I was in the running for a new Android phone, and I was quite dead set on getting a Nexus 4 – however, there was another phone in the running: the OPPO Find 5, a smrtphone with lots of positive reviews, but from a small manufacturer. The point that made me choose the Find 5 over the Nexus 4? OPPO actively supports the ROM community by giving away free phones, and boasts support for CyanogenMod, Paranoid Android, and an AOSP ROM, and obviously, rooting is easy. OPPO also updates its own firmware/ROM twice per month with new features, which is a far cry from the big boys. If you’re looking for a new Android phone, you might want to consider looking beyond the established players as well, and support a company who works closely with the community – something the big player still need to learn properly. Once the device arrives on my doorstep, I’ll be sure to tell you all about it, and if it lives up to the hype. It is, after all, from a relatively unknown company, so I am taking a risk here. I am a little bit nervous. But hey, if none of us takes the risk, we’ll be stuck with the big players forever.
Psion ? Digital Research ? Be Inc ? Atari ?
Kochise
One thing that makes me stick to the ‘big boys’ is the presence of official service centers. I’ve come across numerous instances where my shiny gadgets needed a replacement part or two within warranty period.
The small players hardly have any presence where I live, so anything that requires hardware repair or parts replacement will take a few extra days for shipping the item back and forth. Not good.
No SD card slot and a built-in battery that can’t be replaced. I don’t see the difference between this, the Nexus, or Apple’s offerings with these disabilities. A real shame because a new player is always welcome.
http://oppostyle.com/home/8-find-5-white.html
“Sorry, your region is currently not supported.”
Nothing else on the page for me. Not cool.
Oh god as a Dutch guy I’m all too familiar with that message (can’t order Nexus devices, for instance). Where are you from?
South America.
Even their top level domain page gives me the same message. Their ENTIRE site consists of one large, bold, rude line.
Oh well, there are many Chinese knockoff Android phone makers that are eager to sell and ship for free to South America.
Google does the same thing in The Netherlands with Play hardware. Just a single sentence that says: “Sorry, we don’t give a rat’s ass about you!” (mildly paraphrased).
It’s just rude.
Exactly. I feel your pain. Here it’s practically impossible to listen to legal music, because most of the on-demand personalized streaming services, and even some regular online radio streams are geo-IP locked. The same goes for Amazon music purchases. And forget about finding anything legal for sale on the street.
Edited 2013-07-12 12:55 UTC
This is a Chinese company.
Ascension International Trading Co., Ltd.
http://en.hkcomp.info/hongkong/cps.jsp?key=1866353-a9e6618e
What country of South America you live in? I’m in Argentina and don’t get such message.
Works for me (Argentina)
I can understand when shipping is unavailable for some reasons, but whole site is blocked. (in Ukraine)
Exactly, since there might be regulations and law issues that block the import of electronics and cellular devices – but blocking and entire site like OPPO and Google do is just fucking rude.
same here from dominican republic
The same for Russia – even through Anonymouse.org. This is bad business. I can ship stuff using a freight forwarder, if they don’t want to ship it to Russia – but blocking the whole site is rude.
Looks nice. What about accessories, docks and such? It’s hard enough finding things for regional versions of fairly popular devices like the Verizon Galaxy Nexus.
Still, their sales model looks like something I could support. Can’t wait for December to be free of Verizon. Hopefully there will be a durable <4.5″ phone with on screen buttons and a decent camera.(looking at you Motorola)
For those of you that can’t access the web site, here is the system specs:
Processor Qualcomm APQ8064 Quad-Core 1.5GHz
Screen 5 inch
1080×1920 FULL HD
441 PPI
Memory 16GB ROM, 2GB RAM
Connectivity UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA/HSPA+/HSPA+42 (850, 1700, 1900, 2100MHz)
GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900MHz)
802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi (802.11n 2.4GHz and 5GHz)
Wi-Fi Direct
Bluetooth
NFC
Features Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean)
GPS
Wi-Fi Display
DLNA
Gyroscope
Digital compass
Microphone
Light Sensor
IR Proximity Sensor
Magnetic Sensor
Gravity Sensor
Battery 2500 mAh built-in lithium-ion battery
Multimedia Audio: WAV, AMR, AWB, OGG, WMA, APE, FLAC, MIDI, IMY etc.
Video: MP4, 3GP, WMV, ASF, AVI, MKV, FLV, MOV, F4V etc.
Graphic: PNG, JPG, BMP, WBMP, GIF etc.
Included Accessories European USB Power Adapter
USB Cable
OPPO Dirac Headphones
2x OPPO NFC SmartTags
But, having a battery that can’t be replaced is a deal breaker for me. Everything else looks great.
For me that is a non-issue. Similarly, no SDcard-slot is a non-issue. The phone has good specs, has gotten good reviews, it looks really nice.. I just wish it had a slightly larger display.
