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Hi all im going to be giving my personal review / comparison ( ip4 ).
I hope you all enjoy.
Style/ Look / Feel
When i first picked up the phone i was in shock and disappointment, the gs2 feels light, cheap and weak, ( compaired to my ip4 ) however it has been almost a month now with the phone and i can say the phone still feels cheap but i like the weight when watching movies and browsing the web. However i dont like the weight when taking video and pictures i tend to shack a little more with the phone in my hand were with the ip4 it just had that extra weight to hold of the small shakes .( but thats a problem with me i guess not the phone ).
Speaker ports and holes are all normal with a flash of chrome around some parts breaking up the constant black , the speaker cuts are very bad in my honest opinion , they are to deep and sharp ( i worry dirt can get in after time ). The band around the screen also has a gap and ive already found that dirt falls in there and has made a home. The button feel for the home button is nice and solid same as the ip4, volume rockers and switch off buttons also feel good and are easy to access.
Overall the phone feels a good 3.5/5
Hardware
Speaker sound is really exceptional i would say just as loud as my ip4, however the placement of the speaker port blocks sound when it is placed on a bed or flat surface also another thing is that the sound is a little flat when listening to high bass music. I hardly use headphones for listening to music but i did use them for talking on the phone and they are very good and loud.
Call clarity is fantastic on speaker or on loud speaker, and ive asked people if the sound is clear on the other end and they did hear me very clearly.
Ok so the screen super amoled plus well what can i say the positives are 4.3 inch size big positive for moves and browsing and viewing pictures/movies also another plus is the colour looks amazing very rich but not over saturated.
Now the negatives of the screen and there is only one thats the resolution when viewing youtube hd videos it is just not as sharp as the ip4 and when viewing text on the web i find it very poor compared to the ip4.
overall speaker 5/5
call clarity 5/5
screen 4/5 ( watching streams and web are big part of my usage )
Camera
So this phone is amazing with taking pictures and video it is 95% perfect at it, now that 5% it does bad is auto focus and the lack of touch to focus in 8mp and 1080p hd video. Coming from an ip4 i guess i took this amazing feature for granted. Now if you are an artistic photographer like i am having the option to touch focus is very important so that you can pic were you want your depth of field and in focus areas. ( is there and app for this i would love to use it ? )
As for video touch to focus isnt as important but the auto focus does need to be fixed, it is very jumpy in low light and in direct light, also in low light it finds it very hard to focus sometimes taking 2-3 seconds ( the ip4 would focus really smoothly and accurately ).
One thing i will mention is that video recording outside in low like just after dusk you will get alot of noise and loss of detail, i dont consider this a problem because i can understand the limitation of such a small sensor, i just mention it so other that have not yet brought the phone will know.
Some crops and shots with the gs2
pic outside grass
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outside sunset
crop 100% outside sunset
crop 100% inside flash
crop 100% macro outside sunset
pic outside bush
Note : these pics look to have been doped in size by flikr but the detail is still there.
Video test at 1080p showing focus times and colour representation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=409whx1SjFs&feature=player_profilepage
Note: there seems to be some colour lose and detail lose in the youtube upload process but it still shows focus times.
Software
I can only talk about software that i use most of the time, i dont use the hubs or touch wiz, the first day i got the phone i put launcher pro on the phone the reason for this was because personally touch wiz looks like an iphone with the bottom 4 square icons and i just dont want to be reminded of the brain dead apple os ( sorry apple fans )
ok so wifi, for me wifi is stronger then on my ip4 it loads pages, videos on youtube and streams faster. ( this could also be due to the software on the gs2 ) but it still feels faster to me. Blue tooth on the other had is not as strong as the ip4, i use bluetooth in my car to listen to music and make/ receive calls and it has dropped out on three occasions were my ip4 did not drop out once.
GPS and 3g are all dependent on how close you are to towers , i have poor 3g in my area But in good areas my 3g is just as fast as my ip4 ( keep in mind i do view full web pages most of the time ).
One thing i have to mention is why i moved to android since it seems the ip4 was so good, and that is customization and OS i love the os and i love the customization.
Screen shot of my homescreen, could not do this with the ip4.
One thing i dont like about the youtube app is the subs menu? why isnt there a all subs option? and when i go to individual subs it doesnt show me thumbs? im a very visual person and i miss that.
Browser is superfast i love it, very responsive and i can do almost everything i want. It is not total flash support some sites i can not click on text boxes but that is just a small thing, over all very good.
And lastly i got to mention battery usage, Now i am one of many that have HAD yes i say HAD the os drain problem, but i said stuff it im gonna use and abuse my phone and now the battery is amazing the phone is lasting a good day and a half with heavy use ( video stream over wifi , youtube , web , camera/video shots ) to give an example i watch a 50 min stream on tv shows stream app and i loose around 10% ive done a side by side with my ip4 and it chews around 8% , so in saying that i would say its nearly there .
OVERALL
Well i love this phone, sure it may feel a little cheap and the res isn't as high as the ip4 or have the touch to focus, but you can do so much with this phone from watching streams of tv shows to taking fantastic 1080p video. the customization of the launcher is so much fun and the support you get from people on xda is amazing, who needs apple support when you can have xda support?
Thanks everyone for reading my review i hope my honest review has helped some with similar usage patterns with there decision on purchasing this amazing device.
Nice review. Would be perfect without the little potshots against apple. A brain dead OS and a streamlined one are two very different ways of describing iOS. I also wouldn't rely on an internet forum for any real support. You can like Android without hating Apple. I've seen a lot of user reviews where once 3GS and IP4 users suddenly do a 180 and trash talk the devices they've been using and loving for years, because they want to fit in with the group and champion the superiority of whatever phone they have by talking **** about the other, because it makes themselves feel superior. I don't think you meant to be offensive, but you should qualify some of your remarks anyhow. Then again, compared to most user reviews I've read, this is pretty docile and fair.
Wow i actually thought i gave my old ip4 to good a wrap, but u are right brain dead is harsh. it is an amazing phone just felt so liberated being able to Change what i want with the gs2. Thanks for the feedback
HamdiR HTC One Semi Review, vs HTC One X - extras: Double Flip Cover & Media Link HD
This is my semi review for the HTC One
Batch Date: HT33W, Made in Taiwan 28th of March
Firmware: 1.28.401.7
Region: EMEA, French unlocked unit
update: HTC just issued a statement about an upcoming update dealing with few camera issues mentioned in the review
HTC One updated with camera enhancement suite and more in Europe (1.29.401.13)
• Noise reduction in slow motion movie capture
• Improved color reproduction and dynamic range (reduced over-exposure in non-HDR images) in certain conditions
• Fix to display correct ISO in EXIF information when ISO settings are manually changed by the user
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This device is still not widely available in my country, given that we still don't have official HTC presence in Lebanon it's up to sub dealers to import HTC devices, some of which are registered with HTC, the device can be purchased for around 1100$ which is a crazy price at the moment, my cousin bought the device along with the media link and double flip cover accessories and i was able to spend some quality time with the device.
