Oppo A9 design
Oppo A9 smartphone design Oppo A7 ,review) And Oppo A5s ,review) and all three handsets are part of the same series. Oppo A9 has a large 6.5 inch display and small earpiece. Corning Gorilla Glass 5 has been used to protect the display. Plastic screen protector will already be installed on the phone.
Oppo A9 has thin bezels on the top and sides but the border at the bottom of the phone is a bit thick. It is tall so one may have to stretch the arm a bit to reach the top of the display. The power button is placed on the right side of the phone while the volume button is placed on the left side.
A fingerprint sensor is provided on the back of Oppo A9. Two rear cameras with LED flash are provided just above the fingerprint sensor. Micro-USB port will be available at the bottom of the phone, which is a bit disappointing because many phones in this price segment are equipped with USB Type-C port.
This phone will also have a 3.5 mm headphone jack and a loudspeaker at the bottom. Oppo A9 has two color variants – Purple and Marble Green. We have the Marble Green color variant available for review. 10 watt charger, transparent case and headphones will be available in the retail box.
Specifications and software of Oppo A9
If we look at the price of Oppo A9, some good specifications have been given in it. The phone has a MediaTek Helio P70 processor, the same chipset is used in Realme 3 (review) was also done in. The presence of this chipset in a phone priced at Rs 15,490 may be a bit disappointing whereas the Redmi Note 7 Pro (review) uses Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 processor and Oppo K3 (review) and Realmereview) has Snapdragon 710 chipset.
Only one variant of Oppo A9 has been launched which is equipped with 4 GB RAM and 128 GB storage. To bring life to the phone, a 4020 mAh battery has been provided and its weight is 190 grams. For connectivity, the phone includes 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth version 4.2, USB-OTG support. The phone has other sensors including light, proximity and gyroscope.
Oppo A9 runs on ColorOS 6.0 based on Android Pie. Our review unit is running the July security patch. The user interface is similar to what we saw on the recently launched Oppo K3 and Realme X. However, the Oppo A9 will come with more bloatware pre-installed, including UC Browser, Facebook, WPS Office, Newspoint, Dailyhunt, Helo, Paytm, Wynk Music, Webnovel and Amazon apps.
There’s also Game Center, Game Space, and Oppo AppStore for apps and games. We found that installed apps like UC Browser and Helo kept sending push notifications every hour. If you want, these apps can also be uninstalled from the smartphone.
Oppo A9 performance, battery life and camera
MediaTek Helio P70 processor has been used in Oppo A9, this chipset handles all the tasks of the day without any problem. There was no problem in launching apps and multitasking. 4 GB RAM is capable of providing smooth experience. As we told you that its competing handsets are equipped with more powerful chipsets at the same price.
We enjoyed watching content on the Oppo A9 as the display is crisp and bright and has good viewing angles. The sound comes from the speaker at the bottom of the phone. The fingerprint sensor on the back panel of the phone unlocks the phone quickly. The Face Unlock feature uses the selfie camera, is easy to setup, and unlocks the phone quickly.
While playing PUBG Mobile, we observed that the game was set to Medium quality preset with graphics set to Balanced and frame rate set to Medium. The game ran without any problems at these settings. Oppo Game Space cleared the RAM and disabled the pop-up notifications. We played the game for 20 minutes and found that 4 percent battery was consumed. The phone did not heat up too much which is a good sign.
The 4,020 mAh battery in the Oppo A9 provides very good battery life. With normal usage like active WhatsApp account, using Google Maps for navigation and playing PUBG Mobile, the phone’s battery lasted more than a day. However, charging is slow. When the phone is charged with a 10-watt charger, it takes more than two hours to fully charge the phone.
Oppo A9 is equipped with dual rear camera setup. On the rear, there is a 16-megapixel primary sensor with aperture F/1.8 and a 2-megapixel secondary sensor with LED flash. A 16-megapixel selfie camera with F/2.0 aperture will be available on the front panel. The camera app on the Oppo A9 is similar to what we have seen on other Oppo smartphones.
Apart from the usual photo and video modes, there are Portrait, Night, Pano, Expert, Time-lapse and Slo-mo. There are separate buttons for HDR and Dazzle Color. The default camera app offers filters that can be applied before taking a shot. Oppo A9 also has AI scene recognition.
Photos taken with the Oppo A9 in daylight were good, the phone locks the focus before taking the picture. We found that the images of objects that were close were good, but the images of objects that were located at a distance lacked detail. Close-up shots were good and the phone’s AI also helped.
Oppo A9 maintains the distinction between subject and background. Sharpness and details are captured well in the picture but AI boosts the colors a bit. The edge detection of the phone was good. The Oppo A9 doesn’t let you adjust the blur before or after taking the shot. We found that detail was captured well in portrait shots taken with the Oppo A9.
There may be a slight decrease in camera performance in low light. There was a lack of detail in the picture but Oppo A9 keeps the noise under control, the picture came out good but when zooming the photo, grains are visible. Night mode helps capture improved details and brighter photos. Selfies taken with the 16 megapixel front camera also turned out good.
Details were captured well in the images, portrait shots taken with the selfie camera were also acceptable but the edge detection needs some improvement. This phone does not blur the gap between the person’s arm and body. Both the primary and selfie cameras are capable of recording video at 1080 resolution. Video stabilization is also provided, a slight shimmer effect was seen in video clips in low light.
our decision
The Oppo A9 is a good smartphone but looks less attractive when compared to the competition. With this phone priced at Rs 15,490, it seems that the price of Oppo A9 is a bit higher compared to Oppo K3 and other smartphones in the same price segment. The MediaTek Helio P70 is a capable processor but its competitor Redmi Note 7 Pro (review) has Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 processor, Realme X and Oppo K3 has Snapdragon 710 chipset.
Considering the price, the camera performance is acceptable, if your budget is a little less then rival handsets Redmi Note 7 Pro and Realme 3 Pro can also prove to be great options. If you’re willing to spend a little extra, the Realme X and Oppo K3 come with better cameras and more modern designs.