Oppo has just unveiled its new flagship smartphones: Find X9 and Find X9 Pro.
Promising to deliver an “exceptional all-around experience”, how does the premium Find X9 Pro compare to last year’s 4.5-star Find X8 Pro?
Ahead of our Oppo Find X9 Pro review, we’ve compared its specs to the Find X8 Pro to help you decide whether or not it’s worth upgrading. For more inspiration, we’ve also compiled a list of the best Android phones and best smartphones too.
Price and Availability
The Oppo Find X9 Pro will be available from early November with a starting price of £1099/€1299.
Launched last year, the Oppo Find X8 Pro is still readily available and has an official RRP of £1049. However, as the phone is a year old it is fairly easy to find a price drop or deal, especially during sale events such as Prime Day or Black Friday.
Interestingly, neither the Find X9 Pro nor Find X8 Pro run on Qualcomm’s flagship Snapdragon chipsets and are instead powered by MediaTek alternatives. While last year’s X8 Pro runs on Dimensity 9400, the upcoming X9 Pro runs on Dimensity 9500.
This may seem like a surprising choice from Oppo, especially when the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 promises to offer an even faster and more powerful than the mighty Snapdragon 8 Elite. However, Oppo promises that the MediaTek Dimensity 9500 chip achieves “up to 32% higher performance and 55% less peak power consumption” with a boost to graphics too, compared to its predecessor.
That’s not to say Dimensity 9400 and therefore the Find X8 Pro were slouches by any means. In fact, we found the Find X8 Pro was rapid in real-world use, as opening and switching between apps was instantaneous. Having said that, we did find that even with its dedicated cooling system, the phone did have a tendency to become noticeably hot when powering more demanding games. We’ll have to wait and see whether the Find X9 Pro’s customised vapor chambers rectify this.
For a more in-depth look at the differences, our guide on MediaTek Dimensity 9500 vs Dimensity 9400 has you covered.
Find X9 Pro has a 200MP telephoto camera
We praised the photography prowess of the Find X8 Pro and concluded that its camera collection can take impressive images, with consistency across the board that allows for added freedom when choosing which lens to shoot with. With this in mind, the Find X9 Pro’s new-generation Hasselblad Master Camera System has a lot to live up to.
Made up of a 50MP main, 50MP ultrawide and a mighty 200MP Hasselblad telephoto, the Find X9 Pro also features the new LUMO Image Engine that promises to enhance clarity, dynamic range and colour science. However, the standout feature here is undoubtedly the 200MP 3x telephoto lens, which sports an f/2.1 aperture and a 10cm focus distance for macro photography too.
Oppo explains that Find X9 series is engineered to be the “perfect companion” for concerts and live events, with the X9 Pro promising to deliver high quality, lossless zoom up to 13.2x while its Super Zoom algorithm can capture clear images up to 120x. Of course, we’ll have to wait until we review the handset to see how it fares in real-world use, but these are certainly exciting claims.
Find X9 Pro has a 7500mAh battery
In what seems to be a trend for upcoming flagship Androids, the Find X9 Pro sports a massive 7500mAh battery, which is the largest found in any Oppo flagship.
Although Oppo is yet to provide specifics of just what this mighty battery can do, other than offer “all-day performance”, it’s worth remembering that the Find X8 Pro’s considerably smaller 5910mAh cell offered two-days of life on a single charge. With this in mind, we’re expecting a solid performance from the X9 Pro.
Find X9 Pro has thinner bezels
There was a slight design discrepancy between last year’s Find X8 and X8 Pro, as the cheaper X8 model sported thinner bezels compared to the more premium X8 Pro. While the X8’s bezels were 1.45mm, the X8 Pro’s measured at 1.9mm which made the screen feel considerably more dated.
Fortunately, Oppo has resolved this issue with the X9 series, with both handsets sporting ultra-thin 1.15mm bezels for a more immersive viewing experience. In addition, the X9 Pro offers a plethora of premium screen technologies including a 120Hz display, peak outdoor brightness of 3600 nits and eye-care dimming technology.
Find X9 Pro supports the Hasselblad Teleconverter
Designed exclusively for the Find X9 Pro, Oppo’s Hasselblad Teleconverter lens is a professional-grade accessory that enables up to 200x digital zoom for photos and 50x for video.
The lens is certainly not a subtle one, as it protrudes significantly from the rear of the handset, however in our early hands-on with the attachment we found it was able to get us much closer to the likes of concerts and tourist attractions.
Early Verdict
The Find X9 Pro is undoubtedly a promising Android phone, thanks to its upgraded processor, huge battery capacity and 200MP telephoto lens. However, whether there’s enough of a difference compared to the X8 Pro to warrant an upgrade is debatable, especially as we concluded last year’s flagship offers a “top-notch experience in most areas”.
At this early stage, ahead of our review, it’s fair to assume that if you’re coming from an older smartphone then you’ll likely notice a difference more than if you’re coming from a 2024 flagship. Even so, we’ll be sure to update this versus once we’ve reviewed the Oppo Find X9 Pro.
