Oppo Find X9 Pro: One of the Best Android Phones I've Tested All Year

8 hours ago 1

Oppo's Find X9 Pro might just be one of the best Android phones I've tested in 2025 -- and I've tested plenty.

With a powerful processor, excellent battery life and great camera system, it has everything I want to see from a top-end flagship phone. The physical Hasselblad zoom lens attachment is the cherry on top for keen photographers like myself.

I've been quite impressed with the phone in the last few weeks and have little genuine criticism to offer, except maybe the pricing. At £1,099 in the UK, it's the same price as the iPhone 17 Pro (albeit with more storage), and more expensive than Google's Pixel 10 Pro.

Don't get me wrong: Even at that price, this phone is absolutely a rival to the best its competitors can offer. But I had hoped to see a price tag just under the four-figure mark to give it more of an edge.

9.0

Oppo Find X9 Pro

Like

Stellar battery life
Excellent camera system
Strong processor performance

Don't like

Rather generic design
Bundled third-party apps are annoying
Some AI additions are dire
Telephoto lens add-on is a pricey extra

Still, its stellar performance all around means that it works extremely hard to justify that expense. Oppo doesn't sell its phones in the US, and that isn't changing with the Find X9 Pro. For reference, that £1,099 UK price converts to $1,460.

The phone can be bought with an additional telephoto zoom lens, made in collaboration with iconic camera maker Hasselblad. I've really enjoyed using it, as it gives a way longer zoom range and shoots clearer photos than any smartphone's built-in zoom can achieve. It comes with a hefty price tag though; roughly £438 (based on a direct conversion of its 499 Euro price). I'll talk more about this lens later.

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Oppo Find X9 Pro: Great camera system, with extra zoom

The Find X9's rear cameras consist of a main 50-megapixel camera, a 50-megapixel ultrawide and a telephoto zoom with a whopping 200 megapixels of resolution. The main camera can take great-looking images with vibrant colors and a solid handling of exposure.

Some images can look a bit over-processed, with too much digital sharpening, but this is par for the course for many smartphone cameras. The shadows have a nice depth and haven't been artificially lightened too much, which I've found to often be the case on some rivals' phones, including sister company OnePlus.

The phone performs well in low light, creating sharp images with little noticeable image noise. When the light drops completely, the night mode does a good job of capturing a well-lit scene.

The ultrawide lens gives a much wider view, allowing you to cram everything you possibly can into each image. Like the main camera, it delivers punchy-looking shots with enough detail for at least a nice Instagram post. However, I'm a bit disappointed at the amount of image processing in some of the wide-angle images, which results in a sort of "digital watercolor" look in some instances.

But this phone is particularly keen to flaunt its zoom skills. It has a 3x optical zoom, but thanks to that huge 200 megapixel resolution, it can deliver sharp results with further digital zooming.

I've been pretty happy with many of the zoom shots I've taken with the phone, despite the noticeable digital sharpening on plenty of examples and some odd highlight blooming on some areas of high contrast. But if you really want to get up close, then you'll need to spring for an accessory.

The Hasselblad zoom lens extends the zoom range to a huge 40x, allowing you to fill your frame with extremely distant objects. I found it great for street photography, capturing intimate moments from a distance while remaining unnoticed.

It works best at its native 10x range. Beyond that, it relies on digital cropping, which noticeably reduces quality. At 10x though, images can be crystal clear and I've been genuinely blown away by some of the photos I've been able to take with it.

It also uses AI to recover details. I've found occasions when it's clearly trying to rebuild parts of the image that simply shouldn't be there. As a photographer, this is a big red flag, as I want to know that I've captured what was actually there, not an AI's representation of what it thinks should be there.

I have other qualms with the lens, too. It's price tag for one thing. At around £438 it's a lot more expensive than I expected and it's a huge amount to shell out for an accessory with arguably limited use. If zoom shots are a priority, it might be worth the expense, but if you've never really bothered with zoom ranges beyond 3x then you can probably save your cash.

