OnePlus 9 & 9 Pro review: Hasselblunder? By 9to5Google

The OnePlus, 9 and 9 pro are not quite the killer, flagships that they've been marketed as, but they might be the best the firm has produced for some time. But let's discuss why in our full review. So it's a tale of existing hardware, getting a minor refresh on the OnePlus 9 and the 9 pro, but the build quality is almost undoubted at this stage. Of course, the OnePlus 9 is smaller, and it has plastic side rails, but side by side. You would be hard-pressed to tell the difference between these two. Apart from that cold touch of the aluminum frame on the OnePlus 9 pro, naturally, that OnePlus 9 as well has the assured chunky feeling that is backed by a real firm feel in the hand.

The nine pro feels slightly thicker and even yet more firm if that's even possible. The biggest downside, though, is the glossy new finishes, especially given that OnePlus was more or less pioneered high quality, matte smartphone color options in recent years. It's just a shame to see them go to a glossy option, which isn't quite as nice to look at from a distance. That means as well, if you hate fingerprints the morning mist or silver on the OnePlus 9 pro is the worst culprit, the winter mist or purple on the OnePlus.9 is less obvious, but you may want a case or a vinyl skin to reduce the buildup of grimy fingerprints that do build up fairly quickly, no matter what angle you're looking at this device or how you're holding it overall, I wouldn't personally call the design of these both devices, particularly inspired, especially given the impressive finishes and tweaks of previous OnePlus smartphones. I think you can kind of see the iPhone, 11 and 12 inspiration on that rear camera model, but it is overall, fairly inoffensive for android smartphone in 2021.

It's also a tale of two displays on this duo. If you favor a flat display the OnePlus 9 does not disappoint effectively, it's more or less the same display as the OnePlus 8t. That means full HD, plus 120hz. It looks great, and it feels great while the OnePlus 9 pro has a HD plus LPO panel that knocks things up a notch compared to the OnePlus 8 pro from last year. This newer AMOLED display has a proper dynamic, refresh rate that can be set as low as one hertz.

This should have battery benefits, but I can't say: I've even noticed it in action. Basically, it just means that still images should run at this lower rate, which means it's not constantly running at 120 hertz when it doesn't need to. Hence, the battery saving aspect. That said, I'm pretty sure it's just the exact same display used in the find x3 pro, which is to say, is excellent. The downside is curved, and not many people out there like curved displays.

Personally, I don't mind, and phantom touches haven't, really been an issue, but if you do like flat displays, I would suggest you look at the OnePlus 9 properly, rather than the pro version. My biggest gripe, though, about both displays on both the phones is the usage of a cheap pre-applied screen protector. I'm not actually complaining that you get one pre-applied, it's just that on a curved display. It feels sort of like tacky, and it snags when using on-screen Esso's when sliding from left to right and right to left, plus, it picks up. Grime and scuffs really easily.

That said, I'd just suggest picking up a decent replacement when more are available when both of these phones start shipping globally. Another notable on the display is that in display fingerprint scanner, it's lightning fast and probably the best on an android phone that I've used. I like that. It's also in a lower portion of the display too, making it slightly easier to reach, but it can be quite precarious once you've unlocked, though you'll notice, that the OnePlus 9 and 9 improve run oxygen, OS 11, which is basically android 11 with some extra tweaks. There are very few new additions to speak of.

To be completely honest with you. Many of the changes are just related to the UI look and feel which has changed somewhat since the heady days of the clean experience that OnePlus was once loaded for. In reality, the experience is just a hybrid of one UI and the original oxygen OS you've likely used before. Does it make a difference? Luckily, I don't think it does, because none of the high performance levels you've come to know and love is more or less degraded by this extra lick of paint. Bloat is also kept to a minimum, but there is more of a focus upon one-handed usability with certain stock apps, including more white space and shifted UI portions, because obviously larger screens are taking hold, and it makes a big deal of difference when using things like the messages app or the gallery app, for instance, the Qualcomm snapdragon, 888, chipset, 8 or 12 gigabytes of ram, and that ultra-fast UFS, 3.1 storage, which shouldn't be forgotten about help complement the 128 display. So nothing you would do or want to do is out of bounds, including high-end gaming or even mobile.

Video editing on these devices performance levels are all fine and dandy, but it does come with a caveat, as OnePlus was once loaded for its excellent software support, but as the company has evolved, that reputation has slowly eroded away. The OnePlus 8 series picked up android 11, pretty much within a matter of weeks, but the OnePlus 7 series has had to wait. Six months to get that same update, OnePlus is reasonably consistent about security patches, but that's it in terms of updates, and they're, always months late and some months are even skipped. This is a side effect of how OnePlus handles its rollout, but the supposed benefit of that is making every update a bit more stable, just doesn't really pan out, and it's a real shame that there's such a reluctance or reliance on the oxygen OS open beta path is something we really do hope they fix, and it's just an unfortunate situation where OnePlus is falling well behind the competition pixel devices get three years of major updates. Samsung phones get the same plus an extra year of security patches.

