Competitors is nice for a lot of causes, however wanting on the Oppo Discover N2 Flip, there are two issues particularly that stand out. The primary is value. At £849 (round $1,025), Oppo’s foldable flip cellphone is £150 extra inexpensive than Samsung’s comparable Galaxy Z Flip 4 was at launch within the UK, and that’s at the moment Oppo’s solely critical competitor exterior of China. (Though the Discover N2 is releasing “globally,” Oppo’s definition doesn’t prolong to North America.) Undercutting it on value like that is vital, particularly if Oppo can stress Samsung to chop costs to remain aggressive. 

Second is selection. Though Oppo’s foldable has the identical general type issue as Samsung’s Z Flip gadgets, which fold from a daily dimension smartphone down right into a compact sq. to make them extra pocketable, it has a a lot bigger cowl show for viewing notifications and controlling options. It means there’s a variety of potential right here to do extra with Oppo’s foldable with out having to flip it open first.

Sure, on the finish of the day, you’re nonetheless going to be flipping open the cellphone for many duties. However contemplating it undercuts Samsung on value with a really comparable set of options, the Discover N2 Flip finally ends up being a surprisingly aggressive different to the Z Flip 4 — as long as you belief Oppo’s sturdiness claims. 

Okay, calling Oppo Samsung’s solely foldable competitors internationally is just actually half true. However — within the markets the place Oppo is promoting its new flip cellphone no less than — the Discover N2 Flip is the one critical competitors going through the Z Flip 4 as of this writing. Motorola hasn’t up to date its Razr in over two years (in Western markets, no less than), and Huawei’s P50 Pocket ships with out Google’s all-important apps and providers. There’s additionally the upcoming worldwide launch of Honor’s foldable Magic VS to think about, although it’s a bigger foldable that’s nearer to a Z Fold than a Z Flip.

Given the shortage of different choices, it’s nice to see Oppo provide such polished {hardware} on the Discover N2 Flip. When folded, the cellphone is a neat little sq. with no seen display hole, and if there’s a distinction in thickness between the hinge finish and the place the 2 ends of the display meet, I wasn’t capable of measure it. The cellphone is 16mm thick when folded and weighs 191 grams. That’s a hair thinner and heavier than the Z Flip 4 (which measures 17.1mm at its thickest level and weighs 187g), although solely by the smallest of quantities. Oppo’s cellphone is out there in a alternative of black or purple.

This seamless design continues if you open up the cellphone and get a correct take a look at its hinge. There’s no trace of a niche on both edge the place giant particles may get beneath the folding show, and the mechanism feels reassuringly clean but weighty. The display crease can also be minimal — troublesome to see when the display is on and even tough to identify when the display is off with out reflecting mild off it simply so. 

When you open it up, the interior display is a pleasant and colourful 6.8-inch 1080p OLED and has a 9:21 side ratio that feels tall with out turning into extreme in addition to a responsive 120Hz refresh charge. I’d recommend turning the “Show dimension” setting right down to “Small” within the cellphone’s settings, nonetheless. The default “Normal” choice renders textual content slightly too massive for my liking and signifies that you don’t see a lot of a profit from the longer 21:9 side ratio in the case of issues just like the variety of emails you possibly can see at a time.

When Samsung launched its first-generation Galaxy Fold in 2019, there was a lot of dialogue about how sturdy foldable gadgets can be, not helped by the truth that the primary batch of Samsung’s assessment gadgets broke virtually the second journalists bought their palms on them. Three generations later and we now have a reasonably good concept of how sturdy Samsung’s foldables are in the actual world. They’re not “break in 24 hours” fragile, however you shouldn’t count on them to be as scratch or mud resistant as a normal non-folding cellphone. 

However that’s Samsung, and that is Oppo, which suggests we don’t have expertise with a number of generations of handsets to attract from. The Discover N2 Flip is the primary Oppo foldable launched exterior of China, and it’s troublesome to ascertain how sturdy the corporate’s preliminary Discover N could have been for patrons in its house market. However in concept, the Discover N2 Flip is rated to resist 400,000 folding cycles (which incorporates each an open and an in depth). That’s sufficient for 100 openings and closures a day for 10 years — and double the 200,000 that Samsung advertises for the Z Flip 4. Like Samsung, Oppo makes use of a layer of ultra-thin glass in its folding show, although it has a decrease IP score of IPX4 for water resistance in comparison with Samsung’s IPX8 score. That would show important to the long-term sturdiness of Oppo’s cellphone.

