For the past few weeks, we have been putting a smartphone with more cameras than most people have opinions through its paces. In the Android space, over the last year or so, Oppo has been delivering one hit after another. The Oppo Find X9 Ultra could well be peak Android, at least for the time being. You may even feel that the company thought of the camera first and then figured out the rest of the phone around it. Given its specifications, it thoroughly deserves the ‘Ultra’ moniker, but is everything about it perfect?
This maxed-out flagship makes almost every other Ultra smartphone on the market feel a little less so. There is everything you could ask of a smartphone: the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, a 7,050 mAh battery, a 6.8-inch super-bright LTPO AMOLED display, and an astonishing 200-megapixel camera system on the rear.
If the Oppo Find N6 is making headlines as the top-of-the-line foldable phone, the Find X9 Ultra has almost everything you could ask of a slab phone, which has reached a certain level of maturity.
Dull as it may sound, most of us have quietly agreed that the slab form factor remains the most practical choice for a high-end smartphone. But when you consider the phone as an object, there are several boxes that still need ticking: great display, battery life, build quality, performance, and cameras. Each of these departments has performed differently across different manufacturers over the years.
Smartphone screens have become bigger, brighter, and thinner-bezelled. They look perfectly usable under harsh sunlight and, at the same time, can dim to a single nit in the dark to spare your eyes. The same is true of batteries, which are better than ever before. Running a flagship for at least a full day — even under heavy use — is now perfectly achievable, particularly if the device is equipped with a silicon-carbon battery. Performance, too, keeps improving, and given the engineering that goes into modern chipsets, there is precious little to grumble about. Build quality is, almost universally, top of the line.
If all those boxes are broadly ticked, it all comes down to the camera. Indeed, at almost every smartphone briefing we attend ahead of a launch, the majority of the time is devoted to the camera setup. Cameras have improved enormously over the last four or five years — there is something genuinely new every single year. But there is an inherent limitation. Phones will not become as thick as cameras; the lens will never be as powerful as those found on dedicated imaging equipment. It is how smartphone companies work around this constraint that is worth examining. And this is precisely where the Oppo Find X9 Ultra enters the conversation.
Five lenses walk into a bar
The New-Gen True Colour Camera captures natural tones in real time across every lens and focal length. Picture: Mathures Paul
It is, without question, one of the finest camera systems ever fitted to a smartphone. And if you can wait a few weeks, it may get even better through software updates. The Find X9 Ultra is built entirely around its camera system, and that philosophy shows in every interaction. Combine this with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset — powerful enough to handle virtually anything, from video to photo editing — and a display capable of reaching 1,800 nits of HBM, which is a good figure, and you have a phone that is an absolute breeze to use.
This is also one of those rare smartphones that you will find difficult to drain below 20 per cent under normal use. With over 7,000 mAh of capacity, it is miles ahead of its Android rivals. And should you somehow dip below that threshold, a powerful 100W charger is included in the box, capable of replenishing the battery to 80 per cent in very little time.
At the rear, five camera sensors await you, and each one is either the best or among the best figures on paper. The main camera offers 200 megapixels with the largest 200MP sensor currently found in any smartphone — shot at f/1.5, with a wide aperture and optical image stabilisation. There is also a 200MP 3x telephoto camera at f/2.2, which is likely the largest telephoto sensor fitted to any phone and bigger, in fact, than the primary sensor on many competing handsets.
Beyond those two, there is a second zoom: a 50MP 10x periscope camera with sensor-shift stabilisation. Alongside it sits a 50MP ultrawide, and a dedicated colour sensor that Oppo is calling the True Colour Camera, designed to achieve the most accurate white balance in both photos and videos.
Helping Oppo’s cause is the restrained processing applied to images. There is ample versatility across the various focal lengths, and colours are vibrant without tipping into oversaturation. The phone handles dynamic range admirably, without crushing the shadows, and the consistency across all lenses is impressive.
A slab with something to prove
This is where some mixed feelings creep in. Oppo may like you to think of this as a Hasselblad camera. The co-branding on the rear of the phone is prominent enough to make the claim.
Powered by the latest LUMO Image Engine, it captures ultra-clear detail across eight precise focal lengths from 0.6x to 20x. Picture: Mathures Paul
But do not confuse the excellent cameras on the Find X9 Ultra with an actual Hasselblad. They are very different instruments. A good smartphone camera system needs to be versatile and forgiving; it must try to ensure you do not take a bad photograph, which is where computational photography earns its keep. Take something like the Hasselblad X2D Mark II, and there is no computational photography. The two devices should not be conflated.
If you are searching for any smartphone camera to replace a high-end professional camera system, you will not find one. A handful of devices — the iPhone 17 Pro Max, the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, and the Find X9 Ultra among them — are enormously capable. But you are still holding a computer that is quietly working to ensure you don’t take a poor shot. You may become exceptionally skilled at mobile photography. But will it hold up when you train it on a tiger moving at full sprint through long grass?
The stabilisation, it should be noted, is impressive, employing sensor-shift technology whereby the sensor itself moves rather than the lens. The video department is equally well-appointed, with 8K and 4K recording modes and the ability to shoot in Log format for colour grading in post-production.
There are, however, a couple of niggles. In low-light conditions, video quality does not quite match what the iPhone 17 Pro Max produces. And why, in this day and age, are Spotify and a clutch of other applications preinstalled? Bloatware of this kind has no place on a smartphone at this price point.
But credit must be given where it is due. The Oppo Find X9 Ultra is the definitive Android phone for everyday use. It demonstrates, with considerable flair, why smartphones can be fun and capable in equal measure, and why this category continues to improve year on year. It is not perfect. But it is very, very close.
At a glance
Device: Oppo Find X9 Ultra
Price: ₹169,999 (12GB+512GB, special discounts are available)
High notes
200MP main and telephoto sensors
Consistent colour across all lenses
Minimal image processing
Sensor-shift stabilisation
Fast in-box charger
Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5
8K and 4K video
Log video recording
Hasselblad co-branding
Vibrant but accurate colours
Strong dynamic range
All-day battery life
Muffled notes
Preinstalled bloatware
Hasselblad branding overstated