There’s a standard, there’s the Pro, and then there’s the Ultra. Why do phone makers tag their highest-end product as ‘Ultra’? Derived from a Latin word ultrā, according to the Oxford dictionary, it means beyond, something which is extreme or something which exceeds its usual limit. Now, Oppo has done something extreme this time with the launch of its latest flagship phone, the Oppo Find X9 Ultra. This phone checks almost every box to be called Ultra. By the way, I’ve used a bunch of Ultra phones since 2020, and over a period of time, the meaning of this word has changed. Earlier, it mostly meant having better zoom or specs on the Ultra model. But now, these are the phones that are expected to do everything well: cameras, performance, battery life, display, gaming, software, and literally everything.
For this review, I didn’t want to test the Oppo Find X9 Ultra the usual way. Instead of shooting near my office or house, I carried it across Rishikesh and Dharamshala, used it in various conditions, including bright sunlight, tricky sunsets, mountain landscapes, low-light street photography and also took the phone to an IPL match, just to understand one thing: does this phone actually deserve the Ultra title?
After living with this device for the past couple of weeks, I think Oppo may have made one of the most complete camera flagships of 2026. Here’s my full Review.
For me, the Oppo Find X9 Ultra feels slightly different because this is a phone that clearly wants to behave more like a camera than a smartphone with good cameras attached to it. So, as I mentioned above, instead of another normal camera test, I took this device to two cities, Rishikesh and Dharamshala. I shot with it in bright sunlight, in tricky lighting, sunsets, on the bus, and in low light, just to understand one thing: how good is this camera system when you genuinely rely on it?
The Oppo Find X9 Ultra features cameras co-developed and tuned by Hasselblad. The main lens is a 200MP Sony LYT-901 with a large 1/1.12-inch sensor size and an f/1.5 aperture. This is paired with a 50MP Sony LYT-600 ultra-wide sensor with an f/2.0 aperture, a 200MP 3x telephoto OmniVision OV52A sensor with an f/2.2 aperture, the world’s first 50MP 10x ultra-telephoto customised Samsung JNL sensor with an aperture of f/3.5, and a 3.2MP monochrome sensor with an aperture of f/2.4. On the front, you get a 50MP autofocus Samsung ISOCELL JN5 sensor with an f/2.4 aperture.
Now, for obvious reasons, the main camera is where the Find X9 Ultra is the strongest. In this poolside image, you can see that the tiny textures and shadows were retained in the lower section of the pool lounger. The phone does not aggressively smooth or sharpen the image unnecessarily. This image was captured in broad daylight in Risikesh.
Similarly, when you look at the overall performance of the main camera, it retains texture and shadow details extremely well in photos. Even difficult elements like darker foliage and water reflections stayed controlled. The colours are also balanced and look quite natural. However, there were some moments where the images kind of looked a bit over-sharpened, but most of the time, I was satisfied with the results.
For everyday photography, the experience stayed consistent and impressive. The Oppo Find X9 Ultra delivers crisp details and strong dynamic range in photos, but what really stands out is how reliable the camera is. I can confidently say that you can point and shoot with this device without worrying too much about the outcome.
Macro photography is also a strong area on the Find X9 Ultra. While walking around the pool area at my hotel in Rishikesh, I noticed a small bug on the ground, and I instantly took a picture, and the texture captured on the wings and body was impressive. There were fine details, and the image didn’t look artificially sharpened.
I would say portrait photography is probably one of the key factors of getting the Find X9 Ultra. The images this phone takes look balanced and cinematic. If you zoom in on the shot, you could easily spot the details. The bokeh effect looks very natural, and hands down, for me, this is the best smartphone in the world, which has the best edge detection, period.
In this photo below, you can literally see every hair strand of the subject.
With that said, not every smartphone camera, as good as it is, can be perfect, nor is this one. One of the cons I noticed is the camera’s tendency to slightly brighten up faces in some photos, which does not look natural. One more thing, the Find X9 Ultra keeps more of the frame, i.e. background and foreground in focus, instead of creating that subject separation. So, because of this, you may find some of the portrait photos less dramatic.
In terms of zoom, at 6x, it performs extremely well; the facial details, beard texture, fabric patterns and even smaller textures remained highly detailed.
Now, Oppo did something insane with the Find X9 Ultra. This phone includes the world’s first 50MP 10x ultra-telephoto sensor, and it has proper 10x ‘optical’ zoom. And this telephoto lens is not just there for marketing. It actually makes a visible difference once you start shooting at longer focal lengths.
