Oppo Find X9 Ultra review: The ultimate phone?

Price When Reviewed

Unavailable in US

Best Prices Today: Oppo Find X9 Ultra

Retailer

Price

Check

Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide

Product

Price

Price comparison from Backmarket

For the first time, Oppo’s top-end flagship smartphone has gone global and we haven’t even had to wait longer than the Chinese market.

Global still means select markets, but the Find X9 Ultra is here to take on the big guns, including Samsung, Google and Apple.

It’s expensive at £1,449 but no more than some rivals for the same storage capacity, including the Galaxy S26 Ultra. With a frankly astonishing set of cameras, made in collaboration with Hasselblad, it aims to be the best phone for photography money can buy.

It’s no slouch in other departments either, with a huge battery, speedy charging, a great screen, standout design and plenty more to offer.

I’ve been testing it for the last two months to see if it’s the best phone of 2026.

Design & Build

Let me start by saying that the Find X9 Ultra is my favourite phone design of this year, perhaps even the last few years. Well, in this Tundra Umber model anyway – it’s absolutely stunning and even better when you have it in your hands.

With so many bland, cookie-cutter phones hitting the market week after week, it’s refreshing to see something fresh and distinctive. No one is going to mistake this for an iPhone 17 Pro Max, or most other phones, really.

Chris Martin / Foundry

The aluminium frame is sleek and tough, but the vegan leather is the real star here. It looks great (for some reason, I adore that it’s split into two sections) and I love the tactile, premium feeling it provides. The phone is inspired by a classic Hasselblad camera and it comes through beautifully, including a new orange button on the side and a matching ring around the camera module.

If you prefer (reader, you are probably much younger than I am), then there’s an Orange Canyon colourway – because everyone has to copy the iPhone in at least one way, it seems.

Chris Martin / Foundry

This model has a fibreglass back and in real life (I saw it at the China launch event), the sand dune effect is very subtle, and it just overall doesn’t feel half as premium. But if you want a loud, bright design, then go for it.

It’s also slightly thinner and lighter thanks to that rear cover material, but either way, you are looking at a big, heavy phone. You should expect this from a high-end Ultra device packing this level of camera and battery tech, though I find it to be well-balanced in its weight.

With key rivals being more plain, samey or just straight-up boring, for my money, the Find X9 Ultra takes the crown (in Tundra Umber, mind).

Screen & Speakers

The screen on the Find X9 Ultra is a tad smaller than rivals such as the Xiaomi 17 Ultra and iPhone 17 Pro Max but it’s still huge, as is customary for an Ultra-level flagship. You’ll have to look elsewhere if you need something easy to use one-handed.

I have fairly large hands and that perhaps helped me enjoy using this phone’s display, which is one of the best out there in terms of quality. It might not be the outright best in any particular area – bezel thickness, brightness, refresh rate etc – but it has loads to offer.

Chris Martin / Foundry

It’s super crisp (even at the ‘standard’ resolution rather than the full 1440p), colourful, smooth and everything you’d expect when you’re paying this much for a phone. Plus, there are plenty of additional features such as eye care, adaptive tone and video colour boost if you like to tinker.

It’s also got one of the best in-screen fingerprint scanners I’ve ever used, including a nice ripple animation.

For audio, Oppo does something different to most rivals. There are stereo speakers but one isn’t totally reliant on the earpiece you use to take calls. Some sound does still come from there but there are holes in the metal frame on top, like the bottom.

Overall, the sound is nothing short of epic: crisp, clear and rich and with plenty of volume without needing to crank it up to 100%.

Specs & Performance

I won’t keep you too long here because, as you’d expect from a top-end phone like this, performance is silky smooth from its flagship Qualcomm Snapdragon processor.

There’s just one model with 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. At least, that’s the case here in the UK, although other markets may have additional options.

I’ve had no problems with how zippy and responsive the phone is in general use. However, it does have a thermal issue that means it can get quite hot, especially if you’re using the camera a lot.

Chris Martin / Foundry

Despite this, it never seemed to cause any noticeable slowdowns, but the difference compared to rivals shows in some benchmark tests, mainly the stability in 3DMark.

Oppo Find X9 Ultra benchmarks

Cameras 

It will come as no surprise that cameras are the main reason to buy the Find X9 Ultra. Not that it’s bad in other areas (as you will have read), but this is Oppo’s absolute top-end shot at showing off its phone photography skills against the likes of Vivo, Samsung, Xiaomi and others.

