I purchased the OPPO Find X9 Pro.
A Top-Class Camera Phone
The OPPO Find X9 Pro is a smartphone equipped with the MediaTek Dimensity 9500 and a camera from its collaboration with Hasselblad.
Thanks to its large 7500mAh battery, it has excellent battery life. It’s also packed with all the convenient features for daily use, making everything from gaming and photography to everyday tasks a comfortable experience.
However, regarding camera performance, it seems the promotional claims were a bit exaggerated. The “default 8K recording” feature is practically non-functional, and the telephoto lens relies heavily on AI processing, so I felt it fell slightly short of my expectations.
This review was conducted on the 12GB+256GB version, model PLG110_16.0.0.221(CN01).
On AliExpress, from 11/11 17:00 to 11/20 16:59, you can use promo code IFPI7W2M to get $85 off.
If you can’t open on the AliExpress app, open this link and find the item.
- MediaTek Dimensity 9500 that balances high performance and power efficiency
- Frame interpolation and upscaling available in games like Genshin Impact and Star Rail
- Bright 1000-nit display
- 7,500mAh battery with wireless charging support
- Supports 55W PPS and bypass charging
- Video output support via USB 3.2 Gen 1 port
- IP69, IP68, and IP66 water and dust resistance
- Strong AI processing, especially on the telephoto camera
- Default 8K recording is practically non-functional
| OPPO Find X9 Pro | |
|---|---|
| OS | Android 16 |
| RAM | 12GB / 16GB LPDDR5X |
| Storage | 256GB / 512GB / 1TB UFS 4.1 |
| SoC | MediaTek Dimensity 9500 |
| Display | 6.78-inch 2772 × 1272 Aspect Ratio 19.61:9 120Hz Refresh Rate AMOLED |
| Size | 161.26 × 76.46 × 8.25mm |
| Weight | 224g |
| SIM | nano SIM + nano SIM |
| Rear Camera | 50MP (Wide f/1.5 OIS) + 50MP (Ultra-wide f/2.0 120°) + 200MP (Telephoto f/2.1 OIS) |
| Front Camera | 50MP (f/2.0) |
| Battery | 7500mAh |
| USB Port | USB Type-C (USB 3.2 Gen 1) |
| Bands | 5G NR: n1/n2/n3/n5/n7/n8/n12/n18/n20/n25/n26/n28/n34/n38/n39/n40/n41/n48/n66/n77/n78/n79 4G: LTE FDD: 1/2/3/4/5/7/8/12/17/18/19/20/25/26/28/66 4G: LTE TDD: 34/38/39/40/41/42/43/48 3G: WCDMA: 1/2/4/5/6/8/19 2G: GSM: 850/900/1800MHz |
Index
The box includes a manual, a protective case, a charging cable, and a charger.
While the case is not transparent and hides the back design, it doesn’t feel cheap.
A protective film is pre-applied.
The charger supports 80W fast charging even in 100V regions.
Display: Easy to See Outdoors
The OPPO Find X9 Pro features a 6.78-inch display with a resolution of 2772 × 1272.
It’s a flat display, making it easy to see edge-to-edge.
It follows the recent trend of having large rounded corners, so the cutoff in the corners is slightly more pronounced compared to phones like the OPPO Find X8 Ultra.
It uses a diamond pixel arrangement.
When I measured the luminance with the LX-1336B while displaying a full white image at maximum brightness, it reached a peak of 1002 nits.
It’s easy to see even in bright daylight outdoors.
This is a unit that indicates the level of brightness; the higher the number, the brighter the screen.
It’s generally considered difficult to see screens with less than 400-500 nits indoors and 800-1000 nits outdoors.
Note that many devices limit the maximum brightness unless auto-brightness is enabled.
It supports a 120Hz refresh rate.
You can set the refresh rate on a per-app basis.
When measuring the touch sampling rate with Touch Sample Rate Tester, both single-touch and multi-touch Movement Rates averaged around 125Hz.
This might be understandable since it’s a camera-focused phone, but it seems they haven’t put much emphasis on gaming performance.
This relates to the sensitivity of the screen when touched.
A higher number generally means the screen responds more quickly to touches.
However, actual touch latency is not determined by this alone; other factors can result in higher overall touch delay.
As a rule of thumb, a Movement Rate that is about twice the screen’s refresh rate is average, over three times is high, and gaming phones often have rates of 5 to 6 times.
The touch latency measured with WALT Latency Timer was a total of 44.2ms.
This is the time it takes for the screen to react after you touch it.
A smaller number means a quicker response.
Gaming phones typically have a latency of around 25ms, while regular smartphones are generally in the 30-40ms range.
With Widevine L1, you can enjoy high-quality streaming playback on services like Amazon Prime Video.
Back: A Return to the Top-Left Placement
The back has a matte finish, making it resistant to fingerprints and smudges.
While the Find series has consistently featured a circular, centrally-located camera module, this time it is placed in the top-left corner.
It weighs 226.2g.
It’s impressive that despite housing a 7,500mAh battery, the weight is kept comparable to other flagship phones.
