OPPO A9 2020 Hands-on Review: Where Beauty & Performance Marry

Introduction

Since the launch of Oppo series A to A5s in Nigeria, all models in this series are entry-level. But with the emergence of the latest models (A9 2020 & A5 2020), the Oppo A series officially moved up the class. The OPPO A9 2020, along with OPPO A5 2020, are the successors to the OPPO A series. The newest member in the A-series family carries a myriad of improvements from its previous models. And now, the OPPO A9 2020 has come to Android Nigeria Lab for testing and review purpose 😊. I actually spent time with the device carrying my normal activities with the device from the office, church, events, hangout, etc.

Unboxing of OPPO A9 2020

Before proceeding with the in-depth review, let’s check out what we can find in the phone’s box and share key specs of the device.

The OPPO Pro’s box is majorly white with a photo of the device, OPPO logo at the sides with the phone’s name and a small gold sticker indicating its 8GB|128GB variant.

Upon opening the box, you’ll immediately see a flat box with the word “OPPO”.  Inside this are the SIM ejector pin and quick guide.

I got the Space Purple colour variant while the other colours are Marine Green and Vanilla Mint. The other items found are the 3.5 mm audio headset, Micro USB cord and 3-pin wall power adapter.

Sales Package:

• Oppo A9 2020 unit
• USB-C data cable
• Headset
• Charger
• Manual
• Ejector Pin
• Soft Transparent Case

Oppo A9 2020 Specs

Here are the specs of our review unit:

• 6.52-inches IPS LCD Display (720 x 1600 Pixels), 269 PPI
• Android 9.0 Pie Operating System with Color OS 6.0.1
• Qualcomm SDM665 Snapdragon 665 (11 nm)
• 8 GB of RAM
• 4 Rear cameras (48+8+2+2 MP)
• 16 Megapixel Front Camera
• Dual SIM (3 slots – 2 Nano Sims + 1 MicroSD)
• 128GB Internal Storage
• Expandable Up to 256 via microSD
• 4G LTE, 3G HSPA+, 2G EDGE & GPRS Networks
• Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot
• Bluetooth 5.0
• MicroUSB 2.0 & USB On-The-Go (OTG)
• Dolby Atmos sound
• 3.5mm Audio Jack
• Fingerprint Sensor
• 5000mAh Non-removable Li-Po Battery
• Reverse Charging
• Colour – Marine Green, Space Purple, Vanilla Mint

Recommended Read: OPPO F11 Pro Hands-on Review: Great Value for Money

Design and Build

First look at Oppo A9 (2020), you will find that smartphones carry the language of contemporary design. The Oppo A9 2020 body model carries a thin bangs screen on the front. The bezel on the body is almost all covered with a screen on the front side, leaving only a camera in the middle and a hole for loudspeakers.

To be able to design a front body that is full of screens, Oppo removes all capacitive buttons on the front and replaces them with virtual buttons. In order to create an elegant effect, Oppo embeds rear body material that has a colour gradation. Therefore, if exposed to light will cause sparkle. Sadly, the screen is not scratch resistant

Carrying a large screen, which is 6.5 inches along with a 9 mm body thickness makes it less comfortable to hold in one hand. Overall, this smartphone has dimensions of 163.6 x 75.6 mm. The giant battery inside the framework also does not change the appearance of the cellphone to large.

Camera settings on the back panel are also not prominent which will usually increase the thickness of the device. But Oppo protects the camera by placing a circular frame around the lens which protects the camera from scratches when placed on a table.

Turning to the side, on the left-wing of the device there is a volume rocker and SIM card tray. While on the opposite wing there is only one multi-function button (Power On / Off, and locking and unlocking the screen). While the upper side, the device appears empty without ornamentation. At the bottom, there are a 3.5mm audio slot (earpiece),  microphone , USB-C, and  Dolby Atmos® and Dual Stereo Speakers.

