OnePlus 9 Full Review! Did The Software & Camera Updates Make Photography Better? By Shannon Morse

Hey s'mores I'm Shannon Morris, welcome to Morse code. I do tech reviews and tutorials. So if you are looking for in-depth tech and gadget content, you've come to the right place. Today, I'm taking a look at the new OnePlus 9 5g, which went on sale April, 2nd in astral black, which is this color or winter mist. It comes in either 8 gigs ram, plus 128, gig storage or 12 gigs of ram and 256 gigs of storage. For some markets there is no expandable storage, and it costs 729 or 829 respectively here in the US, and it includes a power adapter in the box.

I can't believe that I have to say that now in 2021 thanks apple, this does not feel like a premium phone in hand, probably because of the plastic frame around the edges. Even though OnePlus used corning glass on the front and the back, the back does kind of feel like plastic. It is 6.7 ounces, and it does have a 6.55 inch display, so it's ever so slightly smaller and lighter than the 9 pro. This design will look familiar if you are using OnePlus phones or, if you are used to them. You've got the USB 3.1 gen1 type c on the bottom, for charging there's also a NATO sim slot down there as well on the side. You have a volume rocker and on the other side you get your power button and the alert slider as well.

The unlocked version is no tip certified for water resistance, but the T-Mobile version is rated at ip68 for water resistance. This one also has stereo speakers, which are very, very well-balanced, and they are decently loud. So I was happy with them. OnePlus makes some lovely displays and this one is no different. I really enjoyed using it.

It's a 2400 by 1080 resolution screen and that's at 402 pixels per inch, the display around the edges it's flat, so there's no curved display going on this phone. However, there is a curved display on the nine pro, and it does top out at a refresh rate of 120 hertz. It is a fluid AMOLED display, it's really beautiful and whenever I was comparing this side by side with the OnePlus 9 pro, I did notice that it got darker, which is great for late night use, but it did not get as bright as the 9 pro. So, for example, when I was outdoors in the middle of the day, it was a little easier to see the pros screen over the 9. This one also has a slight yellow tint on default settings, but as usual with OnePlus, you can change the screen calibration to be a little more bluish, more vivid, more saturated in the settings just kind of depending on what you prefer like other androids this year.

This one also packs in the Qualcomm snapdragon 888 chips and android 11. However, it does have oxygen OS. I tested this with 3d marks, stress tests and I got test scores around 5740. All the way up to 5800 stress tests will vary based on the hardware, the battery percentage, the screen on time, things of that nature, so you will get variances in the final score. So I generally like to take that with an average- and in this case the average score was on par with the s21.

It is zippy and again that display looks perfect with that high refresh rate. So I was very happy with the fluid response of this phone. The user interface is still oxygen. Os, as I mentioned, though, any users of OnePlus phones will notice that late last year the operating system did get a pretty big change. It looks a little less like stock android and more like Samsung's one UI, whether that's something you like.

So if you are coming from a Samsung phone, you may find that oxygen OS on these newer OnePlus phones would be quite easy to get used to. But for what it's worth, you can still find all the fun details in your settings. You can still heavily customize your operating system to one plus, so you can change things specifically like the screen. Color calibration. You can use things like reading mode or change the icons, so nothing has really changed there.

This phone shines when it comes to battery life. The battery life is really, really nice. It packs in a 4 500 William per hour battery, and I got this thing to last: a good 12 hours with wireless and the screen on the highest brightness. It is quite impressive. I was watching YouTube videos for 12 hours, okay, I wasn't really watching YouTube videos for 12 hours, but I had them on the screen that entire time, plus it charges really fast OnePlus, has been really innovative when it comes to charging and that's one of their biggest perks, I would say the phone can charge from one to one hundred percent in 29 minutes and yes, I did test that since that's what they said, it could do using the fast warp charge at 65 watts.

It can also do 15 watts wireless charging in some markets with a compatible wireless charger like, for example, the OnePlus wireless charger. Now a slight tangent here. This is the wireless charger. I did want to mention that the new wireless charger still has a fan. So, for example, you can see the fan blades in there through the exhaust on the bottom of this wireless charger.

It's very strange, so it is audible whenever it is charging it's very slightly audible, but they did change out the cable so instead of having one that is just stuck onto the base that can never be removed, the new one is removable, and it is USB which makes it a lot easier to put it wherever you need and for cable management, so props to OnePlus for listening to our critiques on the last wireless charger. This one is so much better. Now. Moving on to security uh, there is a fingerprint sensor built into the screen, which is really easy to unlock it with. It is an optical in-screen sensor, meaning that it does require light shining on the fingerprint to work.

