Summary created by Smart Answers AI
In summary:
- Tech Advisor’s hands-on with the Oppo Find X9 Ultra reveals a promising flagship with a world-first 50Mp 10x optical telephoto and 550Mp across five lenses.
- The device excels with exceptional camera quality rivaling proper cameras, stunning ‘Tundra Umber’ vegan leather design, and impressive 7050mAh battery with 100W charging.
- However, the poorly positioned ‘Quick Button’ proves frustrating with frequent launch failures and uncomfortable placement, hindering the camera-focused experience.
Oppo’s new flagship Find X9 Ultra is fully official, plus it’s getting a UK launch. I haven’t had it long enough to bring you a full review, but testing it out in China during the few days leading up to the launch event has been interesting.
My experience has mostly been positive. This is set to be one of the best camera phones of the year. Possibly the best.
You’ll have to wait for the full review to get that verdict, but for now, I’ve condensed my hands-on time into the things I love the most about the Find X9 Ultra – and one thing that really bugs me.
Design (with a caveat)
Within seconds of taking the Find X9 Ultra out of the box, I knew I loved the design. It’s simply stunning – at least in this colourway, which is the caveat here. It’s called Tundra Umber and it’s easily my favourite design of the year so far, which I think won’t be topped.
I’m less keen on the Canyon Orange, with its new fibreglass back, despite it being 0.4mm thinner and 1g lighter than its counterpart. Give me the vegan leather rear cover and camera-like style of the Tundra option any day of the week.
Chris Martin / Foundry
This colour just oozes class and feels premium in the hand, with exemplary attention to detail across the textures, premium materials and subtle flashes such as the orange ring around the camera module.
It’s extremely fitting for a camera-forward phone developed with Hasselblad, especially when rivals including Xiaomi have moved away from a camera-style design with its latest effort, the 17 Ultra.
Camera performance
It’s no secret that the main reason to buy the Find X9 Ultra is for its cameras. After all, it offers a total of 550Mp between the five lenses, including the world’s first 50Mp 10x optical telephoto zoom on a phone.
Camera performance, therefore, is crucial to its success. I can say: so far, so good.
The range of cameras – main, ultrawide, 3x optical, 10x optical and selfie – gives you a very versatile system without even adding in the Earth Explorer Kit. It’s like carrying a high-end DSLR with a selection of interchangeable lenses, only you don’t have to go to the bother of swapping them around.
I certainly have a few quibbles with the camera performance, but they are just that and it’s too early in testing to know how serious they are. What I do know already is that I love some of the shots I’ve been able to take.
Chris Martin / Foundry
The quality is, perhaps unsurprisingly, very high. When you get one of those hero shots, I would wager most people wouldn’t be able to tell if it was taken on a ‘proper camera’ or a phone.
I’m not a frequent telephoto user, but when they come in useful, they’re a real boon and can be make or break getting a particular shot. An excellent example came at the panda sanctuary Oppo took us to during the trip. Not only were the pandas far away, but huge crowds meant it was possible to get shots either over their heads (I do have the advantage of being tall) or via other angles that many phones simply wouldn’t cope with.
There’s also a lot of depth, if you want to go beyond point and shoot. More knowledgeable or adventurous users can flick to the Master mode, which minimises AI processing. Plus, you can make use of the Hasselblad Hi-Res mode along with a plethora of others, as well as tweaking countless settings and options.
As mentioned earlier, this could well be the best camera phone of 2026. Here are a few of my favourite photos from the X9 Ultra so far (resized for web use).
Battery and charging prowess
Once again, it’s too early in testing to give you a proper report, but the Find X9 Ultra also looks like it will be one of the best phones on the market for battery longevity and charging.
It contains a 7050mAh battery (almost 1000mAh extra vs the X8 Ultra) which, for a change, means the global version doesn’t have a reduced capacity compared to the Chinese release. This is possible with silicon carbon tech (SiC) at 15% carbon content.
It’s also got impressive charging specs at 100W wired and 50W wireless, albeit without Qi2 magnets for MagSafe-style functionality.
Chris Martin / Foundry
To give you an idea of how well the phone performs, I watched a YouTube video for a little longer than 30 minutes at full brightness and the battery level only dropped a mere 2%.
You could be looking at more than a day’s worth of constantly watching video at 100% brightness!
Quick Button
On to the thing I hate and it’s the pesky Quick Button. For starters, it’s not the best name because it’s for the camera only. I suppose Oppo didn’t want to copy Apple like for like, but something else could surely have been concocted.
I do like the new orange colour – an homage to Hasselblad cameras – but just about everything else about it is a pain. That being said, this isn’t only an Oppo problem. I’ve found it to be a similar issue elsewhere.
The touch-sensitive button, very similar to power buttons which feature a fingerprint scanner, is used to launch and control the camera. The issue is that I’ve found it to be temperamental and actively unhelpful overall.
Chris Martin / Foundry
Apart from finding it difficult to get to grips with the controls – for example, sliding up and down to zoom in and out – it’s simply too far up the side of the phone to be comfortable.
I don’t have small hands, but oddly Oppo has moved it 5mm further up the side, saying that, “this optimisation makes it more accessible and comfortable to use in both portrait and landscape orientations”.
Well, I totally disagree. Double-tapping it to launch the camera is equally frustrating. When it works, it’s a handy way to get shooting, quickly, but I’ve frequently found that it refuses to work despite the fact I can feel the haptic feedback of my presses.
In situations where you want the camera launched ASAP, such as a cute baby panda making the perfect pose, it can be exasperating.
This article was written on a trip hosted by Oppo. The brand has not sought to influence our coverage, nor have they seen any articles in advance of publication.
