Oppo Find X6 Pro officially announced: the best flagship you won’t be able to buy in 2023

Oppo has officially announced its new X6 flagship series, but for European audiences this is no cause for celebration. This range will remain exclusive to China and won’t be brought to sale in the West, at least not in the near future. So, we can only look at the spec lists, see the Find X6 Pro phone in press photos and imagine what we could do with this powerful hardware.

Oppo Find X6 Pro’s camera is likely to be the best “equipped” on the market

The Oppo Find X6 Pro is the model we’re really interested in, as this is the company’s first phone to use a 1″, 50-megapixel camera sensor on the main camera. It’s the same camera sensor we recently encountered on the Xiaomi 13 Pro (review), but in that implementation it didn’t impress us, rather because of the software used for image processing.

However, given that the OnePlus 11, also made by Oppo (review), managed to deliver very good results on the photo side with weaker hardware than the Xiaomi, expectations from a large sensor model with Hasselblad colours are at an all-time high. The main sensor is joined by an f/1.8 aperture lens, which should draw plenty of light for the most detailed shots.

The Chinese company says each of the three cameras use the largest sensor on the market for the focal length offered. So the f/2.2 ultrawide camera has a 1/1.56″ Sony IMX890 sensor with 50 megapixels, while the 2.8x zoom telephoto camera has the same Sony IMX890 sensor with an f/2.6 aperture. Curiously, this zoom is periscopic, although many companies do 3x zoom on regular lenses. Also, all three cameras have optical stabilization, something we don’t see much of on ultrawide.

All three cameras will use image processing on the proprietary MariSilion X chip, which we’ve been happy with in the past. It too will provide faster focusing and more efficient stabilization, especially on zoom. Of course, all cameras can shoot RAW, and the zoom will be expandable to 6x while not losing quality. Oppo says the 6x zoom will even be able to be used in 4K shooting without image degradation. The ultrawide camera also serves as a macro camera, being able to focus from 4cm away.

It’s clear that this phone is a camera-focused one, especially when you consider its design. The camera module is most prominent on the back, and the thickness of the phone in the camera area is almost double. As with the Xiaomi 13 Pro, we expect this phone to be a bit top-heavy and awkward to rock in the hand in use.

Top hardware outperforms what the competition offers

Such a camera system could only be matched by top-notch hardware, however, and in some categories the Oppo Find X6 Pro is once again the market leader. For example, this is the first phone to boast a 6.82″ QHD+ (3,168 x 1,440 pixels) resolution display with 120Hz adaptive refresh rate and a maximum brightness of 2,500 nits. Samsung barely reaches 1,750 nits, while Apple boasts 2,000 nits in bright sunlight.

The internal configuration is based on Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 with 12 or 16 GB LPDDR5X RAMand 256 or 512 GB internal storage on UFS 4.0. Everything is powered by a 5,000 mAh battery with SuperVOOC charging at 100W wired and AirVOOC 50W wireless.

The phone will ship in three color options: black, green and brown. The brown variant uses a glass panel on top, decorated to be similar to metal, while the bottom, where you actually hold the phone in your hand is covered in vegan leather. The ring around the cameras is made of metal, and all variants are water resistant to the IP68 standard.

With hardware like this, capable of going toe-to-toe with the iPhone 14 Pro Max (review) or Galaxy S23 Ultra (review), it’s really a shame we won’t see this phone outside of China.

Find X6 ‘standard’ drops to a lower performance rung

Alongside the Pro model, there’s also an Oppo Find X6 “standard” It uses the same general design, but drops everything down a notch, much like Samsung does with the S23 and S23+ models, or Apple with the iPhone 14.

This model uses a Dimensity 9200 processor, a top-of-the-line processor from MediaTek, but not as powerful as Qualcomm’s. The screen is slightly smaller, at 6.74″, with 2,772 x 1,240 pixel resolution and adaptive refresh rate only between 40 and 120 Hz.

The cameras are all 50 megapixels, too, but the sensors are different. On the main and zoom camera we get the IMX890, the one used for secondary cameras on the Pro, and on the ultrawide a smaller 1/2.76″ sensor called the JN1. This too has autofocus and macro functions, and the zoom retains the periscope from the Pro.

The battery drops to 4,800 mAh and charging to 80W, but the Find X6 drops wireless charging altogether. And water resistance drops to IP64, so splashproof, not fully waterproof.

Find X6 Pro prices are incredible for such specs, but they’re only for China

The Find X6 Pro starts at 6,000 yuan, or about 810 euros, for the 12+256GB variant, and goes up to 7,000 yuan, or 950 euros, for the top variant, 16+512GB. The Find X6, on the other hand, starts in China at 4,500 yuan, or 610 euros. Of course, even if these models came to Europe, prices would be significantly higher due to taxes and shipping costs. Realistically, the X6 would have started at around 900 euros, and the X6 Pro probably from 1,100-1,200.

As phones for China, these will ship without Google services, so importing won’t exactly be a good option for those who still want these phones.