Oppo Find N2 Flip review

Android 13, ColorOS 13, widgets on the cover screen

The Find N2 Flip runs Android 13, with an in-house layer of ColorOS on top (also v.13). At the phone's international launch event, Oppo promised 4 years of major updates and 5 years of security patches, which is a most welcome development.

In the here and now, the Flip operates on the same Android+ColorOS combo as on the Find N2 non-Flip, only this one is on the international software branch. In many ways, that's the same software you'd find running on the OnePlus 11, or any of the latest Realmes even if the different brands like to call it something else (OxygenOS, Realme UI). And even if we did our share of complaining how OxygenOS on the OnePlus 11 isn't what it used to be, in the context of Oppo software there's no cut ties to the past, so there'll be little whining.

But before we get to the generic UI, let's talk about the cover screen's capabilities - that's what makes the Find N2 Flip one-of-a-kind, after all. You can have an always-on display on there, with a whole lot of different clock styles, color options and other settings (date and notifications are optional, for example).

Cover screen settings

There's also the option for an interactive pet, that lives on the lockscreen, past the AoD. You get to choose between five animals and they'll be doing something different every time you wake up the cover screen (well, not every time, but they do change their activities). Tapping on the animal will make it react in some way. Thankfully, you don't need to feed or care for them in any way. A good old wallpaper can also be used, of course.

Interactive pet

You can wake the cover screen with a double tap and send it back to sleep the same way. The only option for unlocking is with the fingerprint and if for any reason you max out the unsuccessful attempts, you need to either wait 30 seconds ot open the Flip and use whatever backup method you have set up inside. We'd say there's plenty of room on the cover screen for either a numpad or to draw a pattern, and we wonder why these options don't exist on the cover screen.

You need to unlock the screen in order to be able to pull down from the top to access the quick toggles or pull up from the bottom to get to the notifications. Both of these can normally be done without unlocking on most phones, so it's a weird distinction that the cover screen here requires it.

You can toggle settings on or off, but there doesn't appear to be a way to rearrange them or to replace the default ones. Also you can't change the Wi-Fi network from here, it's just on or off. That said, we may be overly critical here - the quick toggles allow quick basic actions without needing to open the phone, and more complex operations will likely require a keyboard or more screen estate. It's also a nice touch that hitting the flashlight toggle doesn't immediately light up the LEDs at your face but gives you a 3s delay.

Similarly, you get a basic interaction option for your notifications - essentially the expanded view you'd see on a normal phone if you tap on the arrow to the right of the notification card.

Lockscreen • Quick toggles • Notifications

Past this lockscreen, there isn't a full-fledged UI, but rather a selection of widgets. The available ones are Camera, Weather, Timer, Events, Wireless Earphones, and Recorder. The last two weren't enabled by default, we added them from the Widgets submenu in the Foldable Features. Going into rant mode, we feel like that's just too barebones functionality - surely there's room for a simple calculator in there, or a compass, or something - give us more options!

As for the intricacies of the camera app on the outer screen, we've covered those in the camera section of the review on the next page.

All the widgets (minus the camera)

And now for some more casual ColorOS 13 stuff. You can have an Always-on display on the large screen as well, and there's a lot of customization possible here as well.

Always-on display

That's a common theme across all of ColorOS, really. There is an entire Wallpapers & style page in Settings, where in addition to the AoD settings, you can change wallpapers (live and static), switch to different icon packs, different quick toggles icon shapes, change fonts (there's an 'exclusive' Oppo sans), and choose completely different colors that will change the entire UI look. You can even turn on/off Edge Lighting, which is independent of the Always-On Display.

Personalization options

The launcher has no-nonsense homescreens, a simplistic and clean notification/toggles area, and an easy-to-use task switcher. An App drawer is available, too, and it is as clutter-free as one could hope for. You can opt out of the app drawer if you prefer.

ColorUS fundamentals: Lockscreen • Homescreen • Google Discover • Notifications • Quick toggles

The new launcher adds support for Large Folders and Dynamic Widgets. Any folder can be enlarged or shrunk.

Dark Mode is available, and it does offer the three different dark styles, as before - the latest Realme UI 4.0 we saw on the Realme 10 Pro+ didn't have them.

Large folders • Large folders • Large folders • Large folders • Dark Mode

There are many powerful tools within the settings menu if you want full control over your Find N2 Flip. The features are wide-ranging but generally carried over from previous ColorOS versions. A host of screen-on and screen-off gestures are available, the Smart Sidebar is a handy pane of shortcuts you pull from the side, split-screen and Flexible windows are available.

Assorted features

Multimedia apps such as Photos, Music, and Videos all come courtesy of ColorOS. There is also a revamped File Manager and a Phone Manager app to keep track of battery, storage, app permissions, and whatnot.

Photos • Music • Videos • File Manager • Phone Manager

Performance and benchmarks

The Find N2 Flip is powered by the Dimensity 9000+, a high-end Mediatek chipset manufactured on a 4nm process. It's got a CPU that's very similar to the one inside the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 that the Galaxy Z Flip4 and the Razr 2022 use (same 1+3+4 core configuration; same cores too, slightly lower frequency on the 3-core cluster) and a Mali-G710 MC10 GPU.

Several RAM and storage options are available, starting from 8GB/256GB (as reviewed) up to 16GB/512GB. RAM is LPDDR5 and storage is UFS 3.1.

