Oppo Find X5 launch live blog: watch Oppo’s flagship debut live

Welcome to TechRadar's Oppo Find X5 live blog - we're just settling in for the day, but will be updating this post a few times in the next two-and-a-bit hours before the event kicks off.

So, we hear you asking, why's this not the Find X4? Wasn't the last one the Find X3? (Pictured above).

Well, it was, but Chinese tech companies sometimes skip the name '4' for their fourth-generation devices, as in the country the number sounds very similar to the word 'death' so it's considered lucky. Some buildings in the country skip Floor 4, which we totally understand, as we certainly wouldn't want to live or work on 'Floor Death'.

Interestingly, one company that has eschewed this superstition is Oppo itself, which launched the Oppo Reno 4 a couple of years back. But the company has confirmed that the new devices are the X5s, so it's definitely skipping X4/

So what are we expecting to debut today?

Well, Oppo has been a bit coy, beyond telling us that the 'Oppo Find X5 series' is coming - that suggests there will be multiple phones, something we can also tell from pictures that have been shown, though the devices look really similar.

Beyond that, we're not too sure what else is coming, but the simple answer might be 'nothing'. We already know that Oppo will exhibit at annual tech conference MWC 2022, which kicks off in just four days, so perhaps it'll save its other announcements for then.

This is the last big phone we saw from Oppo, at the end of 2021. It's called the Oppo Find N, and it's the debut foldable from the company.

We're not expecting a follow-up at this event, but we'd love to hear about global availability for the phone. It was only released in China, but we really want it to roll out to other regions, as a top-spec Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 rival.

Is this likely though? Not really, no.

We're going to take the cheeky opportunity to share some other news in the phones world that our team has been reporting on.

Firstly, the Google Pixel 7 has leaked out, as we've seen some renders of it and the Pro. Looks pretty similar though.

We've also weighed in on the ongoing Galaxy S22 charge debacle - after reports suggested the S22 Plus and S22 Ultra didn't charge at the advertised 45W speed, we did our own tests. We found that on the Ultra the charging worked super quickly, but it didn't on the Plus. Weird.

This is a teaser Oppo shared a few weeks back for the new launch. If you look closely, you can see that the lenses on the two phones are ever-so-slightly different. 

This is the only confirmation we've had that multiple devices are launching today, as long as you don't count the word 'series'. The fact that we have to peer so close suggests that the phones won't be too different - maybe this is a Find X5 Pro Plus?

Half an hour left!

We're based in the UK, and we're really used to 1pm launches. This Oppo one is at 11am, which has shaken up our live-blogging rhythm quite a bit (usually we have more time to get into the swing of things).

It does give us more time in the day after the event though.

With 10 minutes to go until the event kicks off, it's time for us to grab a coffee and/or snacks - and to load up the YouTube livestream, so we don't take ages finding it last-minute.

The event technically hasn't kicked off yet... but our early review embargo has passed, so you can actually already check out our hands-on Oppo Find X5 Pro review.

And we're off!

At the moment Oppo is just doing that typical launch-event thing of spending ages talking about the company's works and history at the beginning. Not too interesting.

Now that's a bold choice of hat for a launch live stream.

This is Oppo's Simon Liu, Oppo's Imaging Director, talking about what MariSilicon X will bring to the phone, including 4K night video and 20-bit HDR video recording. 

MariSilicon X is a neural processing chip that was unveiled a few months ago, which is being debuted in the Find X5.

We've heard about the other cameras on the Pro.

The main and ultra-wide cameras use Sony's 50MP IMX766 sensor - this is really good for low-light photography - and there's also a telephoto 13MP camera for 2x zoom.

There's no microscope camera though sadly, unlike on the Find X3 Pro, which was a really fun feature for taking super-close-up photos of things.

Now Oppo is discussing its partnership with camera brand Hasseblad.

It sounds like the changes are all software-based like a shutter sound, filters and interface inspired by the cameras.

No hardware changes have been shown, which suggests Hasseblad didn't have a hand in the lenses or sensors.

Now we're looking at the phone's design - it sounds like Oppo really likes it.

The phone has a ceramic back, comes in black or white and is apparently twice as strong as any other smartphone - we'll have to drop it a few times to test that claim.

Oh, onto the screen.

This is a 6.7-inch AMOLED display with a 1400 x 3216 resolution, 120Hz refresh rate etc. It's broken by a punch-hole for the front camera and curves slightly at the edges.

There's the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset - Oppo previously announced the phone would use the equal MediaTek Dimensity 9000, but maybe that's only in certain markets.

This is a super-powerful chip which will be great for gaming.

Ooh, a 5,000mAh battery on the Por - that's big for a premium phone, and we generally only see mid-range or budget mobiles get big battery packs like that.

Charging speed is 80W, which is lovely and fast, and Oppo says you can power from 0% to 50% in just 12 minutes. There's also 50W wireless powering.

Now we're talking about ColorOS 12, the software for the Find X5 phones that'll be laid over Android 12.

They're talking about how ColorOS will be easier and more comfortable to use, but there aren't any details on what this actually means.

One cool feature has been mentioned though: the always-on display, which is already customizable on Oppo phones, can now make silhouettes of your portraits as the backdrop. That sounds neat, we're going to check it out right now.

Sounds like they've finished talking about the Oppo Find X5 Pro - hopefully we'll look at the standard and Lite models soon.

Launch events online are pretty awkward without pause for applause or changing speakers.

Now we're onto the other phones.

The Oppo Find X5 sounds very similar to the Pro including in the cameras and charging speed department but it's a bit smaller, with a slightly weaker chipset and slower wireless powering.

The Lite sounds basically like an Oppo Reno phone. It's lightweight, thin and smaller than its siblings, but they skipped talking about its specs.

The phones are up for pre-order today, and will go on sale March 14. Prices range quite a bit by model, and the Lite sounds like a mid-ranger while the Pro sounds like it's a pricey premium phone.

We're looking at wider ecosystem products now. These are the Oppo Enco X2, wireless earbuds that succeed the Enco X (as the name suggests).

There's also the Oppo Watch Free, a budget smartwatch - slash - fitness tracker which has a 1.64-inch screen, 14-day battery life, sleep tracking and over 100 fitness modes. 

It was announced in China previously, but now it's rolling out to other nations from mid-March.

Okay, the event is over.

It was only an hour long, which was short and sweet, though we could have heard more about the non-Pro products.

So in brief, here's what we heard about:

• Oppo Find X5 Pro
• Oppo Find X5
• Oppo Find X5 Lite
• Oppo Enco X2
• Oppo Watch Free

ColorOS 12 was also detailed, which will likely come to a few older Oppo smartphones as well as the new trio.

One small but interesting change from last year's phones to these ones is the dropping of the Neo.

For the Find X3 family we had the Lite, Neo and Pro, but this year the middle option has lots of Neo name. It's also a more high-end offering than the Neo was, we should point out.