OnePlus 8 and OnePlus 8 Pro review: What should have been By Android Authority

So last year, one-plus launched the OnePlus 17, and it was a little confusing because the OnePlus 70 offered so many of the things that made the OnePlus 7 probe rate. They also launched the OnePlus 70 pro, and it really didn't improve on the OnePlus 7 pro all that much all I really had besting. The OnePlus 70 was a higher resolution display and a slightly bigger battery. We actually called the OnePlus 17 to good because it didn't really make sense to buy the OnePlus 70 Pro, when the loan plus 70 was that good, and now we're here. This is the one + 8 + 1, +, 8, Pro and I think they represent what the OnePlus 70 pro should have been in the first place, and you can pretty much immediately see that from the design. Aside from the color, the designs of the 1 + 8 + 8 Pro are really similar to the 1 plus 7 Pro.

Usually a year-over-year iteration, / iteration 1 +, definitely refines the designs of their phone and makes them a little different. But the 1 + 70 Pro looked almost identical to the 1 + 7. Pro the 1 + 8 + 1 + 8 Pro kinds of evolved on that design by forcing a more modern look, they're less overtly, rounded, and they're a little more narrow and taller. Really the form factor feels a lot like the OPPO find x2 Pro. Even the camera raised on these two phones look really similar to the 1 plus 7 Pro + 1 +, 70 Pro, but of course the 1 + 8 Pro has a few extra sensors that we're going to talk about now.

The screen of these phones is where things start to diverge a little more there using the hole, punch, cutout display, instead of that pop-up camera, and personally I really like hole, punch, displays, I know that can be controversial, but they're about the same size as a notification, and it doesn't take up that much more visual space. So I'm a fan now the 1 plus 8 is using an F HD + 90 Hertz panel, while the 1 + 8 Pro, is using a 120 hers HD+ panel. So this is another way that OnePlus is trying to separate the two products. The screens are also a little less curved, which is nice, but I still had some issues with palm rejections, so if you're just holding the phone normally, sometimes it would register you as scrolling up and down on the display just because you were touching the edge of the phone I think one plus could probably improve this in software, but we don't review phones based on future promises. Now.

That being said, the quality of these panels is perfect, especially on the 1 plus 8 Pro. In our independent testing. It has some of the best color accuracy that we've seen across all the smartphones that we've tested in the last year. That's really, really good. Now, ok.

In the last couple of years, OnePlus has started to move away from the flagship killer, mantra and I started to move towards fast and smooth. They want the OnePlus 8 Pro to compete directly with the galaxy s 20 plus before they used to ignore things like wireless charging and IP ratings, and even up see at one point, because it would keep costs down, but with one plus eight Pro, they're kind of going all-in at the expense of well expense and, like I, said before, they need to give people a reason to spend that extra money on the OnePlus 8 pro over the standard, one plus eight. Now from a raw specs perspective, these phones are fairly similar, but they actually do differ in a number of other areas. So let's talk about what these phones have in common, and then we'll talk about how they're different both the 1 + 8, +, 1, +, 8 Pro, are using me snap, varying in age 65 with the Qualcomm X 55 5g modem they're, also using 8 to 12 gigabytes of RAM and 128 to 256 gigabytes of storage. So from a raw power perspective, they are the same, and they're quite fast.

I did notice a little of an issue in multitasking. I would get this weird jittering when I was switching between apps. You know again. This is another software problem that OnePlus could probably fix in software, but it's kind of annoying to see in a super high-end flagship phone which the OnePlus 8 pro is now and of course, both phones are running on oxygen, OS 10, which is based on Android 10 oxygen. Os is a really, really nice OS.

It's super streamlined and very minimal. It really only adds a few extra things that are actually fairly useful, like a gaming mode or reading mode, and they've also got something called Zen mode which forces you to stop using your phone for a while and I think we all kind of need that don't post a has a four thousand three hundred million power battery and the OnePlus 8 pro has a four thousand five hundred and ten million power battery, and that doesn't seem that different. But of course the OnePlus, a pro is using that HD+ 120 Hertz display and the OnePlus he's using that FHD plus 90 Hertz display, and that makes a pretty decent difference now. Overall, the phone's actually got pretty good battery life on the 1 plus 8 Pro I was getting about a day and a half worth of battery life I did test this for multiple days, one on data only and one on Wi-Fi. Only because, of course, we're all stuck in our apartments right now, and it still got about a day in a quarter to a day and a half of battery life.