We ran the full quite of benchmarks and the Find N2 Flip posted results that were a bit below the expected level, if perfectly acceptable still. In GeekBench, the numbers were lower than the than the ones posted by the ROG Phone 6D (Dimensity 9000+) and Tecno Phantom X2 Pro (Dimensity 9000) indicating that the foldable form-factor (and likely thermal constraints stemming from it) has a detrimental effect on the chipset's performance. The Oppo was also running behind the Razr 2022 and the Z Flip4, though it did manage to at least snatch a multi-core victory over the P50 Pocket.

GeekBench 5 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S23
  1550
• Motorola Razr 2022
  1324
• Galaxy Z Flip4
  1270
• Tecno Phantom X2 Pro
  1248
• Huawei P50 Pocket
  1092
• Oppo Find N2
  1057
• ROG Phone 6D
  1015
• Oppo Find N2 Flip
  936

GeekBench 5 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S23
  4950
• Tecno Phantom X2 Pro
  3984
• Motorola Razr 2022
  3944
• Galaxy Z Flip4
  3913
• Oppo Find N2
  3670
• ROG Phone 6D
  3531
• Oppo Find N2 Flip
  3265
• Huawei P50 Pocket
  3077

The Razr maintains a comfortable lead over other clamshells in Antutu, but here the Oppo at least manages to stay much closer to the Galaxy.

AnTuTu 9

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S23
  1231075
• Motorola Razr 2022
  965260
• Oppo Find N2
  962082
• Tecno Phantom X2 Pro
  961576
• ROG Phone 6D
  948594
• Galaxy Z Flip4
  800001
• Oppo Find N2 Flip
  773574
• Huawei P50 Pocket
  768513

The Find N2 Flip shows more promise in graphics benchmarks where it often outperforms the Razr in offscreen tests, though the Galaxy remains consistently out of the Oppo's reach.

GFX Aztek ES 3.1 High (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S23
  61
• Galaxy Z Flip4
  46
• Oppo Find N2
  46
• Oppo Find N2 Flip
  44
• ROG Phone 6D
  43
• Tecno Phantom X2 Pro
  42
• Motorola Razr 2022
  35
• Huawei P50 Pocket
  23

GFX Aztek Vulkan High (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S23
  65
• Oppo Find N2
  51
• ROG Phone 6D
  46
• Galaxy Z Flip4
  45
• Tecno Phantom X2 Pro
  44
• Oppo Find N2 Flip
  37
• Motorola Razr 2022
  27
• Huawei P50 Pocket
  26

GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (offscreen 1080p)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S23
  127
• Oppo Find N2
  104
• ROG Phone 6D
  84
• Galaxy Z Flip4
  83
• Tecno Phantom X2 Pro
  82
• Motorola Razr 2022
  76
• Oppo Find N2 Flip
  75
• Huawei P50 Pocket
  58

GFX Manhattan ES 3.1 (offscreen 1080p)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S23
  212
• Oppo Find N2
  180
• ROG Phone 6D
  152
• Oppo Find N2 Flip
  147
• Tecno Phantom X2 Pro
  140
• Huawei P50 Pocket
  98
• Motorola Razr 2022
  98
• Galaxy Z Flip4
  96

3DMark Wild Life Vulkan 1.1 (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S23
  12780
• Oppo Find N2
  10517
• ROG Phone 6D
  8666
• Galaxy Z Flip4
  8460
• Oppo Find N2 Flip
  8144
• Tecno Phantom X2 Pro
  7499
• Huawei P50 Pocket
  5656

3DMark Wild Life Extreme (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S23
  3852
• Oppo Find N2
  2823
• Motorola Razr 2022
  2788
• Oppo Find N2 Flip
  2623
• ROG Phone 6D
  2555
• Tecno Phantom X2 Pro
  2393

In onscreen tests, the Oppo's results are mostly irrelevant, because in all but the most demanding benchmarks it hits the 60fps cap that ColorOS continues to have on games and benchmarks alike.

GFX Aztek ES 3.1 High (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S23
  90
• ROG Phone 6D
  61
• Galaxy Z Flip4
  60
• Tecno Phantom X2 Pro
  59
• Oppo Find N2 Flip
  58
• Motorola Razr 2022
  56
• Oppo Find N2
  49
• Huawei P50 Pocket
  29

GFX Aztek Vulkan High (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S23
  98
• ROG Phone 6D
  64
• Galaxy Z Flip4
  62
• Tecno Phantom X2 Pro
  62
• Oppo Find N2 Flip
  56
• Oppo Find N2
  52
• Motorola Razr 2022
  43
• Huawei P50 Pocket
  29

GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S23
  110
• Motorola Razr 2022
  76
• Galaxy Z Flip4
  74
• ROG Phone 6D
  71
• Tecno Phantom X2 Pro
  71
• Oppo Find N2 Flip
  59
• Oppo Find N2
  59
• Huawei P50 Pocket
  40

GFX Manhattan ES 3.1 (onscreen)

Higher is better

• ROG Phone 6D
  122
• Samsung Galaxy S23
  120
• Galaxy Z Flip4
  119
• Tecno Phantom X2 Pro
  115
• Motorola Razr 2022
  93
• Huawei P50 Pocket
  70
• Oppo Find N2 Flip
  60
• Oppo Find N2
  60

The silver lining to what is a relatively unremarkable benchmark showing above comes in the stress tests, where the Find N2 Flip fares better. For comparison, the Galaxy's numbers in the CPU Throttling test and the 3DMark Wild Life stress test are 41% and 40%, while the Razr 2022 manages 45% in the CPU test.

CPU Throttling test • 3D Mark stress test