OPPO F9 Review: A Captivating Blend of Style, Performance and VOOC Flash Charge Technology
Design and Built
The OPPO F9 boasts a glass-like back panel that reflects light, giving it an aura of elegance and sophistication. The smooth curves and slim profile contribute to a comfortable grip, while the metal frame adds durability and rigidity to the overall construction.
The F9 looks similar to the OPPO F7 but with improved details. The F9 has a new acrylic back cover with OPPO’s trademark poly pattern design. It’s 7.99mm thin and weighs only 169g, but it still has a squarish design with a metallic body, giving it a premium look.
One of the standout design elements of the F9 is its waterdrop notch display, which offers a high screen-to-body ratio, immersing users in a captivating visual experience. The device is available in stunning color options, including Sunrise Red, Twilight Blue, and Starry Purple, allowing users to express their personal style.
At the back is the dual camera setup with LED, fingerprint scanner, and OPPO branding. The F9 has new gradient colors, it's available in Sunrise Red, Twilight Blue, and the recently launched Starry Purple color. F9 gradient color is a breakthrough that combines solid colors so that two colors appear blended as one.
On hand, the F9 feels nice it looks sturdy, and the grip seems comfortable. Although the back cover is a magnet for smudges, it does come with a free jelly case, but if you love to customize your device, you can choose a custom case that is now available in almost any phone store. But for us, we like our phones bare without a case.
The charging port is located at the bottom with a micro-USB connector, flanked by the microphone, 3.5mm audio jack, and speaker grille. It's a bit disappointing that OPPO is still using the old micro-USB connector instead of the newer Type-C connector. The F9 features VOOC technology, and OPPO claimed that it charges the F9 battery for 5 minutes and the user will be able to use it for a 2-hour call time, more on this later.
Display
TheF9 features a 6.3-inch Full HD+ Waterdrop Screen with a 19.5:9 aspect ratio; it has 2280 x 1080 resolution at 409 pixel density, the LTPS TFT display colors are nice, pixels are unnoticeable and the viewing angle is also great. But still, an AMOLED screen is so much nicer, just like what the Vivo V11 has. The waterdrop notch is where the 25-megapixel AI selfie camera is placed, and other sensors, like the microphone, are placed at the top.
The F9 has a larger display compared to the F7, with a 90% screen-to-body ratio and nearly bezel-less sides and bottom. It's not really that big a device, given that it has a large display. Compared to other smartphones with the same screen size, the F9 has a more compact body that is easy to hold in one hand.
Hardware Performance
The OPPO F9 is powered by a MediaTek Helio P60 chipset, and depending on the model, it has either 4GB or 6GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage, expandable via microSD up to 256GB.
This setup offers an efficient and fluid experience for everyday activities like checking email, using social media and watching videos. There is little to no lag while switching between apps on this device. While the Helio P60 is not a flagship-level processor, it still provides ample power for most users' needs. However, it may have issues running games with complex graphics or other apps that require a lot of system resources. The F9 delivers a solid experience for everyday users and casual gamers alike.
We installed some games on this device, like PUBG Mobile, Hitman Sniper, Contra Return, Street Fighter, and Zombie Frontier 3, all of which run smoothly and work well with F9. We did not encounter any issues playing games.
For those who love to benchmark smartphones, below are the OPPO F9 scores on benchmark apps.
AnTuTu: 138130
PC Benchmark: 7896 on Work 2.0 performance
3d Mark Sling Shot Extreme: 1075 OpenGL ES 3.1/930 Vulkan
The F9 is a great device with processing power to handle daily tasks and a good mobile gaming device that can handle most of the popular games that you want to play.
Additional Features
The OPPO F9 includes a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor for convenient and secure unlocking of the device. Additionally, it features facial recognition technology for those who prefer alternative unlocking methods. The inclusion of a 3.5mm headphone jack is a welcome feature, enabling the use of wired headphones without the need for adapters.
Color OS 5.2
The OPPO F9 runs on ColorOS 5.2, which is OPPO's customized version of Android. It was built on Android 8.1 Oreo at the time of its release. ColorOS provides a simple and straightforward interface with nice visuals and fluid animations.
The interface is very adaptable, letting users fine-tune their experience to their liking. ColorOS comes with several pre-installed apps that may not be necessary for all users, and it can be heavily skinned compared to stock Android. Nonetheless, the experience is generally stable and user-friendly.
