What if I told you that in China, you can buy a OnePlus 12 on steroids? Yes, I’m talking about the Oppo Find X7 Ultra – basically a OnePlus 12 “Pro” with a larger main sensor and an additional telephoto lens. Oppo is OnePlus’ sister company within BBK Electronics, and markets devices in Europe and Asia. While officially, the Find X7 Ultra is only available in China, you can find it on Amazon for about $1169.
Oppo sent me a Find X7 Ultra review unit back in January, and the timing was perfect. In February, my spouse and I embarked on a once-in-a-lifetime trip – an expedition cruise to Antarctica. Needless to say, taking one of the ultimate cameraphones with me on this journey was a no brainer. At the time of my trip, Xiaomi’s 14 Ultra – another top-tier cameraphone – wasn’t announced yet. That happened later, at MWC.
Since my voyage to Antarctica, I have continued taking pictures with Oppo’s flagship, and while these shooters are really impressive, there’s still room for improvement. So, let’s dive into what the Find X7 Ultra brings to the table, and review these cameras.
Hardware and design
From the front, you’d be hard pressed to tell the Oppo Find X7 Ultra apart from its cousin, the OnePlus 12. Both share the same gorgeous, ultra-bright (4500 nits peak) 6.82-inch LTPO AMOLED display (3168 x 1440 pixels, 19.8:9, 1-120Hz) with support for HDR10+ and Dolby Vision. This screen has curved edges, minimal bezels, and a center punch hole for the 32MP selfie camera, and is protected by Gorilla Glass Victus 2.
Even the metal frames are almost identical on both phones. On the right side, you’ll find the power/lock key and volume rocker, while on the left, there’s OnePlus’ iconic alert slider (adopted by recent Oppo flagships). The bottom edge is home to one of the speakers, the USB Type-C port, a pair of microphones, and the nano-SIM tray. Another microphone, an IR blaster, and the other speaker are located on top.
But it’s in the rear that the Find X7 Ultra really stands out from the OnePlus 12. First, instead of the entire back panel being made of glass, only the upper 2/5 of the Find X7 Ultra’s rear – the area around the massive camera pod – is glass. The other 3/5 are made of vegan leather. Depending on the model, the glass section is glossy white or satin black, while the vegan leather area is dark blue, light brown, or black.
Now, let’s dive into that camera bump, because it’s a doozy. The design basically matches that of the OnePlus Open’s, but scaled up in size – with a 4th, rectangular lens opening right in the center. It’s about half the thickness of the phone, a veritable plateau in the back of the device. The Find X7 Ultra’s camera pod is silver on the models with white glass and black on the version with black glass, and houses four 50MP sensors.
Under the hood, the Find X7 Ultra is powered by the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 flagship SoC as the OnePlus 12. It’s paired with 12 or 16GB RAM and 256 or 512GB of storage. There’s no microSD support, but you get 5G, WiFi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, NFC, and a 5000mAh battery with 100W fast wired charging (charger included) and 50W of (Qi-compatible) fast wireless charging – with 10W reverse wireless charging.
Other features include satellite connectivity (China only) on some versions, high-quality stereo speakers (but no headphone jack, obviously), superior haptics, a fast and accurate in-display optical fingerprint reader complemented by reliable face unlock, plus IP68 water and dust resistance. So, from a design and features perspective, the Find X7 Ultra is an elegant, no-compromise flagship that ticks all the right boxes.
Software and user experience
On the software front, the Oppo Find X7 Ultra runs ColorOS 14 – Oppo’s take on Android 14. If you’re familiar with OxygenOS on OnePlus phones, you’ll feel right at home with ColorOS. Both skins are virtually identical, and provide a speedy and refined user experience. There are enough customizations here to make life easier without straying too far from stock Android. As such ColorOS is my favorite Android skin from China.
That being said, keep in mind that since the Find X7 Ultra is exclusive to China, it doesn’t ship with Google’s suite of apps pre-installed. If you’re switching over from another Android phone, Oppo’s Clone Phone app lets you restore Google’s apps from your existing device. This is pretty seamless, but if you plan to setup the Find X7 Ultra from scratch, you’ll have to sideload the Google Play Store and install Google’s apps one-by-one.
Another thing to be aware of is that by default, the Find X7 Ultra comes riddled with bloatware, consisting primarily of Chinese apps like Alipay, Baidu, Baidu Maps, Tiktok (Chinese version), Toutiao, Weibo, Ximalaya, and many more. There’s also a bunch of Oppo apps you’ll probably want to uninstall. All this to say that setting up the Find X7 Ultra isn’t as straightforward as setting up a global- or US-market Android phone.
Proper 5G band support is another thing to consider if you decide to import the Find X7 Ultra to North America. While it worked fine on T-Mobile, AT&T, Google Fi, and Telus in San Francisco, Vancouver (Canada), Houston, Buenos Aires, Ushuaia, and Barcelona, the Find X7 Ultra isn’t compatible with Verizon. I also spent an equal amount of time on 4G LTE as on 5G, especially on T-Mobile / Google Fi’s networks. Your mileage may vary.