Design and Build quality: Pristine and Flawless
The device finish is exquisite, the metal parts are laser cut to perfection and the injected plastic bands are completely flush with the device, both the plastic parts and metallic back plate are "one" piece they are cut and molded together hence a zero gap uni-body shell, the independent frontal metallic speaker covers are perfectly flush as well, unlike some reported early cases of misalignment or gaps, this more recent unit had an almost zero gap speakers covers, you can visually identify its not as microscopic zero gap as the unibody shell but both covers are so rigid and tightly fit there are no gaps, no overhangs, the screen and its metallic protection sides are also perfectly fit and finished
Curiously it has a French warning sticker about speakers' loudness
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The white plastic band had no imperfections to the USB or earphone ports however you can detect some micro imperfections to the interior of the earphone port and the SIM tray hole, i have to say without close inspection this can not be seen from any distance and returning such a device on this account is just being bitter
The volume button looks and feel like a brushed metal but i actually suspect its plastic with metallic finish
Unlike what you would assume from online photos, the device physically looks very different than the iPhone, it looks much slimmer due to the tapered sides, the mixture of black screen glass and metallic sides plus silver metal plates and white plastic inserts gives a very polarizing effect, it actually feels more male than you would imagine, the aluminum parts project a more premium metal feel, in other words the device has a machinery stainless steel feel due to the beveled machined metal parts, combine all this with the slim profile and the resulting look is a very sleek yet bold and edgy
In terms of ergonomics the moment you hold the device you are surprised by how well it slips into the palm of your hand, it holds very well, I commend them for not going with a bigger screen since due to the extra speakers space the device lost a little percentage of it's one hand usability coming from the One X, the screen is very comfortable to use however and i found it still manageable with one hand, the device is just barely bigger than the One X as I was able to fit it in the same tight pouch I use for my One X
I found reports of a slippery finish surprising since the device was really easy to juggle around even when rotating it constantly for the different tests I've done, perhaps it's a different story for sweaty hands or black finish?
Speaking of black finish, I recommend going with the genuinely colored silver version, I can see the One is clearly not itself in any other color
In terms of durability, we have to remember this is not really rugged device, with such pristine metallic finish, it's not hard to imagine how easy it would be ruined with one drop, I am not talking about breaking the device but actually dents to the fit and finish will clearly go less easy than it does on the single piece single colored One X, any sort of protection is highly recommend, I would go with a transparent slim cover or simply a pouch so i can both enjoy the design while protecting the device.
Screen: 4.7" 1080p 468ppi screen Laminated and Bright as the One X
The screen like the One X before it is laminated to the glass, there is no air between the glass and LCD, hence it appears floating on the surface, a laminated screen would not suffer from the old dust under screen concerns
Within the first few moments of use you realize the famed 720p screen on the One X is now outdated, its hard to describe, the difference isn't so obvious but for me I was always able to detect density when reading in low light, not anymore! pixel density eye detection on a phone is now history, the screen is sharp and pristine, a perfect reflection of the sleek device design and build material
I actually found the color accuracy on the One a little better than the One X, yes it's clearly a cooler calibration but in actual use it was obviously whiter than the warm saturated One X screen (again perhaps due to my low light environment), it was also a little less saturated which is a good thing in terms of Apple like accuracy but might disappoint saturation lovers
The full brightness on both devices was surprisingly a match, i couldn't tell any difference between brightness, blacks and view angles as you can see in this photo taken by a Desire SV
One thing was clear however especially in view angles, the One screen had little more glass reflections, this is why it appears to have darker view angles in some photos which is not the real case, I assume it would perform slightly less in outdoor visibility than the One X
A reminder: As reported by Anandtech, OEMs are known to use different panel sources which can differ in calibration, it's also worth noting the HTC One is using a sort of dynamic contrast which might influence white point tests.
Audio Quality: "BoomSound" Stereo speakers and HDR sound recording
This part will not take a long write to describe, the speakers on the HTC One are beyond anything you have experienced on a mobile device, it's not the loudness or actual deep bass but the quality of the output, its crystal clear you simply can not fail to notice how clear and crisp it sounds whenever an audio plays even the tiniest of notifications tons or how clean it remains with the loudest of music, one thing to note however is that Beats audio is enabled by default, when disabled the sound quality is significantly worse, it's good know HTC finally made real use of it's Beats deal, whether its by HW alone or SW as well is not clear (it might still be a counter trick just to emphasis the importance of beats branding)
What's even more impressive is audio recording quality, just phenomenal, I tried two tests:
- First is recording straight from TV, the results were excellent, crisp but not very loud due to the distance from TV
- The second is re-recording the audio captured by the One from this video while playing on my One X! very impressive, it played back almost as crisp as we have it on youtube (I will upload this test once i get the chance)
There was some kind of low a frequency hiss with these video in their playback on the One but not nearly as audible when those same videos played back on the One X, my guess is that this noise was being exaggerated by the BoomSound speakers, I didn't get the chance to try disabling Beats during playback which might resolve this issue
Unfortunately I also had no chance to test earphones performance, this will have to go till my my next time with the device
Video Recording: 1080p at 20MB per second
The default video quality was excellent, it recorded 1080p video at constant 20Mbps, Anandtech noted this is the maximum ability of the s600 SOC, the resulting one minute H264 mp4 file was 150MB, and as reviews has stated optical stability during video recording is impressive as well, I was doing tests in indoor low light and colors were an accurate reflection of the real scene, much better than the redness of the One X during low light, the video runs at locked 30fps which is very impressive considering the One X video lag in low light
Unfortunately the same can not be said about both slow motion and 60fps modes while both modes functioned probably in terms of frame rate the image quality was very bad, HDR however was a mixed bag it actually works, dynamic range and especially colors are much improved but in my low light environment there was some strange flickers, I expect this mode to work better during daylight, the good news encoding in HDR mode is as good as the standard mode, the following screenshots will tell the story:
Standard mode, 30fps(indoor low light), 1920x1080, 20Mbps
HDR mode, 29fps(indoor low light), 1920x1080, 19Mbps
Slow motion mode, 24fps(indoor low light), 768x432, 2.5Mbps
60fps mode, 43fps(indoor low light), 1280x720, 8.5Mbps
Download full size screenshots
Ultrapixel Camera: 4MP 4µm F2.0 wide angle, aka Advanced Night Vision Goggles
As we've observed in the photo thread, the default camera settings had two slight issues: aggressive digital sharpness and lack of contrast due to the brightness loving (2.0µm x 2.0µm) sensor, thankfully both are within our control due to the honestly deep options in the camera UI, sharpness can be reduced by setting it to -1 or -2 for disabled while contrast can be boosted in few ways like setting contrast to +1, exposure to -1, apply auto enhance from gallery > edit > effects (you can also drag the preset to customize it) or third party apps
Again my environment was low light indoor, so i was only able to test it within this context and compare it with the 8MP (1.0µm x 1.0µm) F2.0 One X, in general I still found results to be only missing a little contrast punch and naturally based on my own recommendation I reduced sharpness to -1 on all the shots
Here I found all the tweaked results better than the default settings, low light color capture was a lot better than the redness on the One X, in terms of 1:1 detail the 4MP results were clearly better than the noisy One X results:
There are four One vs two One X samples in this comparison
The One X is weak in it's low light default capture, but it's still F2.0, there is a special mode on the One X allowing for great low light capability and that is HDR + Auto flash, the same mode can be used on the One, it captures three shots along with two quick flashes for combined HDR exposures without tinting the colors, the One HDR capture is dramatically faster than the One X, sometimes you don't even see the "processing" notification, this means HDR results form the One have a tremendously less chance of blurring than the One X, as you can see it's almost night vision:
There are three One vs three One X samples in this comparison
There are four One vs two One X samples in this comparison
There is something very odd about the first standard results, first in this dark white scene the automatic camera settings struggled, I could clearly see it in the view finder as it's struggling to setup, the first shot is the one above (exposure 1/7 ISO 1922) the second capture (not displayed above) was weirder it used exposure 1/30 ISO 235, the results were noise free but curiously low ISO seems to apply more aggressive detail smudging, more about this later
In the following I attempt again to tweak camera settings in order to boost contrast:
It seems contrast +1 and auto enhance can often achieve similar results, sadly it sometime feels too harsh, a middle ground would be more ideal like auto enhance from perfectly clear app, examples here
In conclusion contrast + 0.5 would have been ideal
Comparing 1:1 Detail:
HTC One, ISO-193, 4MP 1:1
HTC One X, ISO-800, 8MP downscaled
iPad 4, ISO-250, 5MP 1:1
HTC One, exposure 1/60 ISO-104, 1:1
HTC One X, exposure 1/20 ISO-125, 1:1
If a good light source is nearby, the camera will choose a very low ISO + extreme shutter speed and those noise free slightly smudgy results will appear again, colors are way off on the One X meanwhile it's a perfect shot from the HTC One
HTC One, exposure 1/60 ISO-104
HTC One X, exposure 1/20 ISO-125
One last time, macro, light source away, resulting in noisy high ISO
HTC One, exposure 1/10 ISO-1027
HTC One X, exposure 1/20 ISO-1000
Download full size HTC One samples
Download full size HTC One X samples
In general I found the camera an amazing performer in low light, especially when it comes to color accuracy, shutter speed and most important power, those settings are empowering but as a side effect it definitely has a learning curve, those expecting point and shoot awe inspiring results might struggle
For the average user much of this photographic power might remain unseen
Last thing to note the camera view finder, shutter, UI and processing speed is absurdly fast, it totally out-dates the already fast One X camera
The front camera is similar to the "full frontal" ultra wide angle camera as the HTC 8x. Shutter speed and viewfinder fps is a lot better than on the 8x, but after reinspecting indoor photos i previously took with my 8x i noticed the quality is indeed reduced on the One.
