OnePlus 9 / 9 Pro Review: Nailed it! By Android Central

Now, the OnePlus has completed its transformation into a fully fledged big boy, smartphone company. The way we judge its phones also needs to change. The OnePlus 9 series starts at 729 dollars in the US and goes all the way up to 1069 for the top configuration of the 9 pro and make no mistake. That is absolutely flagship, galaxy or iPhone money for this year's phones, then OnePlus is pinning its hopes on a brilliant display, lightning, quick charging and a brand-new camera collaboration. So let's not waste any time. Let's jump right into our full review of the OnePlus 9 and 9 pro take a sec to subscribe.

So you don't miss more reviews like this, and we'll get started. Let's begin with the obvious, these are the best looking phones, OnePlus has ever produced whether you get the OnePlus 9, with a 6.55-inch screen or the 9 pro with a 6.7 inches it'll be adorned with this new redesigned back panel and a fresh loadout of colors. There are some more subdued hues available, but I've been using the OnePlus 9 in winter mist, which is kind of purplish and the 9 pro in morning, mist, which is a striking silver. Both of these particular colors have this gradient effect from top to bottom, going from almost completely opaque to a brilliant mirror finish down below I'm a big fan of this look, but if you're not, then there are some more reserved, matte colors available for both devices we'll get to the cameras themselves in more detail a little later. But it's worth pointing out that the camera hump on the back, complete with new Hasselblad branding, is much more of a design feature than in older OnePlus phones.

It actually feels like it's been designed as opposed to just kind of being there, while the family resemblance here is clear. There are plenty of design contrasts between these two. The OnePlus 9 changes things up with a flat display at full HD plus resolution, whereas the 9 pro sticks with a curved quad HD panel, though with a less pronounced taper around the edge compared to previous pro models from OnePlus. These are both phenomenal displays for the money, though it's clear, the 9 pro has the edge in terms of peak brightness and color, and, while both screens run up to 120 hertz, the pro also claims bragging rights for using LPO technology, letting it clock down as low as 1 hertz to save power. This isn't something you'll ever see working, but it's there saving you a little of power when you don't need the full speed of the screen.

It's also worth touching on the build quality of the 9 versus the nine pro, because, while both are glass backed very shiny and quite nice, looking the outer frame of the regular OnePlus 9 is made of plastic like the OnePlus word. I don't particularly mind it, and visually it's pretty much the same as the metal on the OnePlus 9 pro, but you can feel the difference, speaking of which I've also really appreciated the upgraded haptic motor of the OnePlus 9. Pro haptic feedback feels firmer than most other android phones, whether you're typing multitasking or gaming. It's one of those things that helps the phone feel more premium. The situation with water resistance is a bit confusing, though, basically it's the same deal as last year with OnePlus, 8 and 8 pro all OnePlus 9.

Pro models are rated ip68 for protection against water and dust, but the 9 is not unless you buy it through T-Mobile in the US. However, there's no physical difference with the to models, so you can pretty much draw your own conclusions about the level of protection in those unlocked versions. Besides that these are OnePlus phones, so you have fast reliable, in-screen, fingerprint alongside convenient face, unlock through the in-screen selfie camera and, of course, other OnePlus perks like the good old alert. Slider, that's been with us since the OnePlus one, it's pretty striking how the OnePlus 9 pro doesn't feel like as much of a brick as the pro did, thanks to a small reduction in size and weight and possibly weight distribution as well. It's obviously still a large phone, but for me, it's closer to that sweet spot where it doesn't feel too hefty or unwieldy.

The regular 9 is a bit easier to one hand, but still, as you can see, it's definitely not a small phone either going from 9 to 9. Pro then is more difference in price than it is size. Whichever device you choose, you'll get the same. Loadout of core specs built around the snapdragon 888 processor base models have both come with 8 gigabytes of ram and 128 gigabytes of storage, but OnePlus will sell you a 12 plus 256 gig versions of either for an extra 100 bucks and because these are flagship, OnePlus phones, both are extremely quick with instant uploads, fast multitasking and the kind of raw performance and responsiveness you expect from the pairing of a snapdragon 888 with a 120 hertz screen, I've been using the European versions of both OnePlus 9s, which are dual sim 5g models. If you're picking up one of these in the US, though, things are a bit more complicated, they'll be sold on contract through T-Mobile, but the unlocked versions aren't currently certified for 5g on at tor Verizon, which automatically makes the audience for these phones that much smaller in the states.