When it comes to performance, the Find X7 Ultra delivers exactly what you’d expect from a modern flagship. It handled every app I threw at it without skipping a beat – from my usual communication, productivity, and entertainment apps to graphically demanding games like Genshin Impact. Battery life was solid too, with the Find X7 Ultra easily lasting an entire day of heavy use, and even two days with light use.
So what about those cameras?
Now that you’re familiar with the Oppo Find X7 Ultra’s overall hardware and software, let’s dive into the cameras. You’ll find four 50MP Hasselblad-branded shooters in the back:
- 50MP f/1.8 1.6-micron 23mm main sensor (1-inch pixel-stacked Sony LYT-900) with omni-directional PDAF, laser AF, and OIS
- 50MP f/2.0 1.0-micron 123-degree 14mm ultrawide lens (1/2-inch Sony LYT-600) with omni-directional PDAF
- 50MP f/2.6 1.0-micron 65mm (3x) periscope telephoto (1/1.5-inch Sony IMX890) with dual-pixel PDAF and OIS
- 50MP f/4.3 0.7-micron 135mm (6x) periscope telephoto (1/2.5-inch Sony IMX858) with PDAF and OIS.
All four rear sensors use 4-in-1 pixel binning. This imaging technique combines groups of four (2×2) nearby pixels into a single larger pixel for improved low-light performance, resulting in 12.5MP images. In front, the Find X7 Ultra packs the same selfie camera as the OnePlus 12 – a 32MP f/2.4 0.8-micron 21mm shooter (1/2.7-inch Sony IMX709) – mounted behind a center punch hole in the display.
The Find X7 Ultra’s photo modes are similar to the OnePlus 12’s, and include night (all five cameras), portrait, action, RAW, high-res (50MP), text scanner, tilt-shift, panorama, and long exposure. Master mode, which is available on all four rear shooters, cranks things up a notch. It’s similar to the usual manual/pro mode, but adds adjustments for saturation, contrast, sharpness, and vignette.
In addition to Master Mode, the Find X7 Ultra delivers a few more Hasselblad goodies, This includes an orange (Hasselblad-inspired) shutter button, Master style filters (Emerald, Serenity, and Radiance), and XPAN mode, which simulates a 65:24 aspect ratio for that genuine Hasselblad shooting experience. And, while there’s a dedicated macro mode (using the ultrawide), both telephotos also support macro photography.
The Find X7 Ultra records stabilized video using all five cameras at 4k/1080p/720p 30/60fps. Other video modes HDR (4k/1080p/720p 30/60fps), ultra steady (ultrawide and main, 1080p 60fps, plus selfie 1080p 30fps), slow motion (ultrawide, main, and 3x, 1080p 240fps and 720p 480fps), time lapse (1080p 30fps), movie (manual, 21:9, 4k 30fps), and dual view (main, 3x, or 6x plus selfie, 1080p 30fps). Audio is captured in stereo.
Considering it improves upon the OnePlus 12’s already impressive shooters, it’s no surprise the Find X7 Ultra’s cameras take outstanding pictures. As you can see in the gallery below, the Find X7 Ultra delivers superb results, with flawless exposure, natural colors, and tons of detail. Dynamic range and low-light performance are also top notch – especially when using the main shooter’s massive 1-inch pixel-stacked sensor.
With two periscope telephotos on board, zoom performance is also fantastic. 3x photos are excellent, 6x shots look great, 12x pictures are good, and even 30x results are fine. Image quality only starts to drop beyond 60x. Oppo’s camera tuning has been solid for a while now, and Hasselblad’s partnership has only elevated things further. As such, the Find X7 Ultra is the culmination of the company’s vast imaging expertise.
That being said, the Find X7 Ultra’s shooters aren’t perfect. While that huge 1-inch main sensor and f/1.8 lens provide a lovely natural bokeh (especially for portraits), the shallow depth-of-field sometimes makes it difficult to focus on the right subject. Xiaomi’s 14 Ultra – which features the same 1-inch sensor as the Find X7 Ultra – solves this with a variable aperture (f/1.6-f/4.0) lens, making it a more versatile cameraphone.
Also, once in Antarctica, I discovered that the 50MP 5x periscope telephoto on Samsung’s Galaxy S24 Ultra took slightly crisper images than the Find X7 Ultra when zooming beyond 12x. Oppo’s issued a couple of software updates since then, and the Find X7 Ultra has closed the gap. Regardless, I ended up capturing most of my pictures of Antarctica with the Find X7 Ultra, and it was definitely the right tool for the job.
Oppo Find X7 Ultra review: Final thoughts
There’s no doubt the Oppo Find X7 Ultra is one of today’s best flagships. It offers an elegant design, a gorgeous display, solid performance, excellent battery life, fast wired and wireless charging, plus clean and responsive software. But that’s just the icing on the proverbial cake, because—you guessed it—the tasty cake under that delicious icing is the Find X7 Ultra’s outstanding Hasselblad camera system.
If these shooters are good enough for a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Antarctica, then these shooters are good enough for anything. The downside is that the Find X7 Ultra is only available in China, and if you decide to import it, you can expect limited US band support. Alternatively, consider Xiaomi’s 14 Ultra, another top-tier cameraphone with quad 50MP rear cameras that’s available globally. Either way, you can’t go wrong.