HTC Zoe:
This is the most fun feature of the HTC camera, lets get to the negatives first, the Zoe trigger is actually just an icon without any label, this alone might keep this feature unseen to many! once you click the icon the shutter button will have a Zoe label over it and it starts caching images, when you click it collects few pre frames and the remaining captures until the red bar runs out.
Once you have a Zoe you can do great things but yet again those abilities are a little hidden, in order to apply sequence shot for example you have to go to edit > enhance,Ii struggled few times to find it since it only appears if it's a Zoe and sometimes I confused its location with edit > effects, either way "sequence shot" and all Zoe abilities like "always smile" are the perfect party camera features, tons of fun if you are using these abilities with a couple of friends or your family
In Zoe capture many options including sharpness controls are actually disabled, I also noticed captured quality can be different than normal capture, for example all my Zoe still shots appear to be the most in lacking contrast
Now for the best Zoe part "highlights" again it's confusing at first since you see those moving zoe thumbnails and a still thumbnail with a play icon, once you press play you realize it's a highlight reel being generated in realtime, I was spending the whole evening with my cousin and wife trying out this phone, when we finally arrived to the highlights part it caught us by surprise, it was video recap of the entire evening with the neat default "vega" theme, it was hilarious seeing all our tests, videos, zoes, expressions and beer photos come together, there couldn't be a more perfect "memory capture" of the evening
A word of warning a highlight is not automatically saved and they will change once you capture more content, so if you see something you like hit menu and save in order to keep it as a video, you can also share it to HTC Zoe website, it's wise to clean up your zoe's once your done, if you don't want to overwhelm your camera folder
Sense 5.0, Blinkfeed and Buttons layout:
The new UI is all about less is more, there is much less UI and a lot more functionality, from the get go I changed the app drawer grid from the default 3 columns and i've a set a normal homescreen as my default, although there were few accounts loaded like Facebook, I was not fuzzed by blinkfeed it was left there to the left and harmless, if those feeds have ugly or low res photos expect the phone to greet you with them, so it does what it does and that is providing feeds but it should not be the default homscreen
As for the rest of the UI its just minimalist, clean and a lot more AOSP in terms of cursor and buttons etc, most importantly its so fast and locked triple buffered 60fps JB smooth, so smooth you really don't care about it anymore, you can be busy multitasking, jumping back and forth and the UI will never break a sweat, it's never in your way, after this my One X feels a little "old fashioned"
Not once did I confuse the HTC logo for a button, I was perfectly adapted to the new home button location and double tapping for multi view, in fact I have enjoyed the change
If I was to be picky, I can say I have noticed some fps drops in folders' animation inside the app drawer, otherwise the OS is scorching fast and liquid smooth
Gaming:
update: check the following 3D games reports
3D Games Performance Report Part II>>
3D Games Performance Report Part I>>
As a recap here is the current HTC One GPU situation:
http://gfxbench.com/device.jsp?benchmark=gfx27&D=HTC+One
in T-Rex offscreen 1080p:
Tegra4 project shield @18fps
554MP4 iPad 4 @16.8fps
Adreno320 s600 HTC One (4.2.2) GPU 450mhz OC @18fps
Adreno320 s600 HTC One (4.1.2) GPU 450mhz OC @17fps
Adreno320 s600 SGS4 (4.2.2) GPU 450mhz stock @17ps
Adreno320 s600 HTC One (4.2.2) GPU 400mhz stock @15fps
Adreno320 s600 HTC One (4.1.2) GPU 400mhz stock @14.8fps
544MP3 Octa SGS4 @12.5fps
Tegra3 HTC One X @4.1fps
in Egypt HD 2.5 offscreen 1080p:
Tegra4 project shield @54.5fps
554MP4 iPad4 @54.4fps
Adreno320 s600 HTC One (4.2.2) GPU 450mhz OC @45fps
544MP3 Octa SGS4 @43fps
Adreno320 s600 HTC One (4.2.2) GPU 400mhz stock @41fps
Adreno320 s600 HTC One (4.1.2) GPU 450mhz OC @40.4fps
Adreno320 s600 SGS4 (4.2.2) GPU 450mhz stock @40fps
Adreno320 s600 HTC One (4.1.2) GPU 400mhz stock @37fps
Tegra3 HTC One X @12.5fps
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Also the T-Rex results are reflected in the 3D mark tests
The HTC One is currently lacking the latest Adreno 320 drivers with Open GL ES3.0 support, these drivers require Android 4.2.2. Thankfully HTC and Qualcomm demonstrated then promised these drivers in an upcoming update, which is good sign since few other Adreno 320 s600 devices running on 4.2.2 are achieving better GPU performance
Be sure to check my gameplay videos analysis, the HTC One runs Modern Combat 4 smoothly in native 1080p with full effects engaged
Finally with S600 you need to be aware of thermal throttling so check my [GUIDE] How to easily unleash your HTC One gaming powers ★ root>>
Battery and Temperature:
Throughout my time with the device, I had the brightness cranked up to full, I tested the device heavily for four hours, it was connected to wifi but not mobile networks, there was few accounts in Blinkfeed and most of my tests revolved around the camera, impressively in those non stop full brightness four hours the battery only fell from around 90% to 50%, coming for the One X limited screen on time this is a significant leap
The HTC One metal back plate did get warm, but never hot, it was clearly getting warm but quickly dissipating the heat
IR Remote: Who would say no!
