64 ANDROID ADVISOR • ISSUE 71
noticeable and will save you a few pennies on buying
your own. The bargain price does mean that this
phone is not water-resistant but this is typically
something really only seen on higher-end phones,
anyway. There’s also no wireless charging.
At 163.6x75.6x9.1mm, this is quite a large phone,
although those familiar with Oppo will know that such
a trait is characteristic of the brand. The A9 won’t fit
in smaller pockets and I personally can’t use it one-
handed easily, however, it’s a great phone for watching
videos on. At 195g, it’s not too heavy in comparison to
some other larger phones on the market too.
The Oppo A9 has a Micro-USB port, dual-SIM
support, a 3.5mm headphone jack and stereo
speakers with Dolby Atmos sound. The latter
works quite well when listening to audio out loud;
bringing depth to the sound quality and not having
that ‘tinny’ feel that lots of other mobile speakers
unfortunately suffer from.
Performance
Running on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 processor,
the Oppo A9 is swift to everyday tasks and seldom
encounters issues with apps crashing or being slow.
It runs on Android 9 (Pie) with a layered ColorOS 6.1
interface on top. As Android skins go, this is a clean
and smooth user experience with no major hiccups.
If the phone does get an update to Android 10
(which is available on other devices), it’ll likely have to
wait in line behind the company’s flagships.
If the traditional home page layout isn’t doing
it for you, you can turn on ‘Smart Assistant’, which
