The quartet that will dominate the Superphone conversation for the foreseeable future is now complete. With the addition of the Oppo Find X9 Ultra Samsung Galaxy S26 UltraThe Xiaomi 17 Ultraand this Vivo X300 Ultra In the Indian market, it’s time for the wallet to reevaluate what a flagship phone really is. In Oppo’s case, the spec is a leap from impressive to substantial. Find X9 ProWhich I pegged as an ‘elite photography phone’ in my analysis late last year. The key Hasselblad partnership has come to prominence for the Find X9 Ultra, as it did for the Find X9 Pro.
None of these phones shy away from the reality that you’ll have to pay a lot of money to buy one. oppo find x ultra price ₹1,69,999 and some offers make it more competitive ₹1,36,999. In comparison, the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra which has been around since the end of the year has now become costlier ₹Starting at Rs 1,30,999, while the extremely impressive Xiaomi 17 Ultra is priced at ₹1,39,999 and the Vivo X300 Ultra is asking you to part with the least ₹1,59,999 and that much ₹Rs 2,09,999 for complete photography kit. Photography enthusiasts will benefit from the camera advancements, while these phones will have a certain show off value in some circles.
The Oppo Find Some of this may have to do with perception as the Find Two very striking elements, including the orange camera key on the spine of one side, and the very noticeable (at least once you look closely) orange ring around the large camera island.
Speaking of which, while the camera island is circular, the glass lens has a curved hexagonal shape, which looks a bit unusual and is something that will stick in your mind. If you value aesthetics, that is.
The reason you should buy the Find The 3.2-megapixel multispectral pixel sensor cannot be exempted from the conversation. And this is the underlying sentiment with the current generation of Ultra phones, the cameras make up the sturdiest case, and the phone is simply an add-on.
As for the fact that Oppo started its pitch with the main cameras being the largest sensors of their kind in a phone (at least by megapixel count), but what’s worth noting is that the Xiaomi 17 Ultra’s 1-inch sensor still holds the overall footprint advantage over this 1/1.2-inch sensor. There are two things that need to be addressed – it potentially has a maximum light reference for the image processing algorithms to work with and secondly, attention will need to be paid to optimization, otherwise we risk reverting back to 2022 when many phones had the bad habit of over-brightening everything for massively rich photos. The 200-megapixel telephoto with 3x optical zoom will get tremendous mileage, but you may rely more on the 50-megapixel telephoto that goes up to 10x zoom.
And it’s really the unique sensor offering that sets the Find X9 Ultra apart from the ultra competition. The Galaxy S23 Ultra was the last phone before this to feature a 10x optical zoom lens. Oppo made sure that approach is back, and with a much larger sensor (1/2.75-inch compared to 1/3.52-inch in the past), along with 20x lossless magnification. I have to say that the Find
There are different approaches to the aesthetics and overall tone of photography, and you may prefer another camera manufacturer or set of phones. That said, the Find The biggest advantage of this large sensor with large aperture is a beautiful background blur effect. You’ll almost immediately notice how much less AI detail or color tweaking infusions there are in the Find X9 Ultra’s photos compared to some of its Ultra rivals (you can guess which ones I’m referring to).
That said, many photos look overexposed (not overexposed at the sensor level, but stimulating processing) and this takes away the realism momentarily, affecting the colors on the canvas. One would hope updates would fix this. Secondly, the 20x lossless magnification relies heavily on Oppo’s AI to make things work, and things don’t look very smart – text isn’t AI-ed correctly, and many photos look very sharp and artificial.
I would put the Find X9 Ultra’s brightness at the same level as the Xiaomi 17 Ultra, along with photo detail and realism in low light. But the Find
This is all before you get a taste of Oppo’s party piece, Hasselblad Master Mode, which strips away all AI processing for realism and the camera optics do their best to replicate the feeling of the moment. If you’re not entirely comfortable with manual controls, it’s equally easy to screw up photos here, but for those who consider themselves a notch more advanced than casual photography enthusiasts, this will be perfect.
This is while I put the photography tonality of the Leica on the 17 Ultra and the Hasselblad’s tuning on the same level of personal preference – just wish Hasselblad had made it more accessible like the Leica. In a way, it also gives a snapshot of the ultra smartphone space with the different tonality and customization directions taken by Leica, Hasselblad and Zeiss, while Samsung has taken a more AI-centric direction for photography without a camera partner.
I said earlier that you can look at the Oppo Find X9 Ultra as a smartphone with a very powerful camera. On that front too, it’s elite level performance, with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 paired with the singular specification of 12GB of memory and 512GB of storage. The comfort and potential for ColorOS 16, I’ll leave to your judgment, but there are very subtle elements that should be appreciated – Flux home screens with adaptive icons and folder options, a new rendering engine that improves transition animations for starters, and a subtle-ish mix of AI functionality where it’s relevant.
Most relevant to those who carry or use multiple devices that need to sync to a certain extent, the Find X9 Ultra’s Quick Share for Android supports transfers to Apple devices, including the iPhone and iPad. Then there’s O+ Connect for Mac, which is much more than a big screen replica of your phone, but a very useful file manager and data transfer solution. Any documents on your phone that need quick editing? This is the path you have to take.
That level of performance is also well-matched in terms of battery longevity, with Oppo’s adoption of silicon carbon technology allowing for higher capacity and higher density than simply increasing the mAh number. For context, that’s a 7050 mAh battery, which is larger than the Xiaomi 17 Ultra, Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, and even many flagships outside the ‘Ultra’ ring. You’re looking at about 2 days of use, even with enthusiastic use of the camera for photos and videos.
None of the four ‘ultra’ super phones are alike, each with their own unique personality traits and quirks. Vivo and Zeiss’ vision is to build on the excellent optical sensor on the X300 Ultra with the capability for additional lens accessories. Xiaomi has brought its top-tier game with the 17 Ultra, with Huawei’s customizations worth their weight in gold (and this appears to be the deepest camera maker and phone maker commitment among the troika), something I experienced with the variant as well. Xiaomi 17 Ultra by Leeka Before it is formally announced as the Xiaomi-powered Xiaomi Leitzphone. Samsung believes the algorithm can cater to everything a camera manufacturer might try to bring to the table, and they may have a fair point as their Galaxy S26 Ultra has performed quite effectively so far.
The Oppo Find It also has a distinctive visual appeal, especially with the vegan leather finish. It must be said, while no phone is perfect, the Oppo Find Ultimately, the choice is yours.
