Oppo Find X9 Ultra vs Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra

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.

Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra

Underneath the Privacy Display tech, the panel is the familiar 6.9-inch QHD+ Dynamic AMOLED 2X at 1–120Hz LTPO with 2,600 nits peak brightness (lab-confirmed closer to 3,000) and Gorilla Armor 2 anti-reflective coating. The hardware specs barely changed; what's controversial is whether the new panel structure subtly degrades the always-on viewing experience versus the S25 Ultra's reference panel.

• 6.9-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X panel at 3,120 × 1,440, 1–120Hz LTPO, 2,600-nit peak claim — same nominal specs as last year
• Lab measurement at Linus Tech Tips actually hit 2,997 nits peak — Samsung is 'underselling' the panel's brightness
• MKBHD notes the panel is still 8-bit simulating 10-bit color and that the anti-reflective coating is 'not quite as good at the anti-reflective thing' as the S25 Ultra
• Verge sees more color shift on the S26 Ultra than the S25 Ultra when viewing from a very low angle, even with Privacy Display off
• Out of the box the phone is configured to 1080p for battery; switching to 1440p is a one-time settings change every reviewer recommends
• TechRadar still considers the panel 'class-leading' for outdoor visibility, HDR playback, and stylus latency in 2026
• Trusted Reviews calls it 'easily the best screen around — or at least it will be until it's inevitably copied by the competition'
• Gorilla Armor 2 with ceramic-infused glass keeps reflections way down and survived PBKreviews' four bare-concrete drops without cracking

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.
• The ultrawide is probably the weakest part of the setup — with the first three cameras taking so much space, Oppo reused the Samsung GN5 sensor here.
• Night-mode processing — color, contrast and exposure handling — is so much better than the Galaxy S26 Ultra's, and the ultrawide is now one of the best for detail preservation.
• The optional 300mm Hasselblad teleconverter delivers ~13x (300mm) optical-feel zoom that retains real telephoto sharpness, extending to ~60x (1380mm).

Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra

Same sensors as the S25 Ultra (200MP main 1/1.3in, 50MP ultrawide, 10MP 3x telephoto, 50MP 5x periscope, 12MP selfie) but the main and 5x get wider apertures (f/1.4 from f/1.7; f/2.9 from f/3.4). Reviewers agree the low-light gain is real and visible without leaning on AI. New software tricks: APV codec for near-lossless 1080p/4K video, Horizon Lock super-stabilization, and an expanded Photo Assist with generative editing. The unloved 10MP 3x sensor and AI-aggressive 30x+ zoom are the recurring weak points.

• 200MP main with new f/1.4 aperture lets the sensor 'collect more light, resulting in quicker exposures with less motion blur' — Verge confirms lower ISO and faster shutter speeds than the S25 Ultra in side-by-side testing
• Forbes' two-week test on low-light cat photos found 'much more vivid colors' and 'sharper details with more enhanced shadows' versus the S25 Ultra — 'the difference feels truly drastic'
• Engadget's challenging backlit Grogu shot showed the S26 Ultra outperform a Pixel 10 Pro on subject exposure — 'managed to make an already great main camera just a bit better'
• 10MP 3x telephoto is dated and the only zoom range where image quality visibly sags — Trusted Reviews calls it 'particularly dated' compared to Oppo's 200MP zoom in the Find X9 Pro

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.

Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra

Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy, paired with 12 or 16GB RAM and up to 1TB storage, comfortably tops every published Android benchmark and trades blows with the iPhone 17 Pro in single-core. A redesigned, larger vapor chamber keeps sustained performance up, though Wild Life stress runs still shed 30-40% of peak GPU output under load.