While shooting mountains in Dharamshala, the camera retained snow textures and tiny landscape details surprisingly well. The phone also maintained sharpness while still preserving small textures inside the frame.
One of the best experiences I had with this sensor was during an IPL match. I took shots at 30x (690mm), and the results were genuinely impressive for a smartphone. In one of the images of Virat Kohli, you can see the details of his tattoo, and even the grass texture remains visible.
Of course, I also pushed it to its max zoom at 120x, and sure, at this focal length, the AI processing starts taking over heavily, and the images stop looking natural. But to be honest, that applies to every smartphone out there.
The ultra-wide camera also surprised me more than I expected. Usually, the ultra-wide cameras are where you can see the compromises. But here, Find X9 Ultra has done a very solid job overall. Colours stay close to the main sensor, details remain sharp, and the camera avoids softness and distortion around the edges.
In outdoor scenes, plants and textures remained detailed near the edge of the frame. Plus, the dynamic range handling was also strong during this sunset image.
I also went to McLeodganj during the evening to check the Find X9 Ultra’s low-light capabilities. One thing about this device is that it consistently pulled strong details from darker areas without making the images look bright. And the best thing is that it didn’t add a blue tint to the sky.
In the shots captured from the main camera at 35mm, the shadow retention remained excellent. The wall textures, building information, and surrounding details stayed visible, and the highlights were intact.
Low-light portraits look beautiful, the colour production was also spot on, but again, the skin got brightened up in some of the shots.
However, there were moments where the processing became slightly inconsistent. In some low-light scenes, I noticed visible grain appearing in the sky areas, which affects the quality of the overall image.
As for the 50MP front camera, I was happy with the results. The selfie camera preserves facial texture, and it also handles edge detection well in portrait images. Skin tones remain balanced, but here as well, some photos do have the faces brightened. Maybe Oppo needs to tweak this issue once and for all via a software patch. Overall, though, I would not say that this is the best selfie camera out there, but it is one of the best for sure.
Video recording is another area where Oppo has improved a lot in recent years. The X9 Ultra can shoot up to 8K at 30fps and 4K at 120fps. Plus, all the cameras can shoot 4K videos at 60fps. The Oppo Find X9 Ultra records videos in Dolby Vision (which is enabled by default).
The Pro mode is also there, which allows you to shoot Log recording in Oppo’s O-Log2. The Pro mode gives you 5 LUTs to choose from, and you can also import your own LUTs.
I recorded multiple clips around the poolside, mountain roads, markets and at the stadium, and the footage consistently looked stable and detailed. Even while shooting, the sensor shift is smooth.
XPAN is one of my favourite modes in the Oppo devices. I always had fun shooting with it. And this time, Oppo’s added a lot of filters to it, although my favourite remains the Bold B&W.
That said, one thing I’m disappointed about is that Oppo didn’t launch the Teleconverter kit in India as they did with the Find X9 Pro. The extended zoom lens gives you more freedom to capture the far subject. I really wish that had also made the cut with the Find X9 Ultra.
The Oppo Find X9 Ultra has to be one of the best-looking phones out there in the market. I’m using the Tundra Umber colour, which is inspired by the Hasselblad X2D camera, and even the Oppo and Hasselblad logos sit horizontally, so when you look from the back, it looks like you’re shooting with a camera. The back is vegan leather that gives you a grip while holding the phone. In hand, the Find X9 Ultra feels chic. Although it does feel a bit top-heavy. Somehow, I didn’t feel any strain on my pinky finger while holding this phone. In terms of thickness, it is 8.7mm.
The Find X9 Ultra has an IP68 and IP69 rating for dust and water resistance. The Ultrasonic fingerprint scanner is very reliable and works crazy fast.
The Oppo Find X9 Ultra also comes in the Canyon Orange colour, but I personally prefer the Tundra Umber finish only.
The camera module has a hexagonal mirror that looks premium and distinct. And this time, Oppo added a penta camera setup on the back that makes it even crazier. Just like its younger sibling, and taking inspiration from the iPhones, the X9 Ultra comes with the Quick button so that you can control the camera through it.
