Super-high-end 5" Android phone from China's Oppo

A high-end Chinese electronics company called Oppo has announced a super-deluxe, $500 5-inch Android phone called the Find 5, with some amazing specs:

As the name suggests, the Find 5 has a 5-inch display with a 1080p display, something we saw on the impressive HTC Droid DNA. Inside of the Find 5′s sharply designed chassis, you’ll find Qualcomm’s speedy quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro processor, 2GB of RAM, 16 gigs of storage and an NFC chip. Yes, the Droid DNA has the same internals. But Oppo one-ups that handset by giving the Find 5 a 13-megapixel rear shooter. There’s a 1.9-megapixel camera up front.
The phone uses Google’s Android 4.1 Jelly Bean operating system and, like Google’s Nexus 4, will run on HSPA+ and GSM networks but not LTE.

Chinese Phone Packs All the Best Specs Into a Sexy Package [Nathan Olivarez-Giles/Wired]

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Jake0748

So… what? Just asking.
- wrybread
  
  Um, so its a cool new piece of tech? And interesting that a company not named Apple is putting out something high end? And interesting that its a Chinese company? And always nice to have a new good Android phone? And Cory likes Android phones, so he’s happy about that? And probably a few bits of significance that I’m missing?
  
  And careful, saying “So… what? Just asking.” could become a new comments meme… The new “christ, what an asshole.”
  - robuluz
    
    And interesting that a company not named Apple is putting out something high end?
    
    Surely you can’t be serious.
    - wrybread
      
      I was, but fair enough, there could definitely be high end phones that aren’t iPhones. I’ve just never seen one that I’d consider “high end” in a post iPhone world. Are there any other phones that don’t feel like cheap plastic? I’m not joking, I’m honestly curious if you could recommend a specific model.
      - robuluz
        
        I’m not the right guy to ask about specific models (I’ve been perfectly content with my very well made HTC Desire for some years now), but I would consider most top of the range handsets from HTC, Samsung, Motorola etc to fit the bill for high end quite nicely. Metal chassis, quality glass, and impressive hardware specs.
        
        Also, the correct answer to my question is “Yes I am serious. And don’t call me Shirley.”
      - Scurra
        
        Without wanting to sound sarcastic in return, HTC, Samsung and Nokia all now have phones that make the iPhone feel like “cheap plastic” (in a competitive sense.) Apple really dropped the ball with 5 and have been overtaken as a result.
      - timquinn
        
        You are just saying that. Show me a phone that looks as good as the iPhone. Pretty objective, isn’t it?
        
        But, no it isn’t. Apple products have classic good design you just dont see on other phones. this phone looks at first pass like a phone with classic styling. We used to call it modern until modern got wrecked by cheap. There is no flash on an Apple product, no bling. Other phones try to compete by adding bling. Classic mistake.
      - wrybread
        
        +1 to what timquinn said. And I have a theory to explain it: other hardware makers don’t iterate enough. Every new version is completely different, whereas Apple makes these small incremental improvements, refining every detail, and the result is a really mature product after a few iterations. Much as I’d love to see that in the Android world, I haven’t yet. That’s not to say it doesn’t exist, but I’m not aware of it.
      - robuluz
        
        @boingboing-7020b2c8a7fcf98937fced7a6028f188:disqus It’s an iconic design that will make an imprint in history.
        
        Whether it’s such an icon that no other hand held device can ever be referred to as “high end” again, is kind of where these discussions seem to end up a lot.
      - http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
        
        Really? I’d love to see the plastic phone that makes a glass and metal one feel like cheap plastic.
        
        Or are you just making things up?
        
        The Lumia is nice, but it’s still no iPhone. The others? More of the same.
      - fredphoesh
        
        hmm, do you consider light leaks in the iphone5 high end?
      - donovan acree
        
        I think the Xperia feels very nice and has good looks. I certainly like the looks, feel, and performance of the Xperia over the iPhone 5.
      - MrHaroHaro
        
        While I really like the Xperia line, I think they don’t really compare to the iPhone in terms of performance and look-and-feel.
        I think it’s interesting that the phone above has a very Xperia-like design to it.
    - Jake0748
      
      He is serious. And don’t call him Shirly.
Ping Kee

Removed by author.
- Jack Everitt
  
  Same logo, same company. And Oppo sets the standard for Blu-Ray players – and their customer service is superb.
  - niktemadur
    
    As proud owner of the Oppo Blu-Ray player, I second your assessment, it’s a thing of beauty.
    
