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Oppo Find N5 hands-on: The OnePlus Open 2 in all but name?
Oppo is gearing up to debut its most ambitious folding phone yet, with the international launch of the Find N5 scheduled for 20 February. However, I’ve already got my hands on one.
It means we can gain early insight into the company’s newest Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Pixel 9 Pro Fold rival, as well as speculate on how this latest entry in the company’s Find N series will influence the hotly anticipated OnePlus Open 2.
As you can see from the above trailer, Oppo isn’t exactly being shy about the Find N5’s existence and the company’s willingness to seed units to media and tease key details about the device shows that they have confidence in its ability to impress.
I mention this partly because, as of right now, while I have the Find N5 in hand, I can’t reveal any of its specifications or other tidbits beyond anything the company has already mentioned publicly, until after it launches on 20 February.
The headline feature is its svelte profile, clocking in only slightly thicker than the USB-C port (which itself measures in at 2.6mm) set into its base. While not confirmed, it looks set to take the Honor Magic V3‘s crown as the world’s thinnest ‘book-style’ foldable – a clarification that helps set the N5 apart from the even slimmer (3.6mm when fully opened) tri-folding Huawei Mate XT that I spent time with last September, and that’s scheduled for an international launch on 18 February.
Despite its wafer-thin profile, the Find N5 is a pleasingly sturdy foldable in the hand, a trait that Oppo’s Billy Zhang has backed up by stating that it’s the company’s strongest yet (his social media header image also depicts the N5 as thinner than a standard graphite pencil).
Meanwhile, Oppo CPO and OnePlus co-founder Pete Lau has confirmed that the Find N5 packs IPX6, IPX8 and IPX9 certification against various methods of water ingress.
Lau’s clear investment in the Find N5 also bodes well for his company’s next folding phone – the rumoured OnePlus Open 2. Assuming OnePlus takes the same approach as it did with its debut foldable – the original OnePlus Open (which shared the bulk of its design, hardware and software with the Oppo Find N3 that launched around the same time) – the Find N5 is a promising looking donor device.
Even with its notable waistline, the Find N5 retains a three-stage physical alert slider, meaning the OnePlus Open 2 is all but confirmed to do the same. Volume rocker placement is high on the right side, while it’s assumed the Open 2 will also share in the N5’s Hasselblad-tuned rear triple camera system, which features a periscopic telephoto sensor.
Separately, Lau has highlighted the reduced crease on the phone’s main folding display, which I’ve also snapped against the light in the slideshow above, so you can get a sense of just how visible it is. The sample I’ve photographed is the Cosmic Black colourway, while the Misty White model, with a polished silver frame and a patterned back can be seen in the official teaser video at the top of the story.
We also know that the Find N5 is set to arrive running the company’s latest ColorOS 15 user experience, running atop Android 15, just as debuted on its recent Find X8 series flagship candybar phone line. Making the same comparisons with the OnePlus 13, the Open 2 will also arrive running on the company’s OxygenOS 15.
Speaking of international releases, while the Find N5’s launch is framed as a global release, Oppo’s phones aren’t readily available in major markets like the US, though OnePlus is.
So, even if the Find N5 isn’t available where you’re based, it’s possible that the extremely similar Open 2 will be.
However, it remains to be seen how much either of these devices will cost, and whether they can truly rival the best foldables around.
<<<<< Apple’s struggles in emerging areas like artificial intelligence and augmented reality show the company has lost some of its product development edge. >>>>>
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<<<<< When you look out at some of the hottest emerging areas in the tech industry -- artificial intelligence, augmented reality and autonomous systems -- it’s hard to say that Apple Inc. is leading the way.
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<<<<< Despite the company’s best efforts to turn Apple Intelligence into a must-have AI offering, the platform is years behind what you can get from Samsung Electronics Co., Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Chinese phone providers. The underlying technology and AI models also are nowhere close to the efforts of OpenAI, Google DeepMind and Baidu Inc. >>>>>
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<<<<< Another buzzy area at the moment -- augmented reality -- has been a struggle for Apple as well. Though the Vision Pro is a phenomenal feat of engineering, it’s increasingly clear that the headset isn’t a winning formula. Consumers would prefer a lightweight set of glasses, and Apple has nothing yet to offer in this space.
The company has explored making smart glasses that would rival the digital Ray-Bans offered by Meta Platforms Inc., but nothing is imminent. And the company just canceled plans for a pair of AR glasses that would pair with a Mac. The ultimate goal of making standalone spectacles with augmented reality is probably at least three to five years away. >>>>>
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<<<<< It’s harder to take major risks when you’re such a large, established company. But that position of strength also makes it puzzling that Apple hasn’t been able to break into new areas. Its AI and machine learning division, or AIML, is mocked as “AIMLess” by employees. The group has missed several deadlines, and its large language models -- a building block of generative AI -- are less powerful than those of rivals.
Apple’s Genmoji (AI-generated emoji) are fun and make for a great billboard, but competitors have AI features that can create video from scratch. Apple’s Siri digital assistant continues to misunderstand consumers and give perplexing responses. And the company’s news summarization has produced embarrassingly inaccurate results >>>>>
<<<<< Apple Inc.’s long-promised overhaul for the Siri digital assistant is facing engineering problems and software bugs, threatening to postpone or limit its release, according to people with knowledge of the matter. >>>>>
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<<<<< Getting Siri right is especially crucial for Apple, which first introduced the digital assistant in 2011 as a groundbreaking interface. After falling behind competitors, the technology has come to represent the company’s shortcomings in artificial intelligence. >>>>>
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<<<<< In one especially compelling part of the demonstration, a presenter used Siri to quickly locate her mom’s flight and lunch reservation plans by searching across email and text message history. Now this very feature is one at risk of being delayed, according to the people.