The Oppo Find X9 Ultra features a beautiful 6.82-inch QHD+ LTPO AMOLED display with a 144Hz refresh rate. The display speaks for itself right away when you start using the device. Colours instantly pop when you watch content, and at the same time, the black looks deep. It is also quite bright. I never had any problem using this in the scorching heat of Delhi. Speaking of brightness, Oppo claims 3,600 nits of peak brightness, and 1,800 nits in High Brightness Mode, where it actually matters. The good news is that in the Digit Test Labs, the phone reached a mind-boggling 2,730 nits of brightness. What this means is that visibility will not be an issue at all, whether you use the phone indoors or outdoors.
The Find X9 Ultra also supports Dolby Vision, HDR10+ and HDR Vivid, which enhances the content-watching experience.
Oppo Find X9 Ultra is a camera monster, no doubt about it, but it is also a power monster at the same time. Under the hood, this beast is repping a flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor along with 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 512GB of UFS 4.1 storage. Courtesy of the top-tier hardware, the phone feels snappy and is actually fast. App opening times are fluid, multitasking is smooth, and transitions feel polished. I mean, what else can you expect from a phone that has specs like this?
I also ran some benchmarks for those who care about numbers. In Antutu, it scored 4.10 million, which is bonkers. In Geekbench, the X9 Ultra scored 3,613 in single-core and 10,608 in multi-core. In the CPU throttling test, the CPU throttled to 86 per cent, and at last, in the 3DMark Wildlife Extreme Test, it got an overall score of 7,276.
Gaming-wise, this phone is sorted as well. I played three games on the X9 Ultra: BGMI, CODM and Genshin Impact, and I never got any stutter or lag during gameplay. The gaming experience is so smooth without any major fps drop, and the thermals were maintained even after an hour of gameplay.
You can play BGMI and CODM at 120fps with ease, and can play Genshin Impact at 60fps without any hiccups. I wish I could also play Genshin Impact at 120fps, but that’s fine.
The Find X9 Ultra comes with ColorOS 16 based on Android 16, and yes, ColorOS is great because it’s almost the same as the OxygenOS on OnePlus devices. The OS is lightweight, clutter-free and runs smoothly without any issues. There are a lot of customisation options in the UI, plus there are some useful AI tools to work with. Like the AI Editor tool in the Photos app literally works great.
On the left of the device, there’s a Snap Key, which we also saw in the previous Oppo devices. That also comes handful if you want to toggle certain actions, like turn on the DND mode, or if you quickly want to record a voice note, then you can do it instantly.
Oppo’s software support policy is also great. They’re promising 5 years of OS updates and 6 years of security patches. That said, 5 years still feels a bit less when companies like Samsung and Google promise 7 years of software updates.
Oppo continues to retain the Ultra title in the battery department as well. It packs a 7,050mAh battery and supports 100W SUPERVOOC wired charging, and also supports 50W AIRVOOC wireless charging. Thankfully, the charger is there in the box, but it comes with a Type A to Type C cable.
The 7,050mAh battery took 48 minutes to charge from 0 to 100 per cent, which is very reasonable. In my PCMark Battery test, it got 17h 12mins, which is amazing.
In real-world usage, too, the phone easily gave me 1.5 days of battery life on a single charge. Of course, depending on your mileage, the endurance can vary.
After spending a couple of weeks with the Oppo Find X9 Ultra, I think the company launched this with a purpose. While Oppo makes good camera phones, they didn’t just want to make good cameras on this one; I think the focus was on making the entire photography experience feel complete.
The Find X9 Ultra’s main camera is incredibly reliable, the portrait mode is easily among the best I’ve used on any smartphone, and that 10x optical telephoto lens genuinely changes how you shoot photos. Add to that a beautiful display, excellent battery life, flagship-level performance and a polished software experience, and you understand why this is an Ultra flagship.
Of course, as I said earlier too, it is not perfect. Sometimes the phone over-brightens faces, low-light processing can occasionally introduce grain in darker skies, and ColorOS still doesn’t match the long-term software commitment offered by Samsung or Google.
But overall, the Oppo Find X9 Ultra feels like one of the most complete flagship phones currently available. More importantly, it feels like a phone made for people who genuinely enjoy taking photos, not just posting them.
And honestly, after using this phone across two cities, mountains, markets, sunsets and stadiums, I can confidently say this: the Oppo Find X9 Ultra is easily one of the best camera phones of 2026.
But, the main question remains: for everything that’s on offer, and for as brilliant as this phone is, would you be willing to spend Rs 1,69,999 on an Oppo flagship? As I said, it is one of the best camera phones right now, and it absolutely deserves all the attention.