OPPO Find N6 review: Flat out great

People who love foldables tend to really love foldables. I’ve spoken to countless devotees who simply wouldn’t go back to a conventional “slab” smartphone. There’s more to this than just anecdote, however. A few years back, a Samsung Australia executive told me the company’s data showed that people who bought a foldable often upgraded to another.

At the same time, foldables are still a niche proposition. Book-style devices sit at the very top of the smartphone hierarchy in terms of price, while also having form-factor-related compromises. These have been sanded away over the last few years, but the OPPO Find N6 is easily the most polished take on a foldable to date. It doesn’t solve the issue of affordability, but it could be the foldable that makes you fall in love with one.

Increased appeal

A display “crease” has been an enduring issue with foldables to date; the most visible compromise made by the form factor. A crease might not change how a device performs or a screen functions, but it’s an aesthetic bugbear. With the Find N6, OPPO has all but eliminated the crease of the phone’s internal 8.12-inch display.

You might notice a slight crease if you’re looking at the phone at an extreme angle in certain light, but otherwise, the Find N6 appears creaseless. After a week of testing, I still worry that I’m folding the phone the wrong way. OPPO has also reduced the physical feel of the crease to the point it may as well not be there. While the crease on most foldable phones has a different texture to the rest of the screen, the Find N6 display is practically seamless.

As a display nerd, I’m a big fan of these upgrades. I’m too aware of imperfections in screens, and the crease in foldable displays has always been a bit off-putting. With the Find N6, I’ve found myself using it unfolded more than other similar devices, and I’d chalk a lot of that up to the better screen.

While the creaseless display is the big drawcard here, the Find N6’s 6.62-inch front display is just as nice as the larger internal screen, with matching LPTO technology and a 120Hz refresh rate. The screens are paired with a thin and (comparatively) light. The Find N6 is 8.93mm when folded up, or 4.2mm at its thinnest point unfolded, and it weighs in at 225g. That’s lighter than the iPhone 17 Pro Max.

The one niggle to flag is the Find N6 isn’t as dust-resistant as Google’s Pixel 10 Pro Fold. The Find N6 is rated IP59 for dust and water-resistance, which, in short, means it can survive high-pressure water jets, but you shouldn’t leave it in sand at the beach. It has some protection from particle ingress, but falls short of the IP68 rating on the Pixel 10 Pro Fold. While the Pixel 10 Pro Fold doesn’t have as high a level of water resistance, it is protected against smaller particles. That’s definitely worth considering given all the moving parts in a foldable.

Catching up to the conventional

Foldable battery life has historically been a mixed bag, but the Find N6 offers a step up here, too. I was able to consistently get between six and seven hours of screen time per charge, with a roughly equal mix of unfolded and unfolded usage. That’s enough for a full day of moderate usage with a comfortable buffer. This kind of battery may fall short of what OPPO has achieved with its slab-style phones - you can get as much as ten hours of screen time on the Find X9 Pro - but it is class-leading for the foldable category.

The Find N6 has wireless charging but doesn’t support Qi2; there are no MagSafe-style magnets in the phone. While you’ll get the best wireless charging performance from one of OPPO’s proprietary chargers, you can still top the Find N6 with any old wireless charger. You still get a conventional charger in the box, unlike with most other phones.

It’s a similar story with the camera. The Find N6 easily has the best camera I’ve tested on a foldable phone so far, but it’s still a step behind what you’ll find on a slab phone. The difference in quality has become smaller, however, to the point where you need to be quite picky to notice. 

The main thing to note is low-light performance, with the Find N6 relying on night mode in even dim environments to compensate for a smaller sensor. This means you may need longer exposure times in darker environments, which can result in a bit of motion blur in shots. While the results still tend to look great, you may need an extra attempt or two to get the shot you want when dealing with low light.

Otherwise, the Find N6 takes lovely pictures with all three of its main camera lenses, and the selfie cameras aren’t bad either. You can use the rear cameras to take selfies if you have the Find N6 unfolded, which is a little awkward. It does dramatically up the quality, though.

OPPO Find N6 camera samples

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Check out these camera samples taken on the OPPO Find N6. Click or tap on any photo to see a larger version. 

One thing worth noting is the Find N6 camera uses generative AI to enhance images unless you shoot in “Pro” mode or RAW. OPPO has used generative AI in previous phones to get better results from long-range zoom, but the Find N6 has it across the entire magnification range. This isn’t a huge issue for the most part, but you might see some of generative AI’s trademark hallucinations on photos with text if you pixel peep.

There’s not much to note in terms of performance. The Find N6 is powered by a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, which is the fastest chipset you’ll find in an Android phone, paired with 16GB of RAM. In short, the Find N6 is one of the zippiest phones you can buy right now.

While the Find N6 will feel fast for years to come, OPPO isn’t promising the same kind of software support as rivals. The Find N6 will get five major operating system upgrades and six years of security updates. That’s certainly good, but falls short of the seven years that Samsung and Google promise for their foldables.

It doesn’t help that the Find N6 is one of the most expensive devices you can buy in Australia, with a $3,299 asking price. That’s $100 more than the equivalent Galaxy Z Fold 7 model with 512GB of storage, or $400 more than the cheaper 256GB Galaxy Z Fold 7. At the very least, Vodafone will be offering the Find N6 on a plan - previous OPPO foldables have only been available outright in Australia - so you can spread the damage out over the course of three years rather than getting hit for one lump sum.

One last thing to note is OPPO’s excellent multitasking. The Find N6 can now have up to four apps floating in resizable windows, which is pretty nifty. It is worth noting that some Android apps still can have weird issues with foldable phones, however. If I was using Instagram on the main display and then unfolded the Find N6, I wasn’t able to tap through my friends’ stories unless I closed the app and relaunched it.

OPPO AI Pen Kit

The Find N6 has an “AI Pen Kit” being sold as a $199 accessory. The bundle contains a stylus and a case that houses it. I’ve never been the biggest fan of styluses because my handwriting is atrocious, but the AI Pen works as you’d expect. The case that houses and charges it is a little chunky, however, and makes the Find N6 feel awkward in your hand. It also blocks wireless charging entirely.

OPPO Find N6 - Final Thoughts

If you already love book-style foldables, the OPPO Find N6 is the one you should buy. It is category-leading across most core competencies; it has the best camera and battery life we’ve seen on a foldable so far. It may have a smaller software lifespan than rivals, but photo quality and battery life win out for me.

And if you’ve been a foldable sceptic, there’s a chance the Find N6 could convince you. There’s no way to get past the astronomical asking price, but the creaseless display ups the phone’s overall polish level dramatically. By comparison, other foldables feel like prototypes.

You can still get a more impressive phone than the Find N6 for less money, but that phone won’t fold. You’re still making some compromises, but they’re not noticeable in the way they were in past devices. While we’re not talking about the best of the best here, the Find N6 doesn’t dip below “great”.

Foldable phones have always been ambitious, but they’ve been hamstrung by reality. The Find N6 is the first foldable where the end product truly lives up to the potential.

Alex Choros

Managing Editor + Group Telco Editor | X | Instagram | Threads | LinkedIn

Alex Choros is the Managing Editor of WhistleOut Australia and an award-winning journalist. He's been writing about consumer technology for over a decade and is an expert on the Australian telco sector, to the point where he knows far too many phone and internet plans by heart. In addition to leading the WhistleOut editorial team, Alex is responsible for ruining the office Sonos with his troubled taste in music.

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