I Put the Ultimate Phone Cameras to a Head-to-Head Test (Neither Is an iPhone)

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I called Xiaomi and Leica's Leitzphone "the best camera phone I have ever used" when I reviewed it in March, and I meant it. This phone has some astonishing chops when it comes to taking images that arguably make it more of a camera than a phone. But it's not the only phone I've said that about recently.

Oppo partnered with Hasselblad for its Find X9 Ultra, equipping the phone with a similarly potent lineup of specs that also makes it an absolute photography powerhouse. With both phones claiming to be basically the best around, I wanted to put them to the test in a side-by-side shootout to see which one impresses me more.

I've been a phone reviewer at CNET for 15 years, but I'm also a professional photographer and photography YouTube creator. That means I have exceptionally high standards for phone cameras. Especially when they both have sky-high price tags.

Starting at £1,449 ($1,915), the Oppo Find X9 Ultra is unquestionably pricey, but it undercuts the £1,700 ($2,245) Leitzphone by quite a bit (neither phone is officially offered in the US). They're by no means cheap, with both more expensive than the iPhone 17 Pro, so those of you looking toward these phones are right to expect pristine performance in every respect.

Image of a Leitzphone, left, and an Oppo Find X9 Ultra, right

That means I won't be pulling my punches here, but instead nitpicking at every little difference I can see. But it's important to keep in mind that some of what I'll conclude comes down to personal preference. Photography is an art form, and some aspects -- like how vibrant colors appear -- can be a matter of taste, rather than a subjective flaw in an image. While I'll be passing judgment, keep in mind that your experience may vary slightly.

At the end of the day, though, both these phones are exceptionally good at what they do, so it's going to be an interesting fight. Let's get going.

Oppo Find X9 Ultra vs. Leitzphone: Big hardware differences

Before we even get into photo comparisons, there are notable differences in the hardware of each phone. The Find X9 Ultra has an impressive setup of rear cameras, including a 200-megapixel main camera, a 50-megapixel ultrawide, a 200-megapixel telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom and an additional 50-megapixel telephoto camera with 10x optical zoom.

Lots of big numbers, for sure, but the Leitzphone has some advanced trickery on its side. Its main image sensor is a physically larger 1-inch-type chip that employs a technology called LOFIC. I won't bore you with what that really means, but it essentially boils down to the sensor being able to capture high dynamic range images in a single shot, rather than combining multiple frames into a single photo, as is the more typical approach -- and the one used by Oppo's phone.

A hand twisting the physical control ring around the camera of the Leitzphone. The Oppo, right, doesn't have this feature.

It's a cutting-edge piece of tech that's rumored to debut in the next iPhone 18 Pro and Samsung's Galaxy S27, and will likely become the norm for all high-end camera phones next year. Oppo's phone uses the typical method of combining frames, and it's a bit of a shame that Oppo hasn't pushed for this in its own phone. The company says its image processing is still competitive, however.

The Leitzphone has more tricks, though. First, it has a physical settings wheel positioned around the whole camera module on the phone's rear. Give it a twist, and it can control your focus, zoom or even exposure compensation (depending on what you set it to control) and basically allows you to hold and control the phone in much the same way you would with a real camera. It's a really nice touch, and I love using it.

It's also one of the first camera phones to employ a continuous telephoto zoom unit that uses real moving lens elements to zoom in without loss of quality, rather than only jumping between set zoom levels. Again, I think this works extremely well, although Oppo's zoom skills are still something to behold -- especially with the optional lens attachment, which I'll come to.

On a purely hardware level, I do think the Leitzphone is pushing its camera tech further, which explains why the phone has a higher price tag -- it's packing brand-new tech not seen in other phones.

But at the end of the day, camera hardware is meaningless without impressive image quality, so let's take a look at some photos. Note that all shots shown here have been imported into Adobe Lightroom for comparison and exported at a lower quality for better web viewing. No other edits have been made, unless otherwise stated.

Oppo Find X9 Ultra vs. Leitzphone: Image quality tests

Let's start with this outdoor scene from the main cameras of each phone. The images look great with accurate colors and solid overall exposures. But there are differences to note. The Leitzphone has slightly punchier highlights in some areas, which gives a bit of extra pop to the clouds, without looking like it's overexposed and blown out the details. Interestingly, it's got more controlled highlights elsewhere in the scene.

