Oppo F9 Review : Beautiful Camera and Fast Charging

Smartphones, nowadays, are becoming like the fashion. Better the smartphones, higher the demands. And in such a competitive mid rangers’ market, Oppo has stood out as a big competitor to well-known smartphones brands. With the intention of betterment and advancement, Oppo now has released Oppo F9 just after Oppo F7. So, has Oppo F9 really become an advancement? Let’s find out. And please don't forget to check our review and price of OPPO F7 in Nepal.

See the Comparison: Oppo F7 VS Oppo F9

Display and Design

A few days back, when I first had a glance at Oppo F9, I couldn’t take my eyes off it. The attractive waterdrop notch at the front housing the camera and prettier backside with elegant petal pattern design has gifted Oppo F9 with the stunning look. The tiny notch also provides F9 a good 90.8% screen to body ratio. On hand, it was so smooth that I could easily grip it and reach all its buttons without any discomfort. But what disappointed me was its slippery nature. You must be very careful while holding it. The 6.30-inch touchscreen LCD display with a resolution of 1080 pixels by 2430 pixels and excellent viewing angles, were also the things which caught my attention. But my eyes were struggling too due to its poor visibility in sunlight.

Oppo F9 is the first smartphone protected by gorilla glass 6 which is another interesting feature about it. Exploring its outer look, we have a power button on its right and volume button along with the triple card slot on its left. Down below there is the main microphone, micro USB port and 3.5 mm audio jack. And its back looks shiny and glossy inbuilding dual cameras, LED flash, fingerprint sensor and Oppo logo just below the sensor. You can get Oppo F9 in 3 different colors namely sunrise red, twilight blue, and starry purple. Sunlight red and twilight blue have petal pattern design whereas starry purple has a twinkling effect.

While I was watching videos or playing games, the content automatically extended towards the notch. This didn’t bother me. But if you want then you can disable it for each app inside the settings menu under Notch Area Display Control. How can I forget about the speaker quality? It’s so good, loud and crisp that I enjoy every single moment whenever I listen to music or explore videos.

Camera

The camera has always been the license for driving Oppo smartphones into user’s preference. Oppo F9, well known for its camera, comes up with the dual shooter at its back comprising of 13 MP main shooter and 2 MP secondary shooter along with the LED flash. It is packed with the features like HDR, Time-lapse, slow motion, panorama and manual mode.

If you are a selfie lover, Oppo F9 is the best phone you can hang out with. The 25 MP front shooter with screen flash enhances your selfies with accurate colors and nice contrast. You can also use the portrait mode or portrait light effect to add depth to your photographs, or AI Beauty to naturally enhance your selfies.
Rear and front camera both works excellently in indoors as well as outdoors shoot without missing any of the details. And yes, in such condition image quality is what you would love the most. But in dim light, the image tends to be quite blurred and disappointing. Besides this, the camera works very well for me.

When it comes to video recording, the videos on Oppo F9 is one of the best that I have seen so far in any mid-range phones. And I think this is a big achievement. This phone can shoot at the maximum resolution of 1080p at 30 fps. But when you activate AI beauty, the resolution will lower to 720p. Quality and audio are impressive whereas autofocus is slightly distracting. Also, Oppo f9 doesn’t support 4k video recording.

Performance and Storage

Talking about performance, powering Oppo F9 is MediaTek Helio P60 octa-core CPU and Mali-G72 GPU aided by 6 GB of RAM and 64 GB internal storage which is expandable up to 256 GB. This is simply great and performance wise you don’t need to worry. The phone has the Android 8.1 Oreo on it with Oppo’s ColorOS UI running on top. It runs super smoothly, apps launching is faster and multitasking is not a big deal. And yes, this phone is built for the hardcore gamers facilitating them with the excellent gaming experience. Also, the fingerprint sensors and face unlock are so fast and responsive that it will never let you down.

Battery

Besides the water drop notch, VOOC flash charge is another exciting feature of Oppo F9. Its large 3500 mAh battery has impressed me a lot by providing me 11 to 12 hours of time even after the heavy usage such as continuously surfing the internet, playing videos on youtube and so on. Also, I enjoyed two hours of talk time with just 5 minutes of VOOC flash charge.

Conclusion

Overall, I found that Oppo f9 is the complete package of improvements over Oppo F7 introducing the large battery with VOOC flash charge, attractive and tiny waterdrop notch, eye-catching design and yes better performance. What I loved the most was its fast charging nature, good battery life, and an outstanding camera. However, the absence of type C USB, no 4k video recording, poor visibility in sunlight were some of its downsides.

Specs Overview of Oppo F9

OS: Android 8.1 (Oreo)
Chipset: Mediatek MT6771 Helio P60
CPU: Octa-core (4x2.0 GHz Cortex-A73 & 4x2.0 GHz Cortex-A53)
GPU: Mali-G72 MP3
RAM and Storage: 6 GB RAM, 64 GB internal storage expandable up to 256 GB
Battery: 3500 mAh Non-removable Li-Po
Display: 6.3-inch Full HD+ LTPS IPS LCD display with Gorilla Glass 6
Wi-Fi: Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
Bluetooth: 4.2, A2DP, LE
Ports: microUSB 2.0, 3.5mm headphone jack
Rear camera: Dual 16 + 2 MP lens with f/1.8 aperture and f/2.4 aperture, PDAF, LED flash
Front-facing camera: 25 MP front-facing camera, f/2.0 aperture
Sensors: Fingerprint (rear-mounted), accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass
Colors: Sunrise Red, Twilight Blue, Starry Purple
Price in Nepal (Rs.): 37,990(4GB)/ 45,590(6GB)

Also Read: Samsung Brings Dashain Offer with Heavy Discount on Smartphones