It has previously specialised in the mid-range market but with the launch of its flagship Find X9 series (retailing for $1999 and for $2599 for the pro model), it makes a confident play for the premium tier.

However, at first glance, you could be forgiven for confusing the new range with its competition.

Find X9 measures 7.99mm thick, while Find X9 Pro comes in at 8.25mm – each with a sleek flat-edged design and minimalist design made iconic by the iPhone.

With the form factor of most smartphones converging, current competition revolves around what can be crammed into a similar-looking frame, namely battery, camera and artificial intelligence integration.

The FX9 series has a strong showing on all three. The Find X9 features a triple-camera system of 50 megapixel cameras, with the Pro loaded with an Ultra XDR Main Camera and a 200 MP Hasselblad Telephoto lens for distance shots.

On battery, it has a 7025 mAh on the Find X9 and 7500 mAh on the Find X9 Pro. Its artificial intelligence integration is impressive but as underlying tech improves, the race to make smartphones redundant is heating up.

Meta has spent more than US$60b (NZ$106b) since 2020 on its mixed reality division, recently unveiling its first customer ready Ray-Ban smart glasses in September.

Apple continues to upgrade its Apple Vision pro and Samsung just unveiled its next generation XR virtual reality headset.

OpenAI has even brought the original iPhone’s designer, Jony Ive, inhouse to work on a mysterious new device which will mark its first push into an AI-integrated consumer device.

Despite the billions being spent to find a smartphone killer, Oppo executives are confident their primary product won’t be subsumed by new tech, it’ll be the package that new tech is wrapped in.

“We still believe mobile devices are the gateway, the vehicle, that provides a consumer an experience of the latest technology – including artificial intelligence,” Oppo Europe CEO Elvis Zhou told the Herald.

Though Oppo leaves the door open, Zhou saying its confidence in the smartphone didn’t preclude them “exploring other form factors”.

He wouldn’t be drawn on what form factor specifically most interested him.

At this stage, sticking with a smartphone seems a safe bet. Existing attempts to replace the smartphone have ranged from lacklustre – like the sales of Apple Vision Pro – to disastrous, like the launch of the Humane AI pin.

While their competition prepares to leave the smartphone behind, Oppo seems confident – for now – that our screens will remain something we look at rather than through.

Artificial intelligence

While AI is the buzzword in all consumer tech, its actual on-device integration with smartphones has been patchy.

Apple publicly stumbled with the introduction of “Apple Intelligence”, with multiple delays to promised features and even briefly pulling its AI-generated news summaries when users reported false headlines.

Learning from those missteps, Oppo has taken a more cautious approach to implementing on-board AI.

Morgan Halim, country manager for Oppo New Zealand, says “we won’t be first in anything”.

“It’s not only going to work 80%. It’s not going to work 70%. No, it has to be 100% working and the experience is going to be there before we have it in the market.”

Working “100% of the time” with anything AI-related is a bold call but the flagship AI feature in the X9, Mindspace, is an interesting step up compared to previous efforts by the competition.

With the click of a button, Mindspace scans your screen and provides an AI-generated summary of the details it sees. If you’re reading an interesting new article, it will summarise it for you. Users can also record a short voice memo and add that to their Mindspace store.

Once you start filling the Mindspace with screenshots and memos, it will act as your AI-powered assistant and help you draft emails, calendar invites or answer questions based on the information.

With most smartphone users having thousands of loose screenshots clogging their phone memory, it’s an attractive promise to have something which can collate all that data into something useful.

And as smartphones increasingly become cameras with screens attached, Oppo is leaning into AI-enhanced photography as a key feature.

The FX9’s automatic AI image editing will subtly enhance any photo taken on the device to balance colour and lighting to give a finish similar to professional-grade cameras without the same expense.

Halim is optimistic as underlying technology improves, more substantial changes could be coming to the smartphone.

“One of the things that can possibly happen in the future is we no longer need computing power on devices because it’s all through the cloud.

“That’s going to open up design possibilities. And that’s the possibility it could be just paper-thin. All you need is just the screen, a Wi-Fi antenna and a camera.”

Entirely cloud-based processing is an attractive idea but considering the current pressure put on data centres – predicted to take up more power consumption than Japan by 2030 – where the world would find the power to run every smartphone remotely is another question.

The home front

Oppo has quietly become a challenger brand in New Zealand. Its name recognition remains relatively low but its market share is climbing here, outstripping its global position.

“We were around 3% of the market three years ago,” Halim says.

“Now we’re sitting about 13% to 14% in the smartphone market. I gave the team a challenge that in the next five years, we want to be trying to hit that 20 to 25%.”

Halim attributes Oppo’s growth to a “local first” approach. It recently brought its customer support team completely on the ground in Auckland after shutting down its remote team in Malaysia because it wasn’t delivering results.

“I think it’s good for New Zealand to have three or four big brands and to be able to continue to challenge each of us to do best for the local customers,” Halim says.

*Finn Hogan travelled to Barcelona courtesy of Oppo.