That's pretty good. The OnePlus eight got a little better battery life because of that 90 Hertz and FHD Plus display versus the 120 Hertz HD+ display, considering the OnePlus 70 didn't have very good battery life and neither did the OnePlus 7 pro. It's really nice to see better battery life in these devices. Now the camera systems are another big area where these phones really differ. The 1+8 is using these 48 megapixel Sony I MX 586 from last year.

It's using a 16 megapixel wide-angle camera in a 2 megapixel macro camera, whereas the OnePlus 8 pro is using the new Sony imx6 89 from the OPPO find x2 Pro. It's using that 48 megapixel Sony AMX 586 for the wide-angle sensor, and then it's also got a 3x telephoto sensor. Now this is an optical telephoto sensor. It's actually 12 megapixel camera, that outputs, 8, megapixel images, and it's just kind of cropping to get that difference now. I would have rather seen a telephoto sensor in this phone, but a little more on that later now.

The OnePlus 8 pro is also introducing this new color filter camera, which is nothing more than a gimmick. But I'll talk about that more later. The camera system in the OnePlus 8 doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It's got the same main and wide cameras from the OnePlus 70. It's got a dedicated, 2 megapixel macro camera, whereas the OnePlus 70 had a telephoto camera in just a separate macro mode, I mean the OnePlus 7 pro had a 3x optical telephoto camera, and this one doesn't have optical telephoto at all.

Furthermore, it's just kind of weird and seems like a little of a downgrade now. Meanwhile, the pro has that new Sony imx6 89 sensors from the find x2 pro, which has perfect white balance and low-light performance dynamic range, seemed pretty good. In my unit too, although my friend Ebert Anthony from hardware connects, told me that his unit had kind of spotty dynamic range, so watch out for that, the white angle, camera is pretty good as well. It doesn't have quite as good color, but it's getting there, and it looks pretty similar to the regular main sensor and the telephoto sensor is again a 12 megapixel sensor that always outputs 8, megapixel images by cropping- and this is kind of weird too, because I would have preferred to see an optical 3x telephoto sensor here and the phone can zoom up to 30x, but because it's already cropping down to 8 X, it kind of loses resolution pretty quickly when you start cropping more and more now. That being said, it is still better than like the 50 or 100 X zoom that we're going to see in other phones like the galaxy s 20 ultra.

But of course that's because it's not actually zooming to 100 times you're. Just staying at 30, the less camera that OnePlus has put on the OnePlus 8 Pro is called the color filter camera, and this is used for one very specific filter within the 1+8 pro's camera app filters called photo, CROM and traditionally photo. CROM is a method in which you can take black and white negatives and sort of colorize them now. OnePlus is basically altering the spectrum of light that is coming through the lens and then hitting the sensor with this filter and the interesting thing about this is it can detect different frequencies. So, for example, if I'm holding up my lens here, the lens cap and also the lens hood, are both black and the body, but the camera can detect the body as being metal in the hood and the cap as being plastic, so it shows the metal as being this copper sepia tone, and it shows the hood and the cap as being black.

Now. This is fascinating for sure, like it's cool, to be able to separate materials with your phone, but I don't see why OnePlus would add dedicated hardware for that kind of thing. In a traditional consumer device, this seems really cool for like material scientists, but I. Don't really understand the point for regular people now. If one class really wanted to shave off price, they probably could have just avoided putting that camera in altogether, and we could have saved at least like $25, but there's some good news.

Both of these phones use, 16, megapixel, selfie cameras, and they're. Very, very good I, really like the color and contrast and dynamic in both of them, and I was really happy with the results overall. So how else is OnePlus differentiating these devices? Well, wireless charging and IP rating sort of let's start with wireless charging. OnePlus has finally padded wireless charging to the OnePlus 8 pro. This is a feature that we have been asking for years.

