Oppo Find X5 Lite review: long-lasting, fast-charging

This Oppo Find X5 Lite review is aimed at anyone who is looking for one of the best cheap phones - it is feature-packed, the battery lasts for ages and it looks great, but it won’t cost you the earth to buy.

Released as one of three phones, the Oppo Find X5 Lite is the most affordable handset in the Find X5 series. Above it are the Oppo Find X5 and the Oppo Find X5 Pro, both of which I’ve tested out and both of which proved to be two of the best phones this year for those who are willing to splash out on them. 

As the name suggests, the Oppo Find X5 Lite scales back these smartphones to bring the price down without sacrificing too much on what made them so good in the first place. 

Its main focus is on super-fast charging, in fact, Oppo has partnered with the new Sonic the Hedgehog 2 film to shine a light on just how fast it is. No wonder when it took me just half an hour to charge the battery from flat to full. 

To help you figure out if this is the right phone for you, or not, this Oppo Find X5 Lite review will cover everything you need to know about it from its design and display to its camera system and performance. 

Oppo Find X5 Lite review: price and what’s new 

At launch, the Oppo Find X5 Lite was priced at £419 in the UK or AU$795 in Australia. Like the rest of the Find X5 series, the Oppo Find X5 Lite isn’t available in the US. 

You’re likely to find some really good deals on this phone so take a look at the widgets on this page to see the best prices right now from across the web. 

The Oppo Find X5 Lite is the cheapest handset in the series. To keep the price this low, Oppo has slim-lined the Oppo Find X5 in a few different ways. 

Firstly, the Oppo Find X5 Lite is both smaller and lighter than the Oppo Find X5 with a 6.43-inch screen down from 6.55-inches, and weighing 173g as opposed to 196g. The display has also dropped from 10-bit colour depth with a 120Hz refresh rate, down to 8-bit with a 90Hz refresh rate. It’s not quite as durable either using Corning Gorilla Glass 5 instead of Gorilla Glass Victus. 

A more basic MediaTek Dimensity 900 processor sits under the hood although you will still get the same amount of RAM and storage as on the Find X5. The battery is ever so slightly smaller as well, at 4,500mAh here compared to the 4,800mAh battery you get in the X5. Charging has also dipped from 80W SUPERVOOC to 65W. 

When it comes to the camera, you still get a three-lens setup but it’s now composed of a 64MP main camera, an 8MP wide-angle camera and a 2MP macro camera. The Oppo Find X5 has a 50MP main camera, a 50MP ultra-wide camera and a 13MP telephoto camera. 

Oppo Find X5 Lite review: design and display 

None of the Find X5 series phones looks the same, the Find X5 Pro has a reflective ceramic design, the Find X5 has a glass back that almost looks like rubber and the Oppo Find X5 Lite is different again, with a shimmering casing that is designed to look like a starry sky. 

You can buy this in Starry Black or Startrails Blue colourways. I tested out the black version and I have to say, I like it. It’s interesting without being over the top. 

A three-lens camera notch sits on the back, it’s not smoothly integrated into the casing like the Find X5 Pro, rather it sticks out in a sharp and angular way. An aluminium frame around the edge of the device houses a USB-C port, a power button and a volume rocker but there’s no headphone jack so you’ll either need an adaptor for wired earbuds or you’ll need to upgrade to some Bluetooth headphones. 

One of the benefits of the rear casing is the fact that it won’t pick up dirty fingerprint marks very easily and you get the impression that it will withstand knocks, bumps and even drops for those who are a bit more clumsy. It’s not IP rated though so can’t claim to be waterproof or even water-resistant, you will need to be careful using it on a rainy day.

Because of its size, the Oppo Find X5 Lite is the most comfortable to hold out of the whole series. It’s about 7.81mm thick, 73.2mm wide and only weighs 173g. If you have small hands, like me, you'll be able to use it one-handed. I was able to stretch my thumb across the whole width of the screen.

A 6.43-inch display stretches across the front of the phone, the bezels are slim although with a screen-to-body ratio of 90.8% there’s definitely room for improvement. 

The screen has FHD resolution of 2400x1080p, I found it to be perfectly clear and sharp. With 8-bit colour depth and 409PPI, the colours aren’t quite as vibrant as on its pricier siblings, but they still look rich which is helped by the phone's 800nits peak brightness in HDR or HDR10+ content. Admittedly the display is harder to see under bright light than perhaps more expensive devices but it’s still visible the majority of the time. 

Even despite that, for a cheap phone, I’d say this screen is one of the better ones out there. I quite happily used it to stream videos from Netflix and YouTube, I also thought it was accurate enough to do online shopping without any surprises about colour and I was able to endlessly scroll through Instagram because it felt very smooth. 

To unlock the display you get the choice of the in-display fingerprint sensor and facial recognition. Both were quick and reliable even if the fingerprint scanner takes a second or two to work. 

Oppo Find X5 Lite review: camera system

The Oppo Find X5 Lite has a three-lens rear camera system made up of a 64MP main camera, an 8MP wide-angle camera and a 2MP macro camera, while on the front, there’s a 32MP selfie snapper. 