Inside Apple, many employees testing the new Siri have found that these features don’t yet work consistently. >>>>>
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<<<<< Despite a marketing blitz for Apple Intelligence, the company is struggling internally with a difficult reality: The AI platform is behind rival systems like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Alphabet Inc.’s Google Gemini and Meta Platforms Inc.’s Llama. The company’s AI and machine-learning team has struggled to meet deadlines, the people said, and some engineers believe the system was rushed to market to appease an AI-obsessed Wall Street. >>>>>
Qualcomm to begin phasing out support for Apple cell phones. Plans to divert resources to more profitable projects.
Citing declining iPhone sales and the expense of supporting a shrinking and isolated ecosystem, an anonymous source said that QCOM plans on moving resources that are currently dedicated to Apple products to more lucrative projects.
Apple has long been spending billions in a lackluster effort to produce an inferior modem for their iPhones. The process has shown that QCOM could leverage the resources used to produce their superior modems for the iPhone into businesses with much greater growth and profit margins. QCOM will still collect royalties from Apple even when Apple completely switches to their own underperforming modem so there is no downside to the plan.
Qualcomm has been highly successful in diversifying their business away from cellular phones and is now the leading player in Automotive chips, commercial IoT, industrial IoT, and most excitingly AI on the edge. Additionally, QCOM's foray into Windows on ARM has developed into another profit stream with the company already commanding a 10% market share in less than a year with plans to expand their offerings into more Window's based computers.
"Apple knows they don't need a great product to keep their customer base. Apple consumers are a cult and Apple knows that spending money on better products with a focus on innovation is a waste of money. QCOM focuses on innovation and driving markets forward" the source said. "A walled garden approach can be profitable for a period of time but is ultimately doomed to failure as innovation and progress fall by the wayside. This can already be seen in the new iPhone Apple has released which is inferior in every way to similar offerings in the Android ecosystem of two years ago."
No one from Apple or QCOM was contacted to comment on this article. In fact, it may be entirely fictional. This is the internet after all.
Brazil Orders Apple To Allow iOS Sideloading Within 90 Days
A Brazilian judge has ordered Apple to open its iOS platform to alternative app stores within 90 days, according to Valor International. The ruling cited Apple's compliance with similar requirements in the European Union under the Digital Markets Act without showing "significant impact or irreparable harm to its economic model."
The case originated from a 2022 complaint by Mercado Livre. Brazil previously issued a 20-day deadline in November for Apple to permit alternative payment options and sideloading, but that injunction was overturned in December. Apple plans to appeal.
Apple's announcement that "more personalized Siri" features of Apple Intelligence would be delayed until "the coming year" reveals a troubling departure from the company's hard-earned reputation for reliability, long-time commentator John Gruber writes. Unlike other Apple Intelligence features that were demonstrated to media in June, the personalized Siri features -- promising personal context awareness, onscreen awareness, and in-app actions -- were never shown working to anyone outside Apple. Yet Apple prominently featured these capabilities in the WWDC keynote and even created TV commercials ( now pulled) touting these functions to sell iPhone 16.
This represents a dangerous shift toward the pre-Jobs-return Apple that promised vaporware it couldn't deliver. Gruber writes. Apple has squandered its credibility, built meticulously over decades through consistently shipping what they promised, he writes. Gruber's post cites the following excerpt from a 2011 story: Apple doesn't often fail, and when it does, it isn't a pretty sight at 1 Infinite Loop. In the summer of 2008, when Apple launched the first version of its iPhone that worked on third-generation mobile networks, it also debuted MobileMe, an e-mail system that was supposed to provide the seamless synchronization features that corporate users love about their BlackBerry smartphones. MobileMe was a dud. Users complained about lost e-mails, and syncing was spotty at best. Though reviewers gushed over the new iPhone, they panned the MobileMe service.
Steve Jobs doesn't tolerate duds. Shortly after the launch event, he summoned the MobileMe team, gathering them in the Town Hall auditorium in Building 4 of Apple's campus, the venue the company uses for intimate product unveilings for journalists. According to a participant in the meeting, Jobs walked in, clad in his trademark black mock turtleneck and blue jeans, clasped his hands together, and asked a simple question: "Can anyone tell me what MobileMe is supposed to do?" Having received a satisfactory answer, he continued, "So why the fuck doesn't it do that?"
For the next half-hour Jobs berated the group. "You've tarnished Apple's reputation," he told them. "You should hate each other for having let each other down." The public humiliation particularly infuriated Jobs. Gruber adds: Tim Cook should have already held a meeting like that to address and rectify this Siri and Apple Intelligence debacle. If such a meeting hasn't yet occurred or doesn't happen soon, then, I fear, that's all she wrote. The ride is over. When mediocrity, excuses, and bullshit take root, they take over. A culture of excellence, accountability, and integrity cannot abide the acceptance of any of those things, and will quickly collapse upon itself with the acceptance of all three.
Whole Reddit thread examining this simple question: "What month is it?" and Siri's "I'm sorry, I don't understand" response (which I just reproduced on my iPhone 16 Pro running iOS 18.4b4). One guy changed the question to "What month is it currently?" and got the answer "It is 2025."
More comments from that thread:
"I ask Siri to play a podcast and she literally says, "I'm trying to play from Apple Podcasts but it doesn't look like you have it installed." I didn't even know you could delete that app. I certainly haven't. So I have to manually do it every time now. It used to work."
"I asked Siri last night to set a reminder for 3:50, so naturally she set it for 10:00."
