Keen to make a stylish statement in the Aussie marketplace, smartphone maker OPPO closed out this year’s instalment of the Melbourne Fashion Festival in the splashiest of ways – opting to utilise the popular National Graduate show as a runway for its own Find N2 Flip – a hinged smartphone combining modern advances in sub-compact mobile phones with a big, heaping spoonful of nostalgia.
Doubling as a visual leitmotif in a number of the assembled graduates’ looks, it’s evident that OPPO has designs on the N2 Flip transcending mere smartphone status to become a fashion icon.
The unique bezel-less edge and collapsible form factor give it a compactness that is immediately distinctive; and with that (asserts the company) comes the freedom to envision new and interesting photographic possibilities.
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With its emphasis on style and the connection to ‘brick’ phones of the 1990s, it’s easy to see why OPPO opted for a launch date amid the spectacle of Melbourne’s biggest fashion event. “The N2 is a style choice,” observes Michael Tran, Managing Director of OPPO Australia, “breaking through barriers with the largest cover screen of any flip phone”. “With it, world-class selfies and flagship photography experiences are made possible.”
To unlock the full range of said possibilities, OPPO’s engineers have made the ubiquitous smartphone camera a lynchpin of their latest premium flip-phone. Fitted with a Sony IMX890 sensor, its lenses were made with input (on aspects ranging from colour to video capture quality) from legendary Swedish camera-maker Hasselblad. All of this technology is optimised for the N2’s unique hinged format – so users can capture crystal-clear 4K footage across a range of lighting, whilst holding the phone camcorder-style (remember those?).
It would be a major frustration if all of this power were to come at the cost of reliability, but again, OPPO has worked hard here to ensure that its latest smartphone lives up to the tribulations of a flip-happy lifestyle. Made possible by the innovative Flexion Hinge – which supports the N2’s architecture with a larger bending radius and fewer mechanical parts – creases are minimal, almost to the point of being undetectable by touch, when the phone is fully folded out.
Certified for quality by TÜV Rheinland, it’s estimated that the N2 can be folded and opened (under normal conditions) more than 400,000 times over the course of its lifespan – in other words, a 100 times per day for an entire decade.
Stay tuned for a full review from our resident tech & travel writer, Chris Singh – who will be going hands-on with the N2 later next month.
The OPPO Find N2 Flip will be available (in moonlight purple and astral black) starting 16 March, from leading electronics retailers including Harvey Norman and JB Hi-Fi.