On its default point-and-shoot settings, the camera does a good job at capturing images whether that's up close to the subject or further away. Shots around the city looked animated without being oversaturated, the colours were accurate yet full of life. 

In scenes where there were a lot of light and dark areas to contend with, the camera coped well maintaining plenty of balance, brightening up the shadows and dimming the lighter spots.

When you look more closely, the images don’t carry anywhere near as much detail as the best phone cameras are able to produce. Lines become blurred and there is also a small amount of chromatic aberration. 

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Because it lacks a telephoto lens, the zoom is very limited, even more so than it was on the Find X5. At its maximum 10x zoom the photos were grainy and actually just unusable. It’s a huge shame given the fact that some other phones now offer incredible 100x superzoom.

Taking the photos in the first place is quick and hassle-free, the image gets taken almost instantly when you press the shutter button. 

There are also a few different camera modes to play around with including a portrait mode that blurs out the background making photos look more professional. It’s not the most effective portrait mode in the world though because it will blur out some elements that you would rather not be, like strands of hair or the edges of your glasses.

Oppo Find X5 Lite review: performance and battery 

You can’t expect the Oppo Find X5 Lite to match up to the best gaming phones when it comes to processing power, but you can expect it to be similar to its direct competitors, including the Samsung Galaxy A53 5G and the OnePlus Nord 2. 

Packing the MediaTek Dimensity 900 CPU with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, it sits firmly in the middle ground of performance. Its Geekbench 5 scores reflect that with 701 in single-core and 2,185 in multi-core. Ultimately what that means is this phone will cope pretty well with most tasks, I didn’t find any problems when I was flicking between loads of open windows or opening up apps, although it was noticeably slower than its flagship counterparts. 

One of the best features Oppo phones hold when it comes to performance is the ability to borrow extra RAM from the in-built storage, you can add up to 5GB more on the Oppo Find X5 Lite, so if you were to use it for some more demanding tasks then there's a way to speed things up. 

For those who live in an area with up-to-date networks, the Oppo Find X5 Lite supports 5G. If 5G isn't available yet where you live then at least it’ll be ready for what’s to come. 

Two of the best features in the whole Find X5 series are the phones' battery lives and charge times, while the Oppo Find X5 Lite may not look as impressive on paper, it actually holds its own. It’s a massive talking point, especially in comparing the phone to others at this price point. 

Easily lasting the whole day and even up to two days depending on how much you use it, the 4,500mAh battery is one you can rely on and you won’t need to take your charger to work with you which is a blessing. 

When I ran my usual video test on it, where I download and run an HD video on full brightness over the space of two hours, the battery level only dropped by 10% suggesting that it would have lasted a total of 20 hours. That’s huge, especially for a phone that costs this little. 

Then, using the 65W charger included in the box, it got replenished in just over 30 minutes. It’s one of this phone's most impressive features because you’ll make use of it constantly. I'm terrible for remembering to charge my phone but even when I didn't remember to plug it in until the last minute, I still never have to leave home worried about running out of battery. 

One speaker is built into the Oppo Find X5 Lite but it faces down from the bottom edge of the frame so it won’t give you a forceful surround sound, and it's a little tinnier than on some devices. You won't want to use this phone to listen to music but it's still loud enough to watch videos on. 

Behind the scenes, the phone runs on Color OS 12 which is one of my favourite operating systems based on Android 12. Why? Because it feels great to use without being too cartoonish or overcomplicated. 

It’s easy to pull up the Oppo Find X5 Lite’s screen onto your PC for file transfers and it comes loaded with some handy features like detailed battery stats and ‘anti-peeping technology’ which hides your notifications when the AI detects other people looking at your screen. 

My only problem with it is that it does come pre-loaded with a few unnecessary apps like Booking.com and Amazon Music, but you can just delete those if you don’t think you’ll make use of them. 

Oppo Find X5 Lite review: verdict 

If you like the sound of the Oppo Find X5 series but the thought of spending £750 or more on a smartphone makes you feel nauseous, then the Oppo Find X5 Lite is a really good alternative, even if it doesn’t look like a member of the family from the outside. 

The sharp 6.43-inch screen is fantastic, its performance matches up to its mid-range rivals, the compact sizing makes it comfortable to hold and the three-lens rear camera system will surprise you with the quality of shots it can take. But, none of those points are what makes this phone stand out. It’s the combination of two-day battery life and super-fast charging that makes this handset really worth a look.

Granted the Oppo Find X5 Lite does have a few flaws to contend with like the weak zoom, the so-so speaker and the lack of an IP rating - and to add to that, the competition right now at this price point is fierce. But even so, this is a fantastic affordable handset with tonnes to offer.   

Oppo Find X5 Lite review: also consider  

If you don’t want to spend this much then another very capable phone to consider is the OnePlus Nord CE 2. While you won’t get the super-fast charging you get here, and the camera is a bit more basic, it’s still worth considering because it still manages to pack in an excellent 6.43-inch display with good battery life and respectable performance. 

Some people might be looking at this thinking ‘but I prefer Apple smartphones’ and luckily, there’s an option for you out there too. The iPhone SE (2022) costs a similar amount to the Oppo Find X5 Lite and while it looks a little more outdated it’s still a decent device with 5G connectivity and a strong camera.