GoKawiilOppo's Find X9 Ultra has been made in partnership with iconic camera maker Hasselblad, so it's no surprise that the Ultra is geared almost exclusively toward passionate photographers. With a suite of rear lenses, large image sensors, wide apertures and dedicated camera buttons, the X9 Ultra is essentially a full camera bag of gear, all squashed down into a phone body.
I awarded the Find X9 Pro a coveted CNET Editors' Choice award and the Ultra takes that winning formula and sprinkles in some more photography goodies. I've been testing the phone for a few weeks and there's a lot I like about it. But there are also some interesting decisions the company has made that are worth keeping in mind.
I'll come onto that in a moment, but let's talk pricing first. Or rather, I can't talk pricing because Oppo hasn't revealed this at the time of writing. Given that the X9 Pro is around £1,000 and the Ultra model is being positioned as a much more advanced version, it's safe to assume it will carry a significantly higher price. I'd guess at somewhere around the £1,500 mark, which would make it competitive with its main rival, the Leica Xiaomi Leitzphone -- one of the best camera phones I've ever used.
The phone will go on sale in Europe and the UK in May but it won't be sold in the US. For reference, the £1,000 price of the X9 Pro converts to roughly $1,360. My estimated £1,500 price converts to around $2,030.
Let's start in an obvious place, then: With the camera.
Oppo Find X9 Ultra: Camera performance
There's a whole casserole of cameras on the back of this thing, including a 200 megapixel main camera, a 50 megapixel ultrawide, a 200-megapixel telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom and then an additional 50 megapixel telephoto camera with 10x optical zoom. It's an impressive array of numbers and in my tests so far I've been pleased with the results.
Taken with the main camera, this image has beautiful, natural tones and spot on exposure. Andrew Lanxon/CNET
I'm thrilled to have caught these fisherman in this image. I shot using the Master mode to adjust the white balance for a warmer tone and giving more scope to slightly brighten it in post. Andrew Lanxon/CNET
The standard photo mode doesn't always come out to my liking. This shot is cold-looking, with a magenta color cast. The exposure and details look good though. Andrew Lanxon/CNET
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