Oppo Find N5 review: book-style foldables don’t get any better

Introduction

They’re still just a small part of the wider phone world, but foldables have really upped their game lately. What used to be a big gulf between book-style handsets and the best traditional smartphones is now a thin line, with firms like Oppo leading the charge. Its latest effort is thinner and lighter than ever, without skimping on performance or photography. well, for the most part.

The Find N5 also puts western foldables to shame on slimness, finds room inside for a sizeable battery, and fixes a few of the flaws of the outgoing Find N3. All while continuing to set the bar for big-screen multitasking. But it’s not all good news. Instead of doubling up with stablemate OnePlus, this year Oppo is going it alone – and only in the countries where it already has a presence.

US foldable fans may be out of luck, then. And so far pricing has only been confirmed for Singapore, where one will set you back S$2499. Should everyone else be getting in line for an Oppo original?

Design & build: beyond size zero

Meet the world’s thinnest book-style foldable. OK, the tri-fold Huawei Mate XT might be slimmer still when unfurled, but the Find N5’s 4.21mm frame is still truly impressive to see in the metal. It’s actually thinner than a 3.5mm headphone jack, which I think is a far better reason for not including one than “we’d rather sell you a pair of Bluetooth earbuds”. The USB-C charging port needed re-engineering to fit, too.

Folded shut it’s just 8.93mm, not counting the (admittedly rather svelte) camera bump. It bests the Honor Magic V3 and makes Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold6 look positively portly. At 229g it weighs just a little more than a Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max, so felt just like I was carrying a non-folding flagship. It has the flat metal sides that are all the rage in 2025, along with rounded-off edges and a flat glass rear. That circular camera bump is a Chinese phone favourite right now, too, but top marks to Oppo for keeping it so slender.

Arguably more impressive than the phone’s slimness is how sturdy it is. IPX6, IPX8 and IPX9 ratings basically tick all the boxes for waterproofing, meaning this is theoretically the first foldable that can survive a trip through a dishwasher. I was just grateful not to worry about using it during a rain shower. The nanocrystal front glass – reportedly more scratch- and drop-resistant than the previous generation – has also stayed pristine after several weeks of use.

My Cosmic Black review unit did a great job at shrugging off smudges, but I can’t speak for the Misty White model and its layered, pearl-like finish. There’s a flashier purple model, but it’s China-only. All versions open fully flat, and have no gap when closed; the days of half-measure foldables are well and truly over.

It might not have a OnePlus Open sibling this time around, but Oppo has kept the three-stage alert slider. It’s handy if you’re used to one being there, and easily forgotten if you’re not. The firm has also stuck with a side-mounted power button/fingerprint sensor combo, rather than adopt the dual in-display fingerprint sensors seen on the Vivo X Fold3 Pro. As a leftie I found its positioning a little tricky, so often relied on facial recognition for skipping the lock screen, despite it not being secure enough for banking apps.

Screen & sound: crease me up

It’s a teensy bit narrower than a non-folding flagship, but the Find N5’s 6.62in outer screen is still a beauty. The 20.7:9 aspect ratio feels far more natural than the Galaxy Z Fold6’s still slender 22.1:9, with apps feeling less cramped. The central punch-hole selfie cam doesn’t get in the way much, either.

The 2616×1140 resolution is beautifully crisp and the 1-120Hz LTPO refresh rate is quick to react to rapid motion, making scrolling look buttery smooth. I had no complaints about the colourful AMOLED panel, which has fantastic viewing angles and more nuanced hues than many OLED phones. Brightness gets more than a passing grade, peaking at 2450nits and averaging 1600 nits outside. That’s not the brightest foldable front screen I’ve seen, but enough that sunny days didn’t send me scurrying for some shade just to see what was onscreen.

It’s the 8.12in inner screen – the largest of any book-style foldable – that’s the true star of the show. The 9.9:9 aspect ratio is almost square, and gives it a larger surface area than the latest Apple iPad Mini. That’s enough for two apps side-by-side, and enough space for videos which, even with letterboxing, eclipse the largest of non-folding flagships. I also like that Oppo has stuck the punch-hole camera in the top right corner, where it’s least distracting.

The bezels are suitably slim, and the anti-reflection film protecting the flexible AMOLED panel underneath does a more convincing impression of glass than other foldables I’ve used. It’s quick to pick up fingerprints, though, needing regular wipes with a cleaning cloth to keep pristine.

