Contender for the title

Review: Oppo Find X9 Ultra – perhaps the best camera phone ever

The Oppo Find X9 Ultra is a star model in every respect, but it shines brightest with its cameras.

Published 24 September 2026 - 14:12

At the turn of the year, we named the OnePlus 15 the best mobile phone of 2025. Shortly afterwards, OnePlus left the European market entirely. Those mourning this may perhaps find comfort in the fact that parent company Oppo has instead entered Sweden with its phones. The Oppo Find X9 Ultra is its latest flagship model, and it has many similarities with the OnePlus 15 but is even better in several respects.

That the cameras are the focus is immediately apparent when you see it. Our version has a black faux-leather back designed to resemble a camera, with camera manufacturer Hasselblad's logo as large as Oppo's. Even if you choose the orange colour option, the substantial protruding camera island, shaped like a traditional camera lens, speaks for itself. It is worth noting that in both cases the backs are made of plastic rather than glass.

It is a hefty phone, weighing 235 grams, and its 9 mm thickness excludes the camera island, which protrudes by almost as much again. As well as the usual power and volume buttons, the metal frame features a touch-sensitive camera button below the power button, which is quite reminiscent of the iPhone's, and a button on the other side of the phone that is programmable but intended for the phone's AI functions.

Many cameras

Going straight to the cameras, there are five cameras on the back, one of which is a sensor. The main camera is 200 megapixels, with Sony's new Lytia 901 sensor measuring 1/1.12 inches. The resolution and large sensor make it possible to take sharp images at 2x zoom, after which the 3x telephoto camera takes over. It is also 200 megapixels, with a 1/1.28-inch sensor, larger than the main camera on most phones, including many flagship models. This means it too can take zoomed-in pictures while retaining quality, up to 6x. It can also be used for macro photography, as the camera has a minimum focus distance of 15 cm, and if you shoot at that distance with 6x magnification, you get genuine close-ups. At 10x zoom, the second telephoto camera takes over. It has 50 megapixels and a 1/2.75-inch sensor, so it is considerably smaller, but according to Oppo it is the first sensor this large in a phone's 10x telephoto camera. A special design using dedicated prisms that refract light several times while retaining sharpness, along with image stabilisation that moves the sensor, has been needed to achieve this. The high resolution means that images at 20x magnification are also sharp; beyond that, they are digitally enlarged. Finally, there is the wide-angle camera, which is more basic and lacks autofocus. Perhaps that is not needed either, since macro photography is handled by the telephoto camera, and I think it too is of a high standard.

By default, the camera delivers images at 26 megapixels, which you can change if you feel the image files are too large. In low light or when zooming in, the image size is also reduced to 12 megapixels. Multiple exposures are combined to achieve the higher resolution, producing images that are truly sharp and detailed, apart from the occasional instance where something goes wrong and the image instead becomes pixelated and low-resolution for some reason. We noticed this already with the OnePlus 15, and it is an issue Oppo needs to address, but it should not be exaggerated: it happens once or twice during the test period.

I have tested all the modes described above and several more, and overall I am very impressed by the image results. The sharpness and level of detail, particularly in the zoom modes, are better than anything else I have tested. Exposure often feels natural, but sometimes tends towards the darker side, especially in high-contrast images. I am also impressed by the cameras' low-light performance. The main camera is of course very good here, but the large sensor also makes it possible to take images at six times zoom that remain sharp in poor lighting conditions.

Among the camera settings there is also a dedicated Hasselblad Hi-Res mode. Here, you can choose to take images at 50 megapixels or 200 megapixels. The image files become proportionally larger too. The 50-megapixel images are worth the effort, but I do not think those taken at 200 megapixels are noticeably sharper than the 50-megapixel images.

