Let’s kick this off by saying that you can’t actually officially buy an Oppo Find N5 phone in New Zealand. While you can get it via unofficial parallel-imported channels, Oppo has never offered the Find N5 here, but it will sell the N5’s upcoming successor, the N6 when it launches sometime early next year.
But they offered me one of the few N5’s they have in the country for a couple of weeks and, being a fan of the foldable, I obviously wasn’t going to pass that up.
At just 8.93mm thick when folded, the Oppo Find N5 was the thinnest foldable phone in the world when it originally launched at the start of this year, and while Samsung claims it has surpassed that with the Galaxy Z Fold 7 (that Samsung says is 8.90mm thick), that seems to depend on who is doing the measuring. Either way, it is safe to say that both are startlingly slim.
Where the Z Fold 7 is an impossibly sexy phone – to the point that putting a cover on it is a massive shame, albeit pretty much essential given its slippery nature – the Find N5 is more traditional with its rounded corners and big, round camera bulge.
While I personally preferred the sleek, squared-off look of the Samsung, the Oppo was far easier to hold than the slippery Z Fold 7, while that big camera bulge held one of the two massive advantages the Find N5 has over the newer offering from Samsung.
That would be the Hasselblad lenses that provide the N5 with some serious photographic capability.
Like pretty much all flagship foldable phones, the N5 doesn’t get quite as good a camera set up as Oppo’s single screen flagships (Samsung does exactly the same thing, with the S25 Ultra having a superior camera to the Z Fold 7), and its actual specs are inferior to the Samsung in some areas, with a 50MP wide angle sensor, a 50MP telephoto sensor and an 8MP ultra-wide angle sensor, with an 8MP front camera inside and out.
The Z Fold 7, on the other hand packs a 200MP main sensor, a 10MP telephoto set up and a 12MP ultrawide. The Oppo does take superior pictures, however, with the telephoto set up (50MP and Hasselblad lenses, remember) being particularly impressive.
The N5 easily handled an entire day with its screen on, the navigation app running and playing music via the cars Bluetooth connection
It is also more capable in low light and has more accurate colour reproduction than the Samsung. One area it does lag, however, is with its 8MP ultrawide sensor that is behind the pack, particularly the Z Fold 7's 12MP ultrawide.
When it comes to screens, the Oppo is similarly impressive, with a pair of absolutely gorgeous OLED screens, both with fast 120Hz refresh rates. Both are superbly bright, and extremely easy to see outdoors in bright light, as well as being fast and responsive to touch inputs.
The N5 uses a 7 core version of Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset with 16GB of RAM and while, on paper, the Z Fold 7 is more powerful, the Oppo doesn't struggle with more demanding applications and, in reality, feels as fast as the Samsung in pretty much every situation.
What's it like in a car?
Having recently spent time with two rather excellent top-end foldable phones – the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 and this Oppo Find N5 – as well as being the owner of an earlier foldable – a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 – I am comfortable in making the claim that a foldable is absolutely the perfect road trip companion.
An experience with the Oppo Find N5 highlighted this, with a launch event for the Subaru Forester using a specialised “Tour Boss” navigation app for the drive route.
The [N5] produces startlingly good photographs with faithful colour reproduction and strong low light performance, something that as a long-time Samsung Galaxy user, I am not really used to.
Normally, this would be no problem, as the Forester has Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, and Tour Boss was compatible with both, so using it on the Forester’s infotainment screen would be perfect.
Except it wasn’t. For some reason Android Auto kept crashing for me, meaning I couldn’t use the car’s screen for navigation through the Tour Boss app. Android Auto on the N5 had previously worked faultlessly for me in other cars, but it seemed to be something about the Tour Boss app - and maybe the Subaru’s infotainment system - that caused it to crash.
And here is where the N5’s big folding screen came to the fore in a car - sure I could have just used the route navigation on any phone's screen, but the big 8.1 inch screen of the N5 just made it so much easier.
In-car navigation on a large screen is easier simply because the extra screen real estate give you a better idea of what is coming up before the pleasant voice tells you about it, and is particularly handy when you need to be in an particular lane, helping avoid any of those last-minute dives across traffic to make the off-ramp…
While the big screen was definitely an advantage, it did also bring disadvantages - mainly because I didn't have a phone mount big enough to secure it, and neither did the Subaru have a space big enough to accommodate the almost tablet-sized device (and, to be fair, you wouldn’t expect that anyway) and it also wouldn’t sit flat on the wireless charging platform - and the app used a LOT of power.
Despite the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 being an excellent phone, the Oppo Find N5 is better in more ways for my car-centric life.
However, this is where the other massive advantage the Find N5 has over the Z Fold 7 comes into play - it’s trick silicon-carbon 5600mAh battery is an absolute beast. According to Oppo, the Find N5's battery is 30 percent higher capacity than other 5600mAh batteries, while also being 30 percent smaller, and will deliver up to 25 hours of continuous video streaming.
This was strikingly apparent during the Subaru launch, with the N5 easily handling an entire day with its screen on, the navigation app running and playing music via the cars Bluetooth connection, while I also used it as a camera for the entire event, another area the N5 is absolutely stunning.
The Hasselblad lenses and 50MP Sony sensor produce startlingly good photographs with faithful colour reproduction and strong low light performance, something that as a long-time Samsung Galaxy user, I am not really used to.
While the vivid colours from a Samsung phone are appealing for snapshots, I genuinely appreciated the Oppo's clean and sharp images that were packed with great detail and accurate colour reproduction when it came to taking photos of cars. Which I do a lot.
Despite the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 being an excellent phone, the Oppo Find N5 is better in more ways for my car-centric life.
It's more comfortable (and significant less slippery) form factor, staggering battery life and sharply detailed camera more than make up for the lacklustre ultrawide, while its stunning OLED screens put it over the top.
Is the Oppo Find N5 the best foldable phone you can buy (just... not officially in New Zealand)? For me, yes, absolutely, and I can't wait to see what Oppo pulls out of the bag with the N6.