That said, my colleague, Kyoto houseman was able to get his OnePlus 9 pro up and running on 5g with Google phi, so other operators that run on time's 5g network will probably work. Okay, of course, we can't talk about an OnePlus phone without looking at oxygen OS. Well, I guess, unless you're in China anyway for the rest of the world, your OnePlus 9 will run on oxygen, OS 11.1 based on android 11, which is pretty much a known quantity and not much has changed on the software side. Since we reviewed the OnePlus 8t last year, OnePlus has improved the phone's memory management and added the Google dialer and messages app as the default for calls and texts, but otherwise the new interface we saw in the 8t is largely unchanged. It's a more opinionated design language than what we saw from OnePlus a year ago, with a focus on big, bold text, OnePlus, trademark font and strong accent colors, but it's also thoroughly customizable.

If you don't like the out-of-box look and sure oxygen OS isn't as close to bone stock android as it was a year ago, but this aesthetic has grown on me over the past few months, and I appreciate that I can make it look a bit more like a Google Pixel when I want to another welcome feature that makes the jump across on the OnePlus.8T is 65 watt wired charging. In fact, the new warp charge 65 t is even faster than the previous 65 watt spec on account of improvements inside the phones themselves, that let them slurp up more power for longer. OnePlus quotes charging times from zero to a hundred percent in 29 minutes for the nine pro, which practically means that, however close you are to the danger zone, you'll probably be back to safety. In about the time it takes to make a cup of coffee. But what's an even bigger deal is faster wireless charging for the OnePlus 9 pro the regular 9 can do up to 15 watts on a compatible pad, but pair the OnePlus 9 pro with a new warp charge, wireless 50 pad- and you guessed it is can suck down up to 50 watts of juice without a cable.

Obviously, you need to buy this thing separately, but it's a huge added convenience and the built-in fan does a great job of keeping the phone cool and like with the previous model. There is an automatic bedtime charging mode to stop the fan from disturbing you overnight. With all this talk of superfast charging, you might have expected the battery life to be less than impressive, and that's not quite the case, you're, looking at a solid full day of use from both phones, 4 500, William hour batteries, but definitely not much more than that. My typical screen on time averaged around four to four and a half hours on a heavy day on the pro and for the regular OnePlus 9. I was seeing towards the upper end of that range, but definitely not more than a full day in total.

Interestingly, I didn't see any of the more extreme battery drain that I got from the Oppo find x3 pro in either of the OnePlus devices, which is kind of weird, given the hardware similarities with opp, but it does have to be said that, with such fast wired and wireless charging, only getting around a full day or maybe a little less than that on very heavy days, is probably fine. Considering you're only ever a few minutes away from escaping that low battery warning, all right, we've waited long enough. It is finally camera time and the OnePlus 9 pro builds on what was already a solid performance last year in the April, which at the time was the only perfect one plus camera the big deal. Branding wise is the new partnership with veteran camera from Hasselblad, which applies to both phones. OnePlus has worked with the Swedish camera brand on image tuning, but just as important is the hardware itself and that's where the 9 pro earns its place as a true premium.

Smartphone camera for the pro the main sensor is a custom-made Sony mix 789 a 48 megapixel sensor, that's the successor to the imx689 used in last year's OnePlus 8 pro, and it uses the same high quality, 50 megapixel mix 766 sensors for the ultrawide that we saw in the very recently released Oppo find x3 pro. That's in addition to an unnamed 8 megapixel telephoto that shoots at a 3.3 times zoom over on the vanilla, OnePlus 9. The main sensor is the IMAX 689 from last year's flagship, but without optical stabilization, and that's paired with the same mix 766 for the ultra-wide. Both models use the same 16 megapixel fixed focus, selfie camera which performs identically, but for some reason unfortunately still doesn't support nights cape mode and both phones for some reason also have a 2 megapixel monochrome camera that contributes basically nothing to the equation. So is the camera experience any good overall? Well, the answer, especially for the pro, is a resounding yes I'll, get the biggest disappointment out the way.