Camera: Main is Good, Telephoto has Strong AI Processing
The OPPO Find X9 Pro has a triple camera setup consisting of:
- 50MP (Wide f/1.5 OIS)
- 50MP (Ultra-wide f/2.0 120°)
- 200MP (Telephoto f/2.1 OIS)
Unfortunately, apps like Device Info HW are blocked from accessing sensor information.
You can find the photos I took handheld saved here.
It is said that the Danxia color reproduction lens and a multi-spectral sensor allow for photos with accurate colors… however, possibly due to a bug in the camera app, the white balance can sometimes be off, making the effect difficult to discern in the current version.
While you can enable 8K recording by setting “High Resolution” in the camera app settings, it comes with the condition of ‘shooting at 0.6x, 1x, or 3x focal lengths in bright light conditions when certain features (like Live Photo, beauty mode, filters) are not enabled,’ which means it rarely activates in actual shooting.
If you use the Hasselblad high-resolution mode, you can shoot at 50MP or 200MP in any scene.
For example, a 200MP photo results in a 16384 x 14336 pixel image file that is about 32MB in size.
Even though it’s said to “improve image clarity,” it only increases the resolution and doesn’t dramatically improve detail. When you crop and view at 100% size, areas that were muddled in a normal shot remain muddled.
The AI processing seems slightly toned down, so in the sense that fine details aren’t oddly smudged, you could say clarity is improved.
In daylight, it takes beautiful photos, and the telemacro allows you to shoot from a slight distance without casting a shadow.
The telephoto camera tends to have strong sharpening and AI processing, which can sometimes result in a flat, “painted” look.
Comparing the OPPO Find X9 Pro with the OPPO Find X8 Ultra, the AI processing on text is obvious. On the Find X8 Ultra, characters like “南” and “Houkai” are relatively intact, whereas on the Find X9 Pro, they are distorted, with parts missing or merged.
Unfortunately, there seems to be no way to disable the AI processing in the camera settings; I couldn’t find the option.
Its rival, the vivo X300 Pro, allows you to explicitly turn off AI processing, enabling it to capture photos that are truer to reality, albeit slightly softer.
Even the faint indentation on the box (near the hair to the right of the blue musical note), which the Find X8 Ultra’s AI misinterpreted and enhanced as a design element, is correctly rendered as just an indentation by the vivo X300 Pro, just as it appears in reality.
In Night mode, it captures surrounding objects clearly while preserving the darkness of the scene.
Since vivo’s night shots can look as bright as day, the Find X9 Pro is better suited for situations where you want to post a “nightscape” to social media without any post-processing.
In Pro mode, the zoom is limited to 10x, but by adjusting the parameters, you can even take photos of the moon.
Speakers: Asymmetrical
The OPPO Find X9 Pro is equipped with stereo speakers.
It’s the type that has a speaker grille that doubles as the earpiece, making them asymmetrical.
When held horizontally, the volume seems to adjust automatically, providing good sound balance.
It has a TFA98XX amplifier but no dedicated DAC.
Checking the supported codecs with Bluetooth Codec Changer revealed support for AAC / aptX / aptX HD / LDAC / LHDC.
LHDC V5-compatible earphones are not restricted by manufacturer and can be used with devices from other companies.
Ports: Supports Fast Charging via PPS
The OPPO Find X9 Pro is IP69, IP68, and IP66 water and dust resistant, so minor exposure to water is not a problem.
It supports 80W fast charging and is also capable of 50W wireless charging.
It also supports 44W UFCS and 55W PPS, allowing for fast charging with third-party chargers.
However, be aware that if a charger supports both UFCS and PPS, UFCS will be prioritized.
The USB 3.2 Gen 1 port allows for high-speed data transfer and also supports video and audio output via DisplayPort Alt Mode.
Supported bands are:
- 2G GSM: 850/900/1800MHz
- 3G WCDMA: 1/2/4/5/6/8/19
- 4G LTE FDD: 1/2/3/4/5/7/8/12/17/18/19/20/25/26/28/66
- 4G LTE TDD: 34/38/39/40/41/42/43/48
- 5G NR: n1/n2/n3/n5/n7/n8/n12/n18/n20/n25/n26/n28/n34/n38/n39/n40/n41/n48/n66/n77/n78/n79
The power button and volume buttons are on the right side.
The button on the bottom is a shortcut button, which can trigger predefined actions like translation, flashlight, or camera launch with a long press.
It features several AI functions powered by AndesGPT, and despite being a Chinese version, it supports generation in many languages other than English and Chinese.
The AI Writer can generate summaries from selected text, and the AI Translate feature provides smooth translations.
Functions listed under “Features powered by AndesGPT” can be used offline if the model is downloaded, but it appears that AI Writer and AI Translate require an online connection.
It supports Wi-Fi 7 and was able to connect at a link speed of 2882Mbps.
Although it has hardware support for the 6GHz band, it is restricted on the Chinese version.
Performance: High-Performing and Power-Efficient
The OPPO Find X9 Pro is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 9500, which boasts particularly high CPU performance and power efficiency, allowing for long and comfortable gaming sessions.