External telephoto lens

If you are really into phone photography, Oppo also sells an external telephoto lens. It attaches using a special case that you fit to the phone. The case also provides a camera grip and a zoom button, but in return it has to be connected via Bluetooth and charged separately. The telephoto lens attaches over the telephoto camera, which has 3x zoom, and enhances it to 13x. With the high resolution, you can achieve 26x optical zoom. A tripod mount is also included. For such a huge protruding accessory, the gain in zoom capability is therefore marginal compared with the telephoto camera, but you are shooting with a better sensor, so the results are better than from the internal camera. In practice, I think the zoom level can be pushed even further, but it is difficult to assess by how much. At this level of magnification, so many other factors affect image quality, such as heat haze or motion blur, that I often get unsuccessful images both with and without the external lens.

It is one of the most convenient external lens solutions I have tested. The phone feels natural to use with the lens case, and it is quick to remove and attach the lens. Despite this, I very rarely take it out, simply because there are not that many things you want to photograph from so far away that will conveniently stay put while you fetch and attach an external lens.

Oppo compares the cameras themselves with the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, and there is no doubt that they outperform the competitor, both on paper and in practice, although the S26 Ultra is a more manageable phone. The Xiaomi 17 Ultra has an even larger camera sensor in its main camera but less impressive telephoto cameras; these are the two phones that are the leading rivals for the title of best camera phone.

Fast with plenty of memory

If we leave the cameras aside and look at the other features, there is a large OLED display with high resolution and a high refresh rate. It is not quite as bright as the best phones from Motorola and Xiaomi, but it still performs well in bright daylight.

Performance is provided by the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, the fastest platform available for Android, and the memory is also generously provisioned. The phone is sold with 12 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage. A 16/1024 GB version is also available, but it is unclear whether it will come to Sweden.

Another generously provisioned feature is the battery. It uses the new silicon-enhanced technology for a capacity of 7,050 mAh, compared with, for example, the S26 Ultra, which has a 5,000 mAh battery. Despite this, screen time does not quite reach the same level as on the sibling models Oppo Find X9 and X9 Pro, but almost 17 hours at full brightness is still excellent.

The system is also good at keeping background power consumption down. Sometimes a little too good. Some apps that are meant to run in the background are occasionally shut down anyway, and content is sometimes not synced until I open the app.

Those used to OnePlus will both recognise and not recognise Oppo's ColorOS user interface. Its overall appearance is different, with different-looking icons and menus. Oppo also has more pre-installed apps, including its own app store and web browser alongside Google's. On the other hand, the feature set is largely the same, and if you had a favourite feature in OnePlus OxygenOS, there is a good chance it is here too.

This applies in particular to the AI space Mind Space, which was called Essential Space on OnePlus. By default, the programmable button takes you here. A single press takes a screenshot that is saved here, a long press records a voice note, and a double press opens Mind Space. The content of screenshots and voice notes is interpreted by AI, which is intended to combine them into a whole based on context, but for me it mainly transcribes speech and interprets the contents of the screenshots.

Not all AI features are found here either, but are scattered throughout the system, where they can be difficult to find. One example is the menu feature that Oppo highlights. By photographing a menu in a foreign country, you should not only be able to have it translated, but also illustrated with AI-generated images of the various dishes. Instead, you will find this feature in the camera's text scanner mode. The feature is fun, but I doubt the result is particularly accurate.

One difference compared with OnePlus is that Oppo is often priced at a higher level. The Oppo Find X9 Ultra costs SEK 16,990, making it one of the more expensive phones on the market. On the other hand, it is clearly among the best, and especially if you like zoom photography, it is the best phone ever made.

Questions and answers

How does the speaker sound? Loud but somewhat muffled, and without balanced speakers. In the settings, I can select wider stereo, which makes it clearer.

How much does the telephoto camera module cost? The camera accessory is called the Earth Explorer kit and also includes an adapter ring for camera filters. It costs SEK 5,490.

Is the phone waterproof? It is IP-rated to IP66, IP68 and IP69, meaning that it can withstand everything from rain to swimming with it.

An alternative

The Xiaomi 17 Ultra is the main rival for the title of best camera phone. It has an even larger sensor in the main camera, but not such advanced telephoto cameras.