Oppo R9s review: Strumming along

A simple gallery

The Gallery app is fairly simple. It defaults to showing your camera roll sorted by date (we miss the option to change the thumbnail size). Alternatively, you can browse images by folder, including a special "Recently deleted" folder, which will save accidentally deleted photos. Remember that you can encrypt files, but there's no way to do it directly from the gallery.

An iOS-like gallery • Browsing by folders is the only option • Viewing an image • Editing a photo

The app does offer a feature to quickly build a collage out of several selected photos. You can also edit individual photos with the usual crop and filter tools, free-hand doodling too. Slightly more advanced features can blur part of the image (to simulate shallow depth of field) and pixelate areas to censor a part of the image or just for artistic effect.

Video player with gesture control

There's a dedicated video player app on the Oppo R9s, not too different from the gallery. It separates files into videos shot with the camera and all videos. During playback, you can use swipe gestures to control the app - sideways to scrub through the video and up/down to change the volume (right side of the screen) or screen brightness (left side). Pop-up video playback is available too.

Picking a video • Simple on-screen controls • Pop-up play

Music player with Dirac Real HD Sound

The ColorOS music player (like the gallery) has a clear iOS aesthetic and is fairly simple in operation. You can browse the local music library by track, artist or album and that's about it. You can favorite songs to make them easier to find. Lyrics can be displayed, but they must be embedded into the file itself, the player will not fetch them from the Internet.

The ColorOS music player • Browsing the music library • Now playing screen • Lyric support

The one more advanced setting is Dirac's Real HD Sound. It's an equalizer with multiple presets and three sliders for manual tuning - Bass, Baritone and Treble. This works with headphones only, Dirac Power Sound powers the loudspeaker.

Dirac Real HD Audio is the player's equalizer

There's no FM radio available on the R9s.

Audio output is very good

The Oppo R9s did splendidly when hooked up to an active external amplifier. The smartphone posted excellent scores for clarity and was easily among the louder phones around.

Volume dropped a bit when we hooked up a pair of headphones, but remained above average, while stereo quality worsened a moderate amount. Some intermodulation distortion crept in, but it was nothing you would notice in everyday use. All in all a pretty solid showing even if not quite the best out there.

Anyway, here go the results so you can do your comparisons.

Test	Frequency response	Noise level	Dynamic range	THD	IMD + Noise	Stereo crosstalk
Oppo R9s	+0.01, -0.02	-93.3	93.2	0.0010	0.0070	-93.5
Oppo R9s (headphones attached)	+0.19, -0.35	-92.3	92.2	0.0098	0.295	-58.3
Meizu MX6	+0.10, -0.03	-94.2	94.0	0.0019	0.0064	-89.3
Meizu MX6 (headphones attached)	+0.30, -0.07	-92.5	93.0	0.810	0.271	-31.3
Asus Zenfone 3	+0.03, -0.30	-86.6	83.6	0.0017	0.049	-91.1
Asus Zenfone 3 (headphones attached)	+0.06, -0.03	-92.4	92.4	0.0018	0.021	-88.2
Xiaomi Mi 5s	+0.01, -0.03	-89.6	90.2	0.0029	0.040	-85.5
Xiaomi Mi 5s (headphones)	+0.71, -0.31	-82.9	84.8	0.229	0.559	-48.0
ZTE Axon 7	+0.06, -0.10	-92.4	92.3	0.0015	0.0093	-80.9
ZTE Axon 7 (headphones attached)	+0.03, -0.11	-92.3	92.3	0.0011	0.012	-77.0

Oppo R9s frequency response

You can learn more about the tested parameters and the whole testing process here.