Oppo is set to launch the Find N2 Flip in Kenya soon.
How soon? We don’t know since we haven’t heard from the brand directly on the matter but media reports suggest that that will be happening this week so we wait and see.
Of interest to us, of course, will be the price that the Find N2 Flip will start at. Released in December 2022, the Oppo Find N2 Flip has been showing up in various markets over the last 2 months with a price tag of about Kshs 150,000, about the same price that its main competition in the Kenyan market and elsewhere in the world, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip4, is going for.
Given Samsung’s brand recognition, expansive reach courtesy of a wide retail distribution network and marketing genius in the Kenyan market, that doesn’t exactly work in the Find N2 Flip’s favour and Oppo will have to ramp things a notch higher if it is to dislodge the Flip4 as a go-to folding flip smartphone in Kenya. Otherwise, it may end up being the solid alternative that tech blogs like this one keep propping every time the subject comes up and the matter dies there.
Talking about competition and death, there’s been the gorgeous Huawei P50 Pocket that Huawei Mobile Kenya has had in the market for a while but which no one seems to know of or talk about. Such is the fate that befalls products when the aforementioned happens.
There’s the bit where the P50 Pocket is terribly overpriced (it has a laughable marked price of Kshs 215,000 which doesn’t come down to anything reasonable even with the frequent price cuts its been subjected to) and old (launched a year and a half a go) and, Huawei’s Android situation (the lack of Google Play certified apps) doesn’t help things, but you know, things could’ve turned out better with the correct push at the right time.
The Oppo Find N2 Flip packs a 6.8-inch display when opened up fully, which is closer to the Galaxy Z Flip4’s 6.7-inch AMOLED panel (the Oppo, too, has the same display tech). The difference appears in the Find N2’s cover screen which is bigger than the Flip4’s at a whole 3.26 inches compared to the Samsung’s 1.9-inch panel. Given that Samsung didn’t change anything there between the third and fourth iterations of the device, we can be sure that that is enough motivation to spice things up when the Flip5 comes out in a few months.
Under the hood, the Find N2 Flip promises to be quite a capable device with a Dimensity 9000+ chipset from MediaTek which has overpowered devices running the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 that we find on Samsung’s latest flip phone.
The camera department, too, thanks to input from premium Swedish optical company Hasselblad, is also up there. There’s a 50-megapixel main sensor at the back of the Find N2 Flip that’s accompanied by an 8-megapixel ultra-wide. On the front is a 32-megapixel selfie cam.
The phone has a 4,300mAh battery with 44W SuperVOOC fast charging. That is a big upgrade to the 3,700mAh cell on the Galaxy Z Flip4 and its mediocre standard 15W charging that can be ramped up to 25W with the correct adaptor (you get none in the box, remember that). Oppo puts a 67W adaptor in the box. Sweet!
There’s a different hinge mechanism on the N2 Flip when compared to the Flip4’s and, as such, the crease on the display side is much more subtle.
Like Samsung and its Flex mode (later rebranded as FlexCam), Oppo’s ColorOS overlay is tuned for this device specifically with something called FlexForm mode which is of the same nature, allowing users to take advantage of its folding mechanism to do two things in one go on the two displays when the device is not fully unfolded as well as adding use cases to the cover screen like using it as a viewfinder when someone is taking photos of the other.
Given that the Find N2 Flip is not Oppo’s first foldable effort, as they have been doing this for a while, users can probably expect a more refined experience that shows the brand’s learnings over the years. As Oppo’s first foldable smartphone in the Kenyan market, its reception and the experience it offers the few buyers who’ll look its way is something that is likely to shape the reception of future devices from the brand that push the innovation envelope as hard.