In Geekbench 6, the package name-spoofed version (unaffected by manufacturer boosting) scored 1295 for single-core and 6120 for multi-core, while the normal version scored 3369 for single-core and 10068 for multi-core.
This significant difference suggests that the device is throttling performance based on the application’s package name.
Many manufacturers have been caught cheating by identifying popular benchmark apps like AnTuTu by their package names and then loosening thermal controls or locking high clock speeds to artificially inflate scores during tests.
This behavior is different from normal app usage, leading to situations where “benchmark scores are great, but performance in other apps isn’t much better.”
Since each manufacturer’s boosting behavior differs, comparing boosted results is meaningless.
Therefore, it’s crucial to change the package name to disguise the benchmark as a general app to obtain the correct, non-boosted score.
You can read more about this in this article.
It’s a benchmark that quantifies CPU processing performance, used in tasks like background blurring and text processing.
Single-core performance is important for light, everyday tasks, while multi-core performance is crucial for demanding games and applications.
A single-core score of 1200 and a multi-core score of 3000 or more is generally sufficient for a comfortable experience.
Benchmark results are compiled in this article.
During the Wild Life Extreme Stress Test in 3DMark with a spoofed package name… the test was forcibly terminated with a “Phone temperature is too high” message.
It seems the thermal management is quite aggressive.
Wild Life Extreme is a benchmark that uses the Vulkan API to quantify GPU performance with graphics rendered at 3840×2160 resolution.
A higher score indicates smoother 3D rendering in games, and a higher Stability score means the device can maintain high performance over extended periods.
Since this is only a general, simplified indicator for Vulkan API usage, and considering that most popular games hardly use Vulkan, the score isn’t very useful. Its main purpose is to check heat generation during GPU usage.
We can only infer that if performance is good in Vulkan, it will likely be good in OpenGL as well, and if it tends to overheat, maintaining FPS in actual games will be difficult.
In PCMark Work 3.0 (package name-spoofed version), which measures performance in everyday tasks like document editing, the score was 13393.
This benchmark quantifies processing performance for tasks like web browsing and image/video editing.
A higher score means faster processing, but the balance with battery consumption is also important, so a lower score isn’t necessarily bad.
A score of 8000 or more is generally sufficient.
It is equipped with UFS 4.1 storage and LPDDR5X memory.
The results from CPDT Benchmark showed decent read and write speeds.
It’s likely that performance is throttled for non-gaming applications.
Sequential read/write speeds affect the time it takes to copy large files or encode/decode videos.
Random read/write speeds are for small file operations and are more important for app and game performance.
When playing the CPU-intensive game Genshin Impact for 30 minutes in Performance mode with all graphics options set to maximum and 60 FPS target in Nod-Krai, I measured the performance with Scene 8. It averaged 60.3 FPS with a power consumption of 73.47mW per FPS.
It operates very power-efficiently and stably, making CPU-centric games a joy to play.
The battery temperature rose to a maximum of about 36.8°C.
Lower power consumption per FPS indicates better power efficiency.
Good power efficiency means less battery drain, while poor efficiency leads to rapid battery depletion.
Phones with poor power efficiency in games tend to have high battery consumption in other apps as well, often making you feel like the battery drains quickly.
Average FPS (frames per second) indicates how smooth the display remains; higher is better.
(To be more precise, a high average FPS with few “janks,” or stutters, results in a smoother perceived experience.)
When playing the GPU-intensive game Honkai: Star Rail for 30 minutes in Performance mode with all graphics options set to maximum and a 60 FPS target, repeatedly using March 7th’s technique in Penacony’s “Golden Hour,” it averaged 50.8 FPS.
The battery temperature rose to a maximum of 44.8°C, and the frame rate was throttled to around 30 FPS partway through.
While it still can’t beat Snapdragon in terms of GPU performance, it should be fine if you lower the settings slightly.
Additionally, for some games like Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail, you can enable frame interpolation, HDR, and upscaling simultaneously.
This increases power consumption, making an external cooler almost mandatory, but the ability to play at 120 FPS with high-resolution display is fantastic.
Summary
- MediaTek Dimensity 9500 that balances high performance and power efficiency
- Frame interpolation and upscaling available in games like Genshin Impact and Star Rail
- Bright 1000-nit display
- 7,500mAh battery with wireless charging support
- Supports 55W PPS and bypass charging
- Video output support via USB 3.2 Gen 1 port
- IP69, IP68, and IP66 water and dust resistance
- Strong AI processing, especially on the telephoto camera
- Default 8K recording is practically non-functional
The OPPO Find X9 Pro is not only excellent in camera performance but also in gaming performance. It has a very large battery with bypass charging support, and its specs cover all the small details that matter for daily use.
However, the telephoto camera’s strong sharpening and AI processing will likely be a point of dissatisfaction for those who had high hopes for the 200MP telephoto lens.
We can only hope for improvements in the OPPO Find X9 Ultra.
On AliExpress, from 11/11 17:00 to 11/20 16:59, you can use promo code IFPI7W2M to get $85 off.
If you can’t open on the AliExpress app, open this link and find the item.