Even if you don’t buy the X9 Ultra, the idea in part is that it gives you more confidence to buy cheaper devices in the range.

Chris Martin / Foundry

Here, there are no less than five cameras total, with four on the rear. That’s one more than all of its key rivals in 2026. More isn’t automatically better but, after two months, I believe that the Find X9 Ultra is the best camera phone of the year.

Not only does it offer a mind-blowing total of 550Mp across those five primary cameras (a fifth rear camera is used as a colour sensor), including two 200Mp Hasselblad cameras, it has the only 10x periscope telephoto camera with a 50Mp sensor on any phone.

There’s a lot – and I mean a lot – of clever and impressive tech here, but I don’t want to get bogged down into the specs and focus on what the X9 Ultra is like as a camera phone. The headline is that it’s not perfect, but it’s very, very close.

In short, it’s a joy to shoot with and I have confidence that every single camera is going to come out with amazing results almost every time – even if I prefer to switch the automatic macro mode off (it uses the ultrawide for close-ups).

Chris Martin / Foundry

There’s consistency across the board for colour accuracy and there’s bags of detail on offer. The main 200Mp camera is especially impressive in low light, where it manages to offer up astonishing dynamic range with minimal noise. I really think people seeing the results will assume you’ve used a proper DSLR-type camera.

I think the camera samples speak for themselves to a large degree (they’re all unedited, by the way). The X9 Ultra is one of those phones which somehow manage to capture the mood and feeling of the situation you’re shooting. It’s great for street photography in particular, but just about anything goes.

There are plenty of different modes to explore, including Master Mode, which cuts out AI processing, Hasselblad Hi-Res for shooting in 50- or 200Mp, and I particularly like X-Pan for panoramic shots with a selection of Hasselblad filters to choose from.

It’s also worth saying the X9 Ultra is one of the best Android phones I’ve ever used for video. It can shoot at up to 8K/30fps and all cameras can reach 4K/60fps, plus there are features for advanced users, such as the option to shoot in O-Log2 to preserve more detail.

For my money, it’s the best camera phone yet made, but there are still things I think can be improved.

My main issue is that the Quick Button (the orange touch-sensitive button on the side) isn’t close enough to the bottom of the phone to be comfortable. Plus, I’d rather just have a physical shutter button like Sony Xperia phones. Also, as I found with the Xperia 17 Ultra, my finger also appears in a few too many photos, which means cropping it out later.

Chris Martin / Foundry

I haven’t been able to try the Earth Explorer Kit, but I have seen it in person and it looks like an interesting option for enthusiasts. It primarily adds a camera grip (with a physical shutter button), a detachable 300mm zoom lens and a built-in battery to keep the X9 Ultra topped up.

It’s worth considering, but at £499, it’s not for the faint-hearted.

Battery Life & Charging

The Find X9 Ultra continues to impress, show off even, when it comes to battery life and charging, starting with a huge 7050mAh cell. For context, that’s more than 1000mAh bigger than the Xiaomi 17 Ultra, and 2000mAh more than the Galaxy S26 Ultra.

This is partly thanks to Silicon Carbon (SiC) technology but it’s worth noting that the Find X9 Pro has an even larger battery at 7500mAh. Still, battery life is more than solid and any kind of anxiety about longevity is not a thing when I’m using this phone.

Somewhat proving my point is the fact it lasted a whopping 25 hours 36 minutes in the PCMark battery benchmark we put all phones through. That’s one of the best results we’ve ever seen.

It’s also a good sign when I struggle to get the phone to completely die in order to conduct our charging tests. Even with only a few percent left and the screen brightness at full whack, it just seems to keep going like some kind of Terminator, or like my Border Collie.

Chris Martin / Foundry

When I did finally get it to 0%, I could see how quickly it tops back up again. Like most phones these days, you don’t get an adapter in the box, but the Find X9 Ultra supports up to 100W wired charging.

I saw it reach 21% in 15 minutes and 42% in 30 minutes, which is decent considering the size of the battery. There’s also very fast 50W wireless charging too (plus reverse wired and wireless charging when you need it), although it’s yet another phone launched in 2026 without Qi2 magnets built-in, which is a bit of a shame.

Overall, though, this is an area in which the Find X9 Ultra is rock solid.

Software, Apps & AI

The Find X9 Ultra runs Oppo’s own software called ColourOS. I’m not overly familiar with it, but I felt right at home after coming from the Xiaomi 17 Ultra. It’s very similar to HyperOS 3.