Importantly, this has to be the closest we’ve got to a crease-free foldable. The Find N5 looks perfectly flat from most angles, and while you’ll spot it if you catch the light just right, its crease is barely there. It doesn’t feel obvious when running a finger over it, either. Stylus fans will appreciate it playing nicely with the Oppo Pen, though I didn’t have one to hand while testing.

Screen resolution, refresh rate, colour accuracy and contrast are all suitably top-tier, and though brightness hits a lower 1400 nits while outside, it didn’t hamper my overall usability; I just avoided watching darker Netflix shows until I stepped inside.

Cameras: closer to the action

A colossal camera bump would’ve scuppered the Find N5’s “world’s thinnest” status, so Oppo has cut back on the hero hardware found in its mainline Find X8 Pro model. The foldable instead shares its 50MP lead lens with the step-down Find X8, and drops its ultrawide down to a far more modest 8MP to keep the rear bulge to a minimum.

That does leave room for a 50MP periscope telephoto, though. It’s good for 3x optical zoom and ‘lossless’ 6x shots, plus telemacro close-ups as near as 10cm to the subject, and AI telescope zoom that kicks in beyond 30x. All three lenses get Oppo’s Hypertone image processing, which was given a helping hand from camera expert Hasselblad. So do the 8MP inner and outer webcams, but these are best saved for video calls; selfie addicts can unfold the phone and use the superior rear sensors instead, framing their shots using the outer display.

Oppo’s algorithms do a pretty decent job with ultrawide snaps, given the pixel deficit to the other two lenses. Definition and detail clearly take a hit, but colour and contrast are otherwise a close match. There’s a wider gulf at night, though. I personally use ultrawide snappers as a fallback for when I simply can’t squeeze a more of a subject into frame; for that, the Find N5’s largely delivers – and compares favourably to the previous-gen phone’s higher pixel count sensor.

It’s not able to keep pace with the very best cameraphones, but the lead lens is still able to capture impressively clean shots that are dripping with detail. Exposure was almost always on point, colours were engaging without appearing too vibrant for reality, and noise was kept well in check. I give it the edge over Samsung and Google’s foldables, with the limited availability Vivo X Fold3 Pro trading blows depending on the scene.

That’s largely true of the telephoto lens, too. At 3x, it delivers dynamic and pleasing pics, with little noise and beautiful bokeh for close-ups without having to engage the portrait mode (which admittedly has great edge detection). Colours and exposure are again consistent with the lead lens, sharpness is on point, and you’ll need to be peeking at pixels to spot any noise. Yes, non-folding hero phones have the edge – but the gap is narrower than ever.

The image processing can go overboard with exposure at night: a shot I took of a theatre looked closer to early twilight than the dead of night it really was, though the phone did well to capture the highlight detail in the neon sign and stained glass. There were much greater variations between lenses here too, with the zoom favouring darker shadows and sometimes struggling to expose the brightest of highlights.

Still, noise is well controlled across the board, and the phone doesn’t overdo it on image sharpening or noise reduction. For all but the darkest of scenes, the Find N5 coped admirably and didn’t embarrass itself against a non-folding rival with considerably larger sensors.

There’s no shortage of camera modes and features to pick from, with a handful of Hasselblad film simulations, an action mode that copes better with fast-moving subjects, and 4K 60fps HDR video recording. Oppo’s AI-infused gallery app also returns, with a useful object eraser, impressively effective reflection remover and an upscaling clarity enhancer that can give photos a little extra visual punch. You can’t add generative objects like on some rival phones, but otherwise it’s a comprehensive selection.

Software experience: better on the big screen

On one hand, the Find N5’s software setup isn’t all that different from the last-gen phone. The ColorOS skin now runs on top of Android 15, but it keeps the same overall look as before, so will feel familiar to both Oppo and OnePlus phone owners. There’s plenty of customisation, like being able to pick between a classic quick settings screen or a more iOS-like split view, and importantly the brilliant Boundless View (the OnePlus version was called Open Canvas) makes a return.

