Oppo F9 Pro Review: Impressive Design meets Sluggish Performance

Oppo has earlier introduced its smartphone in the market known as the Oppo F7. A few months later another smartphone in the F-series has appeared and is termed as the Oppo F9 Pro. As its name suggests the device is announced as successor to the F7 Pro. It carries a modern design language and sports a notch in the front. The device falls under the price segment of below 25k mark and that market is already dominated by the Pocophone F1.

So the biggest query is if a person is using F7 Pro then will it make any sense migrating to the new F9 Pro. So our today’s story will focus on the major features of Oppo F9 Pro. Here you will be getting a complete review of the device which will help you in making a better decision. At first glance, the device looks premium for the price and offers a Waterdrop style notch which is its main attraction. So without making any delay let’s check out more about it.

Design and Display

At first sight, it may confuse you as this thing looks as good as any premium flagship device will look. Oppo F9 Pro has a gradient design which makes it look stand out from the crowd. In the front, a majority of space is occupied by the display which provides a user with an 84% screen-to-body ratio. The devices weigh around 169 grams and measures 8mm in thickness. In the front, there is a 6.3(Inch) Full HD+ LTPS IPS LCD Display with a resolution of 1080 x 2340 pixels, 19.5:9 aspect ratio, 409ppi, Corning Gorilla Glass 6 protection. Being an LCD Display it provides great viewing angles, ample brightness, vivid colors, etc. Altogether the display looks great for the price.

Performance

Powering the smartphone is a MediaTek Helio P60(64 bit) Octa-Core 12nm processor coupled with a Mali-G72 MP3 GPU for graphics-intensive tasks. The device is only be made available in one variant i-e 6GB of RAM+64GB ROM. Luckily the storage of the device is expandable up to 256GB’s via micro-SD card. With these specifications, the device offers great multitasking and performance. One can easily play games like PUBG, Asphalt 9 in it, however, you need to keep graphics settings at low or medium. Multitasking was great here and we didn’t face any sort of lag or glitches in it. Along with a satisfying display, the audio output of the device is also amazing which makes it appropriate for media consumption.

We’ve run a few benchmarks on the Oppo F9 Pro and here are the results of it:

The benchmarks show the Helio P60 is a very decent performer for a mid-ranger and we don’t know how but it somehow outperforms the Snapdragon 660 processor found on the Vivo V11 Pro, but somehow the F9 Pro does not feel smoth which might be because of massive bloatware that comes packed with this device. Altough, the F9 Pro has a great processor and adequate graphics, which is what we expected from it.

Camera

According to on paper specifications the device carries a 16MP(Aperture f/1.8)+2MP(Aperture f/2.4) Dual-Camera setup with PDAF, LED Flash. In the front, there is a single 25MP selfie shooter with Aperture f/2.0. The images taken from the device are good, have a great dynamic range and even in low light situations, it performed well. In all the camera is good but not the best in this price segment.

The device doesn’t have EIS or OIS for stabilizing your footage and still shots. Oppo’s AI beautification is not that capable when compared to the competition in this price segment. We would suggest you keep it off most of the times. And as mentioned above this device is not meant for videography/filmmaking. Portrait shots taken from the rear camera were good and surprisingly the edge detection was on point.

Battery and Miscellaneous

The device uses a 3500mAh battery and comes coupled with Oppo’s VOOC Flash Charge technology. This fast charging solution can charge your device up to 60% in less than 30 minutes. The device runs on Oppo’s own ColorOS 5.2 based on Android 8.1 Oreo. The user interface of the device feels kind of confusing and entirely different from the stock Android. For security, the device offers Fingerprint Scanner and Face Recognition. The device has a USB Type-C port for charging and fortunately it retains a 3.5mm jack for audio.

Conclusion

The device feels quite premium and is probably one of the best in its segment when it comes to design. Its direct competitor is V11 Pro from the house Vivo and in some aspects, it appears to be a better option. We would suggest you Oppo F9 Pro only if you are the one who is concerned more about looks than any other thing. Some far better options like Pocophone F1, Vivo V11 Pro, Honor 8X, etc are available which offer even better value for money specifications. You can grab this device for INR 23,990 at present.

Pros:

• Gorilla Glass 6 protection
• VOOC charging
• Helio P60 is not that bad
• The display is better than we expected

Cons:

• No 4K video recording
• No USB Type-C
• Average Camera Setup
• Too much software bloatware
• Sluggish performance