OPPO Find N3 launched with huge hardware upgrades and a major focus on software

Omdia view

Summary

The new OPPO Find N3 adopts current mainstream foldable trends, abandoning the previous generation’s shorter “chubby” design, with the entire phone slimmer when folded.

OPPO Find N3 specifications

The Find N3 is the third-generation fold-type smartphone from OPPO since they launched their first foldable smartphone in December 2021, the Find N, which had a unique screen size (7.1-inch inner display and 5.49-inch second display) compared to others. As such, the Find N looked more “mini” than other foldable smartphones. The Find N broke the record for the lowest starting price for a fold-type foldable smartphone at ¥7,699 ($1,053).

OPPO had maintained the same display size for its second-generation foldable smartphone but has now entirely changed the design for the Find N3, following mainstream design trends and aspect ratio.

The specifications for the Find N3 are as follows:

• Inner display: 7.82-inch foldable LTPO3 OLED, with 2268x2440 resolution and 120Hz refresh rate
• Second display: 6.31-inch LTPO3 OLED, with 1116x2484 resolution and 120Hz refresh rate
• Dimensions:
  • Unfolded: 153.4mm x 143.1mm x 5.8mm
  • Folded: 153.4mm x 73.3mm x 11.7mm
• Weight:
  • 239g (vegan leather back)
  • 245g (glass back)
• Chipset: Qualcomm SM8550-AB Snapdragon 8 Gen 2
• Memory: 12GB RAM + 512GB ROM/16GB RAM + 1TB ROM
• Price: ¥9,999 ($1,399)/¥12,999 ($1,820)

Table 1: OPPO’s foldable smartphone specifications

Notes: The leather-back variant is lighter, while the glass-back variant is heavier.

Source: Omdia

Compared with the last generation, the Find N3 has several upgrades in hardware:

• The smartphone body dimensions (5.8mm and 11.7mm thick when unfolded or folded, respectively) have decreased to 1.6mm and 2.9 mm, respectively, making it more comfortable to hold.
• The display sees the biggest upgrade, with a larger screen, higher resolution, and higher peak brightness. The aspect ratio joins mainstream foldable smartphone designs, dropping the 9:8.4 “golden” ratio OPPO previously used for a roughly square 1:1.08 inner display.
• The camera module is another important upgrade. Using the “folded pixel” image sensor, the Find N3 achieves a leap in pixel photon capacity with the help of a larger double-layer transistor structure. It is also the first to have a 3X periscope and ultrawide-angle camera.

But with the larger display, the Find N3’s weight has increased compared to the Find N2, with a similar increase in price, starting from ¥9,999 ($1,367), meaning it is now ¥2,000 ($273.4) more expensive than the previous generation.

OPPO leads foldable smartphone shipments among Chinese brands in the first half of 2023

OPPO has always participated actively in the foldable smartphone market, launching both fold- and flip-type foldable smartphones. According to Omdia’s Smartphone Model Market Tracker – 2Q23 Database, OPPO accounted for 19.24% of the global foldable smartphone market in the first half of the year, making it the second-biggest foldable smartphone player behind Samsung, which has 34.17% market share.

Looking just at Chinese brands, OPPO led in the first half of 2023 for foldables, followed by Huawei with a 19.04% market share. OPPO launched the Find N3 Flip at the end of August, with the Find N3 coming in mid-October. Compared with the previous product update cycle, OPPO is shortening its upgrade cycle, indicating that OPPO values this market.

Figure 1: Foldable smartphone market share in 1H23 Source: Omdia

Chinese brands are becoming more aggressive in foldable smartphone innovations

Foldable smartphones have gone through three stages of development so far.

The first stage is to solve reliability. Folding tests have increased over the past few years from 200,000 to 300,000 times to 400,000 to 500,000 times. Now, OPPO reports that the Find N3 has passed the 1 million folds test and has added enhanced reliability in ultra-low temperature environments. The crease issue has also been mostly resolved with the adoption of the waterdrop hinge, widely used in foldable smartphones.

Now, foldable smartphones are moving to the second stage, which is solving the issue of portability. Smartphone makers, especially Chinese companies, are trying very hard to reduce the thickness and weight of foldable smartphones by using new materials and fewer parts to make lighter hinges and high-density ultra-thin batteries. The thinnest foldable smartphones now feel like a regular bar smartphone when folded, often with the same weight.

Next, smartphone brands will have to move to a third stage of innovation: software. In particular, brands must fully utilize the two advantages of folding screens—the bigger view and how it can be used for gaming and entertainment, and multitasking on the larger screen. Smartphone companies have only begun to find some use cases, enabling foldable smartphones to integrate better with laptops and tablets to take on some of their functions. Every brand has different approaches, and with the Find N3, multitasking using a scrollable app dashboard makes the phone stand out.

The final and biggest stage of development foldable smartphones will have to go through—and the hardest—is price. Until these phones are in the same range as other premium phones, consumers will find it hard to justify spending the extra $500+ just for a second, larger screen.

Table 2: Foldable smartphone specification comparison by brand

Notes: The leather-back variant is lighter, while the glass-back variant is heavier.

Source: Omdia

The foldable smartphone market should see a steady increase in the next few years.

In the beginning, the Samsung Z Fold, the first-ever foldable, gave Samsung a lead in the foldable smartphone shipment. Samsung has largely maintained this lead, accounting for 78.6% of the market share in 2022; combining the market share of all Chinese companies only accounted for 21.4%.

However, this could all be about to change. In the first half of this year, Samsung accounted for only 34.7%, dropping almost half from 66.7% over the same period in the previous year. Chinese companies are quickly catching up by increasing their production plans, generation by generation, and launching flip-type foldable smartphones.

Major companies such as Honor and Xiaomi are also preparing to publish flip-type foldable smartphones next year and, at the same time, increase their foldable smartphone production plan on single projects while shortening the release cycle of new products.

As such, the foldable smartphone market will be driven by Chinese companies in 2024—it is no longer only Samsung’s game. Considering that most foldable phones from Chinese companies go to the domestic market, the competition is about to become very fierce.

Appendix

Further reading

Smartphone Model Market Tracker – 2Q23 Database (August 2023)

Author

Zaker Li, Principal Analyst, Mobile Device

[email protected]