• Engadget records a Geekbench 6 multi-core score of 11,240 (vs 9,828 on the S25 Ultra) and GPU score of 25,403 — the fastest Android scores currently published
• Trusted Reviews measured 3DMark Wild Life Stress Test stability at 67.6% — a big jump from the S25 Ultra's 58.4% and ahead of the Honor Magic 8 Pro (55.4%)
• Ars Technica records the S26 Ultra topping all benchmark charts on paper but losing 'about 40 percent of its graphical performance' under prolonged stress
• Linus Tech Tips' stress test showed the S26 Ultra outperforming an iPhone 17 Pro by ~34% and a OnePlus 15 by ~5%, but flagged that it 'gradually gets worse over time' as thermal throttling kicks in

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.
• Charges 0–100% in about 52 minutes on the official 80W charger in a head-to-head charge test.

Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra

The S26 Ultra inherits the same 5,000 mAh capacity Samsung's used since the S20 Ultra — six years unchanged — but 60W wired charging is genuinely faster and Qi 2.2 25W wireless is overdue. Reviewers split: most say battery life is 'fine' but no longer flagship in a market where OnePlus 15 ships with 7,300 mAh and Oppo Find X9 Pro packs 7,500 mAh. Charging speeds are now a competitive feature, not a weakness.

• Same 5,000 mAh battery as the S25 Ultra, S24 Ultra, S23 Ultra, S22 Ultra, S21 Ultra and S20 Ultra — 9to5Google calls this 'easily the most egregious spec Samsung hasn't changed'
• Phone Arena's real-world diary measured average 100% screen time at just 6 hours 1 minute — 'just not very impressive' next to iPhone 17 Pro Max's nearly 9 hours on the same test
• Engadget's local video rundown measured 30 hours 3 minutes — only ~30 minutes longer than the S25 Ultra; chip efficiency gains, not capacity, are doing the work
• 60W wired charging: 0-50% in 18-19 minutes, 0-75% in 30 minutes, 0-100% in 47-53 minutes across multiple independent tests
• Mrwhosetheboss' charging test confirmed 47 minutes 0-100% versus 1 hour 19 minutes for the iPhone 17 Pro Max — a 32-minute charging gap in Samsung's favor

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.

Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra

One UI 8.5 ships on Android 16 with seven years of OS + security updates promised. Beyond the new transparent glass UI choices, the story is Galaxy AI — Now Brief, Now Nudge, Photo Assist, Creative Studio, summarized notifications, plus Gemini task automation (beta) for limited ride-share and food-delivery flows. Reviewers split sharply on whether the AI features are genuinely useful or 'slop', but a local-only AI processing toggle gets near-universal praise.

• Seven OS upgrades and security patches take the phone through to Android 23 in 2033 — Trusted Reviews calls it 'one of the strongest long-term Android bets around'
• Now Nudge is Samsung's Magic Cue clone for proactive contextual suggestions — Verge saw it work a couple times but Ars Technica 'haven't seen a single Nudge appear in my testing'
• Gemini task automation can open Uber/DoorDash and complete the flow up to the final confirm tap — Ars says it 'usually got there, asking me to tap the final order button after a lengthy wait'
• Photo Assist's natural-language editing is powerful but unsettling — Verge could 'remove my husband's shirt' and 'paste celebrities into selfies'; the Engadget Pikachu sticker test was outright strange

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.

Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra

At $1,300 starting (256GB), $1,499 (512GB), $1,799 (1TB), the S26 Ultra still costs more than the OnePlus 15 ($899 with double the storage), the Pixel 10 Pro XL ($1,199), and the iPhone 17 Pro Max ($1,199). Reviewers position the value case around the privacy display, the camera versatility, the seven-year update window, and the One UI ecosystem rather than raw spec-for-spec parity.

• Starting MSRP held at $1,299 — but 512GB jumped to $1,499 (from $1,419) and 1TB to $1,799 (from $1,659) versus the S25 Ultra
• OnePlus 15 at $899 includes 512GB + 16GB RAM + 7,300 mAh battery — 'you cannot beat that' value, per a side-by-side owner on r/OnePlus
• Engadget calls the $1,300 hold-the-line price 'almost a blessing' given component-cost inflation across the industry in 2026
• Trade-in offers worsened sharply after pre-order — 9to5Google describes trade values that 'fell off a cliff' and perks like doubled storage 'vanished this time around'