Oppo’s Find N6 might be the foldable of your dreams

Oppo is back with another high-end foldable phone that you may never see out of the hands of a tech journalist. The Find N6 is its new sub-9mm device heading to Asian markets and, for now, few other places. This means no availability in the US or Europe. So why write about it? With its build quality, hardware specs, and camera lineup, not only is it a very good phone, but it’s also proof that another device maker can match Samsung’s dominance in flagship foldable phones.

Material

Oppo is obsessed with the foldable. More than me, more than most of you, probably more than he should. A central point of his presentation last month in London detailed all the efforts that went into his “sensationless fold”. The idea is that you can’t really feel where the device bends, with 3D liquid printing and laser scanning being used to precisely fill the hinge surface. The company claims this reduces hinge height variation from 0.2mm to just 0.05mm.

Oppo has improved the glass used on the foldable display, and according to TÜV Rheinland testing (again), the Find N6 reduces long-term crease formation by up to 82% compared to last year’s Oppo model. It apparently takes a lot of engineering to create a foldable that looks intact for longer. It’s certainly still early, but after a few weeks of use, the crease seems noticeably shallower than other devices, especially the older Find N5. However, there is always a fold. You may not feel it as much, but you can see it.

Despite this particular obsession, this is another incredibly thin foldable, measuring 8.93mm (0.35 inches) thick. This means that, folded, it looks roughly equivalent to most typical smartphone form factors. For reference, the iPhone 17 Pro is 8.75mm (0.34 inches) thick. Even with its slim profile, it also offers enhanced protection with IP59 certification against dust and water. The new foldable also features a new custom hardware button, like the Find X9, which can be assigned to launch the camera, change the sound profile, and other quick-action settings.

The screens have the same size and resolution as its predecessor: a 6.62-inch front screen and an 8.12-inch interior screen. There have been notable improvements here too. Maximum brightness has been increased to 3,500 nits on the front display and 2,500 nits on the foldable display, making them brighter than on Oppo’s latest foldable, but behind Motorola’s latest brightest foldable.

The Find N6 also has another custom 7-core Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor – the flagship processor of the moment. Perhaps the most impressive spec is the battery: a massive 6,000mAh silicon-carbon power pack. That’s 400 mAh more than the Find N5 and 1,600 mAh more than the ZFold 7. And counting: doing a battery test on the front screen while playing a non-stop video lasted just under 30 hours, while using the larger internal screen still lasted 24 hours.

Another area where Samsung outperforms Samsung is in charging speeds, supporting SUPERVOOC wired charging at up to 80W via Oppo’s proprietary adapter and up to 55W with other high-power chargers. There’s also 50W AIRVOOC wireless charging – again, only if you have Oppo’s particular flavor of wireless charger, which I don’t. Unfortunately, there are no Qi2/PixelSnap/MagSafe docking magnets.

The cameras

Oppo has made major camera improvements with several features introduced on the Find X9, which are now making their way to its foldables. There’s a new 200-megapixel main camera with an f/1.8 lens and a new 50 MP ultra-wide camera that lets in 50% more light. The telephoto camera captures 50MP images, with 3X periscope optical zoom and telemacro focus up to 10cm. All three cameras also support Dolby Vision 4K video capture at 60fps, with the main sensor also capable of recording at 120fps.

Oppo’s new foldable features cameras that rival those in Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold series. The addition of the high-resolution 200 MP main sensor adds more detail to images and more versatility too. The company continues to collaborate with Hasselblad on camera hardware and software. A new Hi-Res mode that captures still images using each sensor’s total pixel count, while other shooting modes from previous devices are still there. This includes Hasselblad Master mode, with full control over camera settings and the iconic XPAN mode for 65:24 panoramic photos and videos.

While I was already impressed with Oppo’s recent Find X9, the Find N6 still surprised me. It’s versatile, consistent, and it’s almost the best foldable camera phone — if only its telephoto lens matched the Pixel 10 Pro Fold’s 5x zoom.

Software

When it comes to multitasking, the Find N6 really wants to deliver, even if the end result is a bit messy. You can run one application in full screen, while three Free-Flow windows each run a different application or web page, all simultaneously. Every window is interactive and it almost immediately gave me a stress headache. Oppo has integrated a swipe and pinch system to make navigation easier, but I would say that even an 8.1-inch screen is not enough for all these windows. Still, for the true power user, there’s plenty to take advantage of. If you’re the type of person who bounces between work chats in Slack, your calendar, and lots of Chrome tabs, this phone is for you.

Oppo wasn’t done with bona fide productivity. It has added a new stylus to its foldable series, which comes with its own case/case that attaches to the back of the Find N6. In most cases this would make a big foldable too bulky, but the base phone is so thin it’s passable. The case also serves as a charging stand allowing the stylus to be charged via reverse wireless charging. I’m not a big stylus user, but for those who miss the S Pen, it’s an option if you live in a country where it’s sold.

The stylus, officially called the Oppo AI Pen (I hate that name), has a button to summon a palette of tools and features on screen. A double press of the button allows you to switch between writing and erasing, which is quite practical. Screenless note-taking will apparently arrive in a later software update.

Oppo also continues to bridge ecosystems with iPhone Connect, which adds AirDrop-style file sharing to Apple phones. Remote PC control is still a nice feature, making the Find N6 a small pocket PC, if you want to work on your laptop via a small screen.

Conclude

This is another impressive foldable from Oppo, which unfortunately most people will never be able to buy. What’s stopping Oppo from testing the waters outside of Asia? The Find N6 is an incredibly powerful and technically impressive device. What is Oppo afraid of?

The foldable will arrive in silver and orange, although the latter will be a little more discreet than I hoped. For now, Oppo is launching the Find N6 on March 20 in China, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, and other Asian territories. The company just announced that prices will start at ¥9,999 in China (around $1,450), with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.