I tried this quickly on my Sony bravia and LG LCD TVs, it worked perfectly, there was only one negative is that it requires you to setup the TV mode first by choosing a limited list of countries and your cable provider, needless to say non of this is supported in my country and all i wanted is to access the remote function, once i skipped through the setup, i chose my TV brands, it quickly downloaded the profiles, worked instantly (and yes I did try a practical joke with this)
Conclusion:
I was left speechless, it's not that the HTC One masters one specific element but it is the global quality of this device as a whole that is mouth watering, there is not one area left out or neglected, the entire abilities of this device combined working in harmony to give you a truly unique, sleek and "next level" experience, it continues the work started by the HTC One X and in the same time renders it obsolete, compared to the early life of the One X where many areas were still unfinished, taking a while to reach it's promise (through both hw and sw revisions), the HTC One is a fully refined out of box experience
After HTC's track record of software improvements on it's flagships of 2012 (X/S/XL) from which the One X was remade, I can only imagine where the One will be a year from now
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Accessories: Official Double Flip Cover, pretty but flimsy
I am angry at this cover, first I never expected to like the color combination but as you can see, it is actually pretty neat
The kickstand concept works perfectly as well, sadly so sadly there is one jarring omission and that is a lock mechanism when the cover is closed, you would imagine with all this metal at the front HTC would have used a magnet to snap the cover to the body once it's closed (like the iPad kickstand cover), sadly it's not the case, the flip is left clumsy and loose
In terms of quality, the clipping parts have a matt finish, these are rigid but have a tender finish meaning they slide easily out and can not do damage to the device, meanwhile the bendable parts have a fake leather finish, the texture is good quality but i found the HTC engraving a little cheap as well as the uneven back side
All in all a great concept, great design especially when it's in kickstand position but for a device with the quality of the HTC One, an "official" cover should do better
Accessories: HTC Media Link HD, an excellent tool but not as sleek
Note I wasn't able to confirm which model but the best part is that it is so easy to setup, just plug it to TV and charger, it will instantly appear on screen, all it takes is a swipe gesture and your UI is onscreen (if you disabled the gesture for multitouch reasons you can immediately enable media link from the settings or notifications menu)
The moment you connect to wifi the device will also alert you about Media Link's presence
I tried it on both the One and One X, Videos and photos are easily played back on your TV in 1080p24, the One was clearly faster than the One X which had a laggier UI due to the 3D launcher and had to pre load 1080p films before they play, the One never had to pre load those videos, they played from the moment you press play, you can also keep playing the video while you continue using your UI
In conclusion it's neat tool however there is a main issue and that is performance, the liquid smooth UI is not reflected on screen, its running at lesser frame rate, so eventually I found it hard to enjoy photo viewing for example and preferred to simply stream them through my PS3
You can also play any game through your media link, i tried RipeTide on both the One X and One but both performed badly even if the resolution was reduced in-game, the game was running liquid smooth on both phones but not on the screen there was also evident compression, I guess it has to do with wifi streaming speed
I'm not sure if this version supports the faster wifi on the HTC One but it's not hard to imagine an updated model will be released sooner or later
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you find my work helpful in some of your unanswered questions please hit the thanks button
Don't forget, a lot more info here:
HTC Flagship 2013 - HTC One - Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 600 - Mega Information Thread>>
Great review hamdir and as detailed as I expected it to be.
Glad to see that you like it and to see the detail on the camera (which is something I don't generally know much about apart from taking standard photos).
Will be adding this to post #2 of the review thread later today
Dude, you are allmost at same level with Brian.
Thank you so much! I'm hoping to get mine in next few weeks (Finland).
review
Good review...thx
Thanks a lot. Awesome review. Only sad thing is how cheap flip case looks. I mean seriously, nillkin and other chinese brands are much cheaper but much better in terms of quality. This should have been better.
Great comparison review, Hamdir. Do you still intend to keep the One X until the launch of One + or your will got weaker with these few hours with the One?
myself11 said:
Great comparison review, Hamdir. Do you still intend to keep the One X until the launch of One + or your will got weaker with these few hours with the One?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm already weaker
Just a note I will soon be uploading full scale photos samples from this review as well as my audio recording test
Great review, i wish the buttons weren't visible when the screen is off
DynamicRam said:
Great review, i wish the buttons weren't visible when the screen is off
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is an incredibly minor nitpick. But I agree with you - that would have been nice.
Great work hamdir, a priviledge to read your post. Now I see why you are a reference across many worldwide technology forums when the subject is HTC
(...) the HTC One is a fully refined out of box experience
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is something very dear to me, thankfully you pointed it out.
Thanks guys
I have added fill size video screenshots and photo samples to the review
Wow. That's one hell of a review! :thumbup:
Sent from my EVO using xda premium
updated this part
The front camera is similar to the "full frontal" ultra wide angle camera as the HTC 8x. Shutter speed and viewfinder fps is a lot better than on the 8x, but after reinspecting indoor photos i previously took with my 8x i noticed the quality is indeed reduced on the One.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd totally forgot about adding the IR Remote to mine until I read it in here.
Our reviews are a bit too big I think
Sent from my HTC One via XDA Premium
KidCarter93 said:
I'd totally forgot about adding the IR Remote to mine until I read it in here.
Our reviews are a bit too big I think
Sent from my HTC One via XDA Premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
like Brian said there is just so much to cover with this device
hamdir said:
like Brian said there is just so much to cover with this device
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Click to collapse
Couldn't agree more. When I originally wrote mine, it was much longer than it is now but knew I had to cut it down a bit otherwise I'd use up the 30,000 character limit.
Sent from my HTC One via XDA Premium
KidCarter93 said:
Couldn't agree more. When I originally wrote mine, it was much longer than it is now but knew I had to cut it down a bit otherwise I'd use up the 30,000 character limit.
Sent from my HTC One via XDA Premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
did you forget to add your review and mine to the second post?
hamdir said:
did you forget to add your review and mine to the second post?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not forgot, I just haven't got around to doing it yet
I'm too lazy at the moment but will defo get it done soon-ish
Sent from my HTC One via XDA Premium
Excellent write-up! You touched on a few things I was wondering about. Thank you and cheers!!
Hi guys. I rang my local store here today and got a price of €420 euro for the z3 without contract which seems pretty good given that the samsung alpha here is €570. Also the z3 compact is priced at being £430 in the uk so not quiet sure why its cheaper here in Ireland as usually we pay more for products then anywhere else ha
Anyways iam tempted to pull the trigger but for some confusing reviews i have read! Most reviews claim the resolution is poor and the screen is not as sharp as the competition, images look washed out and the camera is not as good as you would expect from a 20.7mp camera , color accuracy is way off and images look washed out etc and one review claimed the battery life was ok but not as good as sony claimed!
However i have also seen two reviews that say the opposite and claim the display is the best 720p they have ever seen, the camera is among the best out there and that battery life is incredible!
Can anyone that owns the device give they're impressions?
Currently own a htc one m7 which has been good to me . I often change phones regularly but have kept this for almost 2 years and it works flawlessly and is still as snappy as ever to this day so iam slightly worried about the z3 compact not being a significant upgrade! Ill miss the htc sense widgets and although iam not fan of the sony home screen and lock screen look , Iam loving the specs and the fact i can use the phone comfortable in one hand! Would have got the z3 but see it as being a little too big
Blaalad12 said:
Hi guys. I rang my local store here today and got a price of €420 euro for the z3 without contract which seems pretty good given that the samsung alpha here is €570. Also the z3 compact is priced at being £430 in the uk so not quiet sure why its cheaper here in Ireland as usually we pay more for products then anywhere else ha
Anyways iam tempted to pull the trigger but for some confusing reviews i have read! Most reviews claim the resolution is poor and the screen is not as sharp as the competition, images look washed out and the camera is not as good as you would expect from a 20.7mp camera , color accuracy is way off and images look washed out etc and one review claimed the battery life was ok but not as good as sony claimed!
