Oppo Find X5 Lite Review
Another mid-range phone from Oppo
Verdict
The Oppo Find X5 Lite is an extremely competent all round mid-ranger, with a slim and light design, a competent camera, and speedy charging. However, it’s not the fastest, its display is nothing to write home about, and it generally lacks the single killer feature that its key rivals all have.
Pros
- Decent all-rounder
- Competent camera
- Speedy charging
Cons
- Slightly underpowered for the money
- No stand-out features compared to rivals
- Still only running on Android 11
Availability
- UKRRP: £399
- USATBC
- EuropeTBC
- CanadaTBC
- AustraliaTBC
Key Features
- Fast charging speed65W wired fast-charging sees this smartphone top up its 4500mAh in short order
- Slim designThe Find X5 Lite is just 7.8mm thick and is relatively lightweight too, at 173g
- Huge 256GB of storageThere’s 256GB of onboard storage, and 8GB of RAM
Introduction
The Oppo Find X5 Lite might be part of the wider Find X5 family, but it doesn’t bear any of the DNA of its pricier brothers. From its simple plastic design to its budget processor and humble camera set-up, it’s very much its own thing.
Therefore, we’re not going to spend too much time comparing it to the rest of the X5 range; instead, it would be smarter to pitch the Find X5 Lite against its direct rivals on what has become an incredibly competitive mid-range scene.
At a price of £399, the Oppo Find X5 Lite finds itself sharing shelf space with the Pixel 6a, the Nothing Phone (1), the Poco F4 and the OnePlus Nord 2T. Those are some formidable competitors, each packing a couple of key features that remind you of a flagship phone.
Can the Oppo Find X5 Lite possibly hope to compete under such circumstances? Let’s take a look at what it’s got to offer.
Design and screen
- All-plastic body with sparkly finish
- One of the slimmer and lighter mid-rangers
- Decent 6.43-inch 90Hz AMOLED
That lack of shared DNA with the rest of the family is obvious the second you lay eyes on the Oppo Find X5 Lite. Rather than curvaceous, premium glass and metal, this is a handset that’s flat, generic, and predominantly plastic.
Not that this is an ugly or poorly built phone by any stretch of the imagination. There’s a shimmering, sparkling finish to the rear cover that’s easy on the eye, if still decidedly plastic to the touch.
My test model comes in the deceptively named Starry Black, which is actually more of a deep purple. Still, with that sparkly effect, you can see the ‘night sky’ impression that Oppo was obviously shooting for.
This being a darker shade, it’s not immune to fingerprints, but nor is it the smudgiest offender. Either way, I suspect that the lighter Startrails Blue would be a better bet if you’re phobic about greasy prints.
The phone feels reassuringly robust in the hand, and it’s reasonably slim and light at 7.8mm and 173g. That makes it more compact than the Pixel 6a, the Nothing Phone (1), and the OnePlus Nord 2T.
There’s still room for a 3.5mm headphone jack on the bottom of the phone. Unfortunately, however, Oppo hasn’t found space for a set of stereo speakers, with a single rather underwhelming speaker positioned on the bottom of the phone. As a result, the audio is all a bit sharp and sibilant.
On the front of the phone, Oppo has supplied a 6.43-inch AMOLED display with an FHD+ (1080 x 2400p) resolution and a 90Hz refresh rate. That’s the exact same spec as last year’s Oppo Find X3 Lite, not to mention the OnePlus Nord 2T, leading me to believe that it’s the same component.
Technically, Oppo appears to have cranked up the peak brightness from 750 to 800 nits for this year’s model. It’s not a huge boost, if I’m being honest, but it at least partly addresses our main criticism of the Find X3 Lite display that it was too dim. It’s still too dim, but less so.
All in all, it’s another solid display, though you can get larger, smoother, and brighter for the money with the Poco F4.
Camera
- 64MP wide sensor, 8MP ultrawide, 2MP macro
- No OIS, but passable night shots
- Decent 32MP selfie camera
If anything, the Oppo Find X5 Lite’s camera system appears to have taken a backwards step from the Find X3 Lite. While ostensibly similar on paper, its 64MP wide sensor is actually a little smaller than its predecessor.
Elsewhere, Oppo has dropped the dedicated depth sensor from the Find X3 Lite, though that’s really not any sort of problem. The included 2MP macro camera is plenty useless as it is.
As for that main 64MP sensor, it’s a perfectly fine performer in good to moderate lighting. Oppo’s strong image processing is clearly at play here, offering balanced shots that don’t ramp up colours too aggressively, and with decent contrast.
These qualities extend to the Find X5 Lite’s 2x shots. While there’s no dedicated telephoto camera, Oppo does a fine job of extracting detail out of these cropped shots.
While the 8MP ultra-wide offers a flatter, less detailed look, it’s broadly of a piece with its superior wide brother. Indeed shots taken with both of those main sensors broadly capture the tone of the scene quite nicely.
Night shots are surprisingly decent given that relatively small sensor, not to mention the lack of OIS. The latter is a key spec that all of the Find X5 Lite’s key rivals mentioned above include. Still, I was quietly satisfied with the results I got from the phone’s dedicated Night mode, despite a certain fuzziness that you don’t get with the very best in the category.
Again, Oppo’s algorithms seem to be doing a lot of heavy lifting, with a nice natural tone that preserves the feel of night time scenes without over-brightening. Just try and keep those hands nice and steady.
