Oppo’s new folding can be a Mac remote control

Today Oppo Launched the Find N5The thinn -folding phone in book style so far, but there is more on the phone than a slim design: it is able to connect to a Mac for file transfers and even remote control. It is not entirely the first Android telephone to do this, but it is the only one you can buy outside of China.

To link the Find N5 to a Mac, you must first install Oppo’s O Plus Connect app on the Mac, which will be available from Oppo’s website – I tested a beta version. Linking the Mac on the phone is quickly as long as they are on the same WiFi network, with all the operating elements of the telephone built into the “Connection and Share” section of the Settings app.

As long as the two telephones stay on the same network, you can browse the files of the phone directly from the Mac and transfer wirelessly-given a coup, given that even wired files between Android phones and Macs is immensely and dependent on the third party Place is -party software.

More impressive is the remote control option, which reflects the display from the Mac to the phone. You can use it on full screen, or better fold the phone halfway to make a miniature laptop. This works as long as both devices are online, but unlike sharing files, they do not have to be on the same network.

Oppo has made a few ways to use macOS from the Dinky Touchscreen. You can convert the lower half of the display into a keyboard for the laptop experience, or use it instead as a trackpad-complete with multi-touch gest support. Other options include an awkward mouse on the screen and some buttons that make common shortcuts again.

Don’t get me wrong, this is all still pretty awkward. The screen is too small to be fully usable and macOS was not designed with touch gestures in mind, so tapping is a hit-of-miss replacement for a mouse. I tried it a few times My week with the phoneAnd although it was usually flexible, it was enough to be absolutely unusable on one opportunity. I would not even want to depend on this to work, but I can see the attraction in a pinch.

Sharing files is the simpler useful part of this. It is an expansion of Oppo’s existing O Plus Connect app for iPhones and iPads, which means that sharing files between Oppo, OnePlus and Realme has been possible since last year. A similar app supports sharing files with Windows PCs, but the remote control option has been added for Macs a first.

A first for Oppo, that is. Another Chinese telephone manufacturer, Vivo, introduced a similar option in April 2024 That I didn’t have the chance to try. That’s because it is only available on VIVOphones with Origies, the China-Exclusive view of Android of the company. With the Find N5 Worldwide launch – except the US, where Sister Brand has OnePlus announced that it will not launch the phone – This is the first time that Macs and Android phones have come so close in the rest of the world.

Oppo says there are plans to roll out the function to more telephones, but we will have to wait to see which and when – and or that the OnePlus -hand sets in the US include.

Photography by Dominic Preston / The Verge