Apple iPhone XS Max vs OPPO Find X – Flagship Comparison Review

We recently got our own Apple iPhone XS Max, and of course, a comparison with another flagship smartphone of 2018 is a must. Going against the iPhone XS Max is OPPO’s Find X. Before we dive deep into the comparison, here’s the spec sheet:

• Apple iPhone XS Max vs Huawei P20 Pro vs OPPO Find X
• OPPO Find X vs Huawei P20 Pro – Comparison Review
• OPPO Find X Review

Display

For the displays, the iPhone XS Max features a 6.5-inch OLED display, with a resolution of 1242 x 2688 pixels, and an aspect ratio of 19.5:9. According to Apple, the screen is protected by a scratch-resistant glass. Same with last year’s iPhone X, it has an edge-to-edge screen and yes, the notch is still there. And unlike other smartphones with the same notched display, Apple still hasn’t added a feature to hide it. Just like the older iPhones, the display has a 3D touch feature. By looking at its display, you’d hardly see any differences over the last year’s iPhone.

Now, going to its contender, OPPO’s latest flagship, the OPPO Find X sports a 6.42-inch AMOLED display with a screen resolution 1080 x 2340 pixels and an aspect ratio of 19.5:9 protected by Corning Gorilla Glass. In addition to that, this smartphone has Panoramic Arc all screen display. One thing that beats the iPhone XS Max is Find X’s slider mechanism. The slider houses the cameras and sensors that are the main problem why we gotta have a notch, and since OPPO got rid of it through their pop-up camera mechanism, the Find X provides its users a full-screen bezel-less display

With the two smartphones sitting side by side with their brightness at maximum level, we can see that the iPhone XS Max has a brighter display than the latter but with a cooler tone screen. Watching videos and playing games are also more fun on the Find X because of its notch-less display, you can watch and play without any black bar distracting your viewing experience.

Design

The Apple iPhone XS Max’s body is made of reinforced glass front and back with a stainless steel frame. Going to its dimensions, the bigger 2018 iPhone measures 157.5 x 77.4 x 7.7 mm and weighs 208 g. Again, it still has a notch and no way to hide it. The iPhone XS Max is also IP68 certified for water and dust resistance.

The OPPO Find X, on the other hand, features a glass front and back with a metal frame that is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5. It measures 156.7 x 74.2 x 9.4 mm and weighs 186g. Popularized with modern design and innovative features, the OPPO Find X is one of the few smartphones today with the motorized camera.

Moving on to the back panel of the devices, Apple says that the back panel of their new iPhones are made of premium glass that is more scratch resistant than ever. As usual, there’s the Apple logo at the center and the dual rear cameras are placed vertically at the upper left side of the rear. There’s the LED flash underneath the cameras as well. The back panel of OPPO Find X is a complete glass back with the purple or green gradient at the edge and the company branding at the middle. The rear essentials were placed at the pop-up slider, it has the dual camera that houses 16MP + 20MP sensors and also, the 25MP front camera.

Unlike most recently released handsets this year, these two flagship handsets don’t have rear-mounted fingerprint scanners nor in-display fingerprint sensors.

Design-wise, there are no significant changes made to the iPhone XS Max. Imagine a table with an iPhone X and iPhone XS Max, you’d probably be confused as these two handsets almost look identical. On the other hand, the  OPPO Find X’s design is undeniably and uniquely stunning, However, there’s still a downside to this as it is slippery upon holding and prone to fingerprint smudges.

Camera

Here’s the first photo sample set from both flagship-spec handsets. At first glance, you’ll see that these two look identical. But when you focus your eyes at the sky on the photos, you’ll see how the iPhone XS Max captured more details of the clouds and how it was able to show the bluer sky, compared to the lighter blue shade on the OPPO’s sample shot.

The portrait mode of both devices were turned on when we took the shots. Surprisingly, the bokeh effect on the iPhone XS Max on this shot is almost non-existent, meanwhile, the portrait mode of the Find X made the photo look Instagram-worthy instantly. These two photos were taken at the same time but the color difference is imminent. The photo that was captured by the iPhone looked natural, while the one by the Find X looked like it was post-processed already.

HDR mode enabled. These two shots also look identical even with the HDR mode turned on, but with the OPPO Find X sample photo slightly has darker hues compared to the latter. Detail-sharpness-wise, both delivered crisp and detailed photos.

This is a photo captured by the iPhone XS Max. See the white circle at the center? We’ll go check that out by using the iPhone XS Max and OPPO Find X 10x zoom.

Taken at the same place as the previous shot, but with the 10x zoom enabled. It’s amazing that these phones can take clear photos even with the zoom set at 10. Which smartphone captured the clearer and better shot with 10x zoom?

The iPhone XS Max was able to capture the “RCBC” logo on the building a bit clearer compared to the Find X’s shot, but with visible noise and crisp details. The Find X also got the “RCBC” logo but it wasn’t as clear and noise-free compared to the iPhone’s photo.

These low-lit shots were also taken on the portrait mode. Compared to the previous sample photo set with portrait mode enabled, the bokeh effect on the iPhone XS Max is visible now. The Find X gives a nice depth effect and compared to the iPhone’s shot, this one has higher saturation level even without post-processing.

A bit different to our previous results, the iPhone shot is a lot brighter and vibrant compared to the Find X’s.

