Review of Oppo A9

Handset manufacturers are now focusing on launching new smartphones in the price segment below Rs 20,000. In the last few weeks, some popular phones like Oppo K3 (Review), Realme X (Review) and Vivo Z1 Pro (Review) have been launched in the Indian market in the budget of less than Rs 20,000. Oppo has now launched its new Oppo A9 smartphone in the market priced at Rs 15,490 which will compete with many popular handsets in the market. Now it remains to be seen whether Oppo A9 is able to give a tough challenge to its rival handsets in the market or not? To know this, we have tested it, let’s know…

Design of Oppo A9

The design of the Oppo A9 smartphone is similar to the Oppo A7 (Review) and Oppo A5s (Review) and all three handsets are part of the same series. The Oppo A9 has a large 6.5-inch display and a small earpiece. Corning Gorilla Glass 5 has been used for display protection. A plastic screen protector will be found pre-applied on the phone.
Oppo A9 has thin bezels on the top and sides but the border at the bottom of the phone is a bit thick. It is long due to which you may have to stretch your hand a bit to reach the top of the display. The power button is on the right side of the phone while the volume buttons are on the left side.

The fingerprint sensor is provided on the back of the Oppo A9. Two rear cameras are provided with LED flash just above the fingerprint sensor. A micro-USB port will be found at the bottom of the phone which is a bit disappointing because many phones in this price segment are equipped with USB Type-C port.

This phone will also have a 3.5 mm headphone jack and a loudspeaker at the bottom. Oppo A9 has two color variants – Purple and Marble Green. We have the Marble Green color variant for review. A 10 watt charger, transparent case and headphones will be available in the retail box.

Oppo A9 Specifications and Software

The Oppo A9 has some pretty good specifications considering its price. The phone is powered by the MediaTek Helio P70 processor, which is the same chipset that powers the Realme 3 (Review). The presence of this chipset in a phone priced at Rs 15,490 might be a bit disappointing, considering that the Redmi Note 7 Pro (Review) currently has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 processor, and the Oppo K3 (Review) and Realme X (Review) have Snapdragon 710 chipset.

Only one variant of Oppo A9 has been launched which is equipped with 4 GB RAM and 128 GB storage. To power the phone, a 4020 mAh battery has been provided and it weighs 190 grams. For connectivity, the phone includes 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth version 4.2, USB-OTG support. The phone has other sensors including light, proximity and gyroscope.

The Oppo A9 runs ColorOS 6.0 based on Android Pie. Our review unit is running on the July security patch. The user interface is similar to what we saw on the recently launched Oppo K3 and Realme X. However, the Oppo A9 comes with more bloatware pre-installed, including UC Browser, Facebook, WPS Office, Newspoint, Dailyhunt, Helo, Paytm, Wynk Music, Webnovel and Amazon apps.

There is also Game Center, Game Space and Oppo Appstore for apps and games. We found that installed apps like UC Browser and Helo keep sending push notifications every hour. If you want, these apps can also be uninstalled from the smartphone.

Oppo A9 performance, battery life and camera

The MediaTek Helio P70 processor has been used in the Oppo A9, this chipset handles all the tasks of the day without any problem. There was no problem in launching apps and multitasking. 4 GB RAM is capable of giving a smooth experience. As we told you, its competitor handsets are equipped with more powerful chipsets at the same price.

We enjoyed watching content on the Oppo A9 as the display is crisp and bright and viewing angles are good. The bottom speaker is loud. The fingerprint sensor on the back is quick to unlock the phone. The Face Unlock feature uses the selfie camera, is easy to setup and unlocks the phone quickly.

While playing PUBG Mobile, we noticed that the game was on the medium quality preset with graphics set to Balanced and frame rate set to medium. The game ran smoothly at these settings. Oppo Game Space cleared the RAM and disabled pop-up notifications. We played the game for 20 minutes and noticed that the battery was consumed around 4 percent. The phone didn’t heat up much which is a good sign.

The 4,020mAh battery on the Oppo A9 offers pretty good battery life. With normal usage like an active WhatsApp account, using Google Maps for navigation and playing PUBG Mobile, the phone lasted for more than a day. However, charging is slow and when the phone is charged using a 10W charger, it takes more than two hours to fully charge the phone.

Oppo A9 is equipped with a dual rear camera setup. On the rear, there is a 16-megapixel primary sensor with aperture F / 1.8 and a 2-megapixel secondary sensor with LED flash. On the front panel, there is a 16-megapixel selfie camera with F / 2.0 aperture. The camera app on the Oppo A9 is similar to what we have seen in other Oppo smartphones.

Apart from the usual photo and video modes, it has Portrait, Night, Pano, Expert, Time-lapse and Slow-mo. There are dedicated buttons for HDR and Dazzle Colour. The default camera app offers filters that can be applied before taking a shot. The Oppo A9 also has AI scene recognition.

Photos taken with the Oppo A9 in daylight were good, the phone locks focus before taking a picture. We found that objects that were close by were good but objects that were located a little far away lacked detail. Close-up shots were good and the phone’s AI also helped.

The Oppo A9 maintains a good distinction between the subject and the background. Sharpness and detail are well captured in the picture, but the AI ​​does boost the colours a bit. The phone’s edge detection was good. The Oppo A9 does not let you adjust the blur before or after taking a shot. We found that portrait shots taken with the Oppo A9 captured good detail.

Camera performance may seem a little lacking in low light. There was a lack of detail in the picture but Oppo A9 keeps the noise under control, the picture is good but grains are visible when you zoom in on the photo. Night mode helps in capturing improved detail and brighter pictures. Selfies taken with the 16 megapixel front camera also turned out good.

The details were captured well in the picture, the portrait shots taken with the selfie camera were also acceptable but edge detection needs some improvement. This phone does not blur the gap between the person’s arm and body. Both the primary and selfie cameras are capable of recording videos at 1080p resolution. Video stabilization is also provided, a little shimmer effect was seen in the video clips in low light.

Our verdict

The Oppo A9 is a good smartphone but it falls short when compared to the competition. At Rs 15,490, the phone seems to be overpriced compared to the Oppo K3 and other smartphones in the same price segment. The MediaTek Helio P70 is a capable processor but its rivals like the Redmi Note 7 Pro (Review) get a Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 processor, the Realme X and the Oppo K3 get a Snapdragon 710 chipset.

The camera performance is acceptable considering the price, but if you have a smaller budget, rival handsets like the Redmi Note 7 Pro and Realme 3 Pro are also great options. If you’re willing to spend a little extra, the Realme X and Oppo K3 come with better cameras and more modern designs.