Released as part of OPPO’s Find X5 series, the OPPO Find X5 Lite is the budget version of the Find X5 and Find X5 Pro. With it’s sub-$800 price point, OPPO has its work cut out for it when it comes to striking the right balance between affordable and premium. Some features are far more impressive than what you’ll find on cheaper phones, but it does lack the drawcard features of its bigger-budget siblings.
However, it’s got a lot to offer if you’re looking for a solid performance at this price point, and has the hallmarks of OPPO’s great ergonomically designed phones. Read on for our hands-on review of the OPPO Find X5 Lite to find out if this is the right phone for you.
How we tested the OPPO Find X5 Lite
I tested the OPPO Find X5 Lite over several weeks, across a range of activities, day-to-day use and running benchmark tests to test battery and charging performance, to see how the phone stacked up.
OPPO Find X5 Lite features and specs
- $799 AUD RRP
- 5G connectivity
- MediaTek Dimensity 900 SoC processor
- 6.4-inch FHD AMOLED display
- 90Hz refresh rate
- Triple rear-camera setup (64MP wide-angle + 8MP ultra-wide + 2MP macro)
- 32MP front-facing camera
- 4,500mAh
- 65W SUPERVOOC fast charging
- 8GB RAM
- 256GB storage
- Fingerprint and facial recognition unlocking
- Startrails Blue and Starry Black colourways
| OPPO Find X5 Lite pros | OPPO Find X5 Lite cons |
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Design and functionality
- Gorgeous gradient finish on back
- Rather thin and lightweight
OPPO has a hard ask for the Find X5 Lite — not quite budget, not quite premium, but somewhere in the middle. It needs to strike the balance of feeling more premium than phones outside its Find X range, while also offering more than the basics.
The way OPPO has achieved this with the Find X5 Lite’s design is by producing a phone that carries some of the weightiness and solidness you expect from premium phones, but in a more budget plastic finish. The back of the phone is a nice smudge-proof matte finish — clearly some sort of plastic — which looks rather sleek and premium and doesn’t show fingerprints. A clear jelly case is also included to protect from scratches.
I was given the Starry Black version of the Find X5 Lite, which also comes in a pretty light blue colourway called ‘Startrails Blue’. As the colour name would suggest, Starry Black seems to be inspired by the night sky, so rather than a plain black, you get a very dark blue gradient going from lighter to darker from the bottom of the phone upwards. This is such a subtle nod to the night sky that clearly inspired the phone’s colour, but is also a testament to OPPO’s continued effort when it comes to producing nice looking phones, and its willingness to do its own thing and not be swayed by the competition. Ultimately, OPPO makes really nice looking phones, and the Find X5 Lite is no exception to this.
Like with the other Find X5 series phones, OPPO didn’t skimp on the phone size for the Find X5 Lite, with a 6.4-inch display. However, it is considerably lighter and thinner than the Find X5, coming in at 173g with 7.81mm thickness compared to the 196g and 8.7mm thickness of the Find X5. If you prefer lighter and more compact-feeling phones, the Find X5 Lite is worth looking at, without sacrificing screen size or that feel of a quality build.
The screen is where the Find X5 Lite starts to feel more budget than premium, with a flat screen (compared to the curves of the Find X5) and some thicker bezels. I found that the screen made the Find X5 Lite feel closer to the budget OPPO A76 than the premium Find X5.
You’ll find the cameras with a simple rectangle setup on the top left of the back. Looking at the phone screen, you’ll find the lock button on the right side about halfway down the length, while the volume buttons are in virtually the same position on the left.
Using the phone
OPPO has also included an in-display fingerprint reader for the Find X5 Lite, which does feel like a more premium addition. It’s placed towards the bottom of the phone, which I found to be conveniently positioned to unlock with my thumbprint. As with the Find X5, OPPO has nailed the ergonomics of button and fingerprint scanner placement, so the phone is easy and comfortable to use.
