Winners and losers 2022: Oppo

Another twelve months behind us, and Oppo once again remains among the leaders in the world of smartphones. It announced a custom NPU called MariSilicon X in the final days of 2021, but it wasn’t until this year that it hit smartphones.

Oppo unveiled foldables, regular flagships, and plenty of mid-rangers. Here are the Oppo Wallet winners and losers for 2022.

Winner and loser: Oppo Find N2

The new foldable looks a lot like the predecessor, but seeing how the Find N had arguably the best hardware among horizontal foldables isn’t bad news. Oppo has kept what was great with the Find N and added several major improvements to create an even more refined product.

Oppo Find N2 has almost the same footprint as its predecessor, but it’s a much lighter smartphone with better displays, cameras and handling.

The Find N2 ditched wireless charging in its quest for lightness, but it makes up for it with the fastest wired speeds in its class. It’s powered by a powerful Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset, and the cameras are pretty solid too.

Still, the Find N2 remains linked to China, which is really disappointing. Oppo has shown it can make a foldable phone that can take the fight to Samsung, but we have yet to see if it can pull it off at scale. Here’s hoping his 2023 successor takes the final step.

Winner: MariSilicon X NPU

Oppo is a company that prides itself on its innovations, and the internal NPU is responsible for boosting camapre’s performance, especially on the video side. It is a chip built on the 6nm process, which brings up to 18 TOPS of computing power and brings terrific videos in low-light environment, as well as backlit portrait videos.

We were able to use several phones with MariSilicon X and were impressed with the color accuracy in the dark.

Oppo also unveiled MariSilicon Y during its Inno Day in mid-December, but it’s not a successor to the X; it’s a completely different chip, dedicated to delivering better audio performance over Bluetooth. If it will work as expected, we have to wait until 2023 and see.

Loser: Oppo Find X5 Pro

Oppo’s 2022 mainstream flagship is a great device on its own. However, when we step back and look at the big picture, the Find X5 Pro is a minor upgrade over its predecessor, the Find X3 Pro from 2021. Oppo hasn’t fixed the underperforming 2x telephoto lens. , despite the fact, there was a 5x camera in the Find X2 Pro 2020.

The starting price of €1,300 in Europe was a little too ambitious and although a price reduction to €999 was eventually available at select retailers, it came a little late and with limited marketing spend, the phone n has never reached its potential in the West.

Loser: Oppo Reno8 Pro

The Reno8 Pro is known in China as the Reno8 Pro+, but it’s not the confusing naming that earns it a place among the losers. The phone was launched at an extraordinarily high price at home and abroad, making it a tough recommendation.

The phone is great, but in the crowded world of midrangers it barely stands out. It has no official input protection, no microSD slot, and no 3.5mm audio jack. Oppo’s services and accessories aren’t as widely available as they are at home, which also limits user value.

Winner: Oppo Reno9 Pro+

The Reno series is the company’s most popular range internationally. The recently announced Reno9 Pro+ has already debuted in China and, on the face of it, is a more worthy addition to the series than its predecessor. So once abroad, it can cause serious headaches for Xiaomi and Samsung.

The Reno9 Pro+ comes with 80W charging, a 50MP main camera with a Sony IMX800 sensor, and even the MariSilicon X NPU. The phone is powered by a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset and comes in a super cool mint color option – there’s a lot going for it.

Loser: Oppo Reno7 Lite/F21 5G

We reviewed a phone in June called the Reno7 Lite. It comes with a Snapdragon 695 chipset, a 64MP main camera and an RGB ring around the cameras, brilliant for notifications and charging progress. It’s a thin, light and attractive device with one big caveat – it comes with four different names globally. And that doesn’t help consumers at all.

Oppo Reno7 Lite • Oppo Reno7 Z 5G • Oppo F21 Pro 5G • Oppo Reno8 Lite

The Oppo Reno7 Lite 5G, also called Oppo Reno7 Z 5G, also called Oppo F21 Pro 5G, also called Oppo Reno8 Lite 5G is expensive, in addition to the confusing naming scheme.

It comes with older Android 11 in all markets, the display is only 60Hz, the speaker isn’t loud at all, and the camera setup isn’t impressive. There are more attractive alternatives in almost every market.

Winner: ColorOS 13

The days of bloated software that put Oppo devices at a disadvantage outside the home market are long gone. The Guangdong company listened to its fans and consumers and further improved its feature-rich ColorOS 13 user interface.

The operating system will reach the devices and bring them not only the latest user interface, but also the latest Android 13, which other Chinese competitors often struggle with.

ColorOS 13 comes with smoother animations that even include behavioral prediction for user action – that’s pretty impressive; the manufacturer clearly wants its users to feel welcome when using an Oppo smartphone for a long period of time.

The AOD feature has gotten more customizations, the control center has been revamped, and we have to mention the special Spotify widget that allows more control over playback on the audio streaming platform from the locked screen. Oppo has done a great job with ColorOS 13, and we’re pretty positive about what we’ll see in the future.

Special mention: New strategic partnership with OnePlus

Everything new is old forgotten, Grandmother said. OnePlus was born out of Oppo and lived its own life for quite a while, despite the fact that the two brands shared manufacturing plants, R&D resources and suppliers.

Until that is no longer the case. OnePlus fully embraced ColorOS in China, ditching Hydrogen OS, which was based on the same kernel after all, and in the final weeks of 2022 the brands held a joint event, announcing a “new strategic partnership”.

The joint venture will see Oppo invest the equivalent of $1.4 billion in OnePlus over the next three years and will maintain a “dual-brand strategy”. That is to say, we will still see smartphones shipping under both brands even though they will be more closely linked than before.

Ultimately, this decision may not amount to much, but it’s always good to clarify and put certain product releases and marketing decisions into context.