    Just one important observation: their DVD player was very hackable, and Oppo even told you how to do it. But due to the legal bullshit surrounding Blu-Ray (as opposed to the open source HDTV), some of that “hackability”, such as the ability to skip through the warnings, previews, promos, propaganda, has gone away.
Glaurung-Quena

Seeing as my hands are normal sized and so are my pockets, I cannot see what the point of a phone with a 5″ screen is.
- http://daruiburns.tumblr.com/ Dlo Burns
  
  When it gets outdated you can use it as a digital photo frame.
- http://jimeagle.com James Eagle
  
  When i hear people say this, i know they have never actually tried to use a large screen phone for more than five seconds. You get used to it just like you got used to your current phone.
- howaboutthisdangit
  
  My normal-size but clumsy fingers appreciate larger phones, and I would enjoy a quality 5″ display. It is a tad large, pocketwise, though.,so it’s a bit of give and take overall.
- http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
  
  They’ll be small again in a few years. It’s not like making big phones is difficult, since mobile phones became ubiquitous we’ve seen them shrink and expand pretty much constantly.
http://www.tumbleweed.net/ tyger11

No LTE, no MicroSD = no ‘super high-end’ for me. It shore is purdy, though. Here’s hoping the Sony Yuga and/or Odin come through for those of us who want expandable storage.
- http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
  
  MicroSD? Do people still use removable media?
  
  Not being an ass, it;s a serious question. I see SD slots on phones similar to floppy/cd drives in laptops.
  - mappo
    
    It’s not that it’s removable, it’s that it’s expandable.
    - http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
      
      This cannot be denied.
  - http://billmcgonigle.com bill_mcgonigle
    
    I sure do. I just put a 64GB Sandisk in my Droid 3 yesterday (format vfat, partition type ‘b’). My music is about 35GB and podcasts add another ten to that. Plus, if I shoot video, it’s way faster and easier to copy them to my desktop with the card rather than WiFi or Bluetooth (getting DLNA sync working hasn’t happened in the hour I’ve so spent trying).
    
    That aside, it’s no secret why the carriers are pushing for those slots to go away. They want you to store your music “in the cloud” and then pay them to access it each and every time.
    - http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
      
      Makes sense. I think the key difference is that with phones it’s treated more as permanent, rather than portable storage, so my analogy to floppys/CDs wasn’t particularly apt.
      
      I use cloud storage pretty heavily anyway (Dropbox and SugarSync), but that only accounts for certain data on my iPhone. Music etc. is all on-phone, and I totally see the advantage of being able to upgrade the storage later, for a fraction of the cost (big storage i devices can come at terrifying prices).
      - http://www.tumbleweed.net/ tyger11
        
        Plus when all your data is in the cloud, you can only access it when you have a connection.
      - http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
        
        Well with sync services you can keep a copy on your device, but obviously that doesn’t extend storage, only de-localises it.
    - wrybread
      
      I remember when Verizon was crippling bluetooth on Palm Treos so people would have to buy ringtones from them. The more things change…
  - http://d.moonfire.us/ D. Moonfire
    
    I use the MicroSD card on my phone for two major things. One is that I actually go into places that don’t have good phone service, but I still like having my music collection and videos (to pacify both me and the small child I’m frequently saddled with). The other is that I’d rather not have a cloud reader/player for everything. Nothing wrong with having books that don’t sync with someone or programs that don’t require constant connections to run.
    
    I also think that the 32 GB is “enough” is much like the no one will need more than 640k. The nice thing about SD cards is that I can switch as I need and if 32 GB isn’t enough, I can easier throw in another 32 GB or add a 512 GB or whatever SD card comes out.
    
    My wife also uses a SD card for her camera, so it occasionally is nice to just plug it directly into the phone to review pictures while she starts burning through the next card.
  - http://www.tumbleweed.net/ tyger11
    
    I’ve got a phone with 8GB onboard storage and a 16GB MicroSD card, and I’m almost always out of space. My music collection won’t even begin to fit on the phone, and I have to remove an app before I have enough storage to install a new one; many apps won’t let you install to MicroSD at all; and I don’t have that many apps on my phone – I shudder to think how much worse it would be if I tried putting games on my phone, with their textures, etc.
    - Uthor
      
      My last phone has something like 120 MB available on the device. I would have killed for 1 GB, much less 8 GB to be able to install apps without killing space. I was running out of space to even accept incoming text messages.
      
