Summarizing Oppo’s year isn’t easy. In its home market of China, Oppo was a solid top brand – virtually matching Vivo and Honor, Xiaomi and Huawei trading blows.
But on the global stage, we saw very few products from Oppo. The company settled its patent disputes with Nokia earlier in the year and is taking time to realign the portfolio for a global launch. We were disappointed that some of Oppo’s best efforts were kept for China, but at least the Find X8 series finally marked the beginning of a long-awaited return.
Winner: Oppo Find X8
The Find X8 series arrived in Q4, marking Oppo’s decent return to Western markets. The Oppo Find X8 is a great all-rounder and one of the rare compact phone flagships around.
We gave it high marks in our review thanks to its capable camera, great battery life (a 5,630mAh battery is great in this form factor!), and solid first-tier Dimensity 9400 SoC.
Oppo Find X8
Winner: Oppo Find X8 Pro
We liked the Oppo Find X8 Pro better. It has a better camera system with a well-executed camera button, an equally powerful chipset and an impressive dual-periscope zoom with 73mm and 135mm native options.
Oppo Find X8 Pro
Winner: Oppo Reno12 series
Oppo Reno12 and Reno12 Pro are also global smartphones and enjoy good fan support. Both were expensive at launch but have come down a bit. They’re still not the most affordable options in the midrange, but they’re well-specced, and more importantly, they’re posh and stand out from the crowd.
Even better, the pair boasts great selfie cameras and is a great choice for those looking for a good portrait selfie taker.
Oppo Reno 12
Undecided: Oppo Find X7 Ultra
We can’t really call the Find X7 Ultra a winner or a loser for Oppo. It arrived in early 2024 and was the first dual-periscope smartphone – a true trailblazer.
We fell in love with the all-out cameraphone then and there, but our hopes of using it outside of China were dashed from the get-go.
Still, we can’t deny that such a magnificent piece of imaging technology deserves to be considered a win for any company.
Oppo Find X7 Ultra (left) next to Find X6 Pro
Losers: Find Oppo N3 and N3 Flip successors
It’s a real shame that Oppo hasn’t released successors to the Find N3 and Find N3 Flip. Both devices were among the best foldables of 2023 – the Find N3 and its globetrotting counterpart the OnePlus Open were clear fan favourites.
Six of our editors chose the Find N3/OnePlus Open as their favorite phone of the year (Yordan, Hristo, Kaloyan, George, Ivan and Michel).
The Find N3 was a standout at the time – it was the first truly compact, slim and light folding phone with a non-sunless camera system.
So it’s really a bummer that after a year, Oppo hasn’t released follow-ups to the best foldable.
