Oppo Discover X6 Professional: A fantastic telephone which you could't purchase

Verdict

The Oppo Discover X6 Professional is a superb telephone with top-of-the-line digicam experiences on an Android telephone. You get a fantastic and vivid show, stable efficiency, nice battery life, and tremendous fast charging. It’s solely held again by the dearth of a world launch. It’s a China-exclusive telephone and runs the Chinese language model of Oppo’s software program, which makes it each tough to purchase and use.

Introduction

Oppo has been making some unbelievable telephones for some time now. Similar to its now sub-brand OnePlus, Oppo has a Hasselblad collaboration happening. The Oppo Discover X6 Professional is a satisfying end result of this cross-branding method and fairly presumably one of the best digicam expertise you’ll discover on an Android telephone in 2023.

The issue? The Oppo Discover X6 Professional is formally out there solely in China, beginning at RMB 5,999 ($862/£692) for the 12GB/256GB mannequin, RMB 6,499 ($934/£750) for the 16GB/256GB mannequin, and RMB 6,999 ($1006/£807) for the 16GB/512GB mannequin. Color choices embody brown (vegan leather-based), inexperienced, and black.

It has the chops to go up in opposition to the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S23 Extremely, packing in very good {hardware} and blazing-fast charging. It’s operating the Chinese language model of Oppo’s ColorOS, which suggests it doesn’t ship with Google apps, although they are often side-loaded. Regardless, the telephone’s software program is geared towards the Chinese language market, which appears to be the one factor holding it again.

The Oppo Discover X6 is one of the best flagship telephone we have now seen from Oppo but, and a major enchancment over final yr’s improbable Oppo Discover X5 Professional – it’s only a disgrace it’s not getting a world launch.

Design and Display screen

• Curved LTPO3 AMOLED with 2,500 nits peak brightness
• Enticing design and color choices
• IP68 water and dirt resistance

The Oppo Discover collection has all the time had nice designs, and the Discover X6 Professional isn’t any totally different. Provided that the main focus this time is on the digicam, you get a large digicam bump in the back of the Discover X6 Professional. It’s centred, although, so there’s no wobble you get with uneven digicam bumps. The digicam bump is part of this telephone’s character, and it’s a private favorite of mine. 

The color choices are additionally among the greatest we have now seen from Oppo but. You get the basic black with a shimmer harking back to the long-lasting sandstone colourway of the long-lasting OnePlus One. Then there’s the flagship brown color, which comes with a vegan leather-based again versus the usual Gorilla Glass 5 and is definitely one of many best-looking colourways I’ve seen on an Android telephone. 

My evaluate unit was the inexperienced choice, which is extra of a wealthy teal color, and appears smooth, particularly with the shiny colour-matched body and a curved show. Oppo additionally features a colour-matched shell case within the field with a vegan leather-based again, so you will get that leather-based really feel whatever the color you decide.

The display screen on the Discover X6 Professional is good. It’s a 2K 6.82-inch show, and Oppo guarantees a peak brightness of two,500 nits outdoor. The show is an LTPO3 AMOLED, with a most refresh price of 120Hz. The display screen can get actually vivid outdoor and has nice visibility. I didn’t take a look at the precise brightness determine, but it surely was constantly beating my Google Pixel 7 Professional by a substantial margin when outdoor.

The colors are nice, and you’ll choose your most well-liked color type from the settings. Content material consumption on this show was an absolute pleasure.

Not all people will just like the curved display screen, however I didn’t discover it to hinder my expertise at any given level in my utilization. I like curved screens, and Oppo’s palm rejection and gestures for navigation labored actually easily for me. The design of the Oppo Discover X6 Professional marries kind and performance, and the curved display screen is part of that.

The Gorilla Glass Victus 2 safety ought to relieve a minimum of a few of your drop anxiousness. IP68 water and dirt resistance can also be thrown in for good measure.

Digicam

• 1-inch sort main digicam sensor
• Strong zoom efficiency
• Constant efficiency throughout all modes

The cameras on the Oppo Discover X6 Professional steal the present. It’s clear that Oppo meant this to be a camera-first telephone, and the telephone delivers on the promise. I’m not somebody who takes a ton of images normally, however in my three weeks of testing the Oppo Discover X6 Professional, I ended up taking on 750 images. The digicam outputs some tantalisingly good photos.

A part of the digicam expertise comes from the truth that Oppo has used a 1-inch sensor for the first digicam. It’s the biggest sensor you will get on a telephone, with 1.6µm pixel measurement. The principle digicam takes some improbable photographs in each mode and lighting situation. Photographs taken within the daylight are crisp, with stable element, punchy however not oversaturated colors, and stable HDR processing.

What the Oppo Discover X6 Professional’s major digicam does very well is portraits. I’m not referring particularly to the portrait mode, however images the place individuals (or animals) are the first topics. I obtained so many nice portrait photographs with the Discover X6 Professional. It frames the topic completely, capturing a stable quantity of element, whereas the depth of focus brings in a wholesome quantity of background blur. 

The devoted portrait mode is among the many greatest I’ve seen on an Android telephone as effectively, with the sting detection coming in good. Low mild efficiency is spectacular, too, and the telephone usually didn’t even have to kick within the night time mode to have the ability to seize good images in decrease mild situations.

For the ultrawide and periscope telephoto, Oppo makes use of equivalent sensors. They’re not fairly as large because the 1-inch main sensor, however all three share a 50MP decision. This makes for higher consistency throughout the three sensors.