Regarding the SIM Card slot, Oppo A9 (2020) provides three slots in one tray. So the user can activate two SIMs (Nano-SIM) and insert a microSD card at once.

OPPO A9 2020 Display

One of the ideal smartphone requirements for content lovers is that the screen must be super wide. Well, the Oppo A9 (2020) displays a Sunlight Screen panel with a display of 6.5 inches HD + resolution with a screen-to-body ratio of 89%.

Sunlight Screen brings true colours to the screen when used in low light environments. A9 (2020) will also automatically activate the blue light filter to protect the user’s eyes from injury and eye damage.

At the top of the screen, there is a minimalist bang in the form of drops of water, where a 16MP selfie camera that has been injected with AI Beautification.

Although no longer uses capacitive buttons, Oppo embeds virtual buttons in the form of menus, home, and back that can appear and disappear according to the appearance of the application on the screen. To answer the needs of selfies, the front of the Oppo A9 2020 is also equipped with a 16 MP camera that has HDR features.

Software and Performance of OPPO A9 2020

The performance of the Oppo A9 (2020) is certainly smoother than the models in the previous A series. Because this phone is the first A series to use Snapdragon 6 series made by Qualcomm.

Snapdragon 665 chipset is built with an 8-core 64-bit processor, which consists of 4-core Cortex-A73 and 4-core Cortex-A53.

Combined with 8GB LPDDR4x RAM and 128GB UFS 2.1 storage, so users will definitely feel smooth when multi-tasking on smartphones, even playing heavy games. Moreover, the storage can be expanded through microSD cards up to 256GB.

That combination causes the performance of the Oppo A9 (2020) better than previous models. More specifically, this latest chipset consumes 20% lower energy consumption with 2x better AI performance compared to Snapdragon 660. And when compared to Snapdragon 450, the Oppo A9 (2020) increased 40% and GPUs increased more than 100%.

Game Boost 2.0

For gaming experience, Game Boost 2.0 accelerator technology offers technology enhancements with Frame Boost and Touch Boost features. Both provide a fast game response, by reducing latency and slowness of the touch response of the screen.

Frame Boost provides real-time device monitoring to reduce latency and minimize lag. In addition, this feature will adjust the allocation of resources to avoid overheating or over-use of power.

Touch Boost makes special adjustments to increase the sensitivity of the touch screen response when playing games, the phone will feel faster and more responsive.

Recommended read: Oppo A9 2020 Specs and Features

Hardware

OPPO A9 2020 uses a mainstream chipset that is currently quite widely used by smartphone manufacturers, namely Snapdragon 665. Snapdragon 665 itself uses two core, namely the quad-core Kryo 260 Gold with a speed of 2 GHz and the quad-core Kryo 260 Silver with a speed of 1.8 GHz. Meanwhile, to process graphics, there is Adreno 610.

By using the SoC, the performance of playing games is definitely not in doubt. The games we tried on this device were Real Steel WRB, Strike Force, Assasin Hunter and CoD Mobile. However, with a widescreen, the user must re-arrange the location of the virtual button for those who have large fingers. For CoD Mobile itself, I can play very comfortably with Very High Graphics and Very High Frame Rate settings.

Concerning its multitasking capabilities, this smartphone is able to run various heavy applications simultaneously without stuttering, such as WhatsApp, Google Chrome, and several social media applications such as Facebook and Twitter.

Dolby Atmos® and Dual Stereo Speakers

The Oppo A9 (2020) comes with dual stereo speakers, delivering higher volume surround sound effects and significant improvement in sound quality. Dolby Atmos sound effects are used to provide the best music, video and game experience in its class.

Security Access

Oppo runs the Color OS 6.0.1 interface system based on Android 9.0 Pie. Features presented include Smart Assistant, driving mode, and navigation that will increase user comfort.

In addition, Oppo also pinned two security options to unlock the screen on the A9 (2020). Users can use Face Unlock or Fingerprint, or both at the same time. For the fingerprint scanner area on the Oppo A9 (2020) placed on the back panel, just one line under the camera. Very comfortable to reach the index finger when holding a handphone.

