Oppo Find X9s review: The new flagship blueprint

A few years back, the flagship smartphone segment in India had limited players. You had Apple with the iPhones, Samsung with the Galaxy S and Note series, and OnePlus. But now, the story has changed completely. Vivo, iQOO, Realme, all have joined the race to give you a flagship device, and so has Oppo with the Find X9 series.

Oppo launched the Find X9 and Find X9 Pro in November last year, and now the company is going a step further with the Find X9 Ultra – the first Ultra phone from Oppo in India. But the Find X9 Ultra targets a niche market. And if you are someone who wants a new flagship but doesn't want something as specific as the Ultra, Oppo’s got you covered with the Find X9s – it is almost like a baby Ultra when it comes to the design, the Hasselblad cameras, and the works – that too at a fraction of the Ultra price.

The Find X9s starts at Rs 79,999. But at this price, there is a lot of competition. You have the newly launched Vivo X300 FE, and the likes of the OnePlus 15 too. So where does the Find X9s stand? Let’s find out in our full review here at India Today Tech.

Oppo Find X9s design: Familiar and that’s a good thing

When you first hold the Find X9s, you can’t help but get a feeling of deja vu. The device looks oddly familiar to the Find X9 and the Find X9 Pro. You get the same aluminium frame, and matte finish on the back. The camera module too looks quite similar, with three sensors placed inside a square-ish island. But that is not a bad thing by any means.

The design feels premium. The flat frame feels good to hold, the back doesn’t get smudges either. At 7.9mm, the device is not thick either.

While the Find X9s doesn’t try to be too in-your-face, it looks sophisticated and clean. When someone looks at it, they know that it's a premium device. The midnight grey variant that we have looks particularly sleek and understated. Though you can get an orange one if you want a dash of colour.

Do note that you get IP66/IP68/IP69 rating for dust and water resistance. This is a good thing since it gives you the freedom to use the device carefree even during light rain.

The Find X9s comes with a 6.59-inch display. What this does is that it makes the device hit a sweet spot when it comes to dimensions. Unlike the Find X9 Pro and other devices with screens around 6.78 inches, the Find X9s is not too large, and it's not too small either – the Vivo X300 FE has a 6.31-inch panel. This allows the Find X9s to fall into a sort of middle ground, which makes the device easier to use one-handed, and also gives you ample screen real estate to stream content.

Oppo Find X9s display: Ticks almost all the boxes

The Find X9s gets a 6.59-inch AMOLED panel with a 120Hz refresh rate. This is a 10-bit panel, which should be able to show much more colours than your standard 8-bit displays. The screen is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 7i.

And in the real world, this gives you a decent screen to watch videos on. The colours are quite punchy, and you’ll like how content looks here.

But do note that the phone comes preset with warmer tones, though you can change to “natural” mode while setting up the device. The bezels are extremely thin at just 1.15mm. This is arguably one of the slimmest bezels you can get on a smartphone.

Coming back to streaming content, there is Dolby Vision support on Netflix. And the stereo speaker setup can get quite loud. I found it quite fun to watch YouTube or web series on the Find X9s, without having to use earbuds.

The ultrasonic fingerprint scanner is placed a bit higher than what we see on most phones, and this makes it easier to use it as your thumb naturally rests at that spot. It is also quite quick.

The Find X9s display has a resolution of 1.5K, which is quite sharp. But as default, the phone runs on Full HD – you need to change the setting yourself. While this is likely to save battery, a flagship device like the Find X9s should really have 1.5K as the default here.

The display has a peak brightness of 3,600nits, with full screen brightness of 1,800nits. Even under broad daylight, the screen can get quite bright, and you should not have much problem reading the contents on the Find X9s.

If we had to nitpick, the Oppo Find X9s comes with an LTPS panel. That is, it can change between a bunch of refresh rates, but it cannot go as low as 1Hz to save battery.

Oppo Find X9s cameras: Almost everything you need

The cameras are a key area of focus for the Find X9 series, and the case is no different for the Find X9s. You get a triple camera setup on the back, with Hasselblad branding, which gives you a handful of different filters, and the iconic Hasselblad shutter sound. The main sensor is a 50-megapixel Sony LYT-700 sensor, with a 50-megapixel Sony LYT-600 3x telephoto. A 50-megapixel ISOCELL JN5 ultrawide rounds up the setup.

While there are no dedicated telephoto kits for the Find X9s, the cameras are ample enough for those who want a phone that can click good photos.

The main sensor on the Find X9s gives you good results. The colours don’t come out too saturated or dull, rather, they come out quite accurate, and details are decent too.

I found myself using the telephoto sensor the most during my time with the device. At 3x optical zoom, it can give you decent results, the portrait mode works quite well, particularly when it comes to taking images of objects.

While taking photos of people, the phone does sometimes struggle in edge detection for portraits, but when it gets it right, you can even see thin strands of hair being separated from the background.

