The OPPO Find X5 Lite makes the right compromises at the wrong price

OPPO's latest lacks that special something.

OPPO Find X5 Lite
OPPO Find X5 Lite 5G
3.3 out of 5 stars
3.25
Processor
Mediatek Dimensity 900 5G
Display
6.4-inch 90Hz AMOLED Screen
Storage
256GB
Fergus Halliday
May 12, 2022
Icon Time To Read5 min read
Quick verdict: OPPO Find X5 Lite 5G

The Find X5 Lite stands out like a sore thumb compared to the rest of the Find X5 series. It delivers the performance you'd expect from a premium device, but lacks most of the perks.

Those omissions might not be a deal-breaker for everyone. Nevertheless, the Find X5 Lite feels too compromised for those with bigger budgets and lacking in ambition for those on smaller ones.

pro
Pros
pro Incredible battery life
pro Snappy performance
pro Headphone jack!
con
Cons
con Generic design
con No Marisilicon X
con No wireless charging
OPPO Find X5 Lite header

How much does the OPPO Find X5 Lite 5G cost in Australia?

OPPO's cheapest Find phone is in a whole other league to its siblings

The OPPO Find X5 Lite is priced at $799 outright in Australia. That makes it the cheapest entry in OPPO's latest outlay of smartphones. This isn’t inherently a good or bad thing, but that context adds color to both everything that works about the device and everything that doesn’t.

If you're looking to buy the Find X5 Lite 5G on a plan, Woolworths Mobile, Vodafone and Optus are carrying the device. Check out the widget below for a round-up of popular plans.

The device is also available to buy outright through the following Australian retailers and partners:

Store
Price
More info
Vodafone
From$799
JB Hi-Fi
From$799
Harvey-Norman
From$799
Officeworks
From$797
Amazon
From$458
Big W
From $799
Woolworths Mobile
From $864
Kogan
From$749
MobileCiti
From $769
Bing Lee
From$697

Take a look at the table below for a full breakdown of how the pricing of the OPPO Find X5 Lite compares to the rest of the Find X5 series.

Model
RRP
OPPO Find X5 Lite$799
OPPO Find X5$1,399
OPPO Find X5 Pro$1,799

OPPO Find X5 Lite - design and features

Mid-tier looks comes with the usual caveats
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While it’s designed to sit alongside the OPPO Find X5 and Find X5 Pro, the design and build quality of the Find X5 Lite 5G feels like a different beast entirely. It’s nice to look at, but the feel of the thing can’t hold a candle to more premium products like the iPhone 13 or even the upper-end of the mid-tier market. 

Even the few aspects of the design that get a little closer to meeting the expectations set by the branding lack in personality. The bezels on the screen are thin, but they’re not particularly or impressively so. There’s a circular display cutout in the top-left corner of the screen, but it’s not all that different to those seen elsewhere. If you’ve spent much time using an OPPO (or any Android phone that wasn’t made by Samsung or Google), most of what’s here will come across as pretty familiar. Aside from the headphone jack anyway, which makes for a pleasant surprise and a welcome inclusion here.

The textured finish on the back resists fingerprints, but it can’t cover up what is on the whole a pretty generic design. For what it’s worth, the Find X5 Lite is available in two color variants: Starry Black and Startrails Blue. The latter has a nice gradient to it, but the palette here can’t help but come across as dull compared to the colorful aesthetics offered elsewhere. 

In either shade, the Find X5 Lite 5G comes armed with a 6.4-inch AMOLED display, a 90Hz refresh rate, a MediaTek Dimensity 900 processor, 65W wired charging and a side-mounted fingerprint sensor. Beyond that, those who settle for the most affordable entry in OPPO’s latest round of premium smartphones will score themselves a 4500mAh battery, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB of on-board storage.

While the above internal specs leave the Find X5 Lite 5G armed to a degree that's a cut above most mid-tier devices, the outward-facing design is rarely distinguished enough to help it escape the shadow cast by the rest of the Find X5 range or hold its own against particularly compelling mid-rangers like the Samsung Galaxy A73 5G.

