It’s no secret that I’ve enjoyed using Oppo’s Find X series of flagships, and I downright loved the Find X9 Pro from late 2025, calling it a “confident leap forward”. Colour me pleasantly surprised then when Oppo launched its X9 Ultra flagship, with seemingly nothing held back to warrant the Ultra moniker and the princely ₹1,69,999 price tag. Is this the Ultra to top them all?
You need only the most fleeting of glances to know what the X9 Ultra’s raison d'etre is – camera first, smartphone later. The aesthetic, right from the large circular Hasselblad camera module with a lens-inspired grooved ring around it to the premium vegan-leather finish on the Tundra Umber variant, is highly classic-camera-coded, and I like the splashes of the iconic Hasselblad orange across the phone. At 236 grams and 8.7- 9.1 mm depending on the variant you pick, this is neither a slim nor a light handset, but that’s the price you pay for such a serious set of cameras. I quite like that Oppo included the Quick button and the Snap Key for camera control and shortcuts, and build quality (including IP68/69 rating, Gorilla Glass Victus 2 protection and better drop resistance) is par for the course.
Turn it around, and Oppo keeps the ‘ultra’ theme going with a 6.82-inch, QHD+ resolution, LTPO display, a gloriously sharp panel that comfortably switches between 1Hz for power savings and 144Hz on supported games. Brightness peaks at 3600 nits for HDR content (Dolby Vision and HDR Vivid are both supported), while dropping down to 1 nit for late-night doomscrolling. Colours are fantastic right out of the box, and speakers put in a strong showing. And, much like many of this year’s flagships, the X9 Ultra packs in a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, which, when paired with 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 512GB of UFS 4.1 storage, delivers blisteringly fast performance, the kind that isn’t bothered by what you throw at it. ColorOS 16, based on Android 16, feels feature-rich and polished, albeit a little too Liquid Glass-inspired in places. The AI tools for transcription, summarisation and note-taking check the boxes, and I quite like the direction the AI Mind Space app is taking, particularly with the new bill management capabilities.
Powering the ‘ultra’ experience is a capacious 7,050mAh silicon-carbon battery, which managed to take the phone into 1.5-day territory, no small feat for a phone this capable. Charging is handled by 100W wired charging and 50W wireless charging, with the 100W adapter included in the box topping off an empty battery in under 50 minutes.
Even amidst all these crowning achievements, the X9 Ultra never lets you forget the main event, what you’re probably here for – the cameras. Arguably the most out-there, ambitious setups one has seen, all co-developed with Hasselblad, the X9 Ultra features a 200MP Sony LYTIA 901 camera (23mm) with a 1/1.12-inch sensor and an f/1.5 aperture sitting alongside a 200MP 3x (70mm) telephoto with a 1/1.28-inch sensor and a 50MP ultrawide (14mm) with autofocus. And then there’s the headliner 50MP, f/3.5 10x optical zoom telephoto that lets you shoot at 230mm without carrying a separate bolt-on lens as we’ve seen on the Vivo X300 Ultra. Coming from the X9 Pro, I wasn’t surprised to see the camera system deliver excellent results across lighting conditions – crisp details, wide dynamic range and that contrasty, saturated Hasselblad look to the images. The 3x telephoto nailed edge detection on portraits and let in more light than the Vivo, and while both did very well on the ultrawide, the Oppo was sharper on the edges and details when you pixel-peep. The 10x is where the Oppo pulls ahead, letting you reach further and shoot birds, aeroplanes and other distant objects without investing in and bolting on additional photography kits and lenses. It is, of course, best used in good light and with a stable set of hands (or a tripod), and if you’re looking to travel light and not invest more money, the X9 Ultra can’t be beat. Just pick it up and point it in the direction you need, and it will deliver (much) more often than not. That, to me, is where Oppo seals the deal for most photographers, the ability to have all that power and reach in your pocket.
Rating: 9/10
Price: ₹1,69,999