New Oppo smartphone with 60x microscope camera

New Oppo smartphone with 60x microscope camera

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  • The Oppo Find X3 Pro.

    Oppo

  • Forward.

    Oppo

  • The microscope lens is on the left here, with a large silver ring around it.

    Oppo

  • An exploded view of the camera.

    Oppo

  • The back is very interesting. The relief of the camera is molded on the back and, with the exception of the circular cutouts of the cameras, the back is a single piece of glass.

    Oppo

  • The rear window panel, without coloring and all the phone bits is one piece!

    Oppo

  • A complete photo of the back.

    Oppo

  • The top and the bottom.

    Oppo

  • A disassembly rendering.

    Oppo

Modern smartphones have many extra cameras. We saw wide-angle cameras, telephoto cameras, depth cameras, macro cameras and now … a microscope camera? The new Oppo Find X3 Pro has a “microlensing sensor with zoom up to 60x” that can take some interesting super close-up photos.

We love the macro cameras that came up on some phones, especially from OnePlus, Oppo’s sister company. The Oppo’s microcamera sounds like a state-of-the-art version of the same idea. We are not going to rely on sample photos taken professionally by a manufacturer, but some third parties, like Android Police, got their hands on the phone and delivered some truly impressive photos that weren’t possible on a smartphone before.

As you expected, all the sample images out there have a very shallow depth of field and it seems that focusing is a challenge. This is also true for regular macrophotography. Most people are taking pictures with their hands, and a complete tripod-style setup would probably help a lot. The camera’s “Micro” sensor is only 3 MP, but unlike some useless “decorative” 2 MP cameras that we see on cheaper phones, this seems enough for a close-up.

To the left is a picture of a stone; on the right is a close-up of the microcamera of that same rock.
Extend / To the left is a picture of a stone; on the right is a close-up of the microcamera of that same rock.

For specifications, we are getting a very standard 2021 flagship: a 6.7-inch, 120 Hz, 3216 × 1440 OLED screen; a Snapdragon 888 SoC; 12 GB of RAM; 256 GB of storage; and a 4500 mAh battery. There is a 65 W corded charge, a 30 W wireless charge, an on-screen fingerprint reader, NFC and a USB-C port. For software, there is Android 11 with the Android cover “Color OS” from Oppo.

The other interesting design element of the phone is the overhang of the Oppo camera. Instead of hitting a large rectangle with 90-degree sides that create a step in the camera module, Oppo shaped the glass to lean over the camera’s relief in a smooth, continuous shape. Even the top of the camera’s relief is still the same piece of glass, with individual cutouts for each lens. Oppo says it takes 40 hours to make the glass panel.

Oppo generally does not launch phones in the United States, so we will have to wait for something like this to reach a OnePlus phone someday. The phone will be launched in Europe on March 30 for € 1,149 ($ 1,377).

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