For several years, the top Chinese smartphone brands have been duking it out for photography dominance. Even though year-over-year changes are often minuscule, these companies try to one-up one another. Take Oppo’s latest flagship, the Find X9 Pro, as an example.
It boasts a 200-megapixel telephoto lens developed with camera manufacturer Hasselblad, so you can zoom in on a subject from afar. If that wasn’t enough, Oppo sells a bonkers Hasselblad Teleconverter Kit, a proper 3.28X telephoto lens that slots onto a special case providing more optical zoom than I’ve ever seen in a smartphone.
The Find X9 Pro, launching alongside the slightly more modest Find X9, already launched in China, but will soon be landing in the UK and Europe (not the US). As you might expect, it is an absolute unit in terms of specs. Alongside the versatile camera system with pro software tools, there’s a lovely 6.78-inch screen, and a truly enormous 7,500 mAh silicon-carbon battery.
Close Up
Photograph: Simon Hill
I love a telephoto lens in my phone. While I rarely bother with the ultrawide, the option to zoom in from a distance often proves useful. You can get close-ups at gigs and other stage-based events, pick up on cool architectural details, and sometimes figure out what the hell that distant thing is. Aptly-named zoomers don’t realize how good they’ve got it; you used to need a DSLR with a huge lens to get as close as your average phone can now.
The Oppo Find X9 Pro has a 200-megapixel telephoto lens that supports 3X optical zoom, and it can take excellent shots at 6X zoom by cropping 200-megapixel images down to 50 megapixels. Oppo claims it’s capable of 13.2X lossless zoom using computational photography; I’m not sure about that number, but the Find X9 Pro certainly takes great photos of any distant subject. Technically, the digital zoom goes up to 120X, but anything beyond 30X starts to look like an oil painting.
Impressive as it is, there have been other phones with 200-megapixel telephoto lenses, so Oppo kicked things up a notch with the optional Hasselblad Teleconverter Kit. Used in conjunction with its Magnetic Photographer Case, there’s a sliding attachment that slots over the camera module, then the lens twists and clicks securely into place over the telephoto lens, adding another 3.28X zoom.