However i have also seen two reviews that say the opposite and claim the display is the best 720p they have ever seen, the camera is among the best out there and that battery life is incredible!
Can anyone that owns the device give they're impressions?
Currently own a htc one m7 which has been good to me . I often change phones regularly but have kept this for almost 2 years and it works flawlessly and is still as snappy as ever to this day so iam slightly worried about the z3 compact not being a significant upgrade! Ill miss the htc sense widgets and although iam not fan of the sony home screen and lock screen look , Iam loving the specs and the fact i can use the phone comfortable in one hand! Would have got the z3 but see it as being a little too big
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll soon be buying this phone as well. About the resolution, my current phone has the same resolution on a slightly smaller display of 4.3", with a pixel density of 342 ppi and the image is so sharp that I cannot distinguish pixels with the naked eye no matter how hard I try. The Z3 Compact has 319 ppi on its 4.6" display, which really isn't much lower at all. I can imagine the pixels will still be too small to distinguish with the naked eye. Okay, maybe if, for some reason, you use the phone under a magnifying glass or if you hold it flat against your face, it won't look very sharp (duh). But if you just use your phone like normal, I'm sure the display on the Z3C will appear perfectly sharp.
About the colour: ExpertReviews, for example, claims that the whites are white enough (they describe it as "ice white"). They mention the white balance option on the device, but said that they felt no need to adjust the white balance.
With regard to camera quality, most reviews had it in Superior Auto Mode that saves the file about 8MP. Those who own one are saying the Manual Mode is where you can see the pic quality excel. I trust DXO mark more than others. Here's how they rank the phones based on IQ. This is the older generation Z2 that is using very similar lens albeit there is slight improvement on the Z3. Just not sure if the improvement is in the hardware or software. Full review can be found here:
http://www.dxomark.com/Mobiles/Sony-Xperia-Z2-overview-Revised-model-takes-first-place-in-Mobile-rankings
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I just got my Z3c today; I've had a M8 until today and a M7 before that. I honestly can't tell that the screen is 720 instead of 1080, and everything, from pictures to videos to text, looks very sharp. I don't see any color accuracy issues, and I'd say color reproduction is the same (as far as I can tell) as on the M8 and M7. I love the size of the device, and it's a great feeling to be able to use my phone with 1 hand lol. I'd say go for it!
LastQuark said:
With regard to camera quality, most reviews had it in Superior Auto Mode that saves the file about 8MP. Those who own one are saying the Manual Mode is where you can see the pic quality excel. I trust DXO mark more than others. Here's how they rank the phones based on IQ. This is the older generation Z2 that is using very similar lens albeit there is slight improvement on the Z3. Just not sure if the improvement is in the hardware or software. Full review can be found here:
http://www.dxomark.com/Mobiles/Sony-Xperia-Z2-overview-Revised-model-takes-first-place-in-Mobile-rankings
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Uhh they have the Nokia 1020 under the Iphone 5 and s4... that can't be right
First off, 720/1080p means nothing. Pixel density is what actually matters, and 720p at 4.6" is more than high enough to be a non-issue unless you hold the phone up to your eyeballs.
Likewise, megapixel count doesn't mean as much as people think. The sensor size matters more, and at 1/3" it's larger than most. It's not the best smartphone camera on the market, but it's still quite good.
The colors are poorly calibrated out of the box, and it does look bad, but it's trivial to fix in the color settings, so that's not really a big deal.
Battery life is never as good as the manufacturer claims, but it's still pretty good so far. I haven't had it long enough to really tell you for sure though.
Blaalad12 said:
Hi guys. I rang my local store here today and got a price of €420 euro for the z3 without contract which seems pretty good given that the samsung alpha here is €570. Also the z3 compact is priced at being £430 in the uk so not quiet sure why its cheaper here in Ireland as usually we pay more for products then anywhere else ha
Anyways iam tempted to pull the trigger but for some confusing reviews i have read! Most reviews claim the resolution is poor and the screen is not as sharp as the competition, images look washed out and the camera is not as good as you would expect from a 20.7mp camera , color accuracy is way off and images look washed out etc and one review claimed the battery life was ok but not as good as sony claimed!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
- I'm sorry but any review that complains about the resolution not being sharp enough you can just ignore, because that reviewer clearly has no idea what he/she is talking about...
- Color calibration in terms of the screen can be changed to your liking, most/many people don't like the default color scheme so they did some adjustments.
- Camera really isn't as bad as they say... in some situations it's not as good as the rest, but it's NOT BAD (That's mostly in low light situations)
My tip for you:
Don't get your phone based on other people reviews, because they seem to affect you A LOT! There are more positive reviews than bad ones, but yet you seem to have picked out the bad ones.
Get the phone in your hands (in a shop), play with it and then decide.
The display for me is the single most important aspect of any mobile, and I've not bought any of the Z Series because of it (although the Z2 display did look good). For that reason I was extremely judgemental when first using the Z3C.
I don't think you have anything to worry about in terms of quality or sharpness. The contrast is great and the default calibration does indeed produce icy whites (which I personally prefer to warmer whites).
I haven't used the camera yet, but other things that have impressed me are the build quality - especially the finish of the plastic sides, the bezels, which looks smaller in person than the promo photos suggest, and the sheer speed of the device. It's incredibly snappy!
I'm more impressed than I thought I'd be
Sent from my LT26i using Tapatalk
@stormbeta, it's a 1/2.3 sensor
Cronis said:
Uhh they have the Nokia 1020 under the Iphone 5 and s4... that can't be right
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The problem with the 1020 is it's great at certain things, awful at others. It's a really inconsistent camera. DxO's ratings reward consistency - a camera that's pretty good at everything trumps one that's really good at some things. That's why the last few iPhones have scored so high - they do a decent job of most things.
In their element, the 1020 and 808 are unbeaten. Unfortunately they aren't that great as day-to-day snappers.
I'm very impressed by this device so far coming from a galaxy s3. The display is absolutely fine. Everyone that says otherwise is just a spec whore (xcuse my language). And you can even tweak the colors yourself!
And the best part: 720p with high end hardware means silky smooth operation in every situation. I have never held an android device this fast. Even turning the screen on is just instant. No lag whatsoever. I'd say this is even faster than iPhone.
Camera? I have no idea about quality but the dedicated button is more important for my use than quality. If I want to make quality pictures I don't use my smartphone anyway..
If you want a high end smartphone in a smaller form factor this is the best device out there. No doubt about it.
IntroWelcome to Part 2 of my OPPO Find X5 review! In this part I will be covering the camera performance and battery of the device.
Table of contents
Part 1: Build Quality & Design, Performance & Gaming, Display
Part 2: Camera, Battery (Currently reading)
Part 3: ColorOS Features
At the end of each part I will also include the conclusion of the part and the index for navigation.
Camera review
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Using the Find X5’s camera has been a great time, especially with a wide array of features, Hasselblad co-development and the MariSilicon Neural Processing Unit.
Wide and ultrawide both have a 50MP sensor, while the Tele lens has 13MP. The front facing camera has a 32MP sensor.
View all of my sample photos:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/UmkNFFEq3G5QYY6S7
Over 100 photos!
Selfie cameraStarting with the selfie front facing camera: built into the bionic display as a small holepunch in the top left corner.