These are the selfies taken on both the iPhone XS Max and OPPO Find X. We tested the front snappers of each smartphone to differentiate its results. We took selfies in broad daylight, indoor light with portrait mode on, and also indoor with low-light. Which front-facing camera results do you prefer? The natural look of the iPhone lenses or the beautified look of the OPPO?

User Experience

The newest iPhone XS Max is powered by Apple’s A12 Bionic, which is said to be 40% more powerful than last year’s chipset.  Aside from the new chipset, there’s Apple GPU (4-core graphics) coupled with 4GB of RAM and 3 storage options: 64GB, 256GB, and 512GB. The iPhone XS Max arrives with iOS 12 operating system, which was introduced last June. Meanwhile, the OPPO Find X is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 paired with Adreno 630 carrying 8GB of RAM and 256GB storage.

Going again to the viewing experiences – display-wise, it is more fun to watch videos on the Find X because of its bezel-less display. The notch on the iPhone XS Max can be irritating and distracting. However, the stereo audio of the iPhone gives a surround audio experience which also makes the viewing and playing experience great. Colors are also accurate for both, no changes were seen when viewed from different angles.

Of course, we have to test how these flagship smartphones can play highly-graphical games. Upon testing, both handsets are great for gaming, no lags of some sort were encountered while playing Asphalt 9 and PUBG. Thanks to Apple’s newest chipset, loading up apps is much faster than before. Also, Apple is known for their well-optimized handsets, and navigating on this iPhone with the iOS 12 shows no slowdowns at all. Well, let’s wait for the next OS update and see if there’ll be changes after that. For the meantime, it’s the fastest and most powerful iPhone yet.

Another feature of the iPhone XS Max is the Animoji, it was first introduced during the iPhone X launch last year. But with the iOS 12, a Memoji feature was added. It is a little similar to Samsung’s AR Emoji, you can create and customize an emoji, you can even tweak it to look just like yourself. Apart from that, Apple also added a new side button, one of its uses is when a user is going to purchase something from the app store. Upon clicking the “get” sign, users need to double click the side button to confirm then the face ID will finalize the purchase. Apple added this feature to make purchasing more secure.

Switching to the OPPO Find X, this handset has a little twist in the gaming department, the feature called OPPO Game Space. Gaming experience is more controlled and fun as well with this feature, as it optimizes the game and the phone. Also, it allocates the system resources, restricts the network access of background apps and answering calls or anything that will interrupt gaming will be prompted.

In addition, OPPO added a video display enhancement feature. As you can see, it gives the users the option to improve the quality and present more vivid videos. However, as indicated in the photo, this feature is only for local video player and selected third-party apps.

Security

The Face ID or Face Recognition are present on both handsets, both the iPhone XS Max and the Find X also doesn’t have a fingerprint sensor. Diving first on the iPhone, Apple says that it is more secure and faster than their previous model, this is quite true but it is still not the fastest and most-accurate Face ID in the market.

Jumping to OPPO Find X’s security feature, its motorized camera feature may be the game changer as of today, however, it only offers decent face recognition performance as it encounters hiccups whenever optical glasses were used. Its face recognition’s speed is not the fastest that we’ve tried as well since it will take time before the face sensor to work due to the slider mechanism. Nonetheless, it works in most cases such as low-lighting and even when not directly facing the phone.

Benchmarks

We tested both smartphones using the following benchmarking tools and here are the results:

Battery

The OPPO Find X is packed with 3730 mAh battery whereas the Apple iPhone XS Max has a slightly smaller battery pack of 3174 mAh, the number on the iPhone might look ordinary but it is actually the largest battery pack Apple has put in a smartphone to date.

Supported with VOOC flash charge, the OPPO Find X took an hour and 20 mins to meet 80% of charge and 100% for an hour and 53 minutes to be exact. On the other hand, the Apple iPhone XS Max took around an hour and 40 mins to fuel a dead-batt iPhone to 80%.

Issues regarding the iPhone XS Max’s charging surfaced after a few days of its commercial release. Apparently, some iPhones XS Max units won’t’s start charging even when the lightning cable is already connected. Some units have to be tapped first (users needs to “wake up” the screen) for the charging to begin.

Audio

The iPhone XS Max produces louder audio with its stereo speaker, also not scratchy even in maximum volume. In comparison, the Find X also provides great volume level despite only having a mono speaker, however, a little scratchy when the volume is set to maximum level.

Price and Availability

The Apple iPhone XS Max will be available in the PH market soon in three color variants: Gold, Silver, and Space Gray, For the pricing, consumers have three options as well: 64GB model for PHP 74,990, 256GB for PHP 84,490, and lastly, 512GB with the very expensive price tag of PHP 97,490. 

For the OPPO Find X, it is priced at PHP 49, 990 and is available in two color variants – Bordeaux Red and Glacier Blue.

These two are undeniably innovative and stunning smartphones that give a great mobile experience to the users. However, if you look at it, these two are highly expensive, especially the iPhone XS Max. And in reality, some of their good features and specs can be found on midrange phones today.

All in all, Apple iPhone XS Max and OPPO Find X can deliver great gaming experiences as both are equipped with flagship chipsets, high-quality camera sensors, and seamless web browsing. It’s up for you to decide which do you prefer, Apple’s newest iPhone or OPPO’s flagship with the unique pop-up mechanism?