      I ended up rooting and installing CM7 (at the time). There was an option in CM7 which would allow you to move “phone only” apps to the SD card like you could with most other apps. That was a life-saver. Of course, you don’t want to move anything “mission critical” to the SD in case the card breaks or is removed, but things like some “phone only” games or apps like IMDb? Send them to the card.
Romdude

I feel like cussing, these manufacturers never listen. All of these nice new phones like droid dna, nexus 4 and this one lack two things that the s3 has, microsd and removable battery. Why can’t they just make a phone with everything we want instead of handicapping them?
- timquinn
  
  The batteries are removable. You just need a little screw driver. Big deal.
- http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
  
  I just asked this above, don’t want to keep asking the same question – but what do you use MicroSD for?
  
  Seems like an extra thing to take up space and break down at some point to me – when there are several solid cloud storage solutions out there.
  - Antongarou
    
    Not all locations are cloud friendly, and uploading/downloading gigs of data is slow in most locations, even those where the cellular operator doesn’t charge you through the nose for using more then X bandwidth a month. microsd are cheap, allow fast access to the data, and do not depend on net connectivity.
    - http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
      
      I guess I’ve just taught myself to not need them, probably through using an iPod Touch for a couple years before picking up my iPhone – must admit it’s something I’ve never felt is missing – even if I had the slot I can’t myself using it.
      
      Each to their own of course :) I suppose I was more trying to work out if it were one of those slightly selfish demands like disc drives on laptops, which for most people are pretty redundant.
      - http://billmcgonigle.com bill_mcgonigle
        
        “one of those slightly selfish demands like disc drives on laptops”
        
        Don’t fall into the trap that says, “if my use case doesn’t require Widget X, then anybody who wants Widget X must be wrong.”
        
        There’s nothing “selfish” about wanting an optical drive in a laptop if you have a use for it.
      - http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
        
        That probably came across wrong. It’s selfish in that it costs every buyer more, for a use case that’s now in the minority. So the demand for such a feature is selfish; if that makes sense.
        
        I totally appreciate that for some people it’s essential.
  - http://twitter.com/dhparlee dhparlee
    
    The place that I found having a MicroSD most useful for is when the phone becomes damaged and requires replacement. My new HTC took a dip in the river after only owning it for a month. One call to the insurance company, and 24 hours later, I popped my SD card in the new phone, and all of my songs and the like were in the new phone. No syncing, no use of bandwidth, nothing.
dz11

This is the only phone I’ve seen that looks better than an iphone. I want it!
http://www.facebook.com/people/Mark-Duanburge/100000313244887 Mark Duanburge

Still not as good as this “feature” phone:

http://dx.com/p/3-5-touch-screen-dual-sim-dual-network-standby-quadband-gsm-cell-phone-with-shaver-23065
- http://www.leidentech.com leidentech
  
  Dual-SIM is a good feature. But, wait, what the….
- http://artdonovan.typepad.com Art
  
  This phone has an electric shaver but no nail clipper!????
  Boy, they missed a great opportunity there.
http://profile.yahoo.com/32DUCRYB7FKKWZERSPFUAZLBBY Jjoseph

Like wow! A 500 buck phone probably made under same near feudal wage slave conditions as iPads,iPhones and other such.
No not buying
- http://twitter.com/MartianEmpress Rezeya Montecore
  
  This man is evidently connecting to the Internet with a pair of Dixie cups powered by his own moral rectitude. Or with that crazy artisanal wood computer that Mr. Bear from Achewood has. Or didn’t stop to think about where his laptop came from.
- http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
  
  “I’m on the bandwagon, and I’m not getting off!”
peregrinus

I like the way they’ve circumvented Apple’s rectangle patent by curving the base of the phone.

Smaaaart!
Joe Vanegas

I’ve become accustomed to Chinese products with exquisite specs that are finely crafted to appeal to the discriminating buyer. The specs that is. The product doesn’t actually meet those specs. For intance when the high-protein baby formula turns out to be melamine.
I won’t believe that this is anything more than ad copy until there are real user reviews available. Of course, enterprising marketers can generate user reviews as genuine as the spec sheets.
- http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
  
  It’ll go down a storm in tech circles then! Having been a casual observer over at Reddit for a while they’d use a phone made out of poo and sticks if it had an extra hertz worth of RAM in it. Words like ‘user experience’, ‘reliability’ and ‘maintainability’ are vague and imaginary concepts to them. Some even consider the fact that it might require more maintenance a perk!
princessalex

