Oppo Find X3 Lite review: Solid as a rock

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Despite producing a string of high-quality, underpriced devices in the last few years, Oppo has yet to establish itself in the same league as Samsung or Google. With the well-received Oppo Find X3 Pro – and the Oppo Find X3 Lite on the other end of the spectrum – the Chinese manufacturer hopes to change the conversation.

The Find X3 Lite is a flashy follow-up to last year’s fantastic Oppo Find X2 Lite, which was among the cheapest devices to offer 5G connectivity upon release. The manufacturer, however, has taken something of a gamble with its latest handset, having decided against upgrading the internal hardware on the Find X2 Lite. Instead, Oppo has prioritised improving areas such as the camera and the display to entice users with more of a ‘premium-lite’ experience while maintaining its low cost.

Oppo Find X3 Lite review: Design

The Find X3 Lite’s build quality is highly encouraging and echoes the composition of its higher-end cousins. First and foremost, its glass-coated aluminium chassis – finished with rounded edges – is reassuringly robust. This stylish design is accentuated by a classy ‘Starry Black’ coat, although it admittedly looks a little plain compared to the Find X3 Lite’s eye-catching Astral Blue and frankly mind-boggling Galactic Silver finishes.

The device is about as sleek as you’d expect for one fitted with a 6.4in display, and weighs a fairly light 172g too. Oppo has also shaved off a few millimetres of thickness compared to the Find X2 Lite. The two most significant design changes include a pinhole front-facing camera, replacing a teardrop-style lens, and four rear lenses mounted on a tile, rather than in a row. This is, ultimately, a smart and reassuringly familiar design that punches a little above the weight of the Find X3 Lite’s pricing.

Oppo Find X3 Lite review: Display

There’s a lot to love about the Find X3 Lite’s 1080p 6.4in AMOLED display, particularly given the inclusion of a 90Hz toggle. Refresh rates of up to 120Hz are increasingly common in high-end devices, so it’s a fantastic addition at this price point. It’s only one-upped here by fellow mid-tier challenger, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro, which offers a 120Hz refresh rate.

Day-to-day usage is smooth and much-improved on our experience with the so-so display fitted into the Find X2 Lite. The only cause for concern revealed by our testing is a maximum brightness result of 419 cd/m2. This is solid but a shade under the standards set by devices such as the Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro and Google Pixel 5, which hit 426cd/m2 and 468cd/m2 respectively. The Find X3 Lite, however, proves marginally brighter than both the Samsung Galaxy A90 5G and the Xiaomi Mi Note 10.

Similarly, a strong 95.6% coverage of the sRGB colour spectrum is only topped among its competitors by the Xiaomi Mi Note 10, which scored 96.6%. The quality of this particular display, moreover, is underlined with an infinity:1 contrast ratio and a black level of 0cd/m2, alongside a Delta E score of 1.47. This latter metric assesses accurate colour reproduction, with scores sub-1.5 considered very strong.

These scores were gleaned from testing under the ‘gentle’ colour profile, although the colours do feel washed out to the naked eye. A ‘vivid’ profile, which gives colours a little extra pop, is preferable, although it distorts colour accuracy somewhat. Otherwise, beyond standard visual settings like dark mode and display tone adjustment, you can activate Object and Semantic Images Eye-Tracking (OSIE). This purports to be an AI engine that tracks eye movement and micro-adjusts the orientation of media in apps like Instagram. In practice, though, we didn’t notice a great deal of difference, which is unfortunate considering this feature eats into battery life.

Oppo Find X3 Lite review: Hardware and performance

The hardware configuration fitted into the Find X3 Lite is unchanged against its predecessor and features the 7nm octa-core Snapdragon 765G mobile CPU. This sits alongside 8GB RAM and 128GB of unexpandable internal storage.

Our experience with the Find X3 Lite suggested this setup is sufficient to contend with most day-to-day tasks, although performance is hardly inspiring. Indeed, Geekbench 5 testing produced scores of 613 for single-threaded performance and 1,812 for multi-threaded performance, against 623 and 1,826 for the Find X2 Lite. While diminished scores are a touch disappointing, they’re still a step above several competing devices, including the Google Pixel 5, which scored 597 and 1,609. On the other hand, the Find X3 Lite is eclipsed by both the iPhone SE 2 as well as the Samsung Galaxy A90 5G, both of which are fitted with premium-level CPUs.