The common theme for these Chinese user interfaces is that they are much cleaner and easier to use than a few years ago, offering the core Android elements while stealing bits from the iPhone – primarily Dynamic Island, which gives you info and controls around the selfie camera.

What they all still have in common is plenty of bloatware in the form of pre-installed apps. Here they include the likes of TikTok, Booking.com, Amazon Shopping and plenty of others. Some you might find useful (I didn’t uninstall Spotify, for example), but they can be removed without too much bother.

You also get Oppo’s own apps, some of which are duplicates of Google’s. In my opinion, they’re redundant, but again, you might find the odd one to be agreeable. I personally love having an IR Remote to control the TV with my phone.

Chris Martin / Foundry

ColorOS took me longer than most to customise into a setup I was happy with but that’s a one-time thing. There are things I like and things I don’t, though they may differ to your preferences.

I like that you can group the app drawer to app icon colours but in contrast, most notifications are far too grey, and my brain struggles to process the information from them.

Of course, there are various AI features, the main one being Mind Space, accessible via the Snap Key (a physical button the left of the phone, which can be used for other functions if you prefer). You can hold the Snap Key to record a voice message, press to save on-screen content or double-tap to open Mind Space.

Chris Martin / Foundry

It doesn’t suit me personally, so I haven’t found myself naturally making use of it, but that doesn’t mean you won’t. Elsewhere it’s quite light on AI, except for the usual assistance for things such as text, translation and more.

As you’d hope with a phone this expensive, software support is decent, with five years of OS updates and six for security. That’s slightly behind Samsung and Google, but you may want to upgrade by this point anyway.

Price & Availability

Being a true ultra-level phone, the Find X9 Ultra is not cheap. It’ll set you back a cool £1,449 and this is the only model available (in the UK) with 12GB RAM and 512GB storage.

It means it’s a purchase for those serious about the phone in their pocket as you can now buy foldable phone which costs less, not to mention some pretty decent mid-range phones which are around half the price.

Key rival Ultra phones are cheaper, with the Xiaomi 17 Ultra at £1,299 and the Galaxy S26 Ultra at £1,279. Still, Samsung’s has 256GB storage, with the 512GB model matching the Oppo’s price.

So, it’s certainly not a bad deal, but if you’re not enthusiast-level, you could consider the other models in the X9 series. The excellent Find X9 Pro is £1,099 and the regular Find X9 is £899.

You can get your hands on both models now from the official store (including free gifts at the time of writing) and Amazon UK also stocks the phone. As usual, it’s not available in the US.

Check out our list of the best phones for our current top 10 recommendations, as well as the best camera phones you can buy.

Retailer

Price

Check

Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide

Product

Price

Price comparison from Backmarket

Should you buy the Oppo Find X9 Ultra?

For my money, the Oppo Find X9 Ultra is the best camera phone of the year.

In fact, it’s so hard to fault that I think it’s the overall best phone of 2026 as well, with its stunning design, incredible set of hardware and impressive performance.

These accolades don’t automatically mean you should buy it, however. It’s an expensive phone that’s big and heavy and those things alone will rule it out for many people.

As mentioned above, there are cheaper and smaller Find X9 models that could be a better fit for you.

This is a phone designed for people happy to splash out on the best of the best, who aren’t loyal to rival brands. Sure, you’ll need to go elsewhere for things such as Qi2 magnetic charging or the privacy display of the Galaxy S26 Ultra, but the Find X9 Ultra ticks the core boxes in emphatic style.

Probably the main downside here is that Oppo’s ColourOS won’t be to everyone’s taste and the phone has shorter software support than the likes of Samsung and Google.

But if you’re looking for the ultimate Ultra phone, I believe you just found it.

Specs

• ColorOS 16, based on Android 16
• 6.82-inch, 1440 x 3168, LTPO AMOLED, 144Hz
• Ultrasonic fingerprint sensor
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5
• 12GB RAM
• 512GB storage
• Cameras:
• 200Mp main sensor
• 50Mp ultrawide
• 200Mp 3x telephoto
• 50Mp 10x telephoto
• 50Mp selfie camera
• Up to 4K @ 120fps rear video
• Stereo speakers
• Dual Nano-SIM + eSIM
• Wi-Fi 7
• Bluetooth 6.0
• 7050mAh Silicon-Carbon battery
• 100W wired charging
• 50W wireless charging
• Reverse wired and wireless charging
• 163.16 × 76.97 × 9.10mm
• IP68/69 certified
• 236g (240g for orange)
• Colours: Tundra Umber, Canyon Orange