So, in concept no less than, Oppo’s Discover N2 Flip ought to survive longer as long as you’re doing the sorts of opening and folding that it’s been examined for in a laboratory setting. However when water will get concerned, Oppo’s machine is just splashproof — not waterproof — although I hasten so as to add that deliberately immersing your cellphone is a nasty concept, no matter its IP score. And we don’t have a lot prior expertise to see how these guarantees may shake out in follow. 

On the other facet of the machine from the interior folding show is the Discover N2 Flip’s cowl show. In comparison with the Samsung Z Flip 4’s 1.9-inch exterior show, its 3.26-inch sizing and 9:17 side ratio really feel large and theoretically imply it’s potential to do far more with the cellphone with out having to unfold it. It’s virtually like having slightly cellphone on the surface of your massive cellphone. That skill to do extra with it finally ends up being true to an extent in follow, however I’d be mendacity if I mentioned I didn’t find yourself unfolding the cellphone nearly all of the time I picked it up.

Let’s begin with what the duvet display can do and provides props to Oppo for addressing one in every of our complaints with the Samsung Z Flip 4. With the Discover N2 Flip, it’s truly potential to edit the precanned messages you should use to reply to individuals by way of the duvet show. Oppo’s default record is slightly impersonal, and most of the messages have passive aggressive intervals on the finish. However with slightly tweaking, you possibly can give you an inventory of quick responses that you simply’d truly need to ship to individuals. There’s no voice dictation right here like with Samsung, nonetheless. After I requested Google Assistant to compose a WhatsApp message, the cellphone complained that I wanted to “unlock it” (learn: unfold it) first.

Elsewhere, Oppo’s built-in widgets get a good quantity of use out of the duvet show. The elevated display actual property is very useful for the digital camera widget because it’s the appropriate side ratio to point out you a full viewfinder at a usable dimension. In the meantime, the climate widget not solely exhibits the day’s climate but in addition the precise situations for the subsequent 4 hours. There’s a neat timer widget to rapidly set countdowns for stuff like cooking or brushing your tooth. And naturally, you possibly can see much more notifications directly with out having to scroll.

Inevitably, I discovered myself needing to flip open the cellphone for many duties, and it’s sometimes irritating that the duvet display widgets can’t do extra given the quantity of display house obtainable to them. In the event you get an electronic mail, you possibly can solely ever learn its topic line, with no alternative to learn its physique textual content. You may see the subsequent 4 hours of climate situations, however you possibly can’t scroll to see extra. There are timers that depend down however no stopwatch to depend up. 

I additionally want there have been a less complicated shortcut to open the digital camera widget on the duvet show. You may theoretically double-press both of the cellphone’s quantity keys to open the digital camera, however the shortcut solely works when the show is off, and by default, the show will routinely activate if you choose up the cellphone. So more often than not, I’d choose up the cellphone, press the ability button to show the show off, and then double-tap the quantity button to get to the digital camera. 

General, regardless of its giant dimension, the duvet show usually feels prefer it’s falling wanting its potential. It may be gradual to get up, and I usually discovered it displaying the time the other way up for half a second earlier than swiveling round. Different occasions, it refused to reply to my contact presses, considering that it was nonetheless in a pocket being unintentionally nudged. Possibly it’s unfair to ask all of this from a canopy show, however its elevated dimension inevitably results in elevated expectations.

Just like the Z Flip, the Discover N2 Flip additionally has some options designed to be used whereas partially folded. It’s good, if slightly gimmicky, to have the ability to prop it open on a desk like a laptop computer to take hands-free selfies or video calls, and I didn’t expertise any of the mic points when recording video selfies that my colleague Allison Johnson reported having with the Z Flip 4. Technically, you’re additionally capable of prop the cellphone up like this to observe video on YouTube, however in follow, it usually means watching a 16:9 YouTube video squashed into one half of the show with large black bars, and I wouldn’t advocate it. The built-in stereo audio system get lots loud, however they don’t work miracles by way of bass or element.

