🌄 Good morning, Daily Authority readers. We’re just a few weeks away from MWC 2023, one of the largest mobile tech shows in the world. Our team will be on ground to get you the latest and greatest from the show floor, but the spate of new smartphone launches has already begun. Today’s feature is about Oppo’s first flip foldable, and it looks like we may have a winner on our hands. Can it outdo Samsung? Here are some excerpts from our review.

Oppo Find N2 Flip reviewed

Oppo has launched its Galaxy Z Flip 4 competitor for the global market. The Find N2 Flip is the company’s first clamshell foldable phone, and it actually does a few things better than its Samsung counterpart. For one, it folds flatter, which means less creasing. The phone also gets a much larger, more usable cover display. It even matches Samsung’s industry-leading update commitment with a promise of four years of OS upgrades and five years of security patches. Here’s what we thought of the Find N2 Flip.

Things we liked about the Find N2 Flip

• Oppo’s got the foldable part of the flip phone right in the first attempt. The UTG display is durable, and there’s no discernable creasing, which is all thanks to Oppo’s waterdrop hinge.
• “The screen is a joy to use and you quickly forget you’re using a foldable when engrossed in a doom scroll,” writes Android Authority‘s Robert Triggs.
• The large cover screen gives up a lot of information, including messages, weather, and other notifications, without opening up the phone. It can even help you frame selfies and take you right to the apps you need to see when you unfold the handset.
• ColorOS 13 is vibrant, helpful and highly customizable, helping you really make the phone your own.
• The performance of the MediaTek Dimensity 9000 Plus phone is equally good. Multitasking is effortless and the battery easily lasts through a full day of activity.
• The long-term update policy really ties everything together with a nice bow.

Things Oppo can improve

• The IPX4 rating, for example, is below what you’ll find on Samsung’s foldables.
• Corning Gorilla Glass 5 might be tough, but it’s old and less durable than the latest Gorilla Glass Victus 2.
• The cover screen does not rotate to match the phone’s orientation. It also doesn’t have a keyboard, amongst some other limitations.
• The charging on the phone is fast, but it peaks at just 26W despite OPPO’s claims of a 44W draw. The Find N2 Flip takes 25 minutes to a 50% charge and 64 minutes to a full charge. It’s still faster than the Galaxy Z Flip 4 which takes 80 minutes for a full charge with a smaller battery.
• Want to learn more about how fast charging works? Check out our fast-charging explainer here.
• Meanwhile, the fingerprint scanner on the Find N2 Flip occasionally failed to unlock the cover screen.
• The phone also lacks Wi-Fi 6E support, something the company could have easily added to future-proof the phone.

How is the camera on the Oppo Find N2 Flip?

• The are many great camera phones around, but the Oppo Find N2 Flip isn’t up there with them.
• While the 50MP IMX 890 sensor color-tuned by Hasselblad does a decent job, the 8MP ultrawide shooter is prehistoric.
• You’ll readily spot chromatic aberration, a drop in color details at the lens edges.
• The lack of dynamic range makes it worse. Shadows are far too black, lending an even heavier dose of contrast to ultrawide captures.
• The photos from the ultrawide shooter might pass off on social media but that’s about it.
• That said, the Find N2 Flip’s portrait game is exceptional thanks to the cover screen.

What’s our verdict on the Oppo Find N2 Flip? Read our full review of the phone and find out.

Roundup

📱 Samsung has made an official list of phones getting One UI 5.1 (Android Authority).

🌐 Meanwhile, Qualcomm has launched a new modem that’ll give your future smartphone better battery life (Android Authority)

📷 MediaTek also has a new smartphone chip that supports 200MP cameras in affordable phones (Android Authority).

🤖 Over at the ChatGPT side of things, Bing search with the powerful AI could be headed to Chrome (Android Authority).

🎧 This new smartwatch pops open to reveal tiny wireless earbuds (Android Authority).

⌚ Here’s a closer look at how the Pixel Watch’s upcoming fall detection feature will work (9to5Google).

🗒️ Want to know more about the Pixel Watch? Here’s a guide (Android Authority).

🔥 Here’s your first look at the internals of the PlayStation VR 2 (PlayStation Blog).

👓 From VR to MR: Apple is reportedly planning to launch its hyped-up Mixed Reality headset in June (Bloomberg).

🎮 Oh hey! You can now control your Xbox with the Google Home app (Microsoft).

Thursday Things

• Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Well, it’s kinda both. Researchers are stuffing drones into taxidermy birds to build dead bird bots (via PopSci).
• A recent project courtesy of Mostafa Hassanalian and their fellow New Mexico Tech colleagues put the peculiar idea to the test.
• The team designed new systems reliant on taxidermy bird parts and artificial wing setups.
• They build two bird bots — one fusing artificial body parts with an actual pheasant’s head and feathers, and another with a mechanical body combined with real pigeon wings.
• The feathery drones can glide, hover in place, and soar higher on hot thermal currents.
• The research team’s paper notes that future models could hypothetically be used as spy drones for military use.
• However, the foremost goal, according to researchers is of “developing a nature-friendly drone concept for wildlife monitoring.”

On that note, here’s me signing off.

Have a nice day,

Adamya Sharma, Editor.