I feel like every single time a t phone was about to come out. We would say. Maybe this is the point in which one plus adds a wireless charging to these phones, but no, we now just finally got it in the OnePlus it is pro now. This does work with regular QI charging pads, but OnePlus has also introduced a 30 watt charging pad that they're calling warp charge 30 Wireless- and this is really, really fast for wireless charging, especially in the United States. We just didn't have wireless charging this quick before in it, then now, of course, in my Europe and China and different regions, there are faster wireless charging standards, but 30 watts lead, especially in the United States, is very best.

OnePlus says that the wireless charger can charge your phone to 50% in 30 minutes, so we tested this and in 30 minutes we actually got 56%, which is a little better than what OnePlus was ratings. That's really nice to see now the work charged 30, T charger does have a fan built onto it, because you're pumping a lot of power through the air, and it is audible, although it's still really, really quiet, but there is a bedtime mode. In case you want to turn off the fan, while you're sleeping, and it'll just reduce the wattage. Now this phone also has reverse wireless charging, which is nice, but it's pretty slow. It's three watts.

The Samsung Galaxy S 20 plus, has nine watt. Reverse wireless charging. Just to give you a little of a comparison, so you could charge like some truly wireless headphones on this thing, but I wouldn't charge another phone. That's gonna, take a while I'm really happy to see wireless charging. Finally, getting adopted in one-plus phones, I didn't really use to care about wireless charging, but recently we've adopted a number of wireless charging pads around our house, and it's been really convenient for just setting phones down and walking away.

Now, let's talk about that. IP rating, the OnePlus 8 Pro has ip68 water and dust resistance certification. The OnePlus 8 does, if you buy it at a carrier, but it's not going to say it on OnePlus, calm, I couldn't really get an answer as to why this is I was just basically told that the carriers wanted to have it so that they tested it and put it on the phones on their website. It's very confusing, but otherwise, if you buy these phones on one plus comm, they're, obviously going to say that they certified it in the way that they've always certified. OnePlus devices, which is basically splash resistance, so I, guess the question comes down to what I actually recommend these phones and the price? Well, the OnePlus 8 pro cost $8.99 and the 1+8 cost $6.99, and these are definitely some of the most expensive phones. OnePlus has ever made.

If you omit those fringe Maclaren additions. Well, say you compare the OnePlus 8 pro to the Samsung Galaxy s, 20, plus that's still three hundred dollars cheaper than that device, and it offers a lot of the same things and then some obviously you're not getting everything that the s 20 plus offers, but it is a very competitive option for three hundred dollars less. As far as the one plus eight is concerned, it's a little harder for me to recommend because OnePlus is still selling the OnePlus 70 and the OnePlus 7 pro at four hundred and ninety-nine dollars and a two hundred dollars less than this phone. Those are really compelling options. Oh you're, really getting out of the OnePlus 8 compared to those phones, is the 865 and 5g, and unless you really need those things, I feel like I would just go with the OnePlus 70.

Instead. Also, if you buy the OnePlus, be at Verizon, it's going to be an additional $100 because they're adding the 5g millimeter wave bands. Unless you live right in front of a 5g millimeter way of node, it doesn't make a lot of sense to get a millimeter wave phone. The OnePlus 8 pro, on the other hand, makes a lot more sense. In this case, it's got more things like the 120 Hertz HD+ display 30 watt wireless charging, regular IP, 68 water resistance.

All these little tidbits that kind of make it competitive versus something like the galaxy s, 20, plus and I, get that $900 is a ton of money, especially for a one plus phone, but that Snapdragon, 865 and x 55 modem are really expensive components, I mean even Xiaomi is selling the Xiaomi me 10 pro for 999 euros. That's one of the most expensive phones, they've ever really, and personally I do prefer the 1 plus 7 Pro over the Galaxy, S 20 plus so saving 300 bucks is pretty convenient, but ultimately that's up to you and the experience that you prefer anyways guys that's about it for the 1+8 1+8 pro. Let me know your thoughts in the comments section below the phone landscape is getting really weird, especially with these really expensive processors jacking up the price of pretty much every phone on the market right now. So until next time, I'll catch you in the next video you.

Source : Android Authority