The 50-megapixel ultrawide also gives the chance to take images that are not far off the main sensor. And this is a good addition considering the Vivo X300 FE has an 8-megapixel ultrawide only. Though that device gets an optional teleconverter kit.

And the selfies turn out to be particularly good under natural lighting, and in portraits, the edge detection is almost as good as you would expect a flagship to have.

Click on any image below to view the entire gallery of sample photos

On the video front, you get optical image stabilisation on the main and telephoto sensors. As you would expect, the footage from these two sensors is quite stable even if you are recording while being on the move.

You can switch between all sensors during a recording, and this switch is barely noticeable. Do note that all sensors can record up to 4K at 60fps.

Oppo Find X9s performance: Does almost whatever you ask

The Find X9s is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 9500s chipset. Now, Oppo doesn’t claim that this device is the most powerful one out there. Instead, the Find X9s does everything smoothly.

The Dimensity 9500s may not be a Snapdragon Elite Gen 5 – something that you get on the OnePlus 15, but it is more than enough for everyday use. The phone functions smoothly, there’s no jitter anywhere even when trying to push the device – such as having navigation, Bluetooth, and music on, while you try to click pictures under broad daylight.

Though as is the case with most phones with high-end camera setups, you will notice that the Find X9s gets a bit hot while using the camera outdoors after some time. Granted, I was using the phone when temperatures were crossing 40-degree Celsius.

But apart from that, the Oppo Find X9s doesn’t let you down. You can easily use split screen, switch between apps, and play games.

I tried playing Call of Duty Mobile on the Find X9s. You can play with Very High graphics at Ultra frame rate. However, you get 90FPS here. And to get 120FPS, you will have to go a step below in the graphics department.

Nevertheless, the gameplay is good, and the phone can easily handle the game. But yes, you may notice that the device gets warm after prolonged use.

Genshin Impact was another game I tried. While the game itself recommends 30FPS with high graphics, I was able to get 60FPS with the highest setting. And you don’t really see frame drops or jitters unless you have a really long session.

On the benchmark front, the Oppo Find X9s scores just over 2.7 million on AnTuTu. On Geekbench, the device managed to get 2,198 points in single core, and 7,161 points in multicore.

Oppo Find X9s battery life: Plenty to end battery anxiety

The Find X9s packs a 7,025mAh battery. For a phone of this size, the battery is quite large. And in day-to-day use, it makes a difference. For someone who is usually always looking at the battery percentage icon of their phone, the Find X9s gives you peace of mind.

In the real world, I would usually have around 50 per cent left in the tank after a workday, and by bed time, the phone would still have around 20 per cent. Mind you, that this usually included an hour or so of gaming, streaming content, and going through social media.

Granted, if you are a heavy user like me who is usually always on their phone, the Find X9s may not give you two-day battery life. But it can last for a day and some more. And for those who are not power users – that is just some scrolling on Instagram, YouTube etc, the Find X9s can last you for two days.

That is to say that while the Oppo Find X9s does not break any records for battery life, it does plenty to not give you battery anxiety. You don’t need to care about bringing a charger even if you have a long day out.

And to top it up you get an 80W charger in the box, which can charge the device in just around an hour. Though there is no wireless charging here.

Oppo Find X9s user experience: ColorOS only gets better

The Find X9s runs on ColorOS 16 based on Android 16 out of the box. Now, we have talked about ColorOS 16 before here on India Today Tech. But there are some new features with ColorOS 16.0.7 that you get with the Find X9s.

The biggest change may be the addition of a new bar on the bottom of the lockscreen, which may remind you of Samsung’s Now Bar. When you collapse the notifications on the lockscreen – that is, pull them down – the notifications neatly merge here. And you can tap on it while playing music to open a full screen UI for the music player. The new update also allows you to arrange apps based on colour.

And you get everything else that you can expect, including Mind Space, that can be activated by a dedicated Snap Key which is placed on the left side. The Mind Space can keep track of what is on your screen, and you can add notes too. Such as screenshots of flight details or any cab expenses.

Though the Oppo Find X9s does come with some pre-installed apps – Netflix, Spotify, Facebook to name a few. The lockscreen gallery is turned off by default.

Overall, the experience that you get with the UI is quite good, and it gives you a smoother experience when compared to something like Vivo’s OriginOS or even Nothing OS.

Oppo Find X9s verdict: A flagship for today

So, after going through every aspect of the Oppo Find X9s, it appears that Oppo has got almost everything covered with the device. You get an impressive display, good cameras, and decent battery life. While it is no OnePlus 15 in terms of performance, it has more than enough power to handle whatever you throw at it. And ColorOS 16 only makes it more fun to use.

At a time when it is getting quite difficult for phone makers to deliver bang for buck with devices, the Find X9s is a phone that tries to cover all grounds. And in that aspect, it does the job. While the flagship smartphone segment may be getting crowded in India, the Oppo Find X9s can find its place as a phone that quietly delivers on what it promises, without trying to turn too many heads.