OPPO presents itself in 2021 with a serious proposal to assert itself in the European market, making use of the third generation of the Find X line. The OPPO Find X3 Lite is part of a premium lineup and appears as the most accessible version of this range of OPPO products, coming to compete in the market with terminals such as the Samsung Galaxy A52 5G or the Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G.
Although this is the most accessible smartphone in your family, there are very interesting arguments that may surprise the user, especially for the efficiency with which it performs all the functions that are required of a smartphone in this category. So, after we’ve broken down the Pro version, it’s now time for the OPPO Find X3 Lite to be analyzed in depth.
OPPO Find X3 Lite: A Design that marks the Separation Between Lite and Pro Versions
The first impression the OPPO Find X3 Lite user will have about the design will be one of confusion. Even though they mostly share the name, there’s a big difference between Find X3 Lite and Find X3 Pro, with designs that stray from almost everything. This is, in fact, a feature of the Find X3 line, where it is possible to see that, of the four smartphones that make it up, there is a clear division in design.
If both OPPO Find X3 and Find X3 Pro hit the market with a distinctive look that immediately identifies them as being top of the range OPPO, the truth is that the unit that came to us for testing the OPPO Find X3 Lite and the Neo version inherit another type of more conservative language, as they are, in reality, the international version of the OPPO Reno5 5G and Reno5 Pro+ 5G, respectively.
Despite this repair to the design of smartphones, we are not indifferent to the look of Find X3 Lite. Although its lines are more sober than the Pro version, it didn’t cease to surprise us how the Azure Blue version we used manages to draw attention, being without a doubt the best color option for the more vain.
When using the smartphone, we were pleased by the comfort in hand. The OPPO Find X3 Lite is lightweight, weighing just 172 grams and its dimensions (159.1 x 73.4 x 7.9 mm) make it easy to use with one hand. While the screen is protected by Gorilla Glass 5 for good protection against scratches, the back is made of plastic, with a sandpaper texture that is pleasant to the touch and does not pick up fingerprints. Despite the plastic on the back, we were pleased to report that the unit tested proved to be very scratch resistant, not showing any markings.
With the color that the back of the smartphone presents, the OPPO Find X3 Lite can indeed be eye-catching, and this shade of blue extends to the side frame and the camera module. The rear four-chamber system is actually less intrusive, creating minimal relief, which is a positive point in our view.
On the sides of the new OPPO are the usual lock buttons (on the right) and volume (on the left), leaving its speaker at the bottom (there are no stereo speakers here), the USB-C input and, as a point very positive, a 3.5mm audio jack player, a feature that is becoming increasingly rare in the mobile market and that we really appreciate. Incidentally, in the box itself are included wired earphones that take the best advantage of this input. The fingerprint reader, in turn, is built into the screen.
The OPPO Find X3 Lite Responds Competently and is a Pleasure to Use
Although the design and construction are very important and we were pleased, it is also worth praising the performance of the OPPO Find X3 Lite. Using this smartphone was a pleasant surprise, with three reasons in mind: screen, performance and battery.
Starting with the first, the screen, this is a 6.43-inch AMOLED screen, with Full HD+ resolution (1080×2400) that presents good image quality and colors and, in our opinion, is superior, for example, to the image quality of the OnePlus Nord. The brightness of this screen is another positive point, and despite not reaching the levels of the Pro version, we never had difficulties using this device on sunny days.
It should also be noted that this screen makes the user experience quite pleasant with its 90Hz refresh rate, which makes everything smoother without penalizing the battery. Of course, this smoothness is only possible due to the good performance of the processor. So inside the Find X3 Lite is a Snapdragon 765G, a highly praised mid-range processor from Qualcomm in 2020 that allowed us to perform all day-to-day functions without any hesitation and proved to be very well optimized for Color OS 11.1.
The Snapdragon 765G will also be able to present a good performance of the vast majority of Play Store games, and only in titles like Asphalt 9 or PUBG: Mobile it will be able to present some difficulties in the maximum graphic quality. So, we leave below the tests on Geek bench 5, AnTuTu and 3DMark (Wild Life) platforms that can prove the performance of our unit.
The third positive highlight we found when using this smartphone was its battery. The OPPO Find X3 Lite is equipped with a 4,300 mAh unit, which, these days, is hardly a surprising capacity (not a few models arrive with 5,000 mAh or more).
