Oppo A9 2020 review: Perhaps too early to wish it a happy new year

The phone scores on performance and battery but disappoints on screen resolution, interface, and camera. For its price, the Oppo A9 2020 might find it tough to compete with rivals in its price segment

The Oppo A9 2020 is an upgraded version of the A9, with some changes in the camera and processor. The smartphone has a 48MP quad-camera setup on the back, a 5,000 mAh battery, and Snapdragon 665 processor.

The phone comes in two variants — 4GB RAM and 128GB storage for Rs 15,990, and 8GB RAM and 128GB storage for Rs 19,990.

We reviewed the smartphone to see if the name justifies its performance. Here’s what we found:

Design and display

 

The Oppo A9 2020 has a 6.5-inch HD+IPS LCD display — that should give a clear idea the phone itself is quite big in size. That’s all very good. But what is not so good are its thick bezels at the top and bottom.

On the front, there is a waterdrop notch housing the front camera and the panel on its back is a welcome departure from the common gradient style.

The triple-camera set-up sits in the middle of the rear side, with a fourth camera placed next to it. Beneath that is the fingerprint scanner, which is very quick in unlocking the device. The face-unlock works in a jiffy, too.

 

At the bottom is a speaker, USB Type-C port and a 3.5 mm jack. The curved back makes hold the phone easy despite its thickness. The volume and power buttons are positioned well and are within the reach of your fingers.

The screen has a 1600×720 pixel resolution, which may not appeal everyone: Even some of the cheaper smartphones these days offer better resolution than that. We didn't really enjoy the colour reproduction, and thought the screen could have been better.

Battery

 

The Oppo A9 2020 comes with a 5,000 mAh battery that is good for almost two days on optimal usage. We played Call of Duty to Asphalt, besides using social media, and found the battery life impressive. The phone’s charging, though, is not swift; once drained of its juice, it took some time to charge fully.

Performance

We reviewed the 8GB RAM variant and it held itself in good stead for most tasks. You can have multiple apps running in the background and still play a heavy game. Switching between apps is smooth and there is hardly any lag anywhere.

What's not so pleasing to the eye is the ColorOS skin 6.0.1 on top of the Android 9. It certainly doesn’t befit a minimalist phone — it is cluttered and has rather small icons on the default setting. There is bloatware, too, and you get ad notifications.

 

The phone has a Widevine L1 DRM certification for streaming HD videos, and the speaker has a great audio output adding to the overall experience.

We faced some issues, however, when we played Call of Duty, but there was no heating and the overall experience was not bad.

Camera

The phone features a 48-megapixel primary camera, an 8-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera, two 2MP sensors for portrait mode, and a 16MP selfie shooter. The camera setup lacks a depth sensor. Don't go merely for the quad-camera claim. We had expected more that the average camera performance the phone gave.

You can see grains upon zooming a picture. Also, the picture quality is not great when you zoom in to take a picture. The performance in low light is not good, either — it fails to capture the details and the colours are not how they are supposed to be.

But the wide-angle camera is not too bad. The pictures are grainy if you go too much into the details, but that's the case with most wide-angle lenses of phones in this price range.

The portrait mode is a let-down; it takes some effort to get the edges right. The natural skin tone is lost with too much softness in pictures.

Verdict

We expected more from the phone, so it missed the mark by a wide margin. The downsides include screen resolution, interface, and camera. On the positive side, the phone scores in its performance, thanks to its 8GB RAM and Snapdragon 665 processor. The battery performance is one of the best in the segment. But more was expected in terms of size and design. For its price, the Oppo A9 2020 would have a tough time competing with its rivals in the price segment.