OPPO Find X5 Lite - performance and battery

Some of the longest battery life you'll find for the price

While the camera setup on the Find X5 and Find X5 Pro is billed as the main event, with OPPO’s MariSilicon X NPU in a leading role, the camera on the Find X5 Lite 5G feels like something of an afterthought. The multi-lens camera setup found here is a little less enthusiast and a little more everyday.

Flip the OPPO Find X5 Lite 5G over and you’ll find a 64-megapixel main camera, supported by a second one with an 8-megapixel ultra wide lens plus a third 2-megapixel macro lens. This trinity is rounded out into a quartet by the 32-megapixel selfie shooter on the front.

On paper, that hardware isn’t too far from that found on the other half of the Find X5 lineup. However, crucially, the Find X5 Lite misses out when it comes to OPPO’s new MariSilicon X chip nor does it benefit from the brand’s collaboration with Hasselblad . These omissions are hard to measure, but they feel like a missed opportunity.

If OPPO had squeezed their silicon into this device it would likely serve to set the Find X5 Lite 5G apart from the rest of the $799 options in a genuinely meaningful way. Without it, the camera setup on the device can’t help but feel like mid-tier hardware that’s being marketed as flagship and ill equipped to deliver on those expectations. 

When it comes to the aspects of smartphone photography where premium devices typically shine over their cheaper counterparts, this device falls short. The optical zoom caps out at 2x, the night mode delivers the same sort of muddy results you’ll find elsewhere and while there is some AI-powered image enhancement happening here, most will be hard pressed to notice the difference it makes. 

Thankfully, the other half of the performance equation works out firmly in the device’s favor. When it comes to everyday performance, the OPPO Find X5 Lite is super snappy to use. In terms of overall responsiveness, it definitely feels closer to flagship than the alternative.

Apps loaded quickly. Both modestly-demanding games like League of Legends: Wild Rift and more intensive ones like Genshin Impact ran really well on the hardware, though the stereo speakers on the Find X5 Lite often ended up being covered by my hands during play. 

What’s more, the battery life of the Find X5 Lite is genuinely exceptional. On this front alone, and even compared to some of the best mid-range devices out there, the device stands out. I’d regularly manage around two and a half days of usage on a single charge.

The OPPO Find X5 Lite would usually clock in with between 6 and 7 hours of screen time, and took 22 hours and 7 minutes to burn down from 100% to 0% using video content streamed via YouTube. 

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Is the OPPO Find X5 Lite 5G worth buying?

Lots of value, but few perks

The Find X5 Lite talks a big game, but the quality of the screen and design hold back the goodwill that the zippy processor and and long battery battery life rack up.

OPPO has picked the right parts, but there’s nothing particularly special about the glue holding it together. It feels like the manufacturers stuffed the guts of a Find device into the skeleton of an A-series handset, but they’ve somehow forgotten to include the best bits. 

This situation is by no means impossible to salvage. If you’re looking for a modest mid-tier device that delivers on the essentials or an Android all-rounder with genuinely great battery life, the OPPO Find X5 Lite will match that mold. Nevertheless, it falls short of its promise of premium without the price. And when the rest of the mid-tier market is driving such a hard bargain, what’s on offer here begins to feel a bit uninspired. 

The OPPO Find X5 Lite is good, but if you’re spending $799 you can probably do better.

How does the OPPO Find X5 Lite 5G compare?

The differences between the OOPO Find X5 Lite 5G and some of the other options at the sub-$800 segment are pretty significant, so be sure to check out the table below before you decide on which device is worth your money.

Product
Our score
Price
Processor
Screen size
More info
3.3 out of 5 stars
3.25
From$458
Mediatek Dimensity 900 5G6.4-inches
3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5
From$719
A15 Bionic4.7-inches
4 out of 5 stars
4
From$799
Snapdragon 778G 5G6.7-inches
Fergus Halliday
Written by
Fergus Halliday is a journalist and editor for Reviews.org. He’s written about technology, telecommunications, gaming and more for over a decade. He got his start writing in high school and began his full-time career as the Editor of PC World Australia. Fergus has made the MCV 30 Under 30 list, been a finalist for seven categories at the IT Journalism Awards and won Most Controversial Writer at the 2022 Consensus Awards. He has been published in Gizmodo, Kotaku, GamesHub, Press Start, Screen Rant, Superjump, Nestegg and more.

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