Honor Magic 8 Pro Air vs Oppo Find X9 Ultra

Honor Magic 8 Pro Air

A 6.31-inch 120Hz OLED with a headline 6,000-nit local peak. Real-world brightness is more modest but still excellent, and it's comfortable for the eyes.

• 6.31-inch OLED at 120Hz with Dolby Vision and up to 6,000 nits of peak brightness.
• In real-world testing manual max brightness reached ~800 nits, with roughly 5,400 nits only at a 10% window size — the 6,000-nit figure is a small-window peak.
• Hit a whopping 1,426 nits in automatic mode (the highest measured to date) and a solid sustained 789 nits in manual mode.
• Super bright even in direct sunlight; the cameras, though not quite on par with pricier flagships, are very good indeed.

Oppo Find X9 Ultra

A 6.8-inch LTPO OLED with up to 144Hz and very high real-world brightness — among the brightest screens on any phone outdoors.

• 6.8-inch LTPO OLED panel up to 144Hz, with a maximum brightness around 1,800 nits and dimming as low as 1 nit.
• Hits a staggering ~3,600 nits of peak HDR brightness, making it incredibly easy to see and edit shots in direct sunlight.
• In manual mode the display peaks at 840 nits, rising to ~1,156 nits in auto on a 75% white patch and up to ~1,932 nits in the native gallery app.
• The smoother 144Hz panel and 3,600-nit brightness outperform Samsung's display.

Honor Magic 8 Pro Air

A genuine surprise for an ultra-thin phone — a full triple system with a real periscope telephoto and an excellent selfie camera. Most reviewers are impressed; a minority find consistency lacking.

• A 50MP main with OIS, a 50MP ultrawide (16mm f/2.2) and a 64MP periscope telephoto (74mm f/2.6, OIS), with usable zoom from 23mm to 148mm.
• The cameras are a genuine surprise in the best way — to put it in context, the iPhone Air has just one.
• The main camera produces sharp, detailed, naturally color-accurate shots in daylight and holds up well in low light with OIS.
• The main camera is flawless — right up there with other flagship phones, vibrant colors and stunning bokeh — though ultrawide video isn't the best.
• Not that you can't get good shots, but 7 or 8 out of 10 are bad or below average at best, and the selfie camera is a solid 3.5/5.
• The 50MP selfie camera with 4K 60fps front-facing video is a standout spec still uncommon on 2026 flagships.
• Switching to telephoto sometimes triggers about a 1-second stabilization delay.

Oppo Find X9 Ultra

The reason to buy it. A Hasselblad-tuned quad system with the most versatile zoom on any phone, a true 10x optical periscope and an optional 300mm Hasselblad teleconverter. Near-universally praised, with only minor sharpness and ultrawide caveats.

• A 200MP main, 200MP 3x telephoto, 50MP 10x optical telephoto and 50MP ultrawide, all Hasselblad-branded — camera-first overkill in the best way.
• Consistently great photos, sharpness and dynamic range with really good color calibration — this phone did basically everything right in the camera department; an incredibly well-rounded smartphone camera.
• Is this the best camera phone ever built? — my new favorite camera phone and one of the best Android phones I've ever used.
• Even after a direct shootout, still the best camera phone I've ever used.
• Detail is very good, but sharpness remains a bit underwhelming on the main camera.

Honor Magic 8 Pro Air

The MediaTek Dimensity 9500 is genuinely flagship-class for everyday use and short gaming, but the 6.1mm chassis has real thermal headroom limits under sustained synthetic load.

• Runs the Dimensity 9500 — a flagship chip on TSMC's 3nm process — and performs as expected at the higher end in Geekbench.
• It couldn't complete the full 20-cycle 3DMark Lifestyle Extreme test — crashing after ~5–6 cycles with an overheating warning — a real concern under heavy load.
• In a stress test it dropped to ~55% of peak performance with temperatures climbing to ~48°C — thermal headroom is limited.
• Honor of Kings held a steady 118–120fps at max graphics even during intense team fights; League of Legends Mobile held 120fps for 30 minutes using just 8% battery.
• Thermal management keeps performance consistent and getting over 60fps in GFXBench's demanding 4K test is an excellent result — a real engineering achievement in a 6.1mm body.

Oppo Find X9 Ultra

Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 puts it near the top of the benchmark charts, but sustained-load stability is mediocre and Oppo deliberately throttles early to control heat.

• As expected, the Find X9 Ultra earns excellent benchmark scores near the top of the charts.
• A 3D ultrasonic fingerprint scanner Oppo claims is 35% faster and 33% more reliable, plus vapor cooling to dissipate heat through the aluminium frame for better sustained performance.
• 3DMark returned ~7,530 best-loop and ~3,682 low-loop with only ~49% stability, and peak performance didn't last a minute — weak sustained behaviour.
• Genshin Impact stayed consistently above 50fps and remained smooth even when throttling to ~30fps after ~16 minutes at 41.5°C, at under 4W power draw.
• Honor of Kings averaged 144fps over 30 minutes at max settings; Genshin held max 60fps before stabilizing near 50fps.