The Find X5 Lite also includes a 32MP selfie camera, which is pretty decent at capturing skin tones and isolating subjects from backgrounds without blowing out highlights.
Overall, Oppo’s phone can’t really hang with the OnePlus Nord 2T or the Pixel 6a as an all round shooter. It won’t let you down as such, but you can do better for the money.
Performance
- MediaTek Dimensity 900 slightly underpowered for the money
- Generous 256GB of storage
- Android 11 with ColorOS 12
If there’s one area where the Oppo Find X5 Lite falls substantially behind its peers, it’s performance. Its MediaTek Dimensity 900 chip is the same as you’ll find in the £300 OnePlus Nord CE 2 5G, when really it should be competing with the £400 OnePlus Nord 2T.
In terms of raw performance, as measured by benchmark tests, it falls well behind the pack. A Geekbench 5 multi-core score of 2147 fails to match the Pixel 6a with its custom Tensor chip, the Poco F4 with its old-but-capable Snapdragon 870, the Nothing Phone (1) with its Snapdragon 778G+ 5G, and indeed the OnePlus Nord 2T with its Dimensity 1300.
Things are no better on the GPU front, with a 3D Mark Wild Life score of 2006 less than half of what the Poco F4 achieved.
Oppo Find X5 Lite Benchmark Comparison Scores
For all these underwhelming facts and figures, I can’t say I noticed a huge struggle in the day to day running of the Oppo Find X5 Lite. Everything ticks along smoothly enough, doubtless aided by a healthy 8GB of RAM and that nicely balanced 90Hz display, which is less brutally exposing of substandard hardware than the full 120Hz.
You also get a strong 256GB of internal storage as standard, which is not to be sniffed at.
Another disappointment here is that the Find X5 Lite only runs on Android 11, rather than the Android 12 of the Find X5 and Find X5 Pro. Not that you’ll necessarily notice straight away, with Oppo’s much tinkered-with ColorOS 12 layered on top.
As always, the customisation options are strong with Oppo’s UI, and it’s far from the most obnoxiously in-your-face custom Android job. Make sure that you untick all of the optional apps at the set-up phase, and you won’t suffer from too much bloatware either.
There are expected home-brewed apps for Music, Weather, Clock and the like, as well as a folder full of Tools. You’ll also get third party offerings Facebook, Netflix, and Amazon Shopping preinstalled, but their presence here is defensible. Amazon Music, Bookings.com, and LinkedIn less so.
Really, though, we’d have hoped for an Android 12 update by now.
Battery life
- 4500mAh good for a full day of heavy usage
- 65W charger bundled in
- 0-100% in 35 minutes
Oppo has bolstered the battery size for the Find X5 Lite, with a 4500mAh cell replacing the 4300mAh unit of the Find X3 Lite. With only a marginally brighter display balanced out by a seemingly more efficient processor, I was expecting similarly solid stamina to last year’s model.
Sure enough, I was never troubled by the Oppo Find X5 Lite running out of juice before bed time during my week or so with the phone.
It’s not an outstanding performer, but a full 16 hour day with around 5 hours and 30 minutes of screen-on time – which is what I’d class as pretty heavy usage – left me with 25% of a full charge. That’s enough to place the Find X5 Lite in the ‘dependable’ category in my book.
Oppo has kept the same speedy 65W charging support from the Find X5 Lite, and I found it to be capable of charging the phone from absolute empty to 94% in just 30 minutes. A full 0 to 100% took just 35.
That’s not quite as good as it gets for this sort of money – the Redmi Note 11 Pro Plus 5G can go from 0-100% in 15 to 20 minutes – but it’s still strong.
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Should you buy it?
You want speedy charging. While it’s not the fastest charging for the money, 67W and a 0-100% time of 35 minutes isn’t bad at all.
You want peak performance. The Oppo Find X5 Lite is far from the fastest mid-range phone, so power users and gamers should probably look elsewhere.
Final Thoughts
The Oppo Find X5 Lite is decent in most respects. Its display, performance, camera, design and charging speeds all run the gamut from acceptable to good. There’s a lot to be said for a high degree of all-round competence in a mid-range phone.
As balanced as the Oppo Find X5 Lite is, though, it doesn’t really stand out in any single regard, with the possible exception of those charging speeds. Rival mid-rangers each have a more eye-catching USP, whether that’s the Nothing Phone (1) and its extraordinary design, the Pixel 6a and its imperious Tensor-powered Google experience, the OnePlus Nord 2T and its slick performance, or the Poco F4 and its outstanding display.
The main thing to fault the Oppo Find X5 Lite on, then, is that it feels too safe and staid a package in a mid-range market that is starting to push boundaries. We’re happy recommending the Find X5 Lite, but Oppo needs to step up its game if it’s to compete with the very best.
How we test
We test every mobile phone we review thoroughly. We use industry standard tests to compare features properly and we use the phone as our main device over the review period. We’ll always tell you what we find and we never, ever, accept money to review a product.
Used as our main handset during test period
Camera tested in variety of situations with all modes
Tested with synthetic benchmarks and real world use
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FAQs
The Oppo Find X5 Lite is good for a full day of use without needing a top up.
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Full specs
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Jargon buster
Nits
The brightness level of a display. 300 nits is regarded as the minimum target for high-end screens.
OLED and AMOLED
Types of displays that use self-lighting pixels to provide greater contrast and more vibrant colours than a typical LCD display, as well as sharper blacks.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
