Keeping this concern of the customers in mind, Oppo has launched Oppo F9 Pro with notch design and excellent battery backup. This handset comes with quick charging support. Oppo’s rival company Xiaomi has launched Poco F1 in the budget of Rs 20,000-30,000. Is Oppo F9 Pro available in the market? Xiaomi Poco F1 Will it be able to compete with or not? Also whether Oppo F9 Pro is a profitable deal for you or not. Let us understand the answer to these two questions on the basis of specification and price.
Design of Oppo F9 Pro
Oppo F9 Pro comes in three finishes. All three finishes come in multi-color and different patterns. We have the Sunrise Red finish handset for review. You will see a diamond cut pattern on the back panel. You will also see a similar pattern on the back panel of the Twilight Blue variant. But in the upper part of the back panel of this model, you will see accumulation of dark navy color and in the lower part, you will see light blue color. Magenta-Indigo two colors have been used with gradient finish on the back panel of the Starry Purple variant. The metallic finish of all three variants is very shiny. The back panel of the Sunrise Red variant we had had a glossy finish. It is not necessary that the diamond cut design on the back panel is always clearly visible.
The diamond cut design emerges due to the way the phone is held in the hand or due to the light falling on it at the right place. In the retail box you will get a transparent cover which is made of rubber. Notch design has been given on the front panel. You will see a selfie camera in the notch. The company has named it Waterdrop. Oppo has very cleverly reduced the notch as per the design. The earpiece is given in the edge of the phone just above the front camera. Behind the black margin you will see multi-coloured bodies all around. The borders present at the top and bottom of the screen are quite small, with the company claiming that the handset has a 90.8 percent screen-to-body ratio.
The weight of the phone is 169 grams, so you will not find it heavy even in lifting. However, the thumb will have to be stretched a bit to reach all the corners of the phone. This handset of Oppo is not capable of protecting from dust and water splashes. The fingerprint sensor is easily accessible along with the power button on the right side and volume up and down buttons on the left side. We were surprised to see that the company has provided a Micro-USB port instead of Type-C port in this handset. Let us tell you that this was necessary for Oppo’s VOOC charging. A 3.5 mm headphone jack and single speaker is provided at the bottom of the phone. SIM-tray will be found on the left side of the phone, it has a slot to insert two nano SIMs and a card.
Specifications and software of Oppo F9 Pro
As we told that Xiaomi Poco F1 has also been launched. Poco F1 will compete with the Oppo F9 Pro present in the market. Both the handsets are mid-range smartphones. After the launch of Poco F1, now you may not like the hardware of F9 Pro. MediaTek Helio P60 octa-core processor has been used in Oppo F9 Pro. Let us tell you that Oppo has used this processor in the first handset of its new sub-brand Realme. realme 1 ,review) did it too. This processor comes with ARM Mali-G72 GPU. Oppo F9 Pro has been launched in 6 GB RAM / 64 GB variant.
Along with Oppo F9 Pro, the company also launched Oppo F9. In Oppo F9, the company has not given 6 GB RAM but 4 GB RAM. This model is not currently available in the stores, the company has not even revealed the date from which this model will be available in the stores. The surprising thing is that there is a difference of Rs 4,000 between both the models of Oppo. The main feature of F9 Pro is its 3500 mAh battery and VOOC flash charge support. Such technology has been used in the charger which protects the phone from heating. The charger and USB cable provided in the retail box weighs heavier than the old accessories of Oppo. Oppo has claimed that after charging for five minutes, this handset gives a talk time backup of two hours.
Oppo has used LTPS LCD panel in this handset, due to which battery consumption is less. F9 Pro has a 6.3-inch (1080×2340 pixels) display, its aspect ratio is 19.5:9. For connectivity, this handset comes with WiFi 802.11ac, Bluetooth version 4.2, GPS and VoLTE support. The handset we have for review is equipped with the July 2018 security patch. This handset of Oppo comes with Color OS 5.2 skin based on Android Oreo.