For the Face unlock, it is fast and responsive but not truly accurate. yeah! I used my face to lock the device and surprisingly my brother could unlock the device with his face. Note, we are not twins and he is old with some years but we have a little bit of resemblance. I believe some work has to be done on such facial recognition software.

OPPO A9 2020 Camera

The Oppo A9 (2020) is equipped with four cameras at the back panel. Three of them are arranged vertically. While the fourth camera is positioned just below the LED Flash.

As always, OPPO always boasts pictures of its camera catches. At this OPPO A9 2020, the sensor used on the main camera is the Samsung ISOCELL GM1 with a resolution of 48 MP. Whereas on the 119 ultrawide camera, OPPO entrusted it to Omnivision. On the selfie camera, the sensor used is the Samsung ISOCELL S5K3P8.

The main camera used is good enough to take pictures of insufficient light. In the night conditions, OPPO also has a night mode that can be relied upon to capture the moment.

The 48MP camera comes with a high resolution, allowing users to take pictures with finer details and clearer results. The wide-angle lens offers a shooting angle of 119 ° making it easy for wide images in limited space. Monochromatic lenses and portrait lenses allow users to get retro camera results for portrait photos, offering more personal results.

For selfie cameras, you can also take pictures quite well. When lighting conditions are poor, it does not make sharpness decrease. Even so, if you want to take pictures in a room that is quite dark, just turn on the screen flash, then the results will be better.

Plus, Oppo injects a variety of the latest features and filters in mobile photography, ranging from bokeh, monochrome, wide-angle, panoramic, professional, to Ultra Night Mode 2.0.

Ultra Night Mode 2.0 comes with the best noise reduction for nighttime photos. As a result, the HDR feature and multi-frame technology in Ultra Night Mode 2.0 can produce nighttime photos with high brightness. Most recently, Ultra Night Mode 2.0 can be used on wide-angle lenses.

Do not forget the Oppo A9 camera (2020) has also been injected with AI so that it can help users choose the appropriate mode in photographing certain scenes. Also, the feature is useful for detecting the environment or recognizing the highlighted object.

In the default camera application, users can choose one of the seven shooting modes available, namely, Night, Sticker, Google Lens, Time-lapse, Slo-Mo, Video, Photo, Portrait, Sticker, Panorama and Expert.

Especially in the Expert mode, users can take advantage of various configurations that can optimize the photos as desired. Some of the configurations include Exposure, White Balance, Auto Focus, Shutter Speed ​​and ISO.

Battery

The battery of OPPO A9 2020 is 5000mAh Ultra Battery with Reverse Charging Capability. This certainly makes OPPO A9 2020 also suitable for those who want to have a smartphone that can last more than one day. Of course, when used to play games, this smartphone might not last a day. The only downside is the charge time. It takes almost 3hrs to fully charge.

OPPO A9 2020 Price in Nigeria

Oppo A9 (2020) comes with three-dimensional gradation design with eye-catching colours. Consumers in Nigeria can choose between Marine Green or Space Purple in their local retail stores like Slot. And you can buy from the renowned ecommerce store in Nigeria, Jumia Nigeria.

Click the links below to buy from Jumia:

Buy OPPO A9 2020 – Marine Green = ₦105,000

Buy OPPO A9 2020 – Space Purple = ₦109,000

Buy OPPO A9 2020 – Marine Green = ₦89,900 on Jumia Mall

[one_half]PROS

• Premium design
• Full-screen bezel-less screen
• Excellent camera quality
• Reverse charging
• Long Battery life

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CONS

• Noticed a strange flickering display occurring when an external camera is closely placed at the Oppo A9 2020 screen. This is not pleasant to the eyes.
• LCD Instead of Amoled
• Plastic back cover
• No NFC
• No fast charging
• Facial recognition technology is not strong enough

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