There really is no excuse for OnePlus to be behind the curve here when prices get higher and higher year after year, and this becomes a problem directly for you, the eventual buyer. Let's talk about battery longevity, though real quick before we tackle the biggest new addition and that of the camera. It's a tale of two life spans again here, as while battery is fair on the OnePlus 9 pro, it's not exactly excellent. Conversely, the OnePlus 9 is pretty darn good. All things considered with a nine pro, the experience can be quite erratic.

Some days, five to six hours of screen on time proves to be an easy fix. Other days, you'll just have to settle for four hours. This is acceptable for me as someone who is likely to be glued to my laptop or PC, rather than my smartphone each day, but that isn't exactly mind-blowing I'd. Stop short of saying that the battery is bad. It's just okay, the OnePlus 9 fares better, and I've found it much harder to kill in a single day.

Five to six hours of screen on time is fairly easy to achieve. With plenty of battery left over to quash any anxiety you might have factor in as well. There is warp charge 65t on both devices, and it's one way you can alleviate any sort of battery stresses. You can go from zero to one hundred percent in under 30 minutes, which is just mind-blowing at times. Five minutes is likely more than enough to get you to the end of a busy day.

If you do need to top up, though the OnePlus 9 also finally includes QI. Wireless charging at 15 watt speeds, which, although isn't the fastest, is a much-needed inclusion, 50 watt warp wireless charging is also available on the OnePlus 9 pro alongside the 65 watt, wired speeds, and it's another wow edition. This is faster than most smartphones can charge via wire, and it's cool in action. But there are longevity question marks, and it's something I kind of question with the entire fast wireless charging. Does it really make sense at the moment? I'm not too sure.

Now, let's focus see what I did there on the biggest upgrade to the OnePlus 9 series, the Hasselblad approved or co-developed camera system. In reality, the high-profile addition of Hasselblad to the OnePlus 9 series, camera setup- is a bit of a misnomer in many regards, despite the co-developed suggestions for OnePlus at this stage, it's merely a tuning partnership. OnePlus has helped tune the colors of the camera setup, which will undoubtedly expand over the coming years as the partnership grows, and this is one of the most exciting aspects. Initially, though, I felt confused at the OnePlus 9 and 9 pro camera setups, I couldn't actually work out if it was exceptional or just well tuned. The colors in some key scenarios are among the best and most color accurate that I have seen from a smartphone, but I would call the consistency into question here and there, because it's not always perfect things are pretty good on the main 48 megapixel sensors, which does differ from the 9 to the 9 pro, but the ultrawide is where things really shine for me, you may sometimes notice color shift issues, though, when switching between these lenses, you might not even spot the change in the viewfinder, but once you scroll between images, there can be some very distinct color differences.

Let's hope that OnePlus can resolve this with the software fix as its problems with attention to detail like this that have really inhibited the quality of previous camera systems from their devices. A major problem with older OnePlus smartphones is the over sharpening too, and it's frustrating to see. OnePlus falter a little in the same areas. You'll often have a portion of an image that looks out of place, especially when noise is added to the equation. Luckily, the old watercolor effect isn't as prominent here as it was on, say the OnePlus 8t or 8 pro on the OnePlus 9 pro.

You also get a 3.3 x, telephoto zoom lens, and it really doesn't set the world of light. It's fairly solid up to 3x as you'd sort of expect, but then things rapidly fall apart at 30x, digital zoom things are an absolute mess, try not to go past 5x zoom! Unless you want muddy, pixelated and halo ridden stills. I must admit I do like the Hasselblad camera app tweaks, though such as the orange shutter button and the oddly addictive shutter sound press. The hassle by pro mode also makes it easier to play around, make adjustments and use the finer controls and even shoot 12-bit raw images. But is this a reason to pick up the OnePlus, 9 or 9 pro over another device? I'd have to say, probably not so.

Realistically, the OnePlus 9 series feels like a tale of two phones, whereas the OnePlus 9 feels like a major step up over the OnePlus 8. The 9 pro feels more modest in terms of an overall upgrade over the 8 pro. The new camera hardware and features are not the industry defining change that you might have anticipated before launch or what OnePlus would want you to believe. I will commend the color tuning that Hasselblad has brought to the table, and it's true that stills have taken a fairly major step forward, but even despite the gesticulation, the OnePlus 9 and 9 pro still aren't truly able to compete with the best smartphone cameras on the market. Well, I would say the OnePlus 9 is more in line with its price competitors.

Realistically, we think you should absolutely go out and buy the 9 over the 9 pro this year. If you are looking to upgrade a slightly better screen slightly better charging and the addition of a mostly mediocre telephoto camera make it hard to justify the extra cost, while the camera crumbles slightly under the weight of expectation. The pricing is pretty competitive for the entire OnePlus 9 series, including the pro performance, is absolutely stellar, there's absolutely no hold-ups or slowdowns to speak of just how OnePlus handles future software updates is where the major question marks arise, though at the end of the day and summon it all up, OnePlus might want you to believe that these are killer flagships, but they just happen to be the best smartphones with the firm's logo embossed upon them, at least for the next six months. So that's an OnePlus 9 series, you've seen the reviews and the previews. But what do you think have you ordered one? Let us know which one and why down in the comments section below or if you are planning to skip them, but as always, this is Damian with 95 google saying thanks for watching, and I will speak to you later.

Source : 9to5Google