Honor Magic 8 Pro Air

The headline achievement: a 5,500mAh silicon-carbon cell in a 6.1mm body that comprehensively out-endures the iPhone Air, with fast 80W wired, 50W wireless and reverse charging.

• Fits a 5,500mAh silicon-carbon battery into the 6.1mm body via a 917Wh/L energy density — genuinely impressive for a phone this thin.
• After 5 hours of moderate daily use plus a full hour of Honor of Kings there was still 40.2% battery remaining.
• Real-world use delivers ~5–6 hours of screen-on time to 20%, and a 4–6:30pm session of 5G, Bluetooth music, ~130 photos and 1.5h navigation dropped the battery just 39%.
• The iPhone Air dies after ~9–10 hours, but this still has 18–20% left after 14 hours — stereo speakers, a real zoom lens and a 5,500mAh cell vs the iPhone's sub-4,000mAh.
• 80W wired charging hit 22% in 10 minutes, 66% in 30 minutes and a full charge in 54 minutes, plus 50W wireless and reverse wireless.
• It includes the industry's thinnest 0.15mm wireless charging coil to support 50W wireless fast charging in this chassis.

Oppo Find X9 Ultra

A genuine highlight: a 7,050mAh silicon-carbon cell that posts some of the best endurance numbers of any 2026 flagship, with fast 100W wired and 50W wireless charging.

• Draws power from a 7,050mAh battery — a sizeable increase over the previous generation — with 100W SuperVOOC wired and 50W AirVOOC wireless charging.
• Earned an active-use battery score of over 20 hours; with the SuperVOOC charger it went 0–75% in 30 minutes and to full in 45 minutes.
• After ~10 hours of continuous use starting at 7am it still had 53% battery, regularly getting 8–9 hours of screen-on time and ~40% left after a 13-hour day.
• A PCMark synthetic loop returned 15 hours 2 minutes, and 100W SuperVOOC charging took ~49–52 minutes (the charger isn't included).
• With moderate usage you can easily expect more than 2 days of battery life — Oppo finally feels like a truly complete product.

Honor Magic 8 Pro Air

MagicOS 10 on Android 16 with a strong 7-year update promise and useful AI, but it's the package's least-polished element and feels iOS-derived.

• Ships with MagicOS 10 on Android 16 and Honor promises 7 years of Android version updates — a big plus for a Chinese flagship.
• MagicOS wins as the most-improved UI, and the nano-crystal-shield display claims better drop resistance than competitors.
• The Honor Magic 8 line continues pairing stunning screens with excellent cameras, but it still can't quite nail the software.
• Honor disabling 60fps video on this phone — when other devices with the same chipset enable it — is an odd, avoidable software limitation.
• The AI image system basically does what Apple Intelligence promised — hold up the phone and it tells you what you're looking at.

Oppo Find X9 Ultra

ColorOS 16 has matured a lot and is fast and smooth, but it still trails Samsung and Google on AI depth and feels iOS-derived to some — the phone's clearest weak point relative to its hardware.

• ColorOS 16 feels like one of the best versions yet.
• It's a good Android experience but not on par with the Galaxy experience for AI features and tool integration, and portrait autofocus struggles in some low-light conditions.
• For me it's the best version of Android I've ever used — light, fast and smooth with no major issues.
• The hardware is superior to the latest Samsung, but the software feels like an imitation of iOS.
• With a bit of tweaking and updates, Oppo's software and camera engineers can make this even better — there's clear headroom.

Honor Magic 8 Pro Air

At roughly $640–718 it dramatically undercuts the iPhone Air while out-specifying it — the obvious thin-phone pick if you can buy one.

• Starts at CNY 4,999 (about $717), undercutting the iPhone Air while adding cameras, battery and speakers.
• At around $640–700 you get a 155g 6.1mm phone with a flagship Dimensity 9500, a capable triple camera with telephoto, a 5,500mAh battery lasting 20+ hours, 80W wired, 50W wireless and IP69.
• Is this the best 'air' phone you can buy right now? — the verdict is yes; the iPhone Air costs more and gives one camera and less than half the battery.
• It's cheaper than the iPhone Air in China, but still a lot more expensive than expected.
• After 18 days with it, this is the most correct product Honor has released in the past 2 years.

Oppo Find X9 Ultra

Premium-priced and hard to buy in many markets, but reviewers broadly conclude it out-cameras the S26 Ultra and Pixel and edges the Vivo X300 Ultra on usability.

• Its main compromises are the ~€1,699 price, large 236g body, occasional software concerns and limited availability in some markets.
• It feels like Oppo wanted to make the camera first and just happened to also create the best Android phone you can get right now — though it won't win every year-end award.
• The base Find X9 Ultra starts at 7,499 yuan in China — roughly £814 / ~$1,100 — but the heaviness and visual pressure are the first impression.
• The closest rival is the Vivo X300 Ultra, but the X9 Ultra wins by having a more user-friendly OS.
• The Hasselblad alliance delivers a phone that genuinely challenges the Galaxy S26 Ultra on cameras.