Oppo’s Find X10 Pro Max is the first phone with a triple 200-megapixel camera, which you will probably see as a masterful feat of engineering or a load of hyped-up marketing nonsense. The truth is somewhere in the middle.
We’ve seen 200-megapixel cameras in phones before, starting with the 2022 Moto X30 Pro. This year’s Vivo X300 Ultra was the first phone to have both of them – with 200 megapixel main and telephoto cameras – and is still my favorite camera on the market. With the Find X10 Pro Max, Oppo is trying to do one better: It is the first to also use a 200-megapixel ultrawide camera. Only the selfie camera runs at a more modest 50 megapixels.
The Find X10 Pro Max’s cameras are excellent, lagging only slightly behind the company’s top-tier Find X9 Ultra from earlier this year (in Oppo’s product lineup, as with rivals Xiaomi and Vivo, Pro Max phones still sit just below their top Ultra models). That’s only partly thanks to the megapixel count.
The point of all those megapixels isn’t really to take 200-megapixel photos (although you can if you want to – more on that later). Instead, like almost every phone camera from the last few years, Oppo takes advantage of pixel binning, which combines several neighboring pixels into one. This gives you the best of both worlds: extra detail captured by the small, individual pixels and great light capture by merging them.
One of the interesting changes that Oppo has made is actually reducing how much binning it uses. While most Android phones capture photos with 12 or 12.5 megapixels, regardless of their sensor resolution, the Find X10 Pro Max defaults to 26 megapixels across all three rear lenses, from 0.5x to 9.9x zoom. That’s a similar resolution to Apple’s top iPhones, which now default to 24-megapixel shots over their 48-megapixel sensors, but still unusual for Android.
By default, it means that shots from this phone are more detailed than on other Android rivals, and better suited for printing or cutting. File sizes are naturally a bit larger: the Find X10 Pro Max’s 26-megapixel photos are typically 8 to 12MB, while 12.6-megapixel shots are closer to 4 to 6MB, though there’s a lot of variation.
Binning to 26 megapixels instead of 12.6, however, has an obvious disadvantage beyond storage considerations: less binning means worse light capture. In most light conditions, though, this isn’t a problem, and the phone is smart enough to adjust when there is one, automatically dropping to 12.6 megapixels in dark scenes, sacrificing some detail to maximize light when it’s in short supply.
If you need high-resolution shots – or just want to force the matter and the phone to override automatic adjustments – a high-resolution mode lets you shoot in either 50 megapixels or the full 200. Here the file size balloons further, with 45 to 60MB files at the maximum resolution, but the 16,384 x 12,288 files are large enough to print in some detail. To my surprise, I didn’t even see much of a drop in low light performance or dynamic range of shots in this mode, although some differences are inevitable in the darkest conditions.
The thing with camera sensors, especially in a phone, is that resolution is only one factor – and not the most important one. Sheer size is more important, which is why Oppo’s Find X9 Ultra still has an edge. The Find X10 Pro Max’s main camera uses a 1/1.3-inch type sensor and an aperture of f/1.5, while its 3x telephoto is slightly smaller at 1/1.56 inches, with a slower f/2.1 aperture. Both equivalents of the older Ultra phone use larger sensors capable of capturing more light, even before pixel binning kicks in. in the a larger 1/1.56 inch sensor than the Ultra.
But these upgrades to the ultrawide are crucial, as they help make this rear camera feel like a complete package. There is no drop in resolution over the rear lenses, and only minor changes in sensor size and aperture. That means the quality is consistent across the cameras, even if the colors still vary a bit, something I hope to see over time.
Part of the difference likely comes down to a feature you’ll only find on the main camera: what Oppo calls “DeepPix” dynamic range. It is similar technology to LOFIC, seen in Xiaomi’s 17 Ultra and the recent Vivo X500 Pro Max, expanding dynamic range by capturing more information from highlights. Here it enables a 17-stop dynamic range on the main camera, keeping the light sources bright and punchy in night scenes without blowing them out completely. Only a handful of phones can match this, and none you can buy in the US.
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That’s just the hardware. Photos are once again boosted by Hasselblad’s tuning, with some of the techniques applied in the dramatic, cinematic Hasselblad Master Mode now also being pulled into the main camera, mainly less saturated colors and deeper shadows. The Master Mode still pushes the effect further if you prefer. Eighteen built-in film simulations allow for more varied color profiles, and each can be further trimmed with a simple grid that adjusts tone and saturation.
Video has its own tricks. All three rear lenses can record up to 120fps in 4K or 30fps in 8K, and a Pro Video mode lets you apply LUTs, record with Oppo’s O-Log2 for more post-production options, and even shoot wide open, taking advantage of the full sensor.
Oppo’s high-end hardware accessories are also back. A teleconverter lens can be mounted on top of the telephoto lens for improved long-range photography, while a video accessory kit from Tilta includes a cooler, a light, an essential camera grip, tripod mount, polarizing filter and more.
I haven’t even talked about the rest of the phone: a large 7,150mAh battery (even larger outside Europe at 8,000mAh) that easily lasts two days; a MediaTek Dimensity 9600 Pro chipset that didn’t crash once; a 144Hz, 1.5K OLED display with 3,600 nits of peak brightness. Perhaps just as important, a design that fits all these camera specifications into a relatively modest camera island, instead of the colossal ring of lenses that are typical on Chinese ultra phones.
In an expensive flagship phone like this – the Find X10 Pro Max starts at £1,499 / €1,799 (about $2,000) – none of that matters as much as the cameras. Meanwhile, Oppo’s marketing team would have you believe that in a Camera like this, nothing important than the megapixels.
That is not quite right. The Find X10 Pro Max’s camera is really as good as it gets, as all three lenses use fairly large sensors; because the impressive Hasselblad color science in standard camera mode has been further refined; because the main lens has an almost unprecedented dynamic range for a phone. The extra megapixels are the cherry on top up.
Photo by Dominic Preston/The Verge