First, the telephoto camera is fairly weak. Next to the Samsung competition, OnePlus gets away with a lot of thanks to its great post-processing, but the small pixel size and low resolution of the telephoto means that shooting anything beyond a five times zoom level is gonna, be a bit of a challenge. As for telephoto video, you can forget it because the video mode never uses the telephoto camera even at three times zoom and beyond, but the main and the ultra-wide cameras legitimately very impressive across the board, with either camera. You can pretty much guarantee good, looking evenly exposed shots with natural looking colors in almost any lighting conditions that part about natural colors could be the Hasselblad effect, there's certainly less of a tendency towards excessive saturation compared to older OnePlus cameras. Another area of the new Hasselblad post-processing, I'm less of a fan of, is the borderline excessive, sharpening that you see in some situations, it's more obvious in the 9 and the 9 pro, especially in zoomed pictures but yeah in some daylight shots.

There is some fairly aggressive sharpening to be seen if you go pixel peeping also, certain types of overcast natural light will sometimes confuse the exposure or HDR in a way that leaves shadows underexposed. This doesn't often happen, but I came across it enough that it's definitely a thing with this camera, at least on the current firmware. A quick tap to expose will usually fix it. These are all real nitpicks, though overall I'm a big fan of the OnePlus 9 pros cameras, and I'm especially appreciating the major improvements to nighttime capture, including superior color science, with that main sensor, compared to OnePlus sister brand Oppo over on the vanilla, OnePlus 9, it's a similar story, same ultra-wide, so same results. The 9's main camera also keeps pace pretty well with the pro, even without is, with the only real difference being low light.

The 9 pro's main camera really pulls the head in moderate to very dark conditions, and while these nights cape shots from the OnePlus 9's primary camera aren't bad by any means. It's very clear. The pro is a step ahead in low light. The same basic trends apply to video from both of these two phones. The OnePlus 9 pro has a couple extra fancy features that are lacking from the cheaper version: 8k video recording at 30 fps for ridiculously high resolution and 4k at up to 120 fps.

So you can slow down to 25 speed.8K video on a phone is still kind of a gimmick, and if you drill down to 100 on a 8k clip, you'll see plenty of fine detail being lost, slo-mo 4k is pretty fun, though, even if it's not something you'll use every day, but once again, where that more advanced sensor and optical stabilization really helps out, is in darker nighttime captures with the video from the 9 pro pulling in noticeably more fine detail and salvaging more accurate colors out of the same scene. So does Hasselblad really live up to the hype? Well, it's hard to say, but these are certainly oneplus the best cameras yet easily competitive with Samsung and others, and a significant part of that is the color science that makes these photos look as good as they do. It's not perfect. There is room for improvement in some areas like sharpening, and I would prefer it if OnePlus was a little more trigger. Happy with HDR like Oppo is overall, though you're looking at a fantastic set of cameras on the 9 pro and a pretty great one, though, with some strings attached on the regular OnePlus 9.

Oneplus is no longer the small upstart brand of years past. Its phones are now competing directly with the most expensive handsets from Samsung and apple at just over 700. The regular OnePlus 9 offers a different balance of features compared to the base model s21, but the overall package is just as compelling it's not the very best at everything it does, but it's a good-looking, well-balanced performant phone at a reasonable price. The OnePlus 9 pro is undoubtedly one of the best android phones available right now, an overachiever in almost every area and look. It should be with price tags around the thousand dollar mark.

The problem for OnePlus is that starting price relative to the competition in a market where the galaxy s21 is perpetually discounted, it's less easy to overlook its telephoto deficiency, even if the other cameras are broadly on par with the very best available. Samsung's flagship is just that good and right now priced perilously close to the 9 pro for many people, the price, especially for the 12 plus 256 gig model, is gonna, be a tough sell that said, OnePlus flagship has plenty going for it, a smaller, lighter form factor than Samsung, faster charging and, in my opinion, much nicer software not to mention displays and performance that are just as good. So, if you value all those things that make the OnePlus experience unique, this phone delivers all that, along with almost the very best cameras on android. That's it for now stay tuned to subscribe for more reviews like this one, and let us know what you think of the OnePlus 9 series down in the comments below thanks for watching, and I'll, see you next time you.

Source : Android Central