In addition to PIN and fingerprint unlocking, you can also switch on facial recognition unlocking. I found both the fingerprint and facial recognition to be really quick to unlock and the fingerprint scanner was generally rather fast and seamless to use, bar a couple of instances of slow unlocking after idle periods.
When it comes to the design and functionality of the Find X5 Lite, I feel like OPPO has hit all the right notes. While it is tricky to work out exactly how the phone is positioned in the market, it does strike that balance between budget phone and premium feel — exactly what you would hope for the cheapest phone in the premium ‘Find X’ lineup. It’s a phone that looks and feels good to use.
Performance
- 65W fast charger included in the box
- Decent performance overall but prone to slow loading, and could have offered a bit more considering it’s part of the Find X5 series
For a phone marketed as the simplified version of a premium series, the Find X5 Lite does a decent job at keeping up. Even though there are times where it feels like a very basic phone, there are also moments where it does feel like it offers a bit more when it comes to the overall performance, cementing it’s position as an ‘affordable premium’ phone. You’ll also get 5G connectivity and I was able to record blistering speeds of up to 493Mbps on the Optus 5G network.
As you might expect, the MediaTek Dimensity 900 SoC processor is more basic than the Snapdragon processors offered with the Find X5 and Find X5 Pro. However, it’s still able to deliver a solid performance. There were only a few occasions where I experienced glitches or the phone struggling to perform a task (such as opening an app), and one of those occasions was related to an app needing an update. Ultimately, those few occasions were no different than what you experience with more premium phones (after all, no phone is completely glitch-proof), and didn’t cause any frustrations or detract from the overall performance.
The Find X5 Lite does a good job at keeping up with your usage needs — I found it to be reasonably quick to use, but at times scrolling through social media and web seemed to be a little on the sluggish side. Although the 90Hz refresh did make it feel a little zippier, it was just let down by what felt like slow loading at times, especially when refreshing my Instagram feed.
While this is certainly to be expected of a phone at this price point, and with the ‘Lite’ tag thrown in the mix, I feel like OPPO could have done a bit more to position this phone as a budget premium device, considering what some of the competition offers at this price point (and even what OPPO offers from its own cheaper devices).
Viewing experience
Although the OPPO Find X5 Lite doesn’t have the same level quality screen as the Find X5, it still looks nice and clear, especially when watching videos in HD and gaming. While it seems to lack a little of the vibrancy and clarity you get with many premium phones, it still looks good whether you’re scrolling through social media or watching videos.
I found the screen was really let down by its adaptive brightness. At times, it didn’t go anywhere near its darkest, even in a virtually pitch black room, and it tends towards a brighter setting for the environment than needed — I found myself needing to reduce the brightness manually in some settings, especially when playing games with a lot of brightness and colour.
There is a single speaker in the bottom of the phone, positioned to the bottom right of the screen. I found the placement suited how I watched videos in landscape view, but if you hold your phone differently, you can easily block the speaker with your hand. The speaker quality was ok — it was rather clear and definitely does the trick when it comes to watching videos and listening to music. However, the quality was a little flat and lacked a bit of bass with music, but it wasn’t as noticeable with shows or movies. This is common with many cheaper phones, but considering the price tag of the Find X5 Lite, I felt that the speakers could be a bit better, so you’ll probably want to stick to headphones for better quality audio.
Whether you’re scrolling through social media, watching videos or gaming, I found the screen and speakers provided a decent viewing experience overall. While it’s certainly not the best that OPPO can give — and there are other phones around this price point that could give you more bang for your buck — you’ll still have a great viewing experience no matter what you’re doing or watching.
Battery and charging
The Find X5 Lite has a 4,500mAh battery — the same size as the Find X5 battery — which can easily keep up with your day to day. I felt like the battery drained a little quicker than the battery for the Find X5, but when running my benchmark tests, that didn’t seem to be the case. It drained around 2% of battery in 20 minutes of gaming and 3% in around 36 minutes of Disney+ video streaming. Around seven hours of moderate use with regular idle periods only drained around 20% of the battery, so I found it kept up rather well with my needs.