So in 1 or 2 years time when the battery dies you either throw it away or give it a burial in the garden. There is no excuse these days for any company to make throw away products, except greed of course.
Most of the time, the battery is still replacable, just a bit more difficult. There are other things they can do to extend the life of internal batteries(not charging or charging fully). Batteries aren’t what they used to be. If they can put enough battery in it to last me over a day I would be happy.
If the battery dies that fast on you I’d say the problem lies with you, not the battery. I bought my Galaxy Note as used, it’s still using the original battery the previous owner got it with, and it’s still working fine and I have had no reason whatsoever to even contemplate getting a new one.
It does not negate the fact that it is designed and made to be thrown away. Already too much waste in this society! Like I already said, a shame because it’s a good phone apart from that.
So in 1 or 2 years time when the battery dies
1 or 2 years? Even if you recharge the phone every day, the worst thing that can happen (with good quality battery) in 2 years is moderate degradation.
Ya, my Droid Incredible from May 2010 is still going strong. Of course, it has a removable battery, but I haven’t replaced it
True, but who’s to say they put a high quality battery in it?
Modern lithium polymer batteries will handle 1200-1500 cycles of 50% discharge. This is 4-5 years of normal use. You can virtually guarantee that the rest of the hone will also be in poor condition by this stage.
I’m not too concerned about the battery life either, if it lasts two years that’s good enough for me – in two years’ time I’m sure something newer and shinier will come along and I’ll be itching to update my phone anyway. As will be most people on this site, I’ll bet! As for the issue of waste – where I live at least we have ways of recycling a phone in responsible manner so I don’t have to feel too guilty.
Edited 2013-07-13 03:10 UTC
I thought the decision on my next phone would be an easy one, wait for Nexus 5 or buy a Nexus 4, and then this gets posted.
Thanks for posting this. This looks awesome, and the community support is a big deal.
chinese phone #734980. at least you could buy one from a business that has some values to it.
get a fairphone so they can afford to make a better phone next time. http://www.fairphone.com/
Unfortunately, those aren’t shipping yet. I like the idea, but I’m not in their preorder area. If you need a phone right now, those aren’t an option.
I don’t trust those guys. I heard an interview with one of the founders. They could not explain what it is that they exactly do and I got from the interview that this was more of a publicity stunt than a new company that plays fair.
Thanks for linking to this, going to tell everyone I know.
Nasty Phone.
No removable battery, I don’t care if it is THIN, the whole purpose for using a SmartPhone is for more than just calls and a built in battery isn’t going to cut it.
Secondly, a battery which costs like $22 bucks, fails, and I am out a $600 plus bucks investment?
OPPO 5 can go pound sand.
I won’t even go into the lack of other stuff like LTE, etc.
-Hack
Seems like it supports every LTE band out there except the ones used in Norway (1800+2600). Anyone else left out in the cold?
On the same note – didn’t Qualcomm announce that they were going to make a unified GSM/LTE chip that supported every frequency being used around the world? Is this chip not released yet?
Edit: Bah! It doesn’t support LTE at all, it’s just UMTS/HSDPA etc.. never mind!
Edited 2013-07-12 18:35 UTC
Oppo is a small but very respected company with a track record for creating high-quality, eminently hackable consumer electronics components, mainly up-converting DVD and blu-ray players.
I bought an Oppo DVD player a while back that included some very slick features and also allows the user to skip “mandatory” ads and previews. Big-name manufacturers are too cowed by the studios to provide this feature. It was a little more expensive than the cheapest DVD players, but it’s held up very well over the years.
Talking about alternatives, I’m having lots of satisfaction with an Asus Padfone Infinity.
The specs are really high level and together with its station it’s a very nice piece of engineering.
Don’t know about community support from Asus, but they have just a few Android devices to focus on and I already received about 3 updates in the month I’ve been owning it.
Ships with Android 4.1??
‘Nexus’ implies vanilla Android but the screenshots don’t show vanilla Android.
ifixit.com will probably have battery replacement instructions for this before too long.
Too bad there’s not a Verizon (or even LTE) model though.
Edited 2013-07-13 03:29 UTC
There are heaps of Chinese phones that you can pick from and a lot have very good quality. Another example is a THL W8 Beyond or a bigger screen W9 (THL = Technology Happy Life)
http://en.thl.com.cn/
I was just going to say that Oppo themselves might not ship to _____, but this website probably will. Shit, they even ship to Kenya!
http://android-sale.com/oppo-find-5.html
N4 is a great device, with a fatal flaw – too thin glass.
If phones like this, unlocked, with stock android are this cheap, who needs the manufacturers anymore?
We do. They manufacture the phones, after all
. We don’t need or want OEM crapware but, without OEMs themselves, who is going to make phones for us to use?
Looks good but… it’s SO BIG!
Other than Oppo who else is known to be good for updates and for community support?