A comparison image showing two buildings

If we zoom in on the details of this building, it's clear that Oppo's shot shows a much brighter building, which looks a bit blown out, resulting in lost detail -- or its image processing has smoothed out those details unnecessarily. Either way, the result is that the Leitzphone has maintained a more organic look to this building with controlled highlights, sharper details around the windows and maintained much more of the natural textures.

Two images of a man sitting next to a river

In this scene, the Leitzphone again produced a shot with better-looking contrast on the clouds -- the whites actually look white in its image, giving them an almost 3D depth. I think Oppo's image processing has spoiled things here. It appears that the phone has tried to tone down those highlights too much, resulting in whites that are actually more gray, giving the scene less pop overall. It's also lightened the shadows quite a bit, especially in the foreground, where the chain fencing casts shadows.

I actually found that the Find X9 Ultra can be quite aggressive with its shadow processing. In this image, the exposure in the shadowy areas on the left side is really lifted, creating what, to my eye, looks like a quite processed HDR image. It makes the shot look almost like a cliché "phone photo," while the Leitzphone's less heavy-handed approach results in a more "professional"-looking shot with natural shadows.

And it's the same story when I used these trees as a framing device; more natural-looking tones from the Leitzphone and better fine details when you zoom in.

And again. I just find that the Leitzphone delivers realistic-looking tones more consistently straight out of the camera. Sometimes it doesn't work in the Leitzphone's favor, however.

Here, for example, the X9 Ultra's processing has resulted in an image with a lot more vibrance, with those red chairs looking a lot more vivid, especially against the quite dull-looking shot taken on the Leitzphone.

From the ultrawide cameras, the X9 Ultra's shot does start to look a bit overcooked -- those reds are almost shockingly vibrant -- but I think it's generally a better look than the muted aesthetic of the Leitzphone's shot.

Although in this ultrawide example, I think I prefer the Leitzphone's effort. By not oversaturating the tones (especially the yellow paint circle and the rich blue skies), it maintains a more natural look that suits the scene well. Both phones have 50-megapixel ultrawide cameras, so it's little surprise that there's almost nothing to choose between them in terms of overall quality here.

Another example of each phone's approach -- the X9 Ultra has gone hard on the saturation here, especially in those red seats. While the Leitzphone's shot is a little more restrained. I'm happy to chalk this one down to personal taste.

And here with this close-up on a lovely summer flower. The Leitzphone is arguably a little muted, but I still prefer it to the heavily processed shot from the Oppo, with its artificial-looking shadows and overly vibrant greens.

This is probably the most obvious difference I've seen in how each phone uses image processing. It's a complicated scene for any camera to capture, with a huge contrast between the deep shadows in the building and the bright sky above. While the Leitzphone has slightly blown out the brightest highlight on the cloud, the Find X9 Ultra has gone way overboard with its processing, creating a very unnatural-looking sky by artificially pulling that brightness back, while simultaneously raising the shadows on the lower right of the scene to an unrealistic extent.

But everything changes if you take a more manual approach, using the Pro modes of each camera (called Master mode on the Oppo) and shooting in DNG raw. These raw files have captured a lot more tonal information, allowing the highlights to be perfectly rescued in both images. It's also bypassed all of the phone's image processing in the Oppo's camera, allowing it to capture deeper shadows that look like they actually did in the moment.

I found this to be the case for most of the time I spent taking photos with the Find X9 Ultra, especially during a photo expedition to Madeira. In the default camera mode, its images can look too processed -- at least in my opinion -- but by taking full control in Master mode, you can unleash everything that this camera is capable of.

Oppo Find X9 Ultra vs. Leitzphone: Zoom

With two separate optical zoom lenses on the back (one 3x and one 10x), the Oppo Find X9 Ultra may have a natural advantage in zoom, though the Leitzphone offers its own continuous telephoto zoom from 3.2x to 4.3x with no loss in quality. It's not as big a zoom, but I generally find the roughly 70-100mm equivalent zoom on the Leitzphone to be more broadly usable than the 230mm equivalent zoom of the Oppo.

At 3.2x on the Leitzphone and 3x on the Oppo, I expected more from the Oppo's 200-megapixel telephoto zoom here. While the Leitzphone looks a little oversharpened, it's preferable to the quite mushy details offered by Oppo's camera.

While the Leitzphone maintains its quality at 4.3x zoom, the Oppo digitally crops at its 6x zoom range, further reducing that quality. Looking close up, there's a lot of detail smoothing going on, which has really reduced the definition on some of the brickwork in the buildings.

