Introduction

This is one of the most complete camera phones available in the market right now. With a Find  X8 Ultra, Oppo’s really upped their game. Whether it’s the range of the zoom or the improvement in AI processing or just the smoothness of switching between sensors, the Find X8 Ultra, it’s at a whole other level.

Display and Build Quality

Now, it’s not just the optics that have been improved. The entire build, it’s more refined, too. For starters, the display is flat, still has minimal bezels, almost symmetric. This is a 6.82 in 2K 120 Hz display, which can output up to 2500 nits for HDR. Manually, it does 800 nits and 1600 under the auto mode. Under the low light, there’s 2160 Hz high frequency PWM dimming in case you’re sensitive to OLED flicker.

Design, Temperature, and Performance

Now, the frame is still metal. There’s still IP 6869, but Oppo’s actually improved the ergonomics by making this phone slimmer. Hell, even the camera array, despite all these sensors, it’s actually smaller. Now, despite the reduction in thickness, Oppo’s done a very good job when it comes to the temps. Even after a stress test, the FX8 Ultra was pretty cool, badly breaking the 40° mark. And given it’s using that flagship 8 Elite underneath, these are good numbers.

Now, during all my testing, 4K 60 HDR videos and all that, the phone never once did it get sluggish or heat up. That said, stability is not great. Typical 8 Elite 50-ish%. I’m also a little bummed out that we don’t have any vegan leather options this time. And the alert slider, it’s now gone, replaced instead by an Apple style action, I mean shortcut button. And we also get a camera control S quick button that we saw on the Find X8. So that’s also returned here. So they’ve added extra hardware keys, retain things like the IR blaster.

Battery and Charging

Now if your next question is did they do that by sacrificing the battery capacity? Well, nope. Instead, they’ve increased the battery capacity by 22% by going silicon carbon this time. So we get a 6100 mAh battery and there’s still support for 100 watt wired and 50watt wireless charging.

Now for early buyers in China, Oppo even provides a Max Safe case with a Max Safe power bank. In the box though, you do get a regular soft case and a 100 W Superbook charger.

Familiar Yet Powerful Hardware

Now, if you look at the spec sheet, it’s full of very familiar names. First, we have that 1 in type sensor for the primary. It’s pretty much the same one we got the last time around. And then the other sensors, they’re also quite large, and we’ve seen them on many phones. These are sensors that brands have used as primaries on cheaper devices.

Improved Software and Video Capabilities

So, as you can see, it’s very strong on paper, but we’ve seen that before, right? Chinese phones looking very strong on paper, but that not really translating to actual performance. And that’s largely been because of the processing, the software, or the lack thereof. Now, here though, this OPPO, it feels very mature with the software. Let me actually explain that with an example.

The FX8 Ultra can shoot HDR footage at 4K 60 via all its sensors. And yes, that includes the selfie camera, too. And when you are shooting video and switching between the different sensors, that switch, it’s very smooth, pretty much as smooth as on the iPhone. And there is no unwanted EIS jitter either. The processing, it’s very well handled. And the large sensor, it makes for a very natural blurring, too.

Excellent Still Photography and Colour Reproduction

Now, when it comes to stills, the colours across all four sensors, they’ve pretty evenly matched it. And the 1 in Light 900, it does great. Images have loads of detail. The skin tones especially are excellent. Now, the colours here, well, let’s talk about that for a minute.

Oppo have added a dedicated colour temperature sensor to help keep the skin tones accurate. And I know what you’re probably thinking. Yet another useless sensor that’s not really going to do much. And I won’t fault you if that’s your thought, cuz when I looked at the spec sheet initially, that was exactly my thought, too. But this time around, this colour temperature sensor, it seems to make a difference, especially in complex lighting situations.

Real-World Lighting Comparison

Like, take this. I have a warm light up top, a pink light to the back with more warm lights. And finally, the subject has a blue light right in his face. And here’s a side by side with the iPhone 16 Pro Max. See how much better the OPPO is?

The Find X8 Ultra has managed to retain the actual pink colour of the LEDs up top and the sheet on the table. The iPhone hasn’t. The walls, they have that warmth from the spotlights. Again, not there on the iPhone. And my friend’s face, it’s got that pinkishness of the skin. This sensor especially helps to shoot great looking portraits using the dual periscope color photos.

Zoom, AI, and Text Clarity

Talking about which, just look at this. I’m in my room behind the window zooming into a building that’s really far away. Now, I’m sure you’ve seen this before where AI cleans up the image and we get decent results from all that zoom. But there is a difference this time, and that’s the fact that the AI processing does so much better for text. See how sharp and legible the text is.

RAW Photography and Master Mode

Now, in recent years, smartphone photography, it’s evolved a lot. So, a lot of what we see when something’s shot by a phone, it’s beyond the actual hardware capability of the sensor itself. So when you look at multiframe processing, it’s taking multiple images at different dynamic ranges and kind of superimposing them to get us that wide smartphone dynamic range that we see these days on social media.

Now this is great, but but sometimes you might not want that. You want the actual texture of the sensor, the actual dynamic range that the sensor can capture. Like say when you’re shooting a room, you don’t mind the windows being blown out if it means there’s more attention on the subject that you’re shooting. I know it’s a niche use case and maybe a few power users might want to use something like this, but Oppo’s kind of tried to, you know, cater to that demographic, too. They’ve been doing this for a while. They they offer something called the master mode.

Compare with this  Redmi Turbo 4 Pro (POCO F7) – 7,550mAh & HOT!!

Master Mode in Action

Now, let me explain this with an example. Look at this image. What you’re seeing here dynamic range wise, like I said, this is beyond what the sensor can actually do. So, what the phone is doing is taking images at multiple exposures and stitching them together. Now, with master mode, you don’t really want that.

You can either shoot this where the windows well exposed, but the room isn’t, or shoot this, where the room’s well exposed, but the windows are blown out. Given the master mode supports RAW functionality, you can shoot what you want and manually play around with it and process it the way you want to. Also, if you want finer control, the master mode has a pro option that lets you fiddle around with settings like shutter speed, ISO, white balance, and so on.

Autofocus and Macro Capabilities

Now, one negative with 1 in type sensors is that given the large sensor size, they need more distance than usual to focus on a subject. To combat this, Oppo’s provided autofocus for the ultra wide that lets you shoot macros. And also the 3x periscope lens, it can focus on subjects that are just 10 cm away. So, telephoto macro with beautiful blurring, that’s also an option.

Pricing and Conclusion

Coming back to the Find X8 Ultra, this phone starts at $64.99 rem. This converts to about $890 US, and that to me seems like a pretty good price tag. Sadly though, the Find X8 Ultra is expected to remain China exclusive, at least for now. So anyways, that’s everything about Oppo’s new flagship, the Find X8 Ultra. A very strong camera focused smartphone. Let me know what you think about it in the comments below and thanks for reading.

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