The camera has been quite impressive with high resolution selfies that capture a lot of light and natural colours, thanks to the hasselblad tuning.
I did enjoy using portrait mode with the selfie cam a lot more than usual this time around. It has also been fun, and is pretty convincing with its bokeh effect. The corner detection did work well in my testing, even in low light, without using the night mode. What’s nice is that you can adjust the aperture, the amount of blur, directly while shooting.
If the light is too low, you can switch over to night mode, which is also available for selfies.
Main and ultrawide cameraShooting with both wide and ultrawide has been a solid camera experience. Both lenses are sharp and allow for huge 50MP photos, when enabled. These are around 10-20Mb saved to the device and retain a lot of detail. While I wish the photos were a tad bit punchier without the AI scene detect, I do appreciate the more realistic colours, which can always be adjusted in editing later on.
Example of portrait mode:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/QvsuLMrSxGjtudVw7
The main shooter also has a great amount of natural bokeh, thanks to its large sensor. This can be great for more dramatic close ups, food photography or pets. If you need more bokeh, you can switch the camera over to portrait mode and use the aperture slider to increase the blur. Getting things into focus was also always very solid, the camera generally always identified what I would have wanted in focus. There were only a very few times I had to tap a couple times to get the subject in focus.
Switching things over to the ultrawide camera, it has a 0.6x view, and what I really enjoy about the lens is that it keeps lines straight, where some cameras tend to warp the image. This allows for a quite unique ultrawide look and makes the lens much more versatile.
I did notice the colours were a bit different than the main shooter, being a bit more on the cool side but also sometimes warmer colour temperature. You can see this quite noticeable when comparing the photos I took of the same scene with the different lenses. Needless to say the photos did turn out still very good when looking at them individually.
The only downside of the camera I could find while testing some more difficult scenes such as backlit or fast moving was that the processing sometimes did encounter a sort of edge ghosting effect.
Although it only happens very rarely in some exceptional cases (I checked with the other ambassadors and they did not experience it yet) I found it still important to highlight, and hope it can be fixed in a future software update. Examples: Ghosting, Edge 1, Edge 2
Comparison against OnePlus 9 Pro:My main phone of the last year was between the OnePlus 9 Pro and an iPhone. So I made sure to capture some comparisons between both the 9 Pro and the X5 as they both feature the hasselblad codevelopment.
What I could notice was that the OnePlus did brighten up the image more and did produce a more “punchy” looking photo. But also it generally turned out to be a bit more blurry on the OnePlus, especially when zooming in on text for example.
The X5 did a better job at retaining details, such as fabrics and text was very sharp. Especially when shooting in darker environments you could see much sharper details on text and a less grainy image but at the cost of less highlights.
The colours were a bit more natural, capturing the scene a bit better like I saw it in real life. I had a feeling the processing was toned down a bit.
Another thing that I noticed was that the X5 handled edge fringing much better than the 9 Pro, where things could easily get out of focus on the 9 Pro around the edge of subjects.
Samples (9 Pro vs. X5):
https://photos.app.goo.gl/mymu2gMureRDYt3C6
Night modeThe dedicated night mode utilises the NPU to process the image, retain highlights and reduce noise. The duration of how long a night mode photo takes to capture can vary from a second, all the way to 7s in my testing depending on the lighting situation. The results are really worth it and do speak for themselves.
What I really liked is how colours are kept, with a low noise and clear blacks. Also lights do have a good amount of brightness without being overpowering. Another favourite feature of mine is the long exposure, which takes some great shots without the need of a tripod.
Example long exposure
Video modeComing to the video aspect of the camera, which has always been a difficult part for most Android devices. In my opinion the main camera produces the best video footage, which is clear, has good stabilisation and only a small amount of crop factor. It allows for 4K capture up to 60fps.
If you need a large amount of stabilisation the camera app also has a mode called “Ultra-steady-mode”. This makes the video feel buttery smooth, and in some situations where you want that gimbal style footage this can be great, but does come with the downside of having quite a lot of crop factor.
Another feature is the video portrait mode, which allows for bokeh style video in 1080p. In my testing this effect has worked pretty well and has been able to track subjects well even in low light situations.
Example of portrait mode in video during low light:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/e6QoXVtJdrB3C5FBA
https://photos.app.goo.gl/HzGt5dntHz8B2ARo7
Battery review
Battery life in a dayThe battery life has been very solid! After about a week of usage the battery has adapted to my usage and on average has always given me a full day of battery life lasting into the noon of the next day. The X5 also features reverse wireless charging, which can be great to top up wireless earbuds if they have a case that supports it.
After a day of photography, playing some games casually and watching youtube with general usage my screen on time resulted in 4:25h and 4% battery remaining. This is for me quite good, considering I had always enabled the full 120hz of the display and did keep it at a relatively high brightness setting.
Also thanks to the included SuperVOOC 80W charger, I never had to worry about needing to wait a long time during charges. Usually it was enough to top up my Find X5 within 15 min for an entire day if I was worried it might not last.
Charging speedWith the 80W charging speeds being insane (I never experienced a phone charge this fast other than the OnePlus 9 Pro) I went from 4% to 100% in just 30 min!
Conclusion Part 2And with this I would like to conclude my second part of the review. Overall my camera tests have been really solid, I especially loved the colours the camera captured, and the large sensor allows for some really nice natural bokeh. Having a wide and ultra wide lens as primary sensors is a good combination, as they are super versatile. The zoom was lacking a bit, producing images that were still viewable but for my taste too blurry or processed. Battery life has been also quite solid. Especially considering I used the device always in 120Hz mode it easily did manage around 4.5h screen on time.
Continue reading
Part 1: Build Quality & Design, Performance & Gaming, Display
Part 2: Currently reading
Part 3: ColorOS Features
Update: I have posted further photo samples for two photo-series, you can find them linked here:
Save the night: https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/savethenight-night-photos-with-the-find-x5.4434553/
Stories from varied perspectives: https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/stories-from-varied-perspectives-photos-with-the-find-x5.4438663/
Both series go a bit more in depth of specific camera modes, such as night mode photography or using different lenses. Hope you enjoy!
Oppo "brand ambassador"....jeez, you and 3 million others. Such neutral and unbiased reviews.
murrayalex said:
Oppo "brand ambassador"....jeez, you and 3 million others. Such neutral and unbiased reviews.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not sure if this is a criticism of my review or the programme, if there is anything I am more than happy to hear constructive feedback to also improve my reviews for the future. So please do let me know!
Also, I would like to mention again that this review is entirely my own opinion and with everything I have tested I am comparing it as if I purchased it as my own device. As an iPhone and OP9 Pro user, I had a very good baseline of flagships to compare to and also point out differences. Check my first part of the review for instance, especially in the speaker department.
When there are issues I am more than happy to bring them further to OPPO, as I have already done with bugs and camera issues I have encountered, to name a few.
After all the review should help you guys decide and get a better idea what the device is capable of Hope this clears things up.
INTRODUCTION
Hello all. As you might know, I received the OPPO Find X5 last week and did an unboxing and first impressions post which you can find here.
Ever since I've received the Find X5 my sim card has been in it and I've been using it as my daily phone.
It's been a couple of days and I think I've fairly used this device to give my thoughts and share with you all my detailed review on the device.
The subjects that I will be reviewing in detail are,
• Design
• Camera
• Software & Performance
• Battery & Charging
I will try my best to share an unbiased and detailed review of the device and in the end, will share a verdict. If you have any questions or doubts about the device, feel free to ask.