But at 10x, the Oppo really comes out swinging. Suddenly, all those details pop back into glorious view with a stunning shot that's pin-sharp yet somehow also doesn't look oversharpened. It's a great balance, and I'm really impressed with what this 10x zoom lens can do.

But the Oppo has another trick up its sleeve: its detachable telephoto zoom lens. It's a physical unit (and quite a hefty one at that) that takes that zoom up to an optical 300mm and all the way up to a wild 1,380mm equivalent with digital cropping. It's an accessory the Leitzphone doesn't offer, and I've taken some zoomed shots using it on my travels that have left me utterly blown away.

image of a cable car in front of a rock face

However, it's important to note that this is an extremely expensive extra: the Explorer kit costs a whopping £499 ($674), though it also includes a handy case that doubles as a camera grip. The lens's size makes it quite cumbersome to use, and its huge zoom level -- even at its base 300mm -- is still incredibly zoomed-in, meaning its use is arguably limited, unless you're really into your wildlife photography or spying on people from miles away. There's no question that the Find X9 Ultra takes the win when it comes to sheer zoom length, but for everyday shooting, I find the Leitzphone's more modest, but higher quality, zoom more applicable.

Oppo Find X9 Ultra vs. Leitzphone: Night mode

Taken with the main camera, there's very little to choose between these shots when you look at the full image. Both are bright, with broadly similar colors and an almost identical amount of flare around the street lamp in the distance.

Zoom in, though, and it's possible to see that the Find X9 Ultra just has the edge when it comes to details and sharpness. Those little water droplets on the cars are more clearly defined in their image, as are the details on the brickwork behind. The Leitzphone's is by no means bad, but I certainly think the Oppo takes the win here.

The Oppo extends its lead in this scene with the ultrawide lens, too. Its color balance is more accurate, its shot is a little brighter and with better contrast, and again, those fine details are noticeably clearer throughout.

But I think things change here. While both images are bright and sharp, I think that the Find X9 Ultra has again fallen victim to its software processing, producing an overly saturated image with shadows that look artificially brightened. Its shot might look better for many people, and in some ways, a brighter, more vibrant photo is exactly what you want at night. But for me it continues to represent the Oppo's reliance on heavy-handed processing, and as a result I still prefer the more natural look of the Leitzphone in this example.

Oppo Find X9 Ultra vs. Leitzphone: Which takes the better photos?

I'd like to start by sitting fully on the fence and saying that both these phones are astonishingly good at taking photos. They are certainly the best around, offering a full feature set for enthusiastic photographers to take glorious shots in almost any condition. Whichever one you buy, you'll be getting an incredibly potent camera phone.

That said, I've quite consistently preferred the images from the Leitzphone in my testing. The Oppo lets itself down sometimes by leaning hard into its software processing. And sure, all phones use processing like this to varying extents, but in pro-standard camera phones like these, seeing quite heavy-handed image processing is a bit frustrating. It's why I've generally preferred the more natural look that the Leitzphone can achieve straight out of the camera.

However, both phones benefit from taking a more manual approach and shooting in raw, thereby bypassing much of the default processing. I've taken shots in raw on the Oppo -- and processed later in Adobe Lightroom -- that look like they were taken on a regular pro camera, and it was a great photography companion on my trip to Madeira. But with the Leitzphone's Leica-made color profiles built in (which I much prefer to the Oppo's Hasselblad filmic presets), I've been able to take gorgeous-looking shots without any extra editing. And for an everyday-carry phone camera, that's more what I'm looking for -- I'll save the heavy editing work for when I'm shooting with my pro cameras.

The Oppo certainly takes the win when it comes to sheer zoom reach -- especially with that massive optional lens. But then again, I have found the Leitzphone's shorter zoom range more generally usable in everyday situations. Because really, how often do you need a 1,000mm telephoto zoom when you're out and about?

I haven't even touched on other aspects like the physical design. And it's because both are beautiful, with the Leitzphone having Leica's typically minimalist styling, while the Oppo is styled after the sleek, Swedish-made cameras of its Hasselblad partner. They're neck and neck here, until you factor in the Leitzphone's genuinely useful external settings wheel.

Overall, though, my pick is the Leitzphone as the best camera phone in most scenarios. I prefer its image quality -- both in terms of exposure, details and colors -- it's more consistent straight out of the camera, and I love the looks you can achieve with Leica's filmic presets. But yes, some of that is down to my personal preference, so take my opinion here with a pinch of salt. At the end of the day, these phones are both brilliant, and whichever one you go for will be a dream for your next photo trip.

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