Oppo's most premium flagship, Find X9 Pro, delivers on all fronts.
The Oppo Find X9 Pro is available at Rs. 1,09,999
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Oppo launched both its Find X8 and Find X8 Pro last year after a four-year gap. We loved the Find X8 because of its slim and lightweight design, as well as the fact that it offered good value. In our review, we were not happy with the Find X8 Pro's cameras because they provided inconsistent quality. The Chinese smartphone brand had armed its flagship to the teeth, with four user-accessible rear-facing cameras, two of which were periscope telephoto cameras (3X and 6X zoom). And with this, we had a phone with ‘Ultra'-level camera capability, that somehow failed to deliver.
This year, Oppo's Find X9 Pro aims to surpass its predecessor, the Find X8 Pro, in every possible area. It's gone with a flat, no-nonsense display. There's a slightly thicker design, which accommodates a bigger battery. There's a new processor, but Oppo has omitted one periscope telephoto camera in favour of a single 200-megapixel periscope telephoto.
Adding to this telephoto camera's standalone zoom capabilities is a custom-made Hasselblad Teleconverter Kit, which should also appeal to smartphone camera enthusiasts. With so many new hardware and software upgrades, is Oppo's new ‘Pro' almost an ‘Ultra'? Let's find out!
Oppo Find X9 Pro Design: Premium design with an odd photography kit
- Dimensions – 161.3 x 76.5 x 8.3mm
- Weight – 224 grams
- Durability – IP69 (dust and water)
Last year's Find X8 Pro went for a slick and slim appearance with quad-curved front and rear panels. This year's Oppo Find X9 Pro goes thicker and has a no-nonsense flat screen on both sides. The sides have also gotten flatter, but Oppo has kept the edges of the frame smooth, making it comfortable to hold, despite its size and weight, which is now nearing a quarter of a kilo.
The squarish camera module protrudes quite a bit, but its higher placement (at the top left corner) means that it won't get in the way when holding the phone vertically. I also appreciate the glass that protects the camera lenses. Oppo has given it a dual finish, which is clear for the cameras but translucent in the surrounding space.
If you continue to press that area to search for the Quick Button, a precise vibration will help you locate its position. From there, it's a two-press sequence to launch the camera and a single press to snap a photo. The Quick button will not activate the slide-to-zoom function when the phone is held vertically, but only horizontally, because your hand may accidentally touch the button when held like this. The slide-to-zoom function has been refined, and the zoom selection in the camera app's viewfinder is now more precise. However, it still registers accidental touches, which can be annoying when using the camera app. I really wish Oppo would give us the option to disable this button, which is currently not possible.
The Snap Key's default configuration lets you access the Mind Space feature in ColourOS 16, but you can customise it to change the phone's sound profile, activate DND mode, fire up the camera app, torch, voice recorder, built-in translator and take a screenshot. Each of these functions also has preset functions within them, so you can fire up a specific camera mode if you want to by pressing the Snap button. There is no double-press feature available, so the Snap Key cannot be used to activate two separate functions simultaneously. However, certain apps or features do have single or long-press functions pre-assigned to the Snap Key.
Oppo Find X9 Pro Hasselblad Teleconverter kit
As revealed in our interview with an Oppo executive, the company did have plans for a photography kit. The all-new Hasselblad Teleconverter kit includes the teleconverter lens, a special case with magnetic charging capability, and a lens mount that slides over the camera module.
The phone case that comes with the kit is useful as it also has the magnets to hold the Oppo AirVOOC 50W Magnetic charger (or any Qi 2 magnetic/MagSafe charger) in place. And so, there's good reason to have the case on all the time, even if you don't mount the teleconverter lens often.
To mount the kit lens, you will need to first slide the mount onto the lens, which holds it in place. The mount plate is made of metal and uses a slide-rail mechanism that slides into place with a spring-loaded click-lock that can be released by sliding the switch outward. The 3.8X zoom teleconverter lens can then be mounted by matching the two dots on the mount and the lens for alignment (like on a regular camera). There's also a tripod collar for the lens in case you want to mount the smartphone to a tripod.
Key among these is that unlike Vivo's X200 Ultra's camera kit, which has cavities for the other cameras, Oppo's Find X9 Pro's slide-out lens mount only allows the 3X periscope telephoto camera to peep through, blocking out the primary and ultrawide lens. This would not be the case had Oppo retained the bigger (circular) and spaced-out camera layout, which would allow all three lenses to look through the teleconverter lens' slide-out mount plate, which would already be bigger than the existing one.
Lastly, there's also the fact that you have to carry the lens and the mount plate around. Oppo should have included a hard case travel pouch for the teleconverter lens, mount and lens collar. Given the better imaging quality the teleconverter lens delivers compared to digitally zoomed in images from the sensor at 10X, 20X and 40X (shown in the camera section of this review), I only see it being used by smartphone camera enthusiasts to get closer to wildlife on a safari, getting close-ups of celebs on-stage, or on a vacation to capture something that's really out of reach. The biggest downside for me personally is that I have to unmount the teleconverter lens with the mount plate every time I need to shoot something else, making it quite a hassle.
