iPhone 17 Pro vs Oppo Find X9 Ultra

iPhone 17 Pro

The 6.3-inch Super Retina XDR OLED with ProMotion 1-120Hz LTPO panel is essentially unchanged from the iPhone 16 Pro in resolution, but Apple has bumped peak outdoor brightness to 3,000 nits and added an improved anti-reflective coating. Almost every reviewer praises the screen, though the awkward complication is that the same 6.3-inch ProMotion panel is now also on the $799 iPhone 17 — eroding one of the Pro's traditional differentiators.

• The displays get super bright for easy viewing in sunny conditions, and the Pro models recharge fairly quickly with the right adapter.
• Outdoor brightness now reaches 3,000 nits with reduced glare and higher contrast — using the phone for navigation outdoors or in a well-lit train is noticeably more comfortable.
• The base iPhone 17 now uses the same 6.3-inch ProMotion display as the iPhone 17 Pro — a huge upgrade for the entry-level model that erodes one of the Pro's traditional differentiators.
• Apple has improved the anti-reflection treatment, though in real-world use it's been hard to determine what's changed compared to the iPhone 16 Pro's panel.
• Apple's Ceramic Shield 2 has held up well against scratches during a month of pocket abuse without a case — fared much better than every iPhone the reviewer has owned in the past six years.
• The 6.3-inch screen size is divisive — long-time Plus and Pro Max owners coming down to the smaller Pro find it 'feels like a toy' even though the display itself is excellent.

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.

iPhone 17 Pro

The A19 Pro with 6-core CPU, 6-core GPU and 12GB of RAM (up from 8GB on the iPhone 16 Pro) is meaningfully faster than its predecessor and benchmarks ahead of every Android flagship. The big news, though, is the laser-welded vapor chamber cooling system, which finally fixes the iPhone 15/16 Pro's notorious thermal throttling. Sustained gaming performance, ProRes video recording and image generation are all noticeably better.

• The benchmark scores blew everything else out of the water — Apple's A19 Pro with 12GB of RAM and the vapor chamber make these the most powerful smartphones around.
• Geekbench multi-core hits 9,994 and 3DMark Wild Life lands at 5,400 — confirming the A19 Pro's ~14% CPU and ~40% GPU lead over the iPhone 16 Pro.
• Playing Assassin's Creed Mirage at max settings was significantly smoother on the iPhone 17 Pro than on the iPhone 16 Pro last year, with stable frame rates and rarely any stutters.
• The vapor chamber isn't just marketing — the iPhone 17 Pro ran significantly cooler than the iPhone 16 Pro in all testing, with heat spread evenly across the back rather than concentrated in one hot spot.
• On 3DMark stress tests the iPhone 17 Pro delivered 35-40% better stability than the iPhone 16 Pro and 45-50% better on ray-traced workloads, with the phone never crossing 100°F in 40-60 minutes of gaming.
• 12GB of RAM is a real improvement — apps stay in memory longer, with Reminders retaining its state across three different grocery stores after using Apple Maps and other apps in between.
• Image Playground and Genmoji generation are notably faster on the iPhone 17 Pro than on the iPhone 16 Pro, thanks to the neural accelerators in the A19 Pro's 6-core GPU.
• The new A19 Pro is a big leap forward, much bigger than your typical yearly upgrade, and 12GB of RAM makes the device feel more future-proof for the next four to five years.
• Apple suddenly couldn't stop talking about thermal performance — they ditched titanium and completely redesigned the phone to fit a vapor chamber inside, but didn't show a single feature that needs it.

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.

iPhone 17 Pro

The single biggest selling point. The 3,998 mAh battery on the Pro and ~4,823 mAh on the Pro Max (5,088 mAh in eSIM-only markets) deliver Apple's biggest single-generation battery jump in years — Apple claims 33h video on the Pro and 39h on the Pro Max, and real-world reviewers consistently report two-day endurance on the Max and comfortable single-day endurance on the Pro. Wired charging via the new 40W Dynamic Power Adapter hits 50% in 20 minutes (verified), and MagSafe/Qi2 wireless tops out at 25W.

• I haven't worried about battery life on either phone — hit nearly 7 hours of screen-on time on the iPhone 17 Pro with 30 percent left, and over 5 hours on the Pro Max with 55 percent remaining.
• The Apple smartphone sets new high scores for battery runtimes — 'fabulous battery life' is one of the headline pros in the verdict.
• The Pro Max made it to the end of Saturday before dropping to 20 percent after being charged on Thursday morning — two full days of use is genuinely achievable on the larger model.
• Charging hits 51% in 20 minutes with a 40W plug (matching Apple's claim) and a full charge takes 80 minutes — about 25 minutes faster than the iPhone Air.
• MagSafe wireless charging now hits 25W (with a 30W adapter), and Qi2 is officially supported — 0-50% in 30 minutes wirelessly.
• Could confidently leave home without a power bank and still return with 15-20 percent juice left after hours of music streaming — battery anxiety on a smaller iPhone is finally cured.
• On r/apple owners report ~10 hours of screen-on time per charge and the phone stays 'ice cold' — battery is the most-praised aspect of the iPhone 17 Pro in user threads.
• iPhone 13 Pro Max and 15 Pro Max upgraders on r/apple report battery feeling 'exaggerated' or even slightly worse than their old phone — likely tied to iOS 26 overhead or AI features.

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.

iPhone 17 Pro

The iPhone 17 Pro ships with iOS 26 and its new translucent 'Liquid Glass' design language, which is itself polarizing — some reviewers love the refresh, others find it visually busy or hard on the eyes. Apple Intelligence remains the biggest disappointment of the generation: reviewers across The Verge, Trusted Reviews, Digital Trends and 9to5Mac say it's still hardly worth mentioning two years in, with most useful tasks falling back to ChatGPT integration. Apple-style long-term update support remains a major plus.

• Apple Intelligence is still merely a footnote in the review — features like Writing Tools and Clean Up can't compete with Google's and Samsung's equivalents.
• Apple Intelligence is still somewhere between useless and MIA — listed as one of the iPhone 17's main cons in the Pro/Bad summary.
• What's up with Siri? — listed as a 'Bad' in the iPhone 17 Pro review summary, reflecting widespread frustration that Apple's AI assistant has fallen behind Gemini and ChatGPT.
• iOS 26's Liquid Glass aesthetic is a significant refresh that matches the vibes of the new hardware — bigger buttons, new lock screen styles, and refined Camera and Photos apps.
• After three months Liquid Glass has matured — there are now ways to reduce the transparency effect, and 'the way certain parts of an app blend behind others is a real joy.'
• iOS 26 with the always-on display and Priority Notifications is a genuinely useful combination — you can glance at the lock screen to see if anything needs immediate attention.
• Apple is good at supporting phones for extended periods (industry expects 6-7 years of iOS updates), and Android competitors are still catching up on that front.
• r/apple commenters openly speculate Apple may abandon Apple Intelligence as a primary selling point given how poorly it has performed — 'crazy to think they missed that badly on a feature they invested so much in.'
• Android switchers continue to flag the iOS keyboard, lack of universal back gesture, and per-app data controls as the things they can't get past — Pixel 8 Pro and Pixel 9 Pro switchers on r/iphone, r/Android, and r/GooglePixel all return to Android within 2-3 months.

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.