Of course if you’re running low on battery, OPPO has also included a fast 65W SUPERVOOC charger in the box. As you’d expect, when using this included charger, the Find X5 Lite is super quick to charge. I was able to charge from 5% to 100% in around 43 minutes, and if you need a quick boost, you can get 10% extra battery in just 5 minutes of charging.
Ultimately there is little to complain about with the Find X5 Lite’s performance. Everything was just…fine. It worked how it should, and it felt like not quite a basic phone, but with nothing performance-wise to stand out as premium either — although the 65W fast charger is a big plus, and definitely not a budget-phone feature. It will do what you want and keep up with what you need from your phone, but the price point and how basic it feels is perhaps a little disappointing. I’m still finding it hard to work out the positioning of the Find X5 Lite in the market and therefore whether this phone matches that expectation.
Cameras
- Great photos overall and true-to-life colours
- Macro lens virtually useless in low-light conditions
The camera setup for the Find X5 Lite is one of the major differences between the cheaper phone and its two more expensive siblings in the Find X5 and Find X5 Pro. Like the X5 and X5 Pro, you’ll get a triple rear camera setup, but the camera specs are different. You’ll have a 64MP main lens, 8MP wide-angle camera and 2MP macro camera (compared to the 50MP wide-angle, 50MP ultra wide-angle and 13 MP telephoto you’ll get with the Find X5 and Find X5 Pro). You’ll also have a 32MP front-facing camera for all your selfie needs. The impressive-sounding camera setup puts the Find X5 Lite into closer competition with Samsung’s Galaxy S21 FE, which tends to pack a lot into its cameras while keeping other elements of the phone more basic.
One thing to note is that the Find X5 Lite is missing the Hasselblad collaboration found with the other Find X5 phones. This means that you’ll lose some of the colour and brightness technology and improvements to night/low light photography, that you’ll find with the X5 and X5 Pro.
That being said, the Find X5 Lite does a fantastic job at taking outdoor photos. When you actually take the photos, you might think the result is not particularly sharp and a bit on the blurry side, but once the image has processed, your pictures look very sharp and true to life. Unfortunately, it’s a little slow to process the updates to the images, even when you’re looking back at photos you’ve taken in the photo app, so you’ll need to have some patience when looking through your photos.
I found colours to be very lifelike, and while the results on the Hasselblad-backed Find X5 are rather stunning, if you’d only been using the Find X5 Lite, it’s likely you wouldn’t notice a difference.
Indoor photography is pretty good, with colours capturing naturally. When shooting indoors with low light, you’ll definitely notice a difference when you’re taking the photo compared to when it’s processing, as indoor shots in low light looks rather dark on screen, but once the image is processed, it’s much brighter and the colours look great.
You can use up to 20x digital zoom, and while it’s an impressive feature, the results are pretty much what you would expect of a digital zoom with a lot of blur and noise. It definitely doesn’t reach the quality of the zoom on the Find X5, which was much clearer and easier to use.
When it comes to low-light/night photography, the main lens already does a decent job at brightening the low-light photos (within reason) but in very dark conditions, you’ll need to use night mode. The night mode of the Find X5 Lite does, by far, one of the best jobs at shooting in very dark conditions when switching to ‘ultra dark’ mode — and that’s without the extra features included with the Find X5. The only downside to using ‘ultra dark mode’ is that you can’t really see the subject on the screen, so it’s only when the image processes that you know whether the shot has worked or not, and you’ll need a very steady hand to avoid blur. Standard night mode does a great job at producing brighter shots, and in environments with moody or limited lighting, it gives that extra boost to provide a brighter pic with clearer detail.
The Find X5 Lite has a dedicated 2MP macro lens, rather than a macro setting using other lenses like the Find X5. The macro lens picks up on detail and does a fantastic job at taking those close shots — but only when the lighting is right. The results from indoor macro in low-light conditions are virtually impossible to see. Lower light macro shots in general are a bit disappointing, and colours in certain conditions aren’t as vibrant or true to life as shots on the main lens. You can get some great macro shots, but pretty much only if there is the right lighting.
