OPPO Find X3 Lite 5G – 8GB RAM and 128GB Storage SIM Free

The cheapest phone i have ever seen with such big configuation. I bought for my wife. It will be my next manufacturer near future

Instead of my usual review format, I thought it appropriate to objectively and concisely list the reasons why you really should buy this phone.

6.4-inch AMOLED screen with various settings to reduce eye strain. No screen lag when scrolling or watching a video clip.

Premium build quality usually found in more expensive big name brands.

Excellent customer telephone support, who incidentally advised me that most OPPO phones, including this particular model, ship with a factory fitted screen protector. I will however, still keep my additional purchase of Gorilla Glass screen protectors, just in case.

Unlike a couple of previous reviews critiquing the OPPO Find X3 Lite 5G camera capabilities, I found it better than expected at this price point.

The phone is very good for the price. It runs smooth and the screen is fair. I haven’t used the camera very much, but for the moment it’s ok. Nothing to complaint about. Let’s see after few months of use, but looks very good to me. I could transfer all the data from one phone to another within minutes, so less of a headache. The colour it’s truly stunning. It comes with a clear case and a screen protector. So far so good.

This is a fantastic little piece of equipment, was bought to replace a stolen oppo find x3 pro. Never again will I pay for overpriced contract mobiles. This oppo is fast, light and does everything that a top of the range mobile does and all for under 200. The clarity, colours and camera are magnificent, it’s speed while using multiple apps is impressive. Imagery is brought to you with such vivid clarity along with very impressive Dolby Atmos sound and it’s pretty straight forward to use. It charges in around half an hour and depending on what you are doing a full charge will last you surprisingly long. Do yourself a favour and trust this little power house.

This phone is super fast which is the reason I bought it after using a very sluggish Samsung A13, but the photos it takes are not as bright as the Samsung A13 which is a real pity. The reason I’ve give it four stars is because of the photo quality and because the instructions that came with the phone are useless. I have had to google how to remove the straps and how to charge it.

Overall the phone is great and apps feel great on it.
However, the facial recognition was not too great so I used the fingerprint. The battery is cool but depends on usage. If you are heavy phone user the battery will drain faster. I am not a heavy user but it drains 40% of the battery daily.

Other than that I am enjoying the phone.

Moving from a Xiaomi Mi 10 5G Lite, this “Find X3 Neo” mobile is certainly a step up! It seems very quick and without hesitation in everything it does.

With 256GB of memory, there’s plenty to spare even when I load up with a lot of music to play in the car.

I have the silver version – which is stylish and IMHO, looks good! Overall, everything seems to be well made and sturdy. The mobile has a reasonable weight and feels good in the hand.

The display and the cameras are brilliant. Charging is amazingly rapid and the device comes with a silicon case and a ready fitted film type screen protector.

The Android 11 implementation is reasonably “vanilla” without an overload of bloatware. What there is, can mostly be easily disabled if necessary.

I used the OPPO cloning app on my old Xiaomi and remarkably all my settings, data, media files and apps transferred over rather painlessly. I’ve not had that before! I presume life was made easier by both mobiles being on Android 11.

Just one app failed to transfer – and I simply reloaded it from Google Play. I then deleted some of the Xiaomi bloatware that managed to make it across.

I did have to manually set up the Home Screen in my preferred “drawer” mode. I also added “File Manager +” as it also provides seamless local network access to our home NAS/Media Server. So, I can download music and films, and upload photos etc.

I have had no issues with WiFi, NFC and Bluetooth. 5G gives some amazing data transfer rates. Battery life is usually more than sufficient for me for a day.

So, overall I am most chuffed! The mobile is a joy to use with performance at a par with many flagship devices. The Amazon option of 12 monthly payments make it a viable alternative to a long term agreement – with the flexibility and savings of a “SIM Only” contract.

However, this is not a cheap device and there are a couple of small gripes:

– No glass screen protectors work on this device as keyboard and fingerprint sensor sensitivity are lost rendering the mobile unusable. So, unlike me, don’t remove the factory fitted film screen protector! I have had to replace it with a soft ‘hydrogel’ one…

– It appears to be impossible to lose the Google app from the home screen tabs (RH swipe). I managed to get rid of it on my Xiaomi but OPPO seem to have blocked that option. You can disable “Discovery” (that chews data in the background) but Google Search annoyingly remains…..

