While we’ve got plenty of smartphones left to come in 2021, we’re excited for the Oppo Find X4, which will probably be here in early 2022. It’s set to be the flagship phone line for Oppo for the year.
The Oppo Find X3 Pro, Find X3 Neo and Find X3 Lite in 2021 brought us a true premium, mid-range and budget champion respectively, with each packing top specs for their price, and it’s likely their Find X4 counterparts will be the same.
Indeed, Oppo’s Find X line has come to represent true premiumness, and the handsets rival the Xiaomi Mi, Samsung Galaxy S and OnePlus phones that come out around the same time – though so far those devices have tended to dank higher in our list of the best smartphones.
We haven’t heard anything about the Oppo Find X4 series of phones just yet – when we do, we’ll add the news and rumors to this article.
Until then, though, we’ve included our predictions as to the phone’s price and release date, and a list of what we want to see in the next series of phones.
Cut to the chase
- What is it? Oppo’s 2022 flagship line
- When is it out? Likely April 2022
- How much will it cost? One premium, one mid-ranged and one budget model
Oppo Find X4 release date and price
If precedent is anything to go by, there will be a launch event for the Oppo Find X4 series in late March 2022, with a release date in April. The world could completely change before then though, so don’t take those as given.
Regarding prices, there will probably be a Pro, Neo and Lite entry in the line, as a top-end, mid-range and entry-level entry respectively, each with a different price, so the Oppo Find X4 line could hit a few price points.
The Oppo Find X3 Pro cost Oppo Find X3 Pro will cost £1,099 / AU$1,699 (roughly $1500), the Neo started at £699 / AU$1,199 (around $975) and the Lite went for £379 / AU$749 (around $530), so we could see similar prices for the Oppo Find X4 entries.
However, at least for the Pro models, we’ve consistently complained about the high prices of those phones, so hopefully we could see a lower cost.
What we want to see
Here are some changes and new features we want to see in the Oppo Find X4 line, compared to previous Oppo phones and the range’s competition.
1. Some lower prices
If we had to give some feedback on previous Oppo Find phones, especially the Pro models, our first response, written in size-72 font, in bold, and in all caps, would be ‘make it cheaper’.
The Find X Pro phones are incredibly pricey, and the Neo phones often aren’t quite competitive for their costs either, and while there’s lots to love about the phones, they can be hard to recommend to people who don’t have bunches of cash ready to spend.
If Oppo reduced the prices of its phones, even by a little bit, they’d be much easier to recommend as great value-for-money devices.
2. Bring back the (faux) leather
The Oppo Find X2 Pro could be bought in a premium-feeling faux leather version (otherwise known as vegan leather), which felt great to hold and was easily grippable too. The Find X3 Pro line dropped this lovely-feeling material, for a standard glass back.
We’d like to see the return of faux leather – it’s a material that signifies the kind of premium-ness the Pro phone’s price tag brings.
Now that even mid-range phones have top specs, the design department is one of the few bastions top-end phones have left with which to prove themselves, and we’d like to see the Oppo Find X4 Pro win in this department.
3. A better zoom camera
The Oppo Reno 10x Zoom was named after its hybrid 10x zoom lens, which was great for taking pictures of far-away things, and a few other Oppo phones (including the Find X2 Pro) used it too.
The company has stopped using this camera though, and its Find X3 series didn’t have amazing zoom capabilities as a result. Instead, the focus was on ultra-wide and, in the case of the Pro phone, microscope, photography.
But zooming is, for some people, a really important part of the phone photography experience, and we’d like to see the camera brought back. If not, we’d at least like to see a similar alternative.
4. A microSD slot
While modern mobiles come with lots of internal storage, professionals or power-users will sometimes want even more space on their phone for apps, videos or photos.
That’s where MicroSD slots come in, as they can bump up a handset’s internal storage to 1TB or even higher. However lots of companies have started dropping the slots from phones, Oppo included.
We’d like to see some of the Find X4 phones – at least the Pro model, because as the name suggests that’s designed for professionals – have the MicroSD slot again.
5. Orange
Orange is arguably the best color for a smartphone – it’s bold and vibrant, eye-catching and attractive. In second and third place come red and yellow, for the same reasons.
The Oppo Find X2 Pro came in a lovely orange shade, making it one of the most attractive smartphones we’d seen, but the Find X3 Pro just came in blue. It was a little dull in comparison.
We want an orange phone again, so you can see it a mile away.