The size of the icons on the home screen is slightly larger. The smart assistant screen is on the left side of the first home screen of the handset. Here you will see many app shortcuts like weather information, step tracking, events etc. If you drag it downwards, you will see the option of systemwide search. This is similar to the feature present in iOS. With the help of the floating panel, you will be able to easily access app shortcuts and screenshot tools. If you use it while watching a video, some apps will launch like floating windows.
Many options are provided in the Settings app. If you want, you can use on-screen navigation buttons or gestures. There are many gestures and shortcuts present in the phone. Smart driving mode will block notifications and calls, but you will have to activate it by going to Settings. Or this feature will still work when your phone is connected to the car’s Bluetooth. Oppo F9 Pro has face unlock feature, but to use this feature, you have to first click on the power button on the side of the phone. This will turn on the screen of your phone, after this you have to pull the screen from bottom to top, by doing this the front camera will start. After doing this the phone will scan your face with the help of the front camera. You will also get a theme store in the phone, some free themes and wallpapers are provided in it.
Performance and battery life of Oppo F9 Pro
The F9 Pro has a 6.3-inch display which comes with Full HD+ resolution. The colors of the screen are bright and vibrant, and its viewing angle is also good. We did not face any problem while using the phone outdoors. Due to the notch design and curved borders, while watching the video in full screen, it felt as if it was cropping the video slightly. The built-in speaker is not very good, as the sound sounds choppy. Every time we listened to music we did not feel happy.
Oppo F9 Pro scored 137,739 on AnTuTu, 1,348 in the Geekbench single-core test, and 5,305 in the multi-core test. The graphics score was quite disappointing, as the handset scored 1,078 in the 3DMark Slingshot Extreme scene. There was no problem while playing games with light graphics, but there was some problem while playing Asphalt 9:Legends, a game with powerful graphics. The UI and menus appeared quite slow while working. The experience was better after playing PUBG. The game ran without any glitches and we did not face any problems. We noticed that the upper rear part starts getting hot after loading a powerful game. If you are fond of playing games with latest and powerful graphics, then this handset will not prove to be a great option for you.
Oppo F9 camera
Oppo’s camera app is much like the iOS app. In the main mode ribbon at the bottom, in addition to standard photo and video, you’ll find time lapse, slow-motion, portrait, sticker, pano and expert modes. Portrait mode repeatedly seemed to take us away from our subject and sometimes closer. You will get to see more lighting effects than mild flutter in the camera app. In standard photo mode, options of beautification, filters and aspect ratio will be available with Google Lens integration. Depth effect can be created with the front camera, but the picture will not look real or natural. Beautification mode will already be set to AI. The photos taken at home were not impressive. In daylight, we found that the camera app focuses quickly on any object or person.
The photos we took showed everything clearly and had the right amount of color. The camera app takes a few seconds to distinguish between the foreground and background in portrait mode. But we saw the effect on the screen, after which we decided at what time to click the picture. Focus does not work as accurately at night as compared to daylight. If you take a picture of a walking person then the picture looks quite blurry. There is ample amount of light in most of the photos we took. If the pictures are viewed on the phone then it is fine but when viewed in full size the picture does not look correct.
Oppo is known for its selfie cameras, but in this case, we did not find the front camera of Oppo F9 Pro to be that impressive. When taking a picture with the front camera, the face is sharp and the things in the background are not captured properly. Edge detection works correctly. The selfie taken at night looked grainy. While recording video from the rear camera, you will get two options 720p and 1080p. We saw the focus auto-focusing on its own several times. The camera of Oppo F9 Pro has disappointed us.
our decision
Oppo F9 Pro reminded us of the year 2000 when Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and other companies launched their handsets in the market with imaginative designs. Nowadays, there are only a few companies that take risks by changing the color, pattern, shape and material of the phone. If this red and purple colored phone meets your expectations then of course you can buy it. The battery life of the Oppo F9 Pro is good and overall our experience was fine. The camera of the phone is average. But this handset may not prove to be a great option. The only things we liked about this price are the metal body, weatherproofing and video stabilization. Our biggest question is whether customers prefer to buy handsets giving priority to design over performance or not. The Oppo F9 price in India is Rs 4,000 less than the F9 Pro. This handset can prove to be a value for money handset, this is because users are satisfied with 4 GB RAM instead of 6 GB.