Still, optimizing the entire system could lead to the smartphone making better use of its battery capacity, and that was precisely the case. The day with the most intensive use consisted of several hours of shooting and video recording, with location turned on and Google Maps active, as well as some gaming sessions and playback of music and videos, always using the maximum performance mode, having come to an end of the day with 25% battery life. This is a smartphone that, for the average and careful user, can even last two days on a full charge, especially if you don’t activate performance mode.
And if autonomy is a strong point of this OPPO, the truth is that carrying it is not a problem at all. Like the Pro version, we have here the SuperVOOC 2.0 fast charging, capable of charging the smartphone at a power of 65W, which results in a full charge from 0 to 100% in around 35 minutes.
OPPO Find X3 Lite specifications
Screen:
- AMOLED
- 6.43″ inches
- Full HD+
- Always-on Display
- 90Hz refresh rate
- Maximum brightness of 750 nits
Performance:
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G Processor
- 8GB RAM memory
- 128GB of internal memory
Camera:
- Rear: 64MP + 8MP (ultra wide angle) + 2MP (macro) + 2MP (depth sensor)
Front:
- 32MP
Battery:
- 4,300mAh
- Fast charging at 65W
Security:
- On-screen fingerprint reader
OS:
- Android 11, Color OS 11.1
Photo Quality has a lot to Improve
There is no denying that, by 2021, the vast majority of new smartphones have good quality cameras in their main sensors. This is the case of the OPPO Find X3 Lite, whose 64MP main sensor and 32MP selfie camera are indeed very competent, with good capabilities especially in brightly lit scenes.
The night mode, without being bright, achieves positive results that undoubtedly help to increase the quality of photos captured in low-light situations. You can check out more photos in their original quality here.
However, we cannot fail to point out some negligence on the part of the OPPO in the attention given to the sensors that are present here. If smartphones like the OnePlus Nord or the Samsung Galaxy A52 5G come to market with optical image stabilization on their main sensors, offering superior night shot quality and a good level of video stabilization, the OPPO Find X3 Lite falls short in this chapter , by not including this feature.
The two smartphones mentioned above also allow, with their 32MP front-facing cameras (like the one on the OPPO), 4K video recording at 30fps, and on the Find X3 Lite we’re limited to just 1080p at 30fps. On the other hand, returning to the rear sensors, the 8MP wide-angle camera does a job that doesn’t disappoint, but doesn’t surprise either, noting a variation in the colors captured by this sensor and the main sensor (something we didn’t see in the version Pro and that was highly praised by us). As for macro and depth sensors, both 2MP, there is not much to say, as their work is manifestly poor, being almost unnecessary.
Despite the overall positive feeling, there are points for improvement in OPPO Find X3 Lite
As the reader must have guessed, the OPPO Find X3 Lite was, in fact, a smartphone that we liked. Still, in addition to the criticisms of the cameras, there are some points that we would like to see improved. One of them is part of the smartphone interface, ColorOS 11.1. This interface based on Android 11 pleases us in the customization options it offers us, even having some points in common with OxygenOS 11, one of our favorite interfaces.
However, this will not be one of the most intuitive interfaces when making changes, with a somewhat confusing settings menu that becomes too complicated. We are once again with the idea that ColorOS has everything to be one of the best interfaces on the market if it corrects this issue of organization, since the level of customization options is indeed top.
On the other hand, it’s up to us to criticize the processor option. Although the Snapdragon 765G performs well for the average consumer, the truth is that there are already two successors on the market in 2021 that offer far superior performance. The Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G has one of them, the Snapdragon 780G, where the graphics performance of the Adreno 642 completely overwhelms the Adreno 620 of the Snapdragon 765G, being better prepared for gaming fans.
And speaking of performance, this won’t be the smartphone with the best performance/price ratio on the market. Currently, it is possible to purchase a POCO F3 for less than €300, with a top-of-the-range Snapdragon 870 processor, which in addition to guaranteeing a much higher performance today, guarantees a greater longevity for the smartphone. All this for a price well below the price of the OPPO Find X3 Lite, whose price in Portugal can go from 430€ to 470€ for the base version.
Conclusions
The OPPO Find X3 Lite is a smartphone that, during the testing period, surprised us. Despite being a “Lite” version and this implies the necessary cuts necessary to lower the price, its capabilities pleased us, with the smartphone performing very well, on balance, almost everything that can be required of you in the day to day.
Of course, there are no perfect smartphones, with camera and price appointments bulging out in the negatives. Still, it is a smartphone that we recommend for those who want a competent experience and that gives entry to the OPPO experience. Thus, we are curious about what OPPO can do in the future, as it has already shown us that it is in Portugal to stay and to rub shoulders with the best.
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