Oppo’s nearly creaseless foldable isn’t launching in Europe after all

Oppo has launched its “zero-feel crease” foldable, the Find N6, but while we knew it was unlikely to launch in the US, it’s a shame to discover that the promised “global” launch is also leaving Europe out in the cold. Instead, the Find N6 will go on sale from March 20th across what the company called its “key markets” in Asia, along with Australia and New Zealand.

It’s a shame, because like the Find N5 before it, the N6 looks to be one of the best foldable phones yet. The standout feature is of course its crease, which I looked at in detail last week. Helped by a liquid 3D-printed hinge column, it’s the shallowest crease I’ve seen on any foldable phone — by quite some way — and is genuinely difficult to either see or feel. The crease isn’t quite gone entirely, but it’s close enough that it’s now unlikely to bother anyone.

The Find N6 isn’t quite the thinnest foldable yet — that’s the Honor Magic V6 — but at 8.93mm and 225 it’s more or less the same size and weight as Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 7, and Honor’s phone is barely a hair’s width thinner anyway. The Magic V6 also has a larger battery, though the 6,000mAh silicon-carbon capacity of the Find N6 is not to be sniffed at, and should be plenty to make this comfortably a full-day device.

The cameras look like the other area where the phone may excel. The triple rear camera system includes a 200-megapixel main camera and 50-megapixel ultrawide and telephoto cameras, all using Samsung sensors. The fourth lens is the same color spectrum sensor Oppo introduced on last year’s Find X9 flagships, which enjoyed excellent cameras, and though the camera bump is large, Oppo has worked hard to keep it relatively flat and flush with the phone.

A seven-core variant of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 powers the phone, which comes with 16GB of RAM and 512GB storage. The only real area where Oppo has lagged behind is dust protection: The Find N6 is IP56, 58, and 59-rated, which means it has excellent protection from water but lags behind Google’s Pixel 10 Pro Fold and the latest Honor foldable when it comes to dust.

Oppo is launching the Find N6 alongside a new AI Pen stylus, which works on both inner and outer screens and charges via pogo pins in an accompanying case, which in turn charges wirelessly from the phone. There are also a few new software tricks: Multitasking is expanded with the addition of up to four freely resizable floating windows, all of which are kept active at once. Oppo has also said that it’s working with Google to bring AirDrop support to the phone, which should come in a future software update to join the existing suite of macOS and iOS integrations, including file sharing and screen sharing.

Photography by Dominic Preston / The Verge