For several years, the top Chinese smartphone brands have been duking it out for photography dominance. Even though year-over-year changes are often minuscule, these companies try to one-up one another. Take Oppo’s latest flagship, the Find X9 Pro, as an example.

It boasts a 200-megapixel telephoto lens developed with camera manufacturer Hasselblad, so you can zoom in on a subject from afar. If that wasn’t enough, Oppo sells a bonkers Hasselblad Teleconverter Kit, a proper 3.28X telephoto lens that slots onto a special case providing more optical zoom than I’ve ever seen in a smartphone.

The Find X9 Pro, launching alongside the slightly more modest Find X9, already launched in China, but will soon be landing in the UK and Europe (not the US). As you might expect, it is an absolute unit in terms of specs. Alongside the versatile camera system with pro software tools, there’s a lovely 6.78-inch screen, and a truly enormous 7,500 mAh silicon-carbon battery.

Close Up

I love a telephoto lens in my phone. While I rarely bother with the ultrawide, the option to zoom in from a distance often proves useful. You can get close-ups at gigs and other stage-based events, pick up on cool architectural details, and sometimes figure out what the hell that distant thing is. Aptly-named zoomers don’t realize how good they’ve got it; you used to need a DSLR with a huge lens to get as close as your average phone can now.

The Oppo Find X9 Pro has a 200-megapixel telephoto lens that supports 3X optical zoom, and it can take excellent shots at 6X zoom by cropping 200-megapixel images down to 50 megapixels. Oppo claims it’s capable of 13.2X lossless zoom using computational photography; I’m not sure about that number, but the Find X9 Pro certainly takes great photos of any distant subject. Technically, the digital zoom goes up to 120X, but anything beyond 30X starts to look like an oil painting.

Impressive as it is, there have been other phones with 200-megapixel telephoto lenses, so Oppo kicked things up a notch with the optional Hasselblad Teleconverter Kit. Used in conjunction with its Magnetic Photographer Case, there’s a sliding attachment that slots over the camera module, then the lens twists and clicks securely into place over the telephoto lens, adding another 3.28X zoom.

Sadly, this makes the Oppo Find X9 Pro very unwieldy, and it also turned my viewfinder upside down. If you’ve ever zoomed in really far, you’ll know how a tiny movement of your hand is enough to send you wildly off kilter as you try to keep your chosen subject in frame. The kit does include a brace that can screw into a tripod for stability, but that kind of defeats the purpose of having something like this in a phone. I don’t want to have to carry a lot of extra gear.

With patience, you can capture some incredible zoomed shots with this phone. I was able to zoom right in on Edinburgh Castle from the gardens by Waverley Station and make out the lighthouse on Bass Rock from distant Dunbar, Scotland. But it’s more of a novelty than something you’ll use every day. Truthfully, a trio of 50-MP cameras, as you’ll find in the regular Find X9, is more than enough for most folks.

The idea of a detachable lens for your phone isn’t new; both Xiaomi and Realme showed off different concepts at MWC. Camera accessory brand Moment has also long offered mobile lenses for various smartphones. Manufacturers are bumping up against the physical limitations of the phone form, and, even with periscope telephoto lenses, they’ve hit a hard ceiling. Telephoto attachments enable them to break through it, and I expect we’ll see more.

And the Rest

Oppo’s Find X9 Pro is very much about photography. The 200-MP telephoto lens is flanked by an excellent 50-MP main camera with a snappy Sony sensor and impressive color accuracy, a 50-MP ultrawide, and a 50-MP selfie camera. The rear cameras can all capture photos at the full 50-MP resolution (they don’t default to pixel binning, unlike most smartphones). Oppo has also included pro tools for photography and video (all four cameras can record 4K at 60 fps with HDR). The long-standing partnership with Hasselblad brings the usual range of tuning and filters, including an enhanced portrait mode.

Beyond the camera, the Find X9 Pro has a vibrant 6.78-inch flat display, a configurable Quick button, IP66, 68, and 69 ratings, a MediaTek Dimensity 9500 processor with 16 GB of RAM, and all the latest connectivity from Wi-Fi 7 to Bluetooth 6.0. It’s a little dull design-wise, but I like the trend for flat screens and relatively thick sides that make large phones easier to handle.

To enable your photography adventures, there’s a 7,500-mAh silicon-carbon battery that’ll keep you going for two days, and the Find X9 Pro supports 80-watt wired charging or 50-watt wireless charging with the right gear. The Magnetic Photographer Case also enables you to juice up with Qi2 chargers. A generous 512 GB of storage provides plenty of space for photos and video.

The Find X9 Pro runs Android 16 with ColorOS 16 on top, and it’s slick and pleasant enough, though I’m not a fan of all the bloatware. Oppo has wisely chosen to partner with Google and integrate Gemini for AI features like Mind Space, where you can save text, images, and web pages for it to analyze and turn into things like travel itineraries. You also get AI-enhanced search, call summaries, and voice transcription, among other bits and pieces.

The regular Find X9 is mostly identical, but with a smaller screen, a 50-MP telephoto lens, and the option for less RAM and storage. Both the Oppo Find X9 and X9 Pro are available in the UK and across Europe now, and they cost £899 (€999) and £1,099 (€1,299), respectively.