OPPO A9 2020 Hands-on

OPPO recently announced that they are releasing two new smartphones this month. One of them is the OPPO A9 2020, sporting a 6.5-inch screen, Snapdragon 665 chipset, 8GB of RAM, triple rear cameras, and a massive 5,000mAh battery. Check out our initial thoughts about the device below.

One of the first things you’ll notice about the OPPO A9 2020 is its build. First of all, it’s tall. At 163.6mm, it’s even taller than the 162.3mm Samsung Galaxy Note10+. The 75.6mm width is okay as we can still comfortably grip it thanks to its curves. It’s chunky though, at 9.1mm but that can be attributed to the large battery.

The front has the 6.5-inch screen with HD+ resolution and a Waterdrop design to house the 16MP selfie camera. Above is the linear speaker for calls. The display is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3 and a preinstalled screen protector which is excellent.

The colors look nice for an IPS panel. The 269ppi pixel density seems underwhelming on paper but when it should be fine if you’re viewing HD content. The bezels are also noticeable, especially the thick chin in the bottom.

On the right, we have the power/lock button, while on the left is the volume rocker and the card tray that can accommodate two nano-sized SIM cards and a microSD card. The buttons are plastic, but they feel firm and clicky. They’re also positioned near the middle of the frame, so they’re easier to reach.

At the bottom, we have the 3.5mm audio jack, primary microphone, USB Type-C port, and the loudspeaker.

Flip it on its back, and you will notice the glossy back panel. What we have is the Space Purple color which looks attractive. It’s made of plastic but still looks and feels good.

Also found here is the protruding camera module that houses three cameras. There’s another tiny module just beside it for the fourth camera and LED flash. Located below the cameras is the fingerprint scanner

When it comes to overall quality, the device is solid and a bit hefty. The frame and the back panel are made of plastic, but the paint job and the finish makes it look premium.

Given the Snapdragon 665 chip, 8GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, quad-rear cameras, and massive 5,000mAh battery, it seems like OPPO wants to give consumers a robust daily driver that can serve different purposes like video entertainment, gaming, and mobile photography. As for how well it does those things, we’ll find out in our review.

The price of the OPPO A9 2020 will be revealed on September 19, so stay tuned.

OPPO A9 2020 specs:
6.5-inch HD+ (1600 x 720) Waterdrop IPS screen, 269ppi
Corning Gorilla Glass 3
Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 2.0GHz octa-core CPU
Adreno 610
8GB RAM
128GB UFS 2.1
microSD card support (dedicated slot)
48MP (main) + 8MP (ultrawide) + 2MP (depth)+ 2MP (mono) quad-rear cameras
16MP front camera w/ AI Beautification
Dual-SIM
4G LTE
WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
Bluetooth 5.0
GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS
USB Type-C
3.5mm audio port
Fingerprint scanner (rear)
Dual-stereo speakers
Dolby Atmos Sound Effects
ColorOS 6.0.1 (Android 9 Pie)
5,000mAh battery w/ Reverse Charging
163.6 x 75.6 x 9.1 mm
195 g
Space Purple, Marine Green