Oppo Find X9 Pro Display: Flagship grade!
- Display size – 6.78-inch, 1,272 x 2,772 pixels,
- Display type – AMOLED, LTPO, 120Hz
- Display protection – Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2
The display on the Oppo Find X9 Pro remains similar to its predecessor, the Find X8 Pro. There's a minor change in resolution, but the display goes from quad-curved to flat. I preferred the flat panel as it produces no unnecessary reflections, which is a problem with quad-curved displays when viewed outdoors.
With a high brightness mode of 1,800 nits (3,600 nits peak), the display can easily handle the bright outdoors with ease. So, naturally, there's support for HDR10+, HDR Vivid and Dolby Vision. When streaming videos with supported content, the videos appeared vibrant and had excellent contrast. Colours are natural when viewed in the Natural screen colour mode, and sharpness is point.
Oppo Find X9 Pro Software: Smoothness redefined
- Android version – 16
- Software – ColorOS 16
- Software commitment – 5 years OS + 6 years SMR
It is quite obvious that Oppo's ColorOS does take plenty of inspiration from Apple iOS 26. There are no obvious signs of Liquid Glass, but there are enough hints of it sprinkled all over the software interface. This includes a lock screen which has the time in oversized characters, widgets, some depth effect tricks, and glassy buttons. You will also notice the occasional button in some native apps with a mild glow, attempting to emulate a glass-like effect. Then there's the new ‘Categories' app segregation toggle in the app drawer. There's even a capsule-shaped bottom section selector, which is weirdly present only in the Photos app, but nowhere else.
However, there are some original ideas that come from ColorOS 16 as well. A video can be set as a wallpaper background. The icons on the homescreen can now be expanded to include app shortcuts, which I believe many will find very useful. The shortcuts can be added in the stretched icon itself and can be customised to your requirements, letting you jump directly to a section or feature of the app instead of launching it first and then opening that section. Adaptive Icons, as Oppo calls them, are basically a glamourised version of the standard app shortcuts, which are revealed upon long-pressing an app icon. I also appreciate the AI-based dynamic widgets, which display a graph of the charging status when the device is plugged into the charger.
Then there are some new AI features sprinkled all over the OS. My favourite one is Mind Space, which functions like Nothing's Essential Space, and is used to save everything from screenshots to audio notes for recall. Mind Space is very useful if you research a lot of things on your phone.
The feature can be accessed directly by pressing and holding down the new Snap Key to record a voice note, or you can perform a three-finger upward swipe to directly save a screenshot to Mind Space. All your notes, voice recordings and screenshots are organised in Mind Space. You can even find short summaries of your screenshot with a link to the website mentioned in it as well.
Last, but definitely not least, is how fluid ColorOS feels out of the box. Whether multitasking, switching between apps or even launching and closing apps, everything feels very smooth. This is mainly down to Oppo's parallel processing, handled by its Luminous Rendering Engine, which, according to the brand, is capable of rendering all visual elements simultaneously, instead of one-by-one.
Oppo Find X9 Pro Performance: Power on demand
- Processor – MediaTek Dimensity 9500, 4.21GHz, 3nm
- RAM – 16GB (LPDDR5X)
- Storage – 512GB (UFS 4.1)
It would have been nice had Oppo gone with the top-of-the-line Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor, which is currently leading the scene when it comes to synthetic benchmarks. The MediaTek Dimensity 9500 is no slouch, but it comes up just a notch below Qualcomm's high-end offering. Compared to the other flagships released earlier this year, the Dimensity 9500 is clearly ahead of the lot, as can be seen from the chart below.
| Benchmarks | Oppo Find X9 Pro | OnePlus 15 | Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra |
|---|---|---|---|
| Display resolution | 1,272 x 2,772 | 1.5K | QHD+ |
| Chipset | Dimensity 9500 (3nm) | Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 (3nm) | Snapdragon 8 Elite (3nm) |
| AnTuTu v10 | 35,10,178 | 36,35,346 | 21,23,303 |
| PCMark Work 3.0 | 13,826 | 15,527 | 19,266 |
| Geekbench 6 Single | 3,251 | 3,622 | 3,054 |
| Geekbench 6 Multi | 9,771 | 10,712 | 9,832 |
| GFXB T-rex | 61 | 60 | 120 |
| GFXB Manhattan 3.1 | 60 | 60 | 115 |
| GFXB Car Chase | 60 | 60 | 94 |
| 3DM Slingshot Extreme OpenGL | Maxed Out | Maxed Out | Failed to Run |
| 3DM Slingshot | Maxed Out | Maxed Out | Failed to Run |
| 3DM Wild Life | Maxed Out | Maxed Out | Maxed Out |
| 3DM Wild Life Unlimited | 26,331 | 27,327 | 23,683 |
Despite having graphite sheets and a vapour chamber cooling system, the phone does throttle a bit too early when running synthetic benchmarks. But playing games or even when using the camera extensively does not make the device abnormally hot. There are no signs of struggle when using the UI, either when it's stressed.