Portrait mode is pretty good, and definitely looks excellent when shooting a selfie with the front-facing camera. However, using the back camera with portrait mode is prone to the whole ‘move further away from the subject’ message. I also found that it struggled to focus on the subject when I was too close, so it did require adjusting to get the right distance and focus, and lacked a little depth and subtlety.
Video was better than I expected, although you did need the right conditions. I found it did an excellent job at autofocusing, although again it struggled to focus if the subject was too close. Outdoor video had great true-to-life colours and a lot of depth, however indoor filming in poor lighting did suffer from a fair bit of noise.
The overall stand out with the Find X5 cameras is that it does an excellent job, and is capable of taking great photos and videos — but when the conditions are right. It certainly produces better shots than what you’ll get from many cheap phones, but it still needs the right conditions to get those shots to really pop.
Note: Images taken on the OPPO Find X5 Lite have been digitally compressed for web.
Related: OPPO Find X5 review: Serious quality with serious cameras
OPPO Find X5 Lite plans
If the outright price is a little steep to you, or you prefer to buy your phone on a plan, you can pick up the OPPO Find X5 Lite on phone plans from Optus, Vodafone, and Woolworths Mobile.
The following table shows a selection of published 24-month plans for the OPPO Find X5 Lite on Canstar Blue’s database, listed in order of standard monthly cost, from the lowest to highest and then by data allowance, largest to smallest. Use our mobile phone plan comparison tool to see a wider range of plans from other providers. This is a selection of products with links to a referral partner.
Should I buy the OPPO Find X5 Lite?
When testing out the Find X5 Lite, I struggled to really place where this phone is positioned in the market. It’s a bit too pricey to be a stand-out budget phone, but too cheap to compete with the premium devices. As a mid-range phone, it seems unsure of its place — many of the features and the overall performance are too basic to compete with stand out devices around this price range such as the Motorola Edge 20 (released in 2021). This might not seem like such a problem, but it’s a big part of considering whether this phone is offering great value for money.
It is, in general, a great phone. I didn’t find there were too many issues with its performance, it was an easy, comfortable and reasonably zippy phone to use. It has a rather simple design and while it can feel a little cheap thanks to it’s plastic finish, it looks great and is thin and lightweight. The cameras also offer solid performance and do a good job at the basics and definitely feel like there is a bit more to offer than a phone $100-$200 cheaper.
I suppose this phone is best suited to someone who wants a little bit more than a basic performance; for example, if you like what OPPO offers with its Find series of phones, but don’t have the budget for the Find X5 or Find X5 Pro. However, OPPO also offers some other great phones around this price point or cheaper if you just need the basics (including very basic/limited photography options). Anyone looking for a stronger performance for gaming, streaming and scrolling through social media, might prefer to spend a bit more for the Find X5 Lite than a more basic device — but there is still a lot of solid competition in this price range.
Ultimately, it’s a great phone and has a lot to offer, but it’s also a very safe phone. Nothing particularly stands out to elevate it’s status as a great value-for-money device, and no big issues with performance. However, the inclusion of fast charging, and a 65W faster charger in the box, might be its most competitive edge.
| Consider the OPPO Find X5 Lite if | Don’t consider the OPPO Find X5 Lite if |
|---|---|
| You like what OPPO has to offer with the Find X5 series but don’t have the budget for the Find X5 or Find X5 Pro. | You only need the basics in a phone and want to save a bit of money, and aren’t too fussed about cameras, fast charging or a faster processor. |
About the author
As Canstar Blue’s Telco Specialist, Emma Bradstock covers all things mobile phone and internet, which she’s focused on for the past three years. Emma has a decade of professional writing experience across print and digital media outlets and for digital agencies, and has turned her hand to multimedia content and social media management. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Communications and Media from Macquarie University. You can follow Emma on LinkedIn.
Product used for review/testing was a free sample provided by OPPO.
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