The zoom efficiency on the Discover X6 Professional is great. There’s a 2.8x optical zoom with Oppo’s digicam app offering 3x and 6x zoom steps, and the digital zoom goes as much as 120x.

Zoom images are nice, particularly as much as the 6x step. Particulars are maintained, and you’ll hardly inform that the photographs are digitally zoomed. As is the case with optical zoom, there are diminishing returns, with the outcomes getting worse, particularly previous 15x. 

Nevertheless, general, the zoom efficiency is among the many greatest you will get on an Android telephone. Macro photographs are additionally fairly respectable, though the digicam not remembering my choice to show off auto macro mode was a tad annoying at occasions.

Video efficiency is on par with the remainder of the digicam expertise. My solely criticism could be the shift in color temperature whereas zooming out and in. Whereas it’s not as jarring as on most different telephones I’ve used, I’d have most well-liked the tone to be maintained.

The selfie digicam can also be fairly stable and on par with one of the best. Magnificence filters are at play, however you may modify the depth (right down to zero) to get the proper shot. The entrance digicam can solely do 1080p@30fps video recording, however the output footage is fairly good.

Software program and efficiency

• Chinese language model of ColorOS based mostly on Android 13
• Strong all-round efficiency
• GPU closely throttles below sustained masses

The Oppo Discover X6 Professional comes with top-notch {hardware}. You get a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip, which is one of the best smartphone chipset you will get in Android units proper now. Moreover, the storage on board is the blazing-fast UFS 4.0 and 12- or 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM. All of that implies that this telephone is simply as responsive in common utilization as it’s below extra intense workloads, like gaming.

Day-to-day efficiency on the Oppo Discover X6 Professional is as fast because it will get on a cellular machine proper now. I skilled nearly no lag. In benchmarks, nevertheless, this telephone underperformed barely in comparison with present flagships. I didn’t really feel the telephone warmth up an excessive amount of in any respect, which is an enchancment from many last-gen units on the very least.

I attempted enjoying Fortnite on the Discover X6 Professional and the efficiency appeared fairly stable – I didn’t really feel a drop in efficiency that affected the expertise an excessive amount of. Nevertheless, 3DMark’s Wildlife Stress Check confirmed a major drop in efficiency over its 20-minute stress take a look at, which means this telephone will not be the only option for extra critical players.

The software program on the Oppo Discover X6 Professional is a little bit of a double-edged sword. It’s operating the Chinese language model of ColorOS 13.1, based mostly on Android 13. Whereas we’ve praised ColorOS on different Oppo smartphones, the Discover X6 Professional’s flaws principally come from the truth that this telephone is operating software program tailor-made for the Chinese language market. 

Admittedly, Google Apps have been very straightforward to put in, and uninstalling the China-specific apps was pretty easy, apart from a number of situations like HeyTap Cloud that are baked into the system. Some software program quirks are additionally current, like having to enter your password any time an app desires to ship an SMS for verification. 

My largest situation with the telephone is that as a consequence of being a Chinese language mannequin, it has some world necessities lacking. An instance is Android Auto, which must be a system app in an effort to perform. You can’t set up apps as system apps, which suggests you can be locked out of some apps.

It additionally has an overly-aggressive background optimisation course of that may unnecessarily kill apps and cease notifications from coming by way of – one other large limitation of the China-focused software program in comparison with its worldwide various.

Can you employ the Oppo Discover X6 Professional for day-to-day use largely with out situation? Positive, however you’ll probably get irritated by the constraints and different oddities of the China-focused software program. I’d advocate most Android customers look elsewhere for this straightforward purpose, and that’s a little bit of a disgrace.

Elsewhere, the audio on this telephone is fairly nice with a stereo speaker system. The sound output is loud and crisp, and the in-call sound is crystal clear. Oppo additionally has an Energetic Privateness Safety implementation for voice calls, which reduces the sound leakage from the earpiece drastically. 

Battery life

• All-day battery life
• 100W SuperVOOC charging
• 50W wi-fi charger

The battery life on the Oppo Discover X6 is great. Throughout my utilization, the telephone comfortably delivered all-day battery life. The 5000mAh battery, coupled with the effectivity of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, is sufficient to get you thru a day after which some. I ended most days with 20-25% juice remaining. Even on camera-heavy days, the telephone managed to carry up very well. 

I take advantage of my telephone very recurrently, however the utilization normally features a mild workload, principally texting and scrolling utilizing Telegram, Instagram, and Twitter, fairly a little bit of net looking utilizing Chrome, and a few emailing through Gmail, along with rare calls. The Discover X6 Professional served me effectively over a three-week interval that included 5 flights in a single week and didn’t die on me even as soon as. The benchmarks replicate the battery effectivity of this telephone.

The one time I managed to run down the battery of the Discover X6 Professional was once I travelled for a piece project that included numerous images and a few videography. That’s the place the ultra-fast charging got here in. 

Oppo bundles this telephone with a 100W SuperVOOC charger, which might fully prime up the telephone in about half an hour. The superb battery life and fast charging made this telephone an ideal journey companion. The fast charging does heat up the telephone a bit, particularly when you’re in a spot the place the ambient warmth is on the upper facet, but it surely was by no means uncomfortable to carry. You additionally get 50W wi-fi charging, which is among the many quickest on Android telephones.