No other foldable makes it as easy to split the screen and rapidly swap between two or more apps, making this a multitasking marvel. I liked having notes, mail and a chat app open while working, or Spotify, Chrome and Instagram while kicking back on the sofa. Three dots at the top of the screen now let you swap the order and change the layout at lot more easily than before, too. Only having a floating keyboard while in this view was a little weird at first, but it can be resized so it mostly matches the fullscreen layout.

There’s a strong selection of own-brand apps, and a refreshing lack of bloat. It’ll be worth using Oppo’s home-grown software over Google’s regulars if you’re all in on AI, with Notes getting document summaries and generative rewrite suggestions. There’s also real-time foreign language translation, including a conversational view when the phone is part-folded, and an AI call summary. The latter can generate do-do lists based on call content, but only in countries where it’s OK to record conversations. Accuracy is generally on par with what I’ve seen from other phones.

The other software standout is for Mac owners. O+ Connect is one part file sharing tool (something that’s notoriously difficult between MacOS and Android) and one part remote access client. The latter has full multi-touch support, letting you use one half of the phone as a touchpad and the other as a live view of your desktop. My office laptop’s security policies meant I couldn’t test it, but Oppo’s demo was impressive.

Four years of Android version updates and six years of security patches are promised. That’s a step up from previous generations, but still behind what Google and Samsung have pledged for their latest foldables.

Performance & battery life: no cores for concern

Depending on who you ask, the asterisk hovering over the Find N5’s Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset is either inconsequential… or planet-sized. Basically, Oppo has gone with a seven-core variant of Qualcomm’s flagship mobile silicon, in order to keep temperatures in check; something I’m sure the svelte dimensions made quite the challenge. True, that’s one fewer than you’ll find in the current crop of non-folding flagships, – but clock speeds are identical, the NPU and GPU are untouched, and aside from a few multi-threaded benchmarks, you’d struggle to tell any difference in daily use.

If scores set your pulse racing, 8096 in the Geekbench 6 multi-core test highlights what a difference that missing core makes: barely 10% less than the Find X8 Pro and its Mediatek Dimensity 9400. Sure, a Galaxy S25 Ultra breaks 10K, but my usual mix of web browsing, photography, video playback, gaming, music streaming and email wasn’t impacted in the slightest.

It helps that there’s a healthy 16GB of RAM on board, and a small portion of the 512GB storage is set aside for virtual memory. Apps seldom needed to reload when multitasking – and were lightning fast when they did. I was also able to play Diablo Immortal at 60fps with all the details cranked, including ray tracing. A 30 minute session didn’t throw up any overheating issues either.

Ditching a CPU core might’ve helped ease the power demands on the Find N5’s battery, but Oppo squeezing in 5600mAh of silcon-carbon cells has given this phone monumental lasting power. Leaving the house at 7am on a full charge, I spent the day bouncing between Wi-Fi and 5G, making notes, taking photos, following GPS directions, playing games and watching videos across both screens; by the time I got home at 11pm, I still had over 30% charge remaining. It doesn’t take much effort to stretch things to a second day of more casual use, as standby time is superb. No foldable phone – at least ones available outside of China – comes close.

It’s great to see Oppo add wireless charging – and rapid 50W wireless charging at that – after the feature was absent from the Find N3. Qi2 sadly doesn’t make the cut, but the official magnetic charging cases that add AIRVOOC top-ups are a nice consolation prize. Wired refuelling is at a nippy 80W, which was enough for me to max out a charge in under 90 minutes.

Oppo Find N5 verdict

Can book-style foldables get any slimmer than this? I’m not sure they need to. The Oppo Find N5 is practically as svelte as a non-folding flagship, with only the smallest of internal compromises. Real-world performance is rapid, battery life is really rather great, and image quality is suitably top-tier on two of the three rear cameras. It also adds features missing from the last-gen model like wireless charging, and puts rival foldables in the shade with its water resistance. Software that lets you maximise multitasking on the inner screen is then the icing on the cake.

Cutting back the ultrawide to minimise the camera bump and losing a CPU core to keep temperatures in check are minor slights overall. The price going in the wrong direction hopefully won’t put foldable fans off either – at least while Samsung continues to stagnate and others have yet to truly pick up steam here in the West.

The lack of a OnePlus sibling will frustrate US shoppers, but ultimately the ‘flagship killer’ firm taking a back seat has let Oppo go all-out on the hardware front here. As a result, nothing can top its blend of skinny dimensions and standout specs.

Oppo Find N5 technical specifications