– The mobile is dust rather than water-proof.

– There is only a small choice of cases available – particularly wallet/flip types.

Wireless charging would have been great but the rapid charge capability does compensate.

Overall, I’m happy with the phone, but bearing in mind that I’m upgrading from a 5 year-old phone… (Samsung A3 2016), and it costs nearly twice as much, you’d expect massive improvements in every area, it is disappointing in a number areas (I originally gave it 3 stars but after living with it for a year, I’m upping it to 4 stars, because basically I like this phone. Also, it’s come down in price considerably since I bought mine.) See my comments below for the details of the pros and cons from my personal perspective.

I Like:
– Glass-backed not plastic (but only on the silver version)
– Dual Sim
– Super-fast 65w charging.
– Eye-comfort option on the screen.
– It’s a good size without being excessively large
– Fingerprint and face recognition very fast and effective.
– Factory fitted screen protector
– 3.5 mm jack
– Wide angle lens for camera.
– Front camera hole is very discrete.
– Nice look and feel.
– Fast overall performance.
– The 64 megapixel camera is defaulted to a lesser resolution (to keep photo size down)
– I feel it’s a nice looking phone with a nice feel, and the silver finish looks almost like polished metal in some light conditions.
– Oppo Customer Support has been responsive when needed.

I Don’t Like:
– In the normal mode the home screen has no ‘Apps’ Folder so everything just appears automatically, if there are pre-installed Apps you don’t want to see your home screen pages, you must copy them to the ‘tools’ folder.
– the volume settings erratically turn themselves right down sometimes which leads to missed calls.
– frame/bezel looks like metal but is in fact plastic I think.
– Loud speaker sound quality seems less good compared to my old Samsung A3.
– Flashlight is considerably dimmer than on my old Samsung.
– Android Auto is pre-installed but apparently there is no way to launch it. However I raised this with Oppo who informed me that you can download ‘Android Auto for phone Screens’ thin in-built install I guess only works if you have a very recent car.
– User interface on Settings, Widgets, etc. looks and feels rather low-end, it’s better on my 5 year old Samsung A3 2016 and generally there is not much configurability, basic settings seem difficult to locate.
– 3.5 mm jack is on the left-hand side at the bottom of the phone, thus interfering with typical desktop phone stands, would be ideal to right next to the charging port.
– The coating on the glass back makes it feel like plastic. The coating also reflects various colours in certain lights (maybe some people would like this) I would have have preferred a straightforward shiny metallic look. Overall the phone feels quite nice in your hand. A high-end look and feel is v. important to me personally and I absolutely reject plastic constructed phones, which is quite limiting these days.
– Icons on notifications bar, and pull-down notifications are excessively tiny, making it difficult to see them, or to hit them easily, this seems not configurable. (Android 12 recently rolled out has improved this somewhat)
– Icons generally have no choice or configurability unless you sign up for a 3rd party app.
– The front camera hole, positioned at left side, whilst discrete, gives a misalignment which makes close up selfie taking a little awkward, and also easy to partially obscure the camera with your thumb.
– Poor use of screen space — widgets and icons don’t use of about 5 mm of space at each side of the screen– given that having a larger phone is already irksome, you’d think that manufacturers would optimise screen space usage as an absolute priority…
– Minimal water proofing ip52 I believe (by now I’d expect to see this feature at this price)
– No contactless charging.
– No SD card slot, but 128 Gb should be plenty I guess.
– SAR emissions seem to be on the high side.
– Standard SMS app seems very minimalistic, not a nice look and feel. Same for most of the inbuilt apps.
– I took an indoor photo in artificial light with the wide-angle lens and the result is very grainy.
– Comparing an indoor artificial light photo between my Samsung A3 2016, and the Oppo, there is little discernible difference in quality, expect perhaps Oppo image is somewhat brighter.
– Can’t find any options for voice commands on the Camera.

As I say, quality look & feel is very important to me, and given that most phones are technically competent these days — it becomes a key differentiating factor — see how Apple have finally got it right with the iPhone 12. I would probably have bought a mid-range Samsung if they offered glass construction but they don’t anymore. Or, at my price point, an LG Velvet (though a bit on the large side) – which seemed to have everything I would want – but LG are closing down their mobile phone business.

Hopefully, Oppo or someone else will step up to the space vacated LG, by providing a mid-range phone that gives quality look and feel + all the important features at an affordable price.