Oppo Find 7: Camera, VOOC Rapid Charge & other features explained

The Oppo Find 7 that was launched a few days back is quite a remarkable device. Sporting a high-end 2K Quad HD display and a powerful Quad-Core processor, the Find 7 has the right credentials to play in the same field as Samsung, Sony and HTC. To understand the new features better, we’ve managed to get some answers from Oppo’s Product Team.

Read on to find out more.

Taking 50MP Pictures from a 13MP Camera

Before its launch, the Oppo Find 7 was speculated to carry a camera that’s capable of shooting 50MP pictures. Early samples reveal a high resolution image of 8160×6120 dimensions but at 100% crop, it lacks the clarity that you’ll get from Nokia’s PureView range of smart phones.

The reality is that the Oppo Find 7 camera utilises Sony’s 13MP IMX214 sensor with a sensor size of 1/3.06″. To take 50MP pictures, there’s a special mode for this where it takes a burst of 10 shots continuously. With the combination of software and hardware, the Find 7 will pick the best pictures and then resamples it to a larger 50MP resolution image. As a result, you’ll get a photo with greater detail compared to the standard 13MP image. Since it involves taking multiple shots and post-processing, it takes slightly more than a second to take a shot in 50MP.

Another feature which they are boasting is Super Zoom which is an improvement over the typical Digital Zoom. Normally if you zoom in on a smart phone, the image usually turns out distorted or pixelated. In scenarios when you need to take a picture of presentation slides on the white board, the Super Zoom feature actually optimises the zoom-in image to retain as much detail.

Another interesting feature is objecting tracking focus. This is pretty useful if you’re recording a video of fast moving subjects especially kids that are constantly on the move. You can set the targeted object by simply drawing a “V” on the moving target and the camera will constantly keep it in focus. In terms of video, the Find 7 is also capable of shooting 4K videos at 30fps. There’s also HDR Video and Slow-motion video recording at 120fps.

Rapid Charge with VOOC

Bigger batteries normally mean longer charging times. New with the Find 7 is what they call VOOC, their proprietary rapid charge technology on a special 7-pin micro-USB connector that charges up to 400% faster. To enable VOOC charging, you would need to use their original cable and charger with the Find 7. Your standard micro USB chargers will still work but it charges at the slower rate.

With VOOC, 30 minutes of charging is enough to push 75% of battery life and if you’re in a hurry, a quick 5 minute charge is enough to delivery 2 hours of talk time. According to Oppo, its VOOC rapid charging is safe and it won’t accelerate the deterioration of the battery’s life span.

Removable Battery & Storage

Since we are talking about batteries, the removable back cover reveals a 3,000mAh capacity unit on the high-spec model while the lower spec model has a slightly smaller 2,800mAh battery. As both models have the exact same dimensions, we asked if the 2 could swap batteries with each other. Surprisingly the answer is yes. So if you’re using the low-spec version, you could swap it for a larger 3,000mAh battery from the high-spec model. We are wondering why don’t they standardise 3,000mAh for both models and we suspect it is done for the sake of differentiation.

Also available underneath the back cover is an expandable microSD slot. Like the latest flagship devices, the Oppo Find 7 supports microSD cards up to a whopping 128GB.

O-Band Fitness Tracker

Briefly introduced during launch is the O-Band fitness tracker. Unfortunately this sleek looking wearable will not be sold outside of China. In terms of usability, this is pretty much the same as Sony’s SmartBand which is a fitness tracker that monitors your sleeping and sporting activities. With a built-in vibration, it also works as an alarm and notification device on your wrist.

To charge the O-Band, there’s a special dock which you can attach to its connector points hidden below. Build quality looks pretty good and is definitely better than the Huawei TalkBand B1 which we saw at Mobile World Congress.

To know more about the Oppo Find 7, do check out our hands-on experience with its Low-Spec and High-Spec models.