It also requires a specific Oppo case to mount the lens, and that case doesn't feel especially durable. I worry how much use you'd get from it before it breaks, especially if you'd prefer to regularly use a different case and have to swap this photo case on and off when you want to use the lens. The lens requires you to use a specific camera mode, which can make the process of just getting a quick zoom shot quite clunky, especially when you're trying to capture a fleeting moment -- say, a passing bit of wildlife -- and you can't quite get set up in time.

I've Taken Hundreds of Photos With the Oppo Find X9 Pro. These Are My Faves

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Still, the Oppo Find X9 Pro has given me the most impressive zoom shots I've probably ever taken with a phone. I've been genuinely blown away by how far I can take clear images.

If you're into street, wildlife or sports photography, then this optional accessory is worth getting. It helps, too, that it's made in collaboration with Hasselblad. Its solid-metal construction and design perfectly mirror the real lenses Hasselblad makes for its medium-format cameras.

Oppo Find X9 Pro: A powerful processor

Powering the Find X9 Pro is a MediaTek Dimensity 9500 chip, MediaTek's latest chip for flagship Android phones, which is built to rival Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. On paper, it's a powerhouse, delivering benchmark scores that are on par or better than both Samsung's Galaxy S25 Ultra and the iPhone 17 Pro. How it stacks up against Qualcomm's chip remains to be seen, as we've yet to fully test a phone that runs it.

That power translates to a swift experience in everyday use. Apps open quickly, there's no lag when swiping around the interface and playing demanding games like Genshin Impact and Destiny Rising is no problem whatsoever. This phone has more than enough power for anything you'll want to throw at it.

The phone runs Android 16 at its core, with Oppo's ColorOS 16.0 over the top. It doesn't really change the core Android experience, so you'll feel right at home if you've used any other Android phone. However, it does bring various tweaks to aesthetic elements like the fonts, colors and animations, promising a smoother experience as you navigate your way around.

I found it enjoyable to use, though I wish it didn't come preloaded with so much junk, like Amazon, Temu, TikTok and Fitbit. The first time you turn it on, the apps make it feel cluttered. And it bothers me that these apps are being forced on us -- they're essentially ads -- when we've paid full price for the phone already.

Hey, Oppo, if you want to make an ad-supported phone, charge us half price. Otherwise, leave the junk out.

Oppo Find X9 Pro: Stellar battery life

The phone runs on an immense 7,500-mAh battery, which on paper is far bigger than you'll find in most other smartphones. The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra has a 5,000-mAh battery, while the iPhone 17 Pro's is estimated at around 4,000 mAh.

It's not that the battery is actually physically huge. It's that it uses a more energy-dense construction to cram more cells into the same space. And it's not alone in this: The OnePlus 15 is expected to have a similar battery size, while the Xiaomi 17 Pro Max also has a cell over 7,000 mAh in capacity.

Those numbers don't translate directly to battery life, however. The Find X9's battery might be almost twice the size of the iPhone 17 Pro's, but its battery life isn't double the iPhone's. Still, it's extremely good, with some amazing results on our battery rundown tests.

After 3 hours of streaming video on YouTube, the phone dropped from 100% to only 92%. The iPhone 17 Pro dropped to 85% after the same amount of time, while the Pixel 10 Pro XL dropped all the way to 76%. In fact, the Find X9 Pro performed the best we've ever seen on that test, just edging out the iPhone 17 Pro Max's result of 91%.

After 45 minutes of demanding mixed use (including web browsing, gaming and photo editing), the battery dropped by 6%. That's certainly up there among some of the best, though, for comparison, the iPhone 17 Pro dropped by just 2% while the 17 Pro Max dropped by only 1%.

It's safe to say that the Find X9 Pro's battery is extremely good. As long as you don't spend all day streaming videos or playing games, you should expect to get a full day of mixed use and even get somewhat into the second day.

