My evaluation of small-size vertical folding screen phones a long time ago was: this is an epic return to folding phones. Many years ago, there were two main forms of the mobile phone industry: straight plate machines and folding machines. The folding mobile phone of that year still has many differentiated advantages over the straight plate machine in terms of experience and scene. In the era of folding screens, vertical folding mobile phones were dubbed by digital enthusiasts in the early days: "beautiful little waste" biased evaluation. This is because the vertical folding screen mobile phone two years ago was limited to the problems of screen quality, hinge design, internal space stacking and component miniaturization, and there was a big gap in experience compared to the straight board flagship at the same price. In 2023, with the wide application of new space-grade materials and new lightweight hinges, coupled with the improvement of battery density and the leap in processor performance, vertical folding screen mobile phones will accelerate to get rid of the stereotypical image of "beautiful little waste".
There are several main reasons why consumers have not accepted folding screen mobile phones: thick, poor quality, obvious creases in the screen that may be damaged over time, and the overall configuration of the relatively straight plate machine is lower (because the stacking difficulty is higher). After entering 2023, these problems have basically been solved. After solving the long-term quality problems, the vertical folding screen mobile phone manufacturers represented by OPPO have been working to improve the differentiated scenarios and flagship experience problems of vertical folding screen mobile phones. These issues include: screen effects, battery life, performance, image capabilities, image innovation scenarios, etc.
The current main users of vertical folding screen mobile phones are still mainly women, especially 30+ working women. As far as I have observed around me, in addition to the level of the mother of senior girls, there are even junior high school girls who are keen to use vertical folding screen mobile phones. In Beijing, the OPPO Find N2 Flip is very popular among girls in some urban and municipal key middle schools. I interviewed several girls, most of them just saw their mother feel very fresh after using the folding screen mobile phone, which is a unique choice outside the iPhone, so when changing the phone, if the family allows, it can be used as a try.
Unlike digital gamers and video mages, women in the workplace and middle school girls use vertical folding screen products, and they don't care much about parameter stacking, they are actually more concerned about diverse gameplay and actual pleasure. Of course, this does not mean that the parameters are not important, nor does it mean that OPPO and other head manufacturers try to make image breakthroughs on the folding screen There is a problem. When girls are fooled into buying CCD cameras, and even deliberately making portrait photos taken by old image flagships, in fact, they generally lack the necessary understanding and cognition of correct color cognition and correct portrait shooting, which is where mobile phone manufacturers are deeply engaged in these technical fields: manufacturers need to be an example to tell consumers what kind of cognition and direction is right, and give consumers one more choice.
It is rumored that Jobs did not like to engage in user research before his death, at least relying too much on user research, which will affect forward-looking judgment and pre-research. In this regard, I prefer to believe his logic is that all user feedback actually belongs to the past, consumer goods users can only put forward the evaluation of the quality and experience under the current technical conditions, under the premise of lack of understanding of technological revolution and product development, the vast majority of users can not evaluate the future trend and scene change. Just like when Apple launched the APP Store, mobile phone manufacturers around the world are still teaching users to install software with memory cards, and are wasting the last patience of the development ecology on white developers and cracked software.
Android folding screen mobile phones based on the AOSP system are one of the few historical innovations in the Android ecosystem, which at least breaks the form that smartphones can only be straight machines. Whether it is a large horizontal fold or a lightweight and stylish vertical folding screen, Android mobile phone manufacturers around the world are trying to create a new application scenario and ecology with Google. After Google announced official support for large-screen development at the 2022 IO conference, the 2023 IO conference released its first horizontal folding screen mobile phone (looks exactly the same as Find N2, can only be said to be very close). This at least shows that after four years of hard exploration by OEMs, Google has made a judgment: folding screen mobile phones should become the backbone of the Android ecosystem, and smartphones should have: straight plate machine, folding machine and large screen folding machine three forms.
In these three forms, the straight plate machine needless to say, the most easily accepted is obviously the starting price is relatively low, the manufacturing difficulty is slightly lower than the large screen, the use habits have not changed vertical folding screen mobile phone. OPPO's first vertically folded phone, the Find N2 Flip, is one of the best. At that time, when competing vertical folding products focused on the two points of vertical folding form and small fashion, OPPO made three innovations: external large screen, scene breakthrough and image breakthrough. As mentioned above, Jobs's logic of user research, in fact, at that time, few consumers would imagine what is the use of a vertical folding screen mobile phone outside a large screen, which is the difference in cognition. In this regard, manufacturers must have their own decisions and design logic, and prepare for a 3-inch large screen for the relevant experience. The Find N2 Flip did just that, and led the industry toward large-scale, practical and fun screens. Now the practical external screen of about 3 inches has become the standard in the industry, which is undoubtedly a new idea for the industry and consumers brought by Find N2 Flip.