If this company has announced this product, why is it not even listed on their website, in the Announcements in the News section? Their last product announcement was in September. (*scratching my head*)
- http://billmcgonigle.com bill_mcgonigle
  
  Judging solely based on other posts on this thread, we’d have to assume that their PR person is busy tasting the hexane solvents on the assembly line for quality control purposes. She’ll be up soon, after a good flogging, to update the website. If she does a good job, she’ll be allowed to sleep with her teddy bear tonight.
http://artdonovan.typepad.com Art

It looks pretty nice to me and, yes, I do love Android.
failquail

*sigh*

Looks like another awesome phone crippled by a pathetically tiny capacity battery (not actually mentioned, but not mentioning capacity is a sign it’s bad usually)

Please phone manufacturers, i don’t care how impossibly thin a phone is, but i do care about having a battery big enough to actually allow you to use the device…
- http://ae4rv.com/ royaltrux
  
  I agree. I wish the next spec (besides call quality) the manufacturers would strive for would be battery life. That’s great that its processor is twice as fast as last year’s (decent) model, but frankly, I just want it to last all day and most of tomorrow despite my using it.
- mappo
  
  2500mAh, which is actually not half bad.
  
  source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/12/12/oppo-find-5-launch/
Cary Roys

What are the odds that this has the same internals because they literally just stole the design plans from the other company? This is happening with Chinese manufacturers much more than you might think.

I don’t know about Oppo, but Huawei has been guilty of this (producing Motorola phone clones that were so strangely identical that they had the same firmware bugs).
http://www.facebook.com/DaveMcCaig Dave McCaig

Unless this is some other company called Oppo, Oppo is based out of Mountain View California, not China. The Cali Oppo’s blu-ray/media players are truly outstanding, so if this IS that Oppo, I’m sure this phone will kick ass, and will likely have great audio circuitry.
http://www.facebook.com/DaveMcCaig Dave McCaig

Hey, what do you know. It both is and isn’t the same Oppo.

From Wikipedia:

OPPO Digital, Inc., is an electronics manufacturer based in Mountain View, California United States. It is primarily known for its upconverting DVD and Blu-ray Disc players.
OPPO Digital Inc. and oppo-bluray.co.uk (Europe), OPPO Korea, and OPPO.COM (China) are the same brand, but completely different divisions. OPPO Digital Inc. designs and manufacturers its own products to facilitate regional needs.
OPPO Digital was founded in California in 2004. Their first product was the OPPO OPDV971H Up-Converting Universal DVD Player.
http://profiles.google.com/jamesludwighorn Jim Horn

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” – All the iPhones used by others I’ve seen are kept in protective cases / bumpers / etc, making them even larger and bulkier, belying the use of glass for the front and back. Meanwhile, my much smaller HTC Aria’s body shell (part of the phone itself) has protected it from countless drops and knocks without any other protection. Still not a scratch on it after 2 1/2 years. Being nearsighted, the small screen is fine and having the directional touch sensor in addition to the screen (to act as a joystick / cursor pad / camera button / etc.) really helps in everyday use. Too bad the race to larger displays has left those of us who appreciate this sort of phone behind…
Uthor

Anyone else worried about what kind of software comes installed on a Chinese phone?
http://twitter.com/WikiTruths Wiki-Truths

Looks beautiful! Finally another phone design I like other than the iPhone. I wonder why they put in such low camera quality for front facing camera? Shots from them always look terrible.
pjcamp

I wouldn’t waste my time on it. I have an Oppo DVD player, the market where they made their high end name. I have several DVDs that will not play on it as the menus are all hosed. But they play perfectly on my HTPC, my laptop and my $69 Phillips DVD player in the exercise room. That Oppo replaced another high end Oppo I had before it that developed a bad power supply. My experience so far doesn’t speak very highly of their engineering skills, nor of their ability to match the money they ask to the quality of their components. In the end, I decided that they are shooting for a high end reputation based on the cost of their equipment but the performance simply doesn’t match.
- immovableobject
  
  I own two of their players (one DVD and one Blu-ray), and the sound and image quality have been awesome. Whenever I’ve had a problem, Oppo has given me prompt and satisfactory service. Their web based firmware updates are quick and easy. Oppo even fixed one problem, a jammed disk drawer that was probably my fault, out of warrantee for me.
  
  I do live close enough to their Mountain View office to deal with them directly, which factored into my purchasing decision But I’d still recommend their disk players to anyone looking for an excellent all-format player that competes well against prestige brand units costing many times more.I can’t speak for the phone though.