Oppo Find X8 Pro review

As far as sandboxes go, Oppo has done a brilliant job of making the Find X8 Pro feel premium without breaking any mould. The 6.78in AMOLED display has gentle curves down the sides that make gesture controls feel fluid and effortless while the bezels, at a mere 1.9mm and perfectly symmetrical can even put an iPhone 16 to shame!120Hz refresh rate, Dolby Vision and HDR 10+, Pro XDR for photography, 4500nits of brightness and the usual good stuff is baked right in, so no complaints about the display.

Around the back, the now familiar Cosmos Ring camera module that has been seen on OnePlus phones too ties up the family relations a bit too closely for comfort, but it is a smart-looking unit nonetheless. The four different lenses with the Hasselblad ‘H’ emblazoned in the centre give it a sense of gravitas and requisite premiumness. The two different finishes don’t challenge the status quo, sticking to black or white, but the Pearl White of our review sample does feel nice to touch, although without a cover is almost too slippery to hold confidently. Its multi-layer texture ensures no two phones will look exactly alike if you like to brag about exclusivity. What stands out more than the body is the camera bump though, which has been significantly reduced from the previous generation. The dual periscope telephoto lenses contribute to this massively, without compromising the camera quality, Oppo claims.

A new addition, and quick to copy-paste a Western idea, the Quick Button. Just like on the iPhone 16 Pro models, this camera launch and control button is designed to work best in landscape mode, offering sliding zoom control or Lightning Snap which is Oppo speak for burst mode. It sits flush with the metal frame and while it does look neater than Apple’s implementation, it’s harder to locate just by “feel”. It is also as much of a novelty factor as Apple’s Camera Control button and just as fidgety to use and just as inconveniently placed for portrait use. So yes, it’s there but who cares. Oppo says that they are welcoming feedback to add more features as experts and consumers demand from it and we may also see it being implemented on other Oppo lines eventually.

Going with the Mediatek Dimensity 9400 chipset might seem like an odd choice at first considering that Oppo still use Snapdragon Gen 3 for their tablets, but there is reasoning behind it. Being able to work more closely to optimise the SoC for their Trinity Engine includes battery efficiency, performance optimisation and AI integration framework. The second-generation 3Nm process of this chip allows it to be significantly faster in most applications that require on-device processing. Think AI and photo editing.

Even the ColorOS15 has tons of new animations, themes and a Touch-to-Share with iPhone feature that will benefit from a faster GPU and improved cooling characteristics too. But of course, we have all gathered here today to understand how the Find X8 Pro fares with its quadruple 50MP cameras with the Hasselblad hype. So let’s get right to it.

Using a combination of Sony and Samsung sensors, the 50MP sensors for all four cameras is a good move and the dual periscope lenses for the telephoto give it 3x and 6x optical capabilities. Support for Ultra HDR means that Oppo’s native Pro XDR is compatible with many third-party apps, retaining the high brightness look of typical HDR videos, but not Instagram yet. The big sell here is the AI-aided telescopic zoom which gets activated the moment you cross the 10x mark on the lens dial. Between the 10x and the 60x range, it uses all the available AI horsepower to extract every iota of detail from the 50MP sensor and beyond 60MP, it uses a diffusion-based model.

For the most part, the AI-generated “material” tries to fill in the missing pixels with the closest possible match and zooming into the photo reveals all sorts of artefacts. But use it on far-off buildings or objects and it does a decent job of reconstructing a noisy and low-resolution telephoto 300mm capture. Using optical zoom for 3x and 6x, the tetraprism periscope lens is only used for 3x and does a fine job of capturing detail without any loss. Even the 6x has potential and allows you to get a lot closer to your subject than even the iPhone 16 Pro. What is inconsistent though are the colours from one lens to another, heightened while in video mode and switching between focal lengths. You can go all the way from 0.5x ultrawide to 400mm (20x approx) with a single swipe of the dial, something that no other phone lets you do, but it’s not stutter-free as it switches gears. But, i’d rather have it than not!

The Hasselblad colour tuning still hasn’t hit the sweet spot with anomalies seen across the lenses and lighting conditions, sometimes over-saturating and sometimes over-sharpening. Its built-in filters and various scene modes like Stage and Fireworks didn’t help much besides lending a certain mood to the photograph but not necessarily helping with maintaining focus in low-light conditions involving moving subjects. The “Pro” setting in Master mode provides the potential for the most accurate images where you have granular control over all of the camera settings like white balance, EV, shutter speed etc. Choose the full 50MP resolution without binning and you lose most of the perks and features, but it is a great option for static shots with insane amounts of detail in the images. In fact, given a steady shot, the detail on all images is truly staggering and visibly superior to the competition. The pain point is really the processing which, depending on lighting conditions and focal length, will choose to blur out random elements between foreground and background while in Portrait mode, or suffer from colour temperature shift from lens to lens. Low-light resolution, detail and sharpness are breathtaking, if you ignore the colour temperature shift on certain parts of the image.

Portrait mode is impressive with a much more natural-looking bokeh compared to other similarly priced devices, especially with the Pro XDR in standard photo mode. Overall, the Find X8 Pro doesn’t seem like a huge step up to the X7 Ultra from last year that we used extensively. Sure, the AI trick box lets you upscale an image, remove people, remove reflections and unblur shaky shots but their efficacy depends a lot on the kind of image and how the AI lords feel on that particular day. Like the overall camera system, they too remain highly inconsistent in the final result. To be fair, that is true for all AI at the moment and Oppo should get the benefit of the doubt and a nod just for trying to be original.

This brings us to the Quick Button, Oppo speak for Camera Control. Whether it has been copied from Apple or not, it remains a poor imitation of a bad idea to begin with. It’s designed to make you reach the camera app faster than ever and take shots quicker than ever, but both can be achieved via the Lock Screen and remapping the volume buttons respectively. So what’s the big deal? Well, in landscape mode, it also allows you to zoom in/out but the calibration of the capacitive button leaves a lot to be desired and you will find yourself reverting to the on-screen controls pretty soon. Again, Oppo officials claim they are open to feedback and adding more features, so let’s hope the next update brings some more meaningful uses to it. Oh, and the zoom function only works in landscape mode and not in Portrait mode for some reason.

In everyday aspects, the Find X8 Pro performs like a flagship phone should along with a huge boost in battery life compared to anything else out there. I shot extensively on it for two whole days, with 4K/60 video and stills through the days and I still have 8% left at the end of two whole days. The 5910mAh silicon carbon battery really does make a big difference to usability and even thermal management, proving to be cooler in every scenario. 80W wired and 50W wireless charging does make life easier by getting you juiced up and running in almost no time at all, adding to the overall desirability of this device.

For almost a lakh of Rupees, the Find X8 Pro is up against some established players but it manages to hold its own with a fantastic feature set, amazing battery life and thermal management, a great set of cameras and top-shelf specs all around. It’s a phone that anyone could live with happily for the next few years. Hasselblad here is still more of a marketing exercise than any real-world benefit, but take your time in working out which mode works best for you and it delivers some stunning images. Oppo may not have the best camera system overall, but they certainly excel at some elements and that may be enough to seal the deal.