Today's release of the new Find N3 Flip is based on the previous generation, for performance, image capabilities and external screen applications, has been deeply optimized, and developed a more fashionable and fresh folding gameplay. If the keywords of the vertical folding screen mobile phone more than half a year ago were: fashion, freshness and makeup mirror, then the keywords of Find N3 Flip must be: flagship performance, flagship portrait performance and flagship external screen scene breakthrough. The appearance of the whole machine inherits the overall design of the Find N2 Flip, but it has been polished more extreme on the CMF, making the quality and high-end sense of this machine at the top level in all the current vertical folding screens. In order to ensure basic performance, the Find N3 Flip adopts the MediaTek Dimensity 9200 performance three-piece set, which is very smooth and silky to use. OPPO's definition of this generation of vertical folding screen is called: light and easy to use, dedicated to filming. Lightweight and easy to use, this is the current direction of all vertical folding screen mobile phones, and the film is a bit of a breakthrough in the current product's circle of ability. After all, the size is limited, except for the next door, no manufacturer dares to focus on portrait capabilities on the vertical folding screen.
The OPPO Find N3 Flip features a new teardrop-shaped hinge, which allows the Find N3 Flip to stack more core components than the previous generation. In addition to the Dimensity 9200 components, the Find N3 Flip also adds a 4300 mAh battery, 44W Vooc flash charging and an all-round configuration with the IMX890 OIS/IMX709 medium focus portrait lens combination. This makes the Find N3 Flip almost impossible to find configuration flaws from all angles. In addition, unlike the separation of the upper and lower antennas of the straight plate machine, the vertically folded antenna group is folded similarly, which may cause certain interference. Find N3 Flip has redesigned the 5G antenna and WiFi antenna, and developed its own antenna patent: double-layer coupling enhancement technology, which recombines the antenna in the folded state into a whole to ensure signal quality. In addition, in the folded state, the double-layer antenna may encounter the death grip, and the Find N3 Flip has a folding anti-human antenna design to avoid the occurrence of the death grip.
The mobile phone industry plays CMF, OPPO must be one of the most professional manufacturers. Compared with the previous bland hinge color and material, this time OPPO has made a gorgeous surface treatment for the hinge of the Find N3 Flip: it has been finely carved at the hinge, showing the texture of water waves, full of texture. The upper and lower covers of this moonlight muse in my hand are very finely treated, like a bright moon in my hand. Surprisingly, the three-stage mute button inherited from OnePlus also appeared on the Find N3 Flip.
Entering the actual experience stage, let's take a look at the external screen design and scene of the OPPO Find N3 Flip. This is a 3.26-inch AMOLED screen called AnyWindow, with a resolution of 720*382 pixels, 60Hz refresh, and 900 nits peak brightness. The screen has several important application scenarios: pets, using their own photos as live wallpapers, theoretically supporting almost all APP display and applications on the external screen, covering entertainment, navigation, business and various APP.
In the personalization column, Find N3 Flip has a special external screen personalization, where you can set a lot of default cute pets. Of course, users can also design their own external screen display, including using their own photos as external screen live wallpaper.
Some Flip products were the first to support cute pets before, so Yuanyuan was not too excited. When we tried to use a live wallpaper with photos, it really poked the heart of the circle. The grainy portrait shot here using the CCD mode of the beauty camera called on the external screen is very shocking as a live wallpaper.
I often say that taking pictures depends on the user's exploration of beauty and the mood at that time, and it really doesn't matter what equipment you use. These two "deteriorated" CCD mode portraits, in this external screen scene, actually feel more impactful than serious portraits. This is the so-called image from the heart.
In addition to good-looking and interesting cute pets and dynamic portrait wallpapers, this arbitrary screen supports very complex operations and information display, and in theory it supports all APP cards:
Find N3 Flip is equipped with a bunch of application cards by default, including the common Little Red Book, Beauty Camera, AutoNavi Navigation, etc., and the CCD camera cards in WeChat, Alipay and Beauty Camera are pulled out separately and placed on the external screen, which is more convenient for users to use.
Find N3 Flip is a pure-blood Google GMS mobile phone, which also means that it not only supports the external screen cards of domestic Internet ecological APP, but also supports the external screen applications of most APP in the Google Play Store. In the external screen application configuration, you can find that this phone supports all installed applications, and recommends a bunch of OPPO optimized APP.
Conventional applications, weather, little red book and douyin, naturally there is no problem, brush douyin, brush little red book, watch the weather forecast, except for the screen dots, the actual experience is the same as everyday.