It’s nearly potential to unfold the cellphone with one hand, but it surely’s clearly not designed for it, and also you’ll inevitably find yourself tapping one thing on the display within the course of. It feels a lot safer to make use of two palms. When you do unfold it, the Discover N2 Flip behaves very like another 6.8-inch slab smartphone. Efficiency feels snappy due to its 120Hz refresh charge, and the cellphone’s MediaTek Dimensity 9000 Plus processor retains up properly. I didn’t discover any hitching as I switched between apps on my assessment machine with 8GB of RAM, and the worldwide model of the cellphone is out there with 256GB of storage.

The Discover N2 Flip’s battery is a weak level. Regardless of the 4,300mAh battery (greater than the Z Flip 4’s 3,700mAh), I averaged simply three and a half hours of display time between fees. I by no means had the cellphone die on me earlier than the tip of the day, however the one time I forgot to cost it in a single day after a heavy day of use, the cellphone was right down to round 10 % by morning. There’s little or no battery headroom right here. Not less than charging is comparatively fast. Oppo advertises that the 44W charger included within the field can cost the cellphone to 50 % in 23 minutes and to 100% in below an hour, which aligned with my expertise. There’s no wi-fi charging right here such as you get with Samsung.

The cellphone ships with Oppo’s Android 13-based ColorOS out of the field, and the corporate says it’ll launch 4 main Android model updates for the cellphone and 5 years of safety updates (a primary for the corporate). For reference, Samsung now affords 4 years of Android updates for telephones together with the Z Flip 4 and as much as 5 years of safety updates.

One of many Discover N2 Flip’s get together tips is that you should use its principal digital camera to take selfies with the duvet show. This provides you the good thing about utilizing the cellphone’s 50-megapixel principal digital camera relatively than the 32-megapixel front-facing digital camera that should match inside a small hole-punch notch. However in follow, I didn’t suppose there was a lot of a distinction between the efficiency of the 2 cameras, and in some circumstances, I even most well-liked what the selfie digital camera was able to.

In any other case, I received’t spend an excessive amount of time speaking concerning the Discover N2 Flip’s digital camera efficiency as a result of, in fact, I feel it’s so common that it shouldn’t be a motive for or in opposition to shopping for this cellphone. In daylight, it favors punchy colours and crisp particulars, but it surely doesn’t overdo both to a synthetic extent until you’re utilizing its lower-resolution ultrawide digital camera, which seems to be overly processed to make up for its eight-megapixel sensor, leading to photos that look slightly too clean and noiseless. 

Shut-up photos look good till you get too shut for the cameras to have the ability to focus — there’s no potential for something approaching macrophotography right here. Low-light images is okay, with the Oppo Discover N2 Flip producing usable smartphone photos when the Solar goes down, however video seize is slightly disappointing, with high quality particulars shimmering and juddering within the ensuing footage.

At £849, the Discover N2 Flip has the identical beginning value as Samsung’s Galaxy S23. However whilst you can and will count on flagship digital camera efficiency out of even Samsung’s entry-level Galaxy S machine, that’s probably not the case right here. As with the Z Flip 4, efficiency isn’t horrible however possibly extra according to what you’d count on from a midrange cellphone relatively than a flagship in 2023.

With its bigger cowl display and £849 price ticket, Oppo’s Discover N2 Flip is a compelling different to Samsung’s Z Flip 4. Sure, I want its cowl show felt extra responsive and had extra performance, however between performing as a greater digital camera viewfinder and having the ability to rapidly hearth off custom-made responses to messages, there’s an okay record of duties you possibly can accomplish with out totally unfolding the cellphone. 

Elsewhere, there are extra compromises. It’s nice that it has 44W quick charging, but it surely’s a disgrace that battery life isn’t higher within the first place. Its pictures are okay, however movies are disappointing. In a lab, 400,000 folds is a formidable quantity to realize, however the cellphone’s decrease IP score for water resistance and Oppo’s lack of a foldable monitor file within the West is price being conscious of.

Barring any main sturdiness issues down the road, the Oppo Discover N2 Flip is a good different to Samsung’s Z Flip 4 — offered you’re in a rustic the place it’s truly offered, that’s. 

Pictures by Jon Porter / The Verge