thinnest foldable), and yes, that small rainbow is real and not AI-generated.
The world’s thinnest foldable is getting so many rave reviews, I think I’ll zag by letting my photos do the talking. When my schedule allows, I’ll be exploring the Oppo’s camera features such as the 7 frames-per-second shooting speed, Hasselblad portrait effects and classic film styles.
Geek trivia: The 120hz OLED screens on the Oppo are so accurate (100% DCI-P3 and 100% sRGB), this photo is rendered exactly the same way on my home OLED monitor which I use for photo-editing.
Uncle trivia: I was a photojournalist for five years (1998-2003), and I’m glad I no longer have to lug around heavy dSLRs and lenses.
Part 3
Which version of me do you prefer? The “Classic Film x Dreamy Filter” or the “Unfiltered 49-Year-Old”? Both photos are selfies, though they look as if they were taken by someone else, thanks to a nifty trick of the world’s thinnest foldable phone.
To achieve this distortion-free image, unfold the OPPO, select the 50MP rear camera, set it to 2x zoom (which mimics the human eye’s field of view), and use the outer screen to frame yourself while striking the right pose.
On conventional smartphones, the front camera tends to distort your features, no matter how far you hold it away, and there’s no way to preview your selfie using the rear camera. This is where foldables make a big difference for selfies.
I was impressed by the natural colors of the unfiltered version (I think that’s my actual skin tone) and the depth-of-field processing, which blurred the background without making me look like a cardboard cutout.
Some friends preferred the filtered Ian – probably because pale, overexposed skin tones are all the rage in Asian drama serials today. For photographers who remember the old days, the filter resembles Fujifilm’s Provia color palette.
I still prefer the unfiltered me 🙂
Part 4
I’m still wrapping my head around the fact that this foldable has more screen estate on its inner screen than an iPad Mini (so says Marque Brownlee) and you can put it in your pants pocket.
I really dig the squarish screen, but it’ll take time for game developers to catch up to this. For example, I think there could be less empty space in the official Chess.com app. In the meantime, the square screen should make me look more intellectual when I take public transport and pretend to be strategising my next chess move.
BTW, Marvel Snap plays great on this phone, but I don’t think the LinkedIn crowd will appreciate the less cerebral photo…
Part 5
I was at my Bible study class today when I discovered that I could not only have two apps displayed on the foldable, I could also add in a third app. Our session is bilingual, so I’m always switching between different languages, and now I can add in a ChatGPT panel to do quick searches. You can see two apps at the same time, or you can pinch the screen inwards and use three apps simultaneously.
I think this is possible with a tablet, but I’m usually too lazy to bring that out of the house.
Part 6
I am posting this photo today because:
1. I was trying out the OPPO Find N5 foldable’s black and white photo capability. This is a standard feature across all smartphones, but I was intrigued by how the phone adjusted the contrast and tone on the fly for a more film-like look. I developed BnW photos in the darkroom when I was younger, and I can tell you this image comes very close to analogue photography.
2. I could be dead tomorrow and I’d like you to know what I look like today without make-up. Such is the unpredictability of life…I mean the “I’m still alive bit”, not the cosmetics bit.
3. I hear that social media algorithms prefer us to post photos of ourselves that have nothing to do with the post subject matter. I guess this post won’t go viral then, since I am writing about the subject matter.
Happy Sunday! I’m off to buy McDonald’s breakfast for the family.
Part 7
Sunday walkabout photos.