Now let's take a closer look and find whether the Find X5 lives up to its expectations.
DESIGN
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Starting my review with the design, this is probably the most interesting-looking phone design I've seen in a while.
I just love what OPPO has done with the colour and finish on the Find X5, especially the one in white with the black camera bump which gives it a very distinctive look.
The back of the device is glass, feels very smooth to the touch, and is very elegant & premium while holding. Since it's a matte finish, fingerprints and smudges are non-existent.
At the back, you find "OPPO | Hasselblad" branding, and since the device is an EU model you also get all the regulatory information.
I also really like the seamless slope design they've done around the camera bump.
The frame is aluminum however, if I had to nitpick, I would've loved it if the frame was black instead of shiny silver which attracts some fingerprints. Again that's only visible when you look for it at a certain angle.
It weighs 196 grams and does have a heft to it but the weight is well balanced. It isn't top-heavy, never felt that the device might accidentally fall from my hand.
At 6.55 inches in screen size, it is still decently large, but because it is quite narrow, the phone felt a little easier to use.
The button placements are done well and are placed at a reachable position.
Volume buttons to the left, power button to the right which has OPPO's signature green colour embedded inside. Buttons are very clicky and have good feedback.
Up top there's a microphone and below lies the Type-C port for charging and data transfer, a loudspeaker, another microphone, and a sim slot.
There's an IP54 rating for protection against dust. However, the sim tray does have a rubber ring. So the seals are present and should save it from occasional water splashes.
The sim slot does take in two sim cards. No SD card expansion, however, OPPO does offer the phone in a 256GB storage configuration, which should be more than enough storage for most.
The X-axis linear motor for the haptics is also quite good. The feedback is strong and during my test, I've never missed any calls or notifications.
The bezels surrounding the display are thin except for the bottom chin which is ever so slightly thicker compared to the top bezel.
The phone does come with a pre-applied screen protector which should last for a couple of months. Also, there's Gorilla Glass Victus used for display protection.
Moving to the display, it's a very good quality curved AMOLED display with a resolution of 2400×1080. The refresh rate is 120Hz with a touch sampling rate of 240Hz due to which scrolling felt quite smooth and never felt any lag during touch input. However, I wish the display panel was LTPO instead of regular 120Hz which can only drop down to 60Hz when the display is idle.
There's an in-display fingerprint sensor that is placed in a position where your thumb might naturally rest. Unlocking was pretty quick.
The display is 10-bit which means it can produce up to 1 billion colours. The default colour mode is set to Vivid however you can select other available colour modes that are Natural & Pro Mode to tune it as per your preference.
vivid, natural & pro-mode for display calibration.
The display gets bright enough with 500 nits of default peak brightness which can go up to 800 nits and boosts up to 1,000 nits while watching HDR content. Visibility is great under direct sunlight.
There's an earpiece up top which also doubles as a secondary speaker. The speakers are loud enough and I did not find any distortion at high volumes.
I'm impressed with the device, OPPO has done a great job with the overall design and build quality of the Find X5.
CAMERA
I was really curious to test out the cameras on the Find X5 since this is the first device to have OPPO's self-developed chip, the MariSilicon X for better image processing, and their partnership with Hasselblad for natural colour calibration.
MariSilicon X is built on 6nm process technology that helps capture 20bit Ultra HDR, 4K night video, real-time 20bit RAW processing, and many more.
The primary lens on the Find X5 is a 50MP shooter with a Sony IMX766 sensor. The aperture is f/1.8 and it does have Optical Image Stabilisation.
Interestingly, the ultra-wide angle lens is also the same 50MP Sony IMX766 camera. The aperture though is f/2.2 with a field of view of 110°
The third lens is a 13MP telephoto camera with an aperture of f/2.4 that has a 2x optical zoom.
The camera app is quite straightforward to use. You get the Hasselblad coloured orange shutter button and the modes can be arranged by pressing the edit button which can be found in the more section. OPPO has also incorporated Hasselblad’s iconic leaf shutter sound.
user interface of the camera app.
I did my camera testing under different conditions such as outdoors, indoors, and under low light, and here's what I have to say about the camera on the Find X5.
In case you don't want to read the whole review part and just want to check out the samples then click here.
Outdoor shots with the main camera are very good. Colour reproduction is quite natural looking and pictures have a good amount of contrast. The Find X5 handles dynamic range better most of the time and the pictures are well detailed.
pictures shot from the main camera.
The white balance is correct, never encountered any weird colour shifting.
Also, due to the sensor being large, the pictures have a natural depth to them even without using the portrait mode.
Pictures from the ultra-wide angle camera are also quite good. Being a 50MP camera and having the same IMX766 sensor as the main lens, the details, white balance, and contrast levels of shots were quite consistent and similar to the main lens.
pictures shot from the ultra-wide angle camera.
There are very minimal chromatic aberrations around the edges.
The phone can also shoot close-up macro shots. The camera switches itself to macro mode whenever you take the phone up close to the subject.
pictures shot with Macro mode.
The 2X telephoto camera is also quite close when it comes to white balance consistency. The details are good but not as good when compared with the main & ultra-wide. Also, I did wish that the telephoto camera had more zoom capabilities, maybe a 3X.
pictures shot from the Telephoto camera.
White Balance was mostly consistent between all the three lenses in the outdoor shots.
lens comparison - outdoor conditions.
Under indoor conditions, pictures from the main camera are bright and detailed with very less noise. Shots from the ultra-wide camera are also very good with very less noise and good detail levels. Pictures from the telephoto camera also did a good job and details are quite close compared to pictures from the other two lenses. The white balance between all the three lenses was quite similar.
lens comparison - indoor conditions.
The same goes with the low-light shots. The main camera takes good shots with plenty of light and very low noise levels. Pictures from the ultra-wide camera are also very impressive. It is as bright as the pictures from the main camera & the detail levels are similar. Pictures from the Telephoto camera are again good but compared to pictures from the other two lenses they are a bit soft and less detailed.
lens comparison - low-light conditions.Now I noticed that during low light conditions, the Telephoto Camera uses the Main Lens which is cropped to 2X instead of the actual Telephoto Lens.
Using the main camera during low light conditions is better since the aperture and resolution of the main camera is better than the aperture and resolution of the Telephoto Lens.
Here's a side-by-side comparison of pictures shot on Telephoto & Main Camera with 2X zoom. Zooming in you can see the keyboard is quite detailed in comparison with the picture shot on Telephoto.
The colours are also off on the picture shot from the Telephoto camera.
There's Pro Mode that lets you have full control over ISO, Shutter speed, White Balance, Focus, and Exposure Values.
You can use all three lenses in Pro mode and all three lenses support shooting in "RAW" format. However, I do not like the position of switching the lens which is at the top instead of keeping it at the bottom. The bottom instead has a 1x and a 2x zoom which is a crop from the main lens. I would've preferred the actual lens switching option at that place.
There's a new "RAW Plus" mode that captures more details & a better dynamic range than the standard RAW mode. I loved the RAW Plus mode. Having dynamic range already on a RAW picture means that the shadows and highlights are already worked upon meaning editing these pictures in Lightroom took minimal effort.
Here are some pictures shot in RAW format & edited with Lightroom.
pictures shot with Pro mode.One thing I do not like about the Pro Mode is that it does not remember your last used shooting format. The shooting format resets back to JPG after some time. This was very annoying as I have missed shooting in a RAW format a couple of times. Even if I did remember, it was still annoying to enable RAW format every time.
