Oppo Find N5 evaluation: the ultimate evolution of foldables

Oppo’s Find N5 looks like the tip sport for foldable telephones. Not as a result of it’s make or break for a phase of the telephone market that by no means fairly took off like producers hoped it will, however as a result of I merely don’t know the place we go from right here. There’s scarcely room to make the telephone thinner with out ditching USB-C totally; battery life, efficiency, and even cameras are actually on par with different flagship telephones; and this time, Oppo even managed to suit wi-fi charging and water resistance in, too. This is what we have been promised all alongside. Now what?

It’s laborious to see how the {hardware} improves a lot additional. At 8.93mm thick when closed, that is the thinnest foldable on the earth, shaving virtually half a millimeter off the earlier document holder, Honor’s Magic V3. It’s simply 4.21mm skinny when it’s open, which proves there’s nonetheless area to trim — Huawei’s trifold Mate XT runs to simply 3.6mm — however we’re near at the very least one laborious bodily restrict. Oppo instructed me it needed to customise the USB-C port to suit it right into a telephone this skinny. There’s solely a hair’s breadth of steel on the port’s periphery. If foldable telephones are going to get meaningfully thinner, USB-C has to go first.

Every comparability you can also make to different units sounds spectacular. When closed, that is lower than a millimeter thicker than an iPhone 16 Pro Max or Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra and weighs solely 2g greater than the Apple telephone. Open, it boasts a much bigger display than an iPad Mini however is thinner and weighs much less. It’s lighter than any of the foldables you should purchase within the US proper now and is a full 3mm thinner than the Galaxy Z Fold 6. It’s laborious to overstate how astonishing the Find N5 feels and the way few compromises there are to its design and construct. I maintain selecting it up and marveling on the engineering.

That applies to the 8.12-inch foremost show, too, the place Oppo has labored to cut back the crease the place the display bends. It’s nonetheless seen, however solely when it catches the sunshine good, making it simpler to disregard than to note.

Foldables have traditionally been quick on battery life. Surely that is the place Oppo lower corners to maintain the Find N5 trim, proper? Not actually. By utilizing a second-generation model of its silicon-carbon battery know-how, the corporate slot in a 5,600mAh capability — bigger than any foldable you’ll discover within the US. I spent yesterday visiting mates in an space with unreliable sign, taking loads of pictures alongside a countryside stroll and utilizing the massive inside display to plan an upcoming trip collectively. The Find N5 was solely right down to 50 % once I went to mattress.

The lack of wi-fi charging was one of many main complaints in regards to the earlier Find N3, which ultimately launched within the US because the OnePlus Open. That’s been fastened, too, with help for 50W wi-fi charging for those who use considered one of Oppo’s personal AirVooc chargers and slower speeds on common charging pads. Oppo is promoting a magnetic charging case individually, too, however that’s by itself customary — the Find N5 isn’t Qi2 Ready-certified.

Battery life might be helped by adopting a brand new seven-core model of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, which sacrifices a bit of efficiency for higher cooling and decrease energy consumption. It looks like a wise swap: I haven’t observed the Find N5 stutter as soon as in over every week.

The 8-megapixel ultrawide lens looks like an actual afterthought, however the 50-megapixel foremost and 3x telephoto cameras would maintain their very own towards most flagships. Dim lighting pulls the 2 aside a bit of, with the telephoto dropping element and overcompensating on brightness, dropping the nice and cozy, pure shade steadiness the Hasselblad-tuned cameras have a tendency to supply the remainder of the time. These aren’t the very best cameras you’ll discover, however they’re at the very least comparable with the Pixel 9 Pro Fold’s, and I reckon the telephoto right here has the sting over Google’s.

If there’s one {hardware} space with room for enchancment, it’s sturdiness. Oppo boasts that that is the primary foldable telephone with an IPX9 water-resistance ranking, however the “X” means there’s no ranking for defense from mud — arguably way more vital for a foldable telephone. While the Find N5 feels remarkably sturdy for its measurement, foldables are inherently fragile.

Oppo rightly obtained reward for its novel tackle break up screening when it launched the Find N3 a 12 months and a half in the past. Up to 3 apps will be opened on the primary display directly, both sharing the area equally or with one dropping off the sting, able to be pulled again into focus with a faucet. It stays the very best strategy to splitting up a big touchscreen, and Oppo prevented tinkering with it an excessive amount of right here. The solely actual change is that it’s faster and simpler to allow, accessible by way of a three-dot menu within the notification bar.

The greater new function tries to suit much more apps onto the display: Mac apps, to be particular. Oppo has expanded its current O Plus Connect performance, which beforehand supported file sharing between Oppo telephones and iPhones or iPads, to help Macs. It does greater than share information, although: as soon as arrange, you should utilize it to remotely management your Mac. You can flip the telephone right into a teeny-tiny laptop computer, with the Mac show mirrored to the highest half and both a keyboard or imitation trackpad on the underside. The telephone and Mac don’t must be on the identical community, although the Mac must be on-line and awake to provoke the connection. This is the sort of performance you’d solely ever use in a pinch, however it runs surprisingly easily, although you must squint on the display.

The different software program adjustments are predictably AI-centric. Artificial intelligence can enhance your connectivity, translate your calls, and summarize your paperwork. Google Gemini is now the default assistant, and virtually every part the digital camera does is in a roundabout way AI-enabled. None of it’s particularly thrilling, and it feels prefer it’s solely there as a result of it must be. Four years of Android model updates and 6 years of safety help at the very least assure that there’s much more AI to come back.

The greatest failure of the Find N5 may simply be that it isn’t launching within the US. While we’d anticipated OnePlus to rebadge the telephone because the Open 2, the corporate has confirmed it received’t launch a foldable this 12 months. The UK and Europe will get the Find N5, however the States won’t, decreasing the strain on Samsung and Google to place out {hardware} to match — or to drop their costs, which is basically the ultimate frontier of foldables. The Oppo Find N5 has taken book-style foldable {hardware} about so far as it may possibly go, however at $2,499 SGD (round $1,867), that is nonetheless priced for lovers solely. If foldables are going to stay round, they should cease getting thinner and begin getting cheaper.

Photography by Dominic Preston / The Verge