Oppo has just announced the Oppo Find X7 Ultra, the company’s top-end camera-focused flagship for 2024. But how does it compare to one of the most popular camera phones around, the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra?
While Oppo’s impressive HyperTone camera system with quad 50MP cameras and upgraded image processing tech could give the S23 Ultra a run for its money, it’s not a clear-cut win for the Find X7 Ultra – not least because it’s going to be incredibly difficult to find in most of the world.
We’re yet to go hands-on with the Oppo Find X7 Ultra, but we’ve spent plenty of time with the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra. With that said, here are some of the key differences between the two top-end flagship smartphones.
The Oppo Find X7 Ultra has an impressive HyperTone camera system
The Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra delivered some of the best camera performance of any 2023 smartphone, but going by specs, the Oppo Find X7 Ultra might have it beaten – though we’ll have to wait until we go hands-on to say for sure.
That’s because the Oppo Find X7 Ultra has a quad main camera system, which is Oppo’s way of saying all four lenses are of main camera quality. That starts with the true main snapper, a 50MP camera with a second-gen 1-inch sensor (the Sony LYT-900) much larger than the S23 Ultra, combined with f/1.8 aperture, OIS and lens reflection reduction tech.
The S23 Ultra, on the other hand, goes all in on megapixel count and pixel-binning tech with a main 200MP camera with a 1/13-inch sensor, coupled with an f/1.7 aperture and OIS that delivers impressively sharp and vibrant images, even in low light, as we found out in our review.
Moving onto the other lenses, you’ll find a 50MP ultrawide with a 1/1.95-inch sensor, OIS and an f/2.0 aperture that’s the fastest of any ultrawide on the market in early 2024. Samsung’s ultrawide is a tad behind in this respect, with a 12MP ultrawide with f/2.2 aperture but no OIS.
The Oppo Find X7 Ultra has not one but two periscope lenses – 3x and 6x – that essentially provide an optical range from 3x to 10x and beyond, with up to 120x zoom available. The 3x 50MP periscope is of particular note, with a 1/1.56-inch sensor that’s the biggest in any periscope right now, a whopping 3x bigger than the 1/3.52-inch sensor within the S23 Ultra’s competing 10MP f/2.4 3x zoom lens.
The Find X7 Ultra’s second periscope lens, a 50MP 6x snapper, is also double the size of the S23 Ultra’s 1/3.52-inch 10x periscope zoom lens at 1/2.51 inches, delivering up to 120x digital zoom over the S23 Ultra’s 100x zoom – though whether the images are usable at such a high zoom is yet to be seen.
Oppo has also done a lot of work on elements like portrait photography, image processing tech and zoom performance to help deliver what it claims is the “most cutting-edge camera hardware in a phone today” – claims that we’ll certainly be putting to the test in the near future.
The Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra has a built-in stylus
One feature that allows the Galaxy S23 Ultra to stand out not only compared to the Oppo Find X7 Ultra but practically every smartphone on the market is the S Pen.
The stylus was previously a fan-favourite of the Galaxy Note series before Samsung canned the collection and moved its most popular feature to the top-end Galaxy Ultra model. As with the S22 Ultra, the S23 Ultra’s S Pen lives within the phone’s chassis when not in use, ensuring it’s always there when you need to jot down some notes or feel the urge to doodle.
It’s not just any stylus either; it has an impressively low latency of 2.8ms that beats the top-end Apple Pencil 2, and with Bluetooth connectivity and a built-in button, it also doubles up as a remote camera shutter for those big group shots.
While you can certainly use any generic stylus with the Oppo Find X7 Ultra, you won’t get an experience close to that of the Galaxy S23 Ultra.
The Oppo Find X7 Ultra is faster
Thanks to the gap between the release of the Galaxy S23 Ultra and Find X7 Ultra, Oppo’s flagship takes advantage of newer processing tech that’ll likely give it the edge in benchmarks and real-world performance compared to the Galaxy S23 Ultra.
More specifically, the Oppo Find X7 Ultra sports Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, along with up to 16GB of RAM and up to 1TB of storage to boot. That’s likely faster than the overclocked Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy within the S23 Ultra, though just how much is yet to be seen. Samsung’s flagship is coupled with up to 12GB of RAM and 1TB of storage.
It’s not just processing power, however; the Oppo Find X7 Ultra boasts much faster charging speeds than the Galaxy S23 Ultra, an area where Samsung has never truly excelled. That said, the Oppo Find X7 Ultra boasts 100W fast charging tech compared to the 45W on offer from the S23 Ultra, and it also supports faster 50W wireless charging than the S23 Ultra’s 15W too.
You can actually buy the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra
While it sounds like the Oppo Find X7 Ultra could be the one to buy, that’s the problem: you can’t buy it. In most of the world, anyway.
That’s because the Oppo Find X7 Ultra is a China-only release with no plans to launch in other markets, meaning that you’ll have to import the phone, and it won’t come with Google Play or other Google services built-in either.
That’s a massive hassle compared to the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, which has been readily available to buy in the UK, US and most major markets since its release in February 2023. In fact, it’s available at a discount compared to its initial £1,249 RRP if you know where to look.