Oppo has made the best foldable phone yet again

There are always some reasons people give for not buying a foldable phone. Some of them – price, battery life, camera quality – are mostly a matter of manufacturers balancing spec sheets to offset the extra cost of foldable devices. The other problems – durability and size – were practical design problems that were mostly solved. But the crease has always felt different and essential: something foldable devices can stick to no matter what.

It claims the Find N6 is the first foldable phone with a “zero” crease, a crease so subtle you’ll hardly know it’s there. And although there’s a hint of marketing hyperbole there, Oppo isn’t too far behind. The crease may not completely disappear, but it’s hard to imagine this version of it stopping anyone from buying a Find N6.

That wouldn’t be enough on its own, but the Find N6 also offers smart multitasking software, a slim design, stylus support, and impressive battery life. The cameras still feel like the major compromise you make when you buy this camera instead of one of these Find X9 traditional phones from Oppobut it’s up there with the best in other foldable devices. Overall, that makes this the best foldable phone on the market at the moment – ​​but only if you’re in one of the few countries where it’s sold, since the Find N6 is only available in China and a few other Asian countries, as well as Australia and New Zealand, with There is no US or European launch at all. In Australia, it will cost you AU$3,299 – about US$2,300.

I should start wrinkling. I wrote a few weeks ago about How Oppo achieved its semi-crinkle screenBut in short, it is used 3D liquid printing To fill in the gaps in the hinge itself, creating a more even surface to place the foldable screen on.

The result is very amazing. You can see the crease, but only when you tilt the phone just the right way so it captures the light completely; You can feel it, but only when you try, by running your finger back and forth across the central shaft and focusing on the sensation. The rest of the time, it may not be there. Hold the search for N6 next to it Honor recently announced the Magic V6,The crease is obviously less deep and more fine; next to The six-month-old Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold The difference is night and day.

The question is how important this really is. This wrinkle is clearly bothering a lot of potential foldable phone buyers, at least in theory. It’s always one of the first things people mention when considering a foldable device, or that friends look for when trying one of the things I review. The flip side is that the wrinkles became good enough a few years ago – it’s been a long time since I’ve actually been wrinkled annoyed While reviewing the phone, I usually forget it’s there within an hour or two of using the phone. In practice, Oppo has simply reduced this adjustment period to nearly zero, but this kind of change has the potential to push more people into purchasing foldable devices. I mean, not as much as Apple might do when it launches a foldable phone, but Android companies are still doing their best.

In fairness to Oppo, the foldable software has been around for a while, and it’s getting better. The company took home the award for best multitasking performance on any foldable phone for the split-screen options it implemented in previous Find N phones, along with OnePlus unlocked. The Find N6 builds on this with a new option to open up to four floating windows, which can be freely resized and dragged around the screen, each remaining active while open. With a few taps, you can switch it to the stricter split-screen view, allowing apps to share screen space equally, and then tap back to floating mode – where the phone remembers where you left each window every time. It’s an extra level of flexibility that no other foldable phone offers.

A new stylus called AI Pen has been designed specifically for the Find N6, and it works on both internal and external displays. Besides the usual note-taking and scribble options, it has a smart laser pointer mode that lets you draw bright red doodles that disappear after a few seconds. It is sold with a case for the N6 that includes a charging slot for the pen. The package costs AU$199 (about $140).

Elsewhere, the Find N6 takes after Look for N5my favorite foldable device of the past year. It’s roughly the same size – 8.93mm and 225g – making it thicker than the Honor Magic V6, the thinnest foldable phone, but roughly the same size as the Honor Magic V6. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7And thin like many flagships. That’s as thin as these phones have gotten until we get rid of the USB-C port.

Seven-core version of Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite 5th generation The phone runs on it, and missing a core didn’t affect performance in any meaningful way — it ran at 60fps Diablo Immortal A session without even warm-ups, although I’m sure the most demanding games will be able to find their limits. It comes with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, which is enough for both.

The 6,000 mAh silicon-carbon battery is another significant upgrade from last year’s phone. It’s enough that I frequently go to bed with about 50 percent charge remaining, even on days with heavy use of the 8.12-inch internal display, but I don’t trust that to last two full days without a power bank on hand. It charges quickly, at up to 80W using Opp’s SuperVooc charger, though it’s limited to 55W on global PPS chargers. The 50W wireless charging also assumes you’re using an Oppo charging pad, otherwise Qi speeds will be much slower – and there’s no magnetic support for Qi2 unfortunately.

The other slight downside is durability: IP56, 58, 59, which indicates great water resistance but less dust protection than the latest foldables from Google and Honor, despite an upgrade from the Find N5, which had no dust protection at all. The triple rear camera, with a 200-megapixel main lens, 50-megapixel ultra-wide lenses, and 3x telephoto lenses, is great compared to other foldable phones, but it still doesn’t represent a corrective to what Oppo offers in its flagship phones like the Find X9 series. This difference is mostly noticeable at night, when it has difficulty properly exposing bright light sources. I don’t want to overstate this point, for a foldable phone the camera system is excellent, but if you spent half the amount on a feature phone, it would be better at photography than this.

Of course, this phone will not fold. If you were committed to getting a foldable phone and could afford the Find N6, that would be my choice now. The screen looks great, the battery life is impressive, and the multitasking software is unparalleled. If Apple is rumored iPhone fold Arriving in September as expected, it will be hard to improve on this.

Photography by Dominic Preston/The Verge