If you do run low on juice, it supports 80-watt fast charging, which will get the power back up quickly. It also supports reverse wireless charging, so you can share some of your power with your iPhone-owning friends who will, I'm sure, be envious of your superior battery life.

Oppo Find X9 Pro: Familiar and weird AI additions

Apparently, no phone can launch anymore without a bevvy of AI-enabled trickery on board, and the Find X9 Pro is no exception.

You'll find various standard tools, like an AI translator and a voice recorder that transcribes your notes, along with Google's Gemini Live and Circle to Search. There are also AI editing tools like the object remover, quality upscaler and unblur. Those work in the same way and at roughly the same quality as we've seen on other phones.

What's new here is Oppo's Mind Space, which is essentially a way to save screenshots and voice notes throughout the day so you can more easily look back on them later. There's even a dedicated hardware button on the side of the phone. A single press takes and saves a screenshot of whatever you're looking at, while a long press allows you to record voice notes that'll be automatically transcribed and saved in the app.

I say "new," but it's lifted almost wholesale from the recent Nothing phone 3A. There, it's called Essential Space, and it operates in an almost identical way -- acting as a repository for your stream of consciousness through your day to help you remember things later on. Copied or not, I find Mind Space useful, and I actually do think I'd use it quite regularly if I were to make the Find X9 Pro my daily driver. Still, if imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery, then Nothing should be glowing with pride.

Then there's Oppo's AI Studio, an app that uses AI to reimagine your photos into various styles. In short, it's pretty awful. The results look weird and generic at best, and downright laughable at worst. It's also weirdly gendered, with some of its portrait styles -- like Pretty in Pink -- only available to produce feminine-presenting looks, while others require you to select a binary gender in advance.

If you pick the "wrong" gender, it'll force your face into position within the preset background. I hated the results from my portrait, as did my wife ("I can't even look at them, please stop showing me"), but it's no worse than most of the identikit "AI image editors" you'll find in the Google Play Store. All that's to say, AI Studio is not a reason to buy this phone over its rivals.

Oppo Find X9 Pro: A disappointingly dull design

The Find X9 Pro isn't ugly by any means, but it is generic. The frosted white glass back and flat metal edges are like wearing a gray suit and white shirt to the office -- you'll fit in as another anonymous worker among the others. And while you may get the occasional approving nod in a professional boardroom, you'll otherwise be hiding all parts of your personality behind that dull polyester veneer.

Oppo needed a casual-dress Friday, or at least a Tacky Tie Tuesday, to liven up the Find X9 Pro with some personality. I guess it's a blank canvas for you to cover up with a fun case, although cases for Oppo's phones aren't as widely available in Europe as they are for the iPhone or Galaxy S25.

The phone is IP69 rated for water resistance, meaning it'll still keep on going after you accidentally spill a drink on it. Hey, maybe try spilling beetroot juice and see if you can add some red stains to help spice it up.

The 6.78-inch display is bright, vibrant and pin-sharp. It supports 10-bit color, and its variable refresh rate from 1 to 120Hz makes fast swiping or gaming feel smoother.

Oppo Find X9 Pro: Should you buy it?

If you're in the US, this phone isn't for you. Not because you shouldn't, but because you can't. If Oppo starts officially selling its phones in the US, then change that "no" to "yes."

For those of you in the UK and wider Europe, where Oppo actually sells its phones, you should absolutely consider the Find X9 Pro. Its camera is great, its battery life is among the best around, plus its processor is powerful enough for pretty much anything you'd want from it. Oppo's own AI tools don't exactly stand out, but it still has Google's AI, like Gemini Live and Circle to Search. If AI is a key factor for you in your phone, you'd be better off using third-party AI tools like ChatGPT.

Sure, I find the phone extremely generic to look at, but that's a personal opinion you might not agree with. It's also irrelevant if you plan on slapping a case on it anyway.

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