Oppo F9 Pro Review: Is it all about the looks?

Oppo recently launched mid-range smartphones in India, the Oppo F9 and F9 Pro. The latter comes with VOOC Charging support and better set of cameras. It does look quite beautiful, thanks to its flashy design. Here's our full review of the Oppo F9 Pro:

Oppo F9 Pro Review: Specifications

Oppo F9 Pro sports a 6.31-inch IPS LCD display with a resolution of 1080x2340 pixels. It is powered by the MediaTek MT6771 processor coupled with 6GB of RAM. For storage, the device gets 64GB of onboard storage, which is further expandable using a microSD card. It runs Android 8.1 Oreo-based ColorOS 5.2. All of this is backed by a 3,500mAh battery, which supports the company’s VOOC charging technology.

Price: Rs. 21,990

Oppo F9 Pro Review: Design

Design is something where Oppo has focused most of its attention on for the Oppo F9 Pro. The phone gives a really premium look due to the glass design and the water drop notch, up front. The glass panel at the back has a gradient finish with a glittery look on top. This makes the back look quite flashy and prone to fingerprints. To negate the effect a bit they have provided a silicone case bundled with it, which also offers some protection to the device.

Oppo F9 Pro Review: Display

Oppo F9 Pro sports a 6.3-inch IPS LCD display with a water drop style notch. It features a resolution of 1080x2340 pixels and offers 409ppi. The glass lacks any sort of protection, due to which the company does offer a pre-applied screen protector out of the box. Due to the smaller waterdrop design notch, you will get a much larger screen to body ratio to play with. This also makes the Oppo F9 Pro a good smartphone for media consumption.

Also Read: Oppo F9 Review: Good performance and cameras, bad software

The screen is quite good and is legible even under direct sunlight. Oppo F9 Pro also allows you to change the colour temperature of the display according to your liking. However, you cannot change the display modes or tweak the more advanced settings such as saturation.

Oppo F9 Pro Review: Software & UI

Just like most other Chinese smartphone manufacturers, Oppo likes to heavily customise the UI skin that is layered on top of Android. Oppo F9 Pro runs ColorOS 5.2 UI based on Android 8.1 Oreo.

During our review period, we also learnt that the phone comes with support for Google's Project Treble, which basically means it is eligible to get faster Android updates. Coming back to the UI, it has a high learning curve for most people that are shifting from any other Android device. However, if you have been using Oppo smartphones in past, you will get used to it relatively faster.

Oppo F9 Pro Review: Performance

Oppo F9 Pro is powered by the MediaTek Helio P60 processor. It is an octa-core core chipset with four Cortex-A73 cores running at 2GHz and four Cortex-A53 cores running at 2GHz. The graphics power is pulled from the Mali-G72 MP3 GPU.

Oppo F9 Pro manages to work through any task thrown at it. The presence of 6GB of RAM also helps in good multi-tasking.

However, when it comes to gaming, the things get a bit complicated. Games like Subway Surfers and Hill Climb Racing run without any hiccups.

But running heavy games like PUBG Mobile and Asphalt 8, we did notice lag and frame drops throughout the gameplay. The games were not unplayable but we expected a better experience in this department.

Also Read: Top 5 Oppo R15 Pro alternatives

Oppo F9 Pro Review: Camera

The camera segment is one where Oppo smartphones tend to shine the most and the Oppo F9 Pro doesn't disappoint. We were quite impressed with the dual-camera setup found on the back of the smartphone. It consists of a 16-megapixel primarysensor paired with a 2-megapixel secondary sensor.

Images taken in ample light came out pretty good and the dynamic range was also good. Its secondary lens helps in bringing bokeh effect to the photos, which is not the best we have seen.

On the front, there is a 25-megapixel selfie shooter with f/2.0 aperture. The front-facing camera captures some really good selfies. Oppo's camera interface also offers plenty of options to the users including an HDR mode, Depth effect, Super Vivid mode, stickers and much more.

Oppo F9 Pro Review: Battery

Oppo F9 Pro is backed by a 3,500mAh battery, which is enough to get you through a full working day. During our review period, we were able to get through a full days worth of usage including around a few hours of calling, replying to a few e-mails, scrolling through various social media apps and a little bit of gaming.

However, when we did need to plug it in, the device charged up quite quickly, due to its support for the company's VOOC charging technology. Do note that to get fast charging speeds, you will need to use the charger and the cable that come bundled inside the box.

Oppo F9 Pro Review: Verdict

Oppo F9 Pro is a good looking smartphone with a number of good features. The device also sports a good set of cameras. The phone is made for people who care a lot about their smartphone's design and need a good smartphone camera without spending a fortune. However, people who are looking for pure performance should lean towards Xiaomi Poco F1, which except for the design offers everything else.