A near-full day battery capacity of 21hrs 58mins, meanwhile, is impressive and certainly exceeds minimum expectations. Unfortunately, both the Google Pixel 5 and Samsung Galaxy A90 5G last longer – spanning 22hrs 54mins and 23hrs 38mins respectively. The Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro, however, only lasted 17hrs 16mins when tested. Otherwise, Oppo’s operating system offers a plethora of battery-saving tools and toggles to extend battery life, including ‘sleep standby optimisation’, which consumes less power and reduces notifications while the device is on charge overnight.

Oppo Find X3 Lite review: Camera

The Oppo Find X3 Lite is fitted with four rear lenses, including a 64MP wide lens and 8MP ultrawide lens alongside a pair of 2MP lenses for portrait and monochrome shots. This is in addition to a 32MP front-facing camera. Both the front-facing and primary rear lenses have been upgraded, with the 64MP wide lens, in particular, allowing the Find X3 Lite to capture crisp images with a decent balance of lighting, saturation and sharpness.

Mid-range configurations rarely compete with the market’s crème de la crème, and the Find X3 Lite’s setup is more about keeping up with competitors than breaking any new ground. For example, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro is fitted with a 108MP primary lens despite costing much less.

Images taken using the three unchanged rear lenses do suffer a little - for example, the soft-focus effect in Portrait mode can be hit-and-miss - but, on the whole, all the Find X3’s images are passable. Elsewhere, with Expert mode, you can adjust ISO settings, shutter speed, white balance, focus and ‘exposure value’ to finetune photography, while Extra HD oversamples images to simulate a 108MP image. You can barely notice the difference in these oversampled images, however, unless you zoom in very closely.

The device also offers HDR shooting as well as AI scene enhancement, which automatically adjusts brightness, contrast and saturation depending on the context. This is alongside a genuinely impressive Night mode, which fills the frame with light while retaining decent colours. Video shooting can be boosted with AI scene enhancement, although the colour balance and saturation levels are inconsistent. Users, incidentally, can film using various settings including 4K at 30fps, 1080p and 720p up to 60fps, as well as slow-motion shooting in up to 1080p. Ultrasteady shooting, too, works well to counteract shaky hands.

Oppo Find X3 Lite review: Software and features

Powered by Android 11, the Oppo Find X3 Lite ships with the ColorOS 11.1 operating system. This is a clean and feature-rich Android skin that does the basics well, although isn’t packed with the bells and whistles of a high-powered device.

The home screen is ripe for customisation by adding widgets, while you can choose between several variants of an iOS-like interface – or the classic app drawer. Icon appearance can also be tweaked to suit your tastes, with options to change texture, shape and text size. Also making a comeback is an effective split-screen mode, which lets you use two apps simultaneously, a Smart Assistant, and a quick-draw folder for shortcuts.

As with all Oppo handsets, UK users don’t have access to the Theme Store, so you’ll have to settle with default fonts and themes, which are, in fairness, pleasant enough. Although the Lite version of the Find X3 series misses out on wireless charging, its fast-charging feature, branded as VOOC 2.0, is blistering and can fully recharge your device within 40 minutes. In terms of biometric security, it offers both an in-screen fingerprint scanner and facial recognition alongside a security centre with in-built software-based protections. Finally, as with many mid-range Oppo devices, the Find X3 Lite includes a 3.5mm headphone jack, often excluded from most high-end options.

Oppo Find X3 Lite review: Verdict

By neglecting to improve the hardware configuration between the Find X2 Lite and this latest edition, Oppo has instead prioritised easing the strain of more obvious compromises that normally blight mid-tier devices.

The performance levels of the Snapdragon 765G are perfectly adequate, and both the display and camera configuration receive a much-needed upgrade. The best case for comparison would be with the Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro, which usurps this device with its stunning 120Hz display and 108MP main lens while costing roughly £100 less. This doesn’t feature 5G connectivity, however, giving Oppo’s alternative an upper hand.

Ultimately, Oppo manages to offer a taste of the high life with the Find X3 Lite while keeping costs down. It’s a well-designed and sophisticated smartphone that offers plenty for its price, including a strong display and long-lasting battery, without raising too many eyebrows.

Oppo Find X2 Lite specifications