Verdict:
If you're comfortable with the honking huge 6-inch display, the R9s Plus is excellent value and OPPO's most polished product yet.
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Score: 85/100 |
Outright Cost: $698 |
What Is It?
As the name suggests, the 6-inch OPPO R9s Plus is a bigger version of the 5.5-inch OPPO R9s, released at the start of this year. While larger companion devices are typically quite similar to their smaller sibling, the R9s Plus makes a few more changes than you'd expect.
In addition to the larger screen, slightly higher price tag, and bigger battery, the R9s Plus has a slightly faster processor and a whopping 6GB of RAM - 2GB more than the R9s - which seems to have resulted in performance improvements across the board.
And as with OPPO's other devices, the R9s Plus feels like more phone than the $698 price-tag would lead you to believe.
What's Good?
The R9s Plus looks a lot like an iPhone. Like a really big iPhone. The design is derivative, but at least it's a nice design. The R9s Plus has some flavour of its own thanks to a pill-shaped home button flanked by two capacitive buttons on either side and a unique approach to antenna bands. Rather than using two plastic strips (as found on most aluminium smartphones), the R9s Plus has six tiny bands. Importantly, there's still a headphone jack.
OPPO have paired the premium aesthetic with a premium feel; aluminium bodies might be getting a bit tired these days, but the R9s Plus is an undeniably nice phone. There's only two smalls things I can ding it for in terms of feel. Firstly, you can tell that the glass and metal are two distinct elements on the R9s Plus (as you can on the R9s), whereas the join feel a little more seamless on the latest iPhones. This doesn't make the phone uncomfortable to hold, it's more something you might notice when picking it up. Secondly, the capacitive home button's haptic feedback is kinda weak, but that's more me nit-picking. The fingerprint reader is superfast though.
Despite the honking huge screen, the R9s Plus doesn't feel excessively large. Sure, it's big, but it's very similar in size to the Huawei Mate 9 and the HTC U Ultra, despite boasting a bigger display. Most people will struggle to use the R9s Plus one-handed, but that's to be expected with a phone of this stature. The only thing I've comfortably been able to do with one hand is scroll.
Speaking of the screen, it's bright, rich, and vibrant. The 1080p resolution is a little low for a 6-inch display, but at the same time, you shouldn't notice too much of a drop in quality compared to Quad HD. Well, unless you're smooshing the screen against your face. The R9s Plus also handle outdoors a little better than its smaller sibling, and is easy to use in all but the brightest of sun.
While the R9s Plus packs a midrange processor, it certainly doesn't feel midrange when it comes to day to day performance; I didn't find anything that made it buckle. Battery life is great too, and depending on how hard you push it, the R9s Plus will easily last between a day and a half and two full days.
The slight processor improvement and the additional 2GB of RAM also seem to help the R9s Plus when it comes to photography. The camera opens faster and shoots faster than the one on the smaller R9s, which already did a pretty good job for a phone in its price range. The changes mostly make it easier to take a good photo in lowlight, with resulting images turning out clearer and sharper. Fast motion can still trick up the R9s Plus, but for the most part, I was able to get most of my lowlight photos in one snap.
What's Not So Good?
As with the R9s Plus' smaller sibling, software is the only real issue with OPPO's supersized smartphone. OPPO's take on Android - ColorOS 3.0 - is seemingly design to mimic Apple's iOS and feels more like imitation rather than flattery. Fortunately, you can always cut back on some of the visual idiosyncrasies (and get more of a stock Android feel) by installing apps such as Google's Pixel Launcher, Gboard, ExDialer, and Messages. That being said, I did initially have a few issues swapping away from OPPO's default apps, where the device would repeatedly ask for permissions every time I wanted to send a text message or make a phone call. A recent software update does seem to have addressed this though.
While you can change the feel of the R9s Plus' operating system, you can't get rid of all of the quirks. The worst of all is a split notifications and quick actions interface. When you swipe down from the top of the screen, quick actions and notifications appear across two different panes, and oddly, quick actions appear first, so you'll need to swipe left to see your notifications. It's not the end of the world, but at least personally, I check my notifications far more than I need access to quick actions like toggling Wi-Fi or changing screen brightness.
There's also a few other small issues you'll have to deal with, like the operating system asking you if you'd like to let your apps actually use mobile data, and random notifications asking you to shut down apps for battery optimisation reasons.
The R9s Plus doesn't have water-resistance, which isn't surprising given the price-point, but the lack of NFC is a bit odd. While it won't be a huge deal for everyone, it does mean you can't use the R9s Plus for contactless payment solutions like Android Pay.
There's also no oleophobic coating on the screen, which makes fingerprints and smudges a bit more noticeable.
Camera Samples
Who Is It For?
The R9s Plus is quite possibly OPPO's best phone yet, and veritable bargain at just $698. There's a few bugbears, but in terms of value, it goes toe-to-toe with - if not surpasses - the big guys. Of course, the 6-inch display is sure to be divisive; the R9s Plus is one big phone. While this has its downsides - and personally, I'd be happier with a smaller device - it also results in a hearty battery life, and gives you a great screen for watching video on the go.
You'll make a couple of small sacrifices in the pursuit of savings - namely, coming to terms with ColorOS' quirks, the lack of NFC, no water-resistance or oleophobic coating on the screen - but provided you're happy to deal with the size, you're giving up very little and saving more than a few dollarydoos with the OPPO R9s Plus.
What Else Can I Buy?
OPPO R9s
If the R9s Plus' larger form-factor isn’t for you, but you're still interested in a bang for buck device, the regular R9s could be right up your alley.
Huawei Mate 9
Huawei's Mate 9 is a similarly large device, rocking a 5.9-inch screen and an equally impressive battery. The biggest benefit from dropping a bit more dosh on the Mate 9 is the dual rear-camera system co-engineered with Leica that can take some very pretty photos.
Google Pixel XL
The Pixel XL is almost twice the cost of the R9s Plus, but it's a hell of a phone. Since the hardware and software come direct from Google, you'll be among the first to get new updates for Android, and you'll also avoid any of the quirks that come with third party customisations like ColorOS.
Alex Choros
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