For navigation and Gmail, the Find N3 Flip is fine for now. Some people may say, how can you navigate and read emails on such a small screen? This kind of navigation is actually not suitable for driving, suitable for short-distance walking navigation, users can walk short distances to the target point without turning on the mobile phone. The mail app, in fact, is a quick browsing and reply scene, I often use Apple Watch to read emails and reply, much smaller than this, and no one expects to reply to long stories with an external screen.
Well, after talking about the application of the external screen scene, the next thing is the main play, whether the special folding screen announced by OPPO will work. Before we start the sample view, it's important to note that the Find N3 Flip inherits almost all the image features found in the Find X6 series: Pro XDR Photo and Display, Hasselblad Natural Color System, Hasselblad Masterstyle filters (Master Fairy Tale, Master Portrait and Master Landscape), Hasselblad XPan Ultra Wide Mode.
The image modules used are also polished by OPPO for two years: IMX890 OIS 24mm and IMX709 48mm, with a 48-megapixel ultra-wide-angle lens. Before looking at the portrait sample, let me jump to the conclusion: the Find N3 Flip is a portrait weapon with a very low threshold for portrait shooting, and OPPO's grasp of portraits under the Hasselblad color system is becoming more and more mature.
From the research of some manufacturers on users, it is true that a large number of girls are reluctant to use the default selfie lens, even if this lens and algorithm are done well, girls are willing to use the original camera to shoot in front of the mirror. This gives Flip products a good opportunity to break through: what will it be like if girls take selfies with a big bottom camera combined with a portrait algorithm in a comfortable scene? The experience is: no mirrors.... The Find N3 Flip can call the IMX890 and IMX709 for zoom shooting when taking selfies in any window.
The benefits are obvious, no mobile phone selfie lens can compare with the portrait quality of the rear portrait module, whether it is resolution, skin tone, noise reduction, edge imaging, color accuracy, the level of the rear module or far beyond the existence of the front selfie mirror.
The existence of any window gives Yuanyuan the space to express herself, and in her words: the Find N3 Flip selfie makes her feel more happy and more expressive than ever.
It is worth mentioning that any window can play an important role in the subject's calibration posture when others are holding mobile phones to shoot. There is a dual-screen simultaneous display function on the shooting interface, which liberates the boyfriend who cannot take pictures, and can also be used as a selfie mirror on a shelf, and shooting can be done with a countdown or voice control. The picture on the left is the CCD mode in the beauty camera. You can also use the external screen to calibrate the shooting attitude.
Speaking of the popular CCD camera and blur quality shooting mode, this actually makes many old mages not very understanding, this kind of portrait without image quality, light and shadow without light and shadow, what is there to see? Yuanyuan's answer to me is: this is called a mood portrait, and it has nothing to do with picture quality. Nowadays, OPPO has also brought the CCD mode to the Find N3 Flip, to be reasonable, the picture quality is much better than those CCD cameras bought from the Internet more than ten years ago, this kind of old photos, can indeed express a certain mood.
Sometimes, girls take pictures to talk about state of mind, not about picture quality and color. This kind of mood photo is very suitable as wallpaper or emoji, seemingly blurry and inferior quality, in front of the appropriate expression and mood, in fact, is not too important.
The CCD mode has been played, let's talk about something serious, what is the quality of the portrait film. This is a comparison of the sample in the Hasselblad portrait color, and the Find N3 Flip is a little heavier than the Find X6 Pro. OPPO's breakthrough direction in portraits in the past six months is color, skin tone, and body contour, all three of which are very good on the Find N3 Flip.
How to shoot how there is, this is my assessment of the Find N3 Flip's portrait performance. Especially in the interpretation of flying hair under high winds, as an engineering machine basically does not make mistakes, this is indeed worthy of praise. The blur control of the front and back scenes, the light and shadow portrayal and silhouette performance of the characters are all very good.
Even with backlit captures and street sweeps, the Find N3 Flip performed well. The sense of story and three-dimensional sense are depicted in place, which is the first echelon of portrait mobile phones in the industry.
For folding screen mobile phone products, the narrative method must not be to repeat the parameter table, but to convey what these products are used for, in which scenes they are better used, and more unique. After the industry solved the display problem and quality problem, OPPO put the design breakthrough point on the scene breakthrough and flagship image. From the actual experience of Find N3 Flip, the external screen application is becoming more and more mature, and the playability is getting higher and higher. The image capability has also made a leap compared to the previous generation, and it is a T0-level existence in the current vertical folding screen. This means that OPPO's Find N3 Flip has truly become the main product in the flagship sequence, and is no longer a test product for consumers to try early. Consumers' talk has also shifted from folding to unique scene experience. This is the unique value of Find N3 Flip, and it is also the foundation for OPPO to successfully break through in the field of folding screens. It can be seen that the high-performance, high-quality, flagship experience of Find N3 Flip will consolidate OPPO's industry position in the folding screen field, significantly enhance brand influence and high-end consumer reach.