Gaming performance is very good. The Oppo Find X9 Pro does not break a sweat when running Genshin Impact at the Highest graphics setting with 60 fps enabled. The same applies to something as fast-paced as Call of Duty: Mobile (CODM), which ran flawlessly at both Ultra and Highest frame rates. The touch sampling rate of the display also kept pace with all the on-screen swipes. Audio quality is also pretty loud and rich, making the gaming and video viewing experience immersive. The display's refresh rate also worked as expected, dropping down to 1Hz when not in use and instantly cranking up to 120Hz depending on the application. CODM, when set to Ultra frame rate, can also be enjoyed at 120Hz, provided you set the in-game frame rate limit to 120 frames per second (fps).
Oppo Find X9 Pro Cameras: Up there with the best
- Ultrawide camera – 50-megapixel, f/2.0, PDAF
- Primary camera – 50-megapixel, f/1.5, PDAF, OIS
- Telephoto camera – 200-megapixel, f/2.1, PDAF OIS
- Selfie camera – 50-megapixel, f/2.0, PDAF
The telephoto camera captures sharp images in all kinds of lighting conditions, but it does have its limitations. These limitations start to show up beyond 10X zoom, where image quality starts to get a bit soft and image-processing algorithms start to take over. At 60X and 120X zoom, AI takes over, literally trying to reimagine what both you and the AI can or cannot see, and so the results end up looking like paintings. You do have the option to turn off AI enhancements (in the viewfinder), which I honestly feel are ethical and better-looking.
But if you are an enthusiastic mobile photographer or simply like to test the limits of your smartphone when it comes to photography. Oppo also sells an optional 3.28X Hasselblad-branded teleconverter kit that fully utilises the power of the 200-megapixel telephoto camera. The teleconverter lens basically lets you capture some downright impressive photos and videos using the special Hasselblad Teleconverter mode, letting you take detailed photos at 10X, 20X and 40X zoom.
Video recordings captured at 4K look impressive in daylight and in low light. Colour reproduction is good, details which look perfectly fine in daylight do get toned down a little bit in low light. The dynamic range is fine, and the noise is under control. 4K 120 fps video looks gorgeous in daylight, but isn't ideal for shooting in low-light conditions.
Oppo Find X9 Pro Battery: Stellar!
- Battery capacity – 7,500mAh, Si/C based, Li-ion
- Wired charging – 80W SuperVOOC
- Wireless charging – 50W
- Charger in the box – Yes
The high-capacity silicon carbon-based battery sure delivers when it comes to standing power and day-to-day expectations. Its higher capacity and software optimisations help the phone last really long. For example, I captured several 4K quality video recordings back-to-back, along with several photos for half an hour, and the battery barely dropped by 10 percent. With daily heavy usage, which also included gaming and camera usage, I was still left with about 40 percent battery by the end of most days, leaving me with enough power for the next day as well. The PCMark Work Battery Life test (running real-world applications in a loop) managed a solid 23 hours and 52 minutes, which is pretty good for a high-end premium device.
Charging speeds aren't exactly the best you can get at this price point, but you have to keep in mind that Oppo's 80W SuperVOOC adapter is charging a 7,500mAh battery. With Rapid Charging mode on, the phone went from a dead battery to 53 percent in 30 minutes and slowed down from the 90 percent mark, reaching a full-charged state in 1 hour and 36 minutes. Oppo also offers 50W AirVOOC wireless charging, but you will need a compatible AirVOOC charger to attain those charging speeds. You will also need an (optional) compatible magnetic case if you want to use a Qi 2 or MagSafe accessory for wireless charging.
Oppo Find X9 Pro Verdict
Having reviewed the Find X7 Ultra and the Find X8 Ultra, we have been waiting for Oppo to bring its ‘Ultra' models to India for the past two years. That said, last year's comeback in the form of the Find X8 Pro was not bad by any means; it's just that its cameras weren't well optimised compared to similarly priced devices at launch.
Despite cutting down on one camera this year, Oppo seems to have filled a gaping void in its cold war against Samsung. The Oppo Find X9 Pro is a solid and well-rounded offering from the brand, offering little to no compromise against top-end flagships from Google, Vivo, and Samsung this year. The only feature that I had wished was included (and is probably reserved for the Find X9 Ultra) is built-in magnetic wireless charging, like on the latest Pixel 10 Pro lineup.
For its asking price, the Oppo Find X9 Pro offers good value and performs up to the mark. Its main competitor will be the upcoming Vivo X300 Pro, which is also expected to launch with its own teleconverter lens kit. My only disappointment (regardless of its otherwise excellent performance) is the Hasselblad teleconverter kit, which seems like an afterthought more than a well-thought-out feature.
