The OPPO A9 2020 is now on the sweet spot of the mid-range segment but don’t get fooled with the A-series because despite belonging in the A-series line of OPPO, this one does have interesting hardware and features inside. There’s a quadruple rear camera and also a large 5000mAh battery. The smartphone does feature a lot of interesting features. Interested? Check out our review of the smartphone below.
OPPO A9 2020 Review: Design and hardware
The OPPO A9 2020 is a massive phone and no, not in a bad way. The smartphone is tall thanks to its 20:9 display aspect ratio and the tiny bezels on the sides. The smartphone also features a curved back which makes the smartphone easier to hold despite being a large phone.
The back features a glass back design and the one that we got comes in Space Purple and the design of the smartphone reminds me fo the OPPO R17 Pro but with a glossier look and with an additional S-like reflection at the back when the light passes thru it.
Thankfully, the power button and the volume rocker of the smartphone are very reachable since OPPO has placed these buttons in the middle of the smartphone so yeah, nothing to worry about the buttons of the smartphone.
At the back is where you can find the fingerprint scanner of the OPPO A9 2020 and it’s fast and very accessible but if you want, you can use the face unlock of the smartphone which is just fast and fine to use. And of course, the OPPO A9 2020 comes with a USB-C port, however, with no support for VOOC Flash Charge and then we have here a 3.5mm audio port just beside the USB-C port.
The smartphone does come with Dolby Atmos and it does help in producing better sound on the smartphone. It wasn’t good as most flagship smartphones but this will do just fine for a mid-range.
OPPO A9 2020 Review: Display
The display of the smartphone is massive. We got here a 6.5-inch with an HD+ IPS panel with Corning Gorilla Glass 3. As expected, the display of the smartphone isn’t as sharp as you might expect since we’re getting a 720p resolution over here but the colors seem fair and the display is bright enough to be used outside. The viewing angles of the smartphone’s display is fine too.
OPPO A9 2020 Review: Battery
One of the unique and its main selling point is the battery of the smartphone. We got here a large 5,000mAh battery and in my usage, the smartphone will definitely last up to a day or more of usage despite playing some games on the smartphone. In our PC Mark battery test, we got a score of 15 hours and 17 minutes which is deeply amazing for the smartphone. This makes the smartphone fit for playing games too on the go.
OPPO A9 2020 Review: Software
The OPPO A9 2020 rocks ColorOS 6 based on Android 9 Pie and we still don’t have a word regarding which devices will arrive with ColorOS 7. Just like the other OPPO smartphones, the OPPO A9 2020’s software is user-friendly and everything and anything is really accessible in the applications. The smartphone does come with some applications like Game Space which will optimize your gaming, phone manager, game center, app market, theme store and more.
OPPO A9 2020 Review: Performance
There’s a Snapdragon 665 processor along with 8GB RAM inside the OPPO A9 2020 and as expected, the OPPO A9 2020’s chipset will do just fine with most of the things that you need on a smartphone including gaming. Whether you want to use the smartphone for casual usage or some pretty heavy gaming, the OPPO A9 2020 can handle that. But before we talk about gaming, let’s discuss the benchmark scores that we got on the OPPO A9 2020:
Overall, it was pretty good for a midrange smartphone. The OPPO A9 2020’s Snapdragon 665 processor just performed well. In gaming, we were able to play Call of Duty Mobile at the highest settings possible. I was also able to run PUBG Mobile and NBA 2k20.
- Download Gamebench here: https://bit.ly/2Ei3daX
- Check out the Gamebench app here: https://bit.ly/2m4t0LR
In NBA 2k20, we can get better framerates if you set it up at lower settings which will give you a better experience on the smartphone. In Call of Duty, it will be more enjoyable if you can set it up to medium settings with max framerate to get a smooth 60fps gameplay on the smartphone. In PUBG Mobile, the game can only have a high framerate at smooth settings which means the game is not yet optimized for the smartphone.
Overall, the OPPO A9 2020 will do just fine in gaming. In some games, it might not be able to max out the settings but I’m pretty sure that the OPPO A9 2020 can handle most games that are available in the market right now.
OPPO A9 2020 Review: Camera
One of the main selling points of the OPPO A9 2020 is its camera. We got here a quad-camera setup with a 48MP main camera with an additional 8MP ultra wide-angle lens + 2MP macro lens and 2MP depth sensor.
Well, the camera of the smartphone performs well depending on the conditions. Most of the shots that I took at decent lighting conditions were really well. They’re sharp, vivid, and it can really capture the details that I needed with a decent dynamic range however in some rare cases, the photos tend to blow out. Nonetheless, the night mode of this one works well with less noise and offers more brightness and colors. Check out the shots that we took using the smartphone:
The selfie will do just fine on the smartphone however at lowlight, you can clearly see that it needs some improvement but it was brighter than I expected. The OPPO A9 2020 can also capture videos at up to 4K which is pretty impressive. The macro lens works on this smartphone too and it can capture really small objects at a really short distance from the smartphone, however, I barely use that feature on the smartphone but it’s a nice touch that we have a macro lens on the OPPO A9 2020.
OPPO A9 2020 Review: Verdict
The OPPO A9 2020 performs well for a mid-range smartphone. First, we got here a 5,000mAh battery that can last pretty long even with heavy usage, a large display that is advantageous for watching movies, videos, and even playing games, a quad-camera setup, and an attractive design.
If you’re the type of person who is into large batteries and also large displays and you want that fancy quad-camera setup then you might want to take a look at this but the competition at its price segment is really tough as we also got here the Vivo S1 and also a few more bucks will give you more smartphone selections.
The OPPO A9 2020 is now available for Php15,990.