The front camera is a 32 Megapixel with an aperture of f/2.4. Now I'm not a selfie person but the pictures coming out from the front camera are good.
The Portrait mode worked great with animals and humans in daylight and also at nighttime. Edge detection was pretty good and skin tones were accurate.
There's a Long Exposure mode that you can use to capture motion shots not just at night but even during the daytime. Quite useful for those who do not know using Pro mode to shoot such motion shots.
OPPO has also introduced XPAN mode co-developed with Hasselblad which shoots panoramic images in two profiles, color mode, and a unique B&W mode.
shot with XPAN mode.
All the cameras can shoot up to 4K with 1080p & 720p as options at 30fps or 60fps. However, you cannot change the lenses while recording which is a bummer.
Video samples with max settings can be found here.
There's a dedicated Film mode that lets you shoot in a cinematic ratio and has options to manually set shutter speed, ISO, white balance, manual focus, and exposure values.
film mode feature.
The mode also supports shooting in LOG format. This is great for those Pro videographers who want to later color-grade the footage. The Film mode supports all three lenses.
Here's a sample footage shot on Film mode and color-graded.
Overall OPPO has done a great job with the camera on the Find X5 and I can definitely recommend someone looking for a phone with a very good Primary & Ultra-wide angle camera with a decent zoom range.
There are some software annoyances & limitations like the Pro mode switching back to JPG format & also not allowing to switch lenses while recording. These are software-related issues so I hope OPPO fixes them soon by pushing an update.
SOFTWARE & PERFORMANCE
OPPO has come a very long way when it comes to it's software. Over the years, OPPO has refined ColorOS with each version, making the user experience better.
Starting with the Android version, the Find X5 comes with Android 12 out of the box with OPPO's ColorOS 12.1 skin on top. ColorOS over the years has changed quite a lot. OPPO's objective with ColorOS 12 is to refine and simplify the whole UI making it cleaner and easier to use. All of its system apps have been updated to cleaner UI and are easier to use with one hand by placing important menus at the bottom.
There's a good amount of customisation option for the launcher that people will appreciate. From the option to change the icon shapes & sizes, grid layout, to the option to change transition while switching pages & more.
customisation for icon, grid layout & page transition.
OPPO also has introduced its own wallpaper-based theming similar to Google's theming which extracts colours from the wallpaper and applies them across the system and apps.
Unfortunately, OPPO's theming is only limited to the system settings, notification panel, and its own apps, Google apps do not adapt to the theme.
Edit: The device received an update with March security patch. The update now supports theming for Google apps. Good to see OPPO making the user experience better.
There are also tonnes of customisation options for Always-On Display where one can add custom patterns, text & images including system-provided clock & image options. Customisation also includes Font & display, Fingerprint animation, Edge lighting & more.
portrait silhouette feature.
There's a new Portrait silhouette feature that basically draws an outline around the face and lets you set it as the background of the always-on display.
ColorOS 12.1 also includes all of the Android 12 features such as quick settings toggle to turn off Camera & Mic access to all the apps, option to give an approximate location instead of a precise location, privacy dashboard for checking what permissions were being used by the apps.
OPPO has also worked on animations on ColorOS 12 which they call "Quantum Animation Engine 3.0" adding more lifelike & seamless transitions.
There's an Icon pull-down gesture that can be used by swiping up alongside the edge of the display to bring down the icons close to your thumb and select an app to launch.
icon pull-down gesture, flexible windows & smart sidebar.
Another feature I really liked is Flexible window which has the ability to turn any app into a floating window for quick multitasking. Smart Sidebar was another handy feature to quickly access functions and apps.
OPPO has done a great job in implementing haptics with the ColorOS. You can feel subtle vibrations across the system while dragging your finger or reaching the end of the page after scrolling. O-HAPTICS under settings lets you turn off system haptics, adjust the haptic intensity, and select a haptic style that has two options, Crisp and Gentle.
Talking about pre-installed apps, the phone did have a good amount of bloatware like Amazon, Facebook, and more. However, most of these can be easily uninstalled.
Another issue I want to address is that the folders do not adapt to the selected icon shape. This makes the home screen look a bit inconsistent.
folder shape does not change to a circle.
Performance was also quite solid even though it has the last year's chipset, Qualcomm Snapdragon 888. I did wish it had the latest 8 Gen 1 processor, though adding last year's Snapdragon 888 to cut costs without sacrificing performance makes sense after all Snapdragon 888 SOC is quite a capable chipset and can handle everything you throw at it.
During my usage, it performed exceptionally well. I did not face any stutters or major slowdowns. 8GB of RAM was sufficient for multitasking and keeping the apps running in the background. If 8GB of RAM isn't sufficient then one can expand the RAM through the RAM expansion feature which utilizes the phone's storage space.
With a 120Hz refresh rate and 240Hz touch sampling rate the phone felt quite smooth to use and apps and games opened very quickly.
I don't really play games on my phone but I did install some games like BGMI & Asphalt 8 to test out its peak performance and it ran those games quite well with high graphic settings. The phone did get a little warm after running the games for about an hour but did not get abnormally hot.
Software experience has been mostly positive with the Find X5. Even though not having the latest 8 Gen 1 processor, the performance of the phone was pretty solid.
BATTERY & CHARGING
The battery size on Find X5 is a pretty respectable 4,800 mAh split between two cells allowing it to charge at a very high speed.
In terms of charging the Find X5, the device supports 80 Watt SUPERVOOC wired charging which charges the device instantly. The device also supports AirVOOC wireless charging at 30 Watts & Reverse Wireless Charging at 10 Watts.
Unfortunately, I couldn't test AirVOOC wireless charging as I did not have the wireless charger with me. However, Reverse Wireless Charging worked quite well with my OnePlus Buds Pro.
I did test the wired charging speed and the phone charged to 50% in about 15 mins & 100% in just about 40 minutes which is quite impressive. The device did not heat abnormally while charging the device at such high speeds.
I also briefly tested the battery life and in my moderate usage, I was getting somewhere around 7-8 hours of screen on time. Under heavy use expect the screen on time to be around 5 to 6 hours.
battery life with heavy and moderate usage.
My usage generally includes apps like YouTube, Instagram, WhatsApp, Telegram, Twitter, and Reddit, taking a lot of pictures, and editing pictures in Lightroom.
There's Power saving mode which is nothing but Battery Saver mode. You can enable it manually or set it to enable automatically based on specified battery levels from 5% to 75%.
Power saving mode also includes options to control screen brightness, screen time-out, background sync, and screen refresh rate.
There's also a High performance mode under battery settings which increases device performance. I did not feel any need to enable it since the performance was quite good even without this mode being enabled. Other features include standby optimisation and optimised night time charging for preserving battery health.
Overall I would say OPPO has done a great job in terms of Battery and Charging department.
VERDICT
The Find X5 is a solid flagship with a little compromise.
Even though having last year's Snapdragon 888, performance will be more than adequate for the majority of users. The software did impress me more than I expected it to be. There are some minor software issues that can be easily fixed via a software update. The display & build quality is great, the charging speed is more than adequate, and battery life is also great. The overall camera performance is great, except for the decent zoom range.
And that's all I have to say about the OPPO Find X5. If you have any questions, feel free to ask and I'd be glad to answer them.
I'd like to thank the @OPPO Ambassador Team again for giving me the opportunity to review OPPO Find X5!
Looking forward to what OPPO brings to the table next year with the Find X6!