Color OS 5.2 is responsive and easy to use, the notifications and quick access menu can be easily accessed by swiping the screen from top to bottom. The list of apps can be seen by simply swiping the screen from left to right. Apps can be easily organized by folders.
Unlocking the F9 can be done by using a fingerprint, face unlock, or passcode. The fingerprint scanner works well, it can unlock the device quickly once it detects the correct fingerprint pattern. The face unlocks also work well but is limited to well-lit environments.
Camera performance
Moving on to the camera, the F9 sports a 16-megapixel + 2-megapixel dual rear camera configuration with an f/1.85 aperture and LED flash. On the front, it has a 25-megapixel AI selfie camera with an f/2.0 aperture.
The main camera can take good pictures, especially in good lighting conditions, such as outdoors. The camera has Time Lapse, Slomo, Video, Photo, Portrait, Sticker, Panorama, and Expert (manual) modes.
The portrait mode can capture almost perfect photos, with great facial detection. Too bad it only works on the main camera. Another cool feature of the camera is the personalized watermark. Aside from the model name, you can now easily add your very own text that will be included in every photo you take using the F9. This can be edited in the camera settings.
The selfie camera can take great selfies, and the AI can identify the person's gender based on its facial outline. The bokeh effect works very well in blurring the background and keeping the details in the subject. The AI-powered scene recognition can identify 16 objects in real-time. It will automatically apply the right brightness, exposure, color, and contrast to the picture.
It supports 1080p video recording. We notice that when recording videos, the camera seems to focus most of the time on the subject. This happens when the recording is set to 1080p.
Overall, the cameras on the F9 work well, especially the AI feature, They are good cameras but not exceptional.
Battery Performance
The OPPO F9 is equipped with a non-removable 3,500mAh battery that provides dependable battery life that comfortably lasts a full day of moderate to heavy usage. Together with the device's software optimization, this assures effective power management. In addition, the F9 is equipped with OPPO's VOOC Flash Charge technology, which enables fast charging. With VOOC Flash Charge, users can charge the battery from zero to a significant percentage in a matter of minutes.
OPPO claimed that the F9 can be charged for 5 minutes and can be used for a 2-hour talk time. We tested this feature by draining the battery up to 1% and using the supplied wall charger. We plugged it in for 5 minutes, and it was able to charge the battery to 10%, which, in theory, can be used to make calls for less than an hour. In terms of usage, the battery performs well, were able to get a whole day of use out of the F9, and around 8pm we still had around 10% of the battery left.
VOOC uses 5 layers of protection, from the adapter to the port and to the device. VOOC has replaced the voltage-reducing circuit with an MCU, effectively preventing the f9 from overheating while charging. This means no worries about overcharging or overheating the battery, which means more battery life and charge cycles.
OPPO F9 Specs
Android 8.1 Oreo with ColorOS 5.2
6.3-inch Full HD+ Waterdrop Screen (2280 x 1080 resolution) at 409 ppi
19.5:9 Aspect Ratio
Corning Gorilla Glass
2.0GHz Octa-Core MediaTek Helio P60 Processor
Mali-G72 MP3 800MHz GPU
6GB RAM
64GB Storage, Expandable via microSD up to 256GB
16MP + 2MP Dual Rear Camera, f/1.85, LED Flash
25MP Selfie Camera, f/2.0, AI
Dual Nano SIM
4G LTE VoLTE
Wi-Fi 802.11
Bluetooth v4.2
GPS, AGPS, GLONASS, BEIDOU
OTG Support
Headphone Jack, FM Radio
Fingerprint Sensor
Face Unlock
Micro USB
3,500 mAh Battery, VOOC Fast Charging
Colors: Sunrise Red, Twilight Blue, Starry Purple, Jade Green
Final thoughts
By far, the F9 is the best OPPO F series in terms of design, features, and performance. The new gradient color, especially the starry purple, looks really nice. Gone are the days when smartphones had a boring back cover design. In terms of camera, OPPO has established that they have a great selfie camera, and with AI features, pictures are more vibrant and closer to a more natural look. In terms of video, the camera only supports 1080p instead of 4K, and it still needs some improvements, a software update should fix the contact dousing when recording video.
It's a great daily device that you can use as your main device for communication, social media, multimedia, and gaming. If you’re looking for a smartphone with good performance, a great selfie camera, and a battery that keeps you going all day with VOOC fast charge, then the OPPO F9 is for you.
The new OPPO F9 is now available for only ₱17,990 in all OPPO stores nationwide.
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