It is very fast, though, and it is more secure than face unlock, which is also included now stay tuned. I do have a bunch of camera tests using the lenses on the back as well as the front of this, but make sure to subscribe if you are enjoying this review alright. So that brings me to my last feature the major feature, which is the cameras now. This is just a general overview of the most common features if you do want a deeper analysis or a comparison, video between any of the 9 series and any other smartphones. Let me know I just didn't want to make this video like 20 minutes long, so OnePlus teamed up with Hasselblad which, if you've been a camera, fan for any amount of time, you've probably heard of that brand.

Before. However, I have a feeling that a lot of consumers who are just looking for a new phone may not have ever heard of this camera brand, but they are very well known for professional photography, but Hasselblad has been around for quite some time, and they signed up with OnePlus on a three-year plan to improve camera functionality. Now, with the nine series, hustle blood brings color calibration, so the photos are generally really true to life, and they are not over saturated. I do find whenever I was shooting on the OnePlus 9 series that the photos are not as saturated as the ones on my iPhone 12 Pro max or my Samsung s21 ultra, but the photos are very pleasing. Nonetheless, there are three different lenses on the back.

First, you have a 48 megapixel, main f 1.8 aperture lens. Next, you have a 50 megapixel, ultra-wide f, 2.2, aperture lens and third is a 2 megapixel, monochrome camera, which is going to help with black and white photography and low light photos. Now there is no telephoto camera on the OnePlus 9, but there is one on the 9 pro. I realize that megapixels are really high on this phone, but you do have the option to turn high-res photography on or off. If you want to conserve storage, so you can lower that setting.

If you don't need that high of megapixels, so my overview of these lenses first off with the main lens, it's very, very detailed. The shots are incredibly detailed. Like crisp lines, I can zoom in and still see a lot of the detail, so it didn't muddy out any of the really, really detailed pieces of these shots. HDR did really well in shadowy photos, and it did even out the contrast. I love this picture of my husband with our ROG now.

Luckily, one of my friends during this hike he wore a black shirt, so I was able to take some pictures of him, which proved to me that this camera did really well with blacks. The black colors are very, very deep, and they aren't gray with the ultra-wide. There was no distortion along the edges, which is great, sometimes with ultra-wide lenses. You can get that kind of strange distortion up in the corners, but that wasn't an issue here. I also still have those deep, rich blacks and the shadows looked really well.

Macros are also built into the camera, and they do give you really detailed close-up shots, so I was taking pictures of my mouse pad, and it looked really cool in picture, and luckily my mouse pad is pretty new, so it's not that dirty. Yet I would definitely be able to tell with these macro shots. There is no additional lens for macro mode, but this phone does far better than its predecessor. In my opinion, I unfortunately was not impressed with the 10 times digital zoom. Nor did I assume that I would be.

It still appeared pretty muddy like a potato and portraits left a lot to be desired. Honestly, while the subject was very clear and detailed along the interior of the subject, the edges were not so here's a picture of my husband, his hand on his beer, for example, was totally blurry and the edge of this rock in another picture. That was portrait mode well, the rock was blurry and that should be very well-defined edge, but the OnePlus 9 had trouble kind of figuring out what was going on there. Pro mode is supposed to shine in terms of Hasselblad, but without adjusting any of the settings. The photos were really blown out on auto in pro mode, so I lowered the exposure and I messed with the aperture, and I was able to get a much better photo out of pro mode.

Whenever I was focusing on those settings. Of course, there are other modes to choose from. You still have all the usual suspects. There is a slo-mo and time-lapse there's. Also, nights cape and night mode did really well on this phone there's also HDR portrait mode, which I already mentioned, etc.

, etc. HDR by the way does default to on. So if you prefer to turn that off, you need to go into your settings to adjust it. As you wish now, a bit about video, you can record up to 8k at 30, fps 4k at 30 or 60 and 1080p at 30 or 60. I recorded some test footage, and it looks perfect and clear, but the stabilization had some strange glitchy issues at the beginning before it stabilized, and it was windy out.

So the wind noise was pretty audible. Vocals were still decently clear. Even with that background noise, here's some default recording on the OnePlus 9 and the OnePlus 9 pro. This is the OnePlus 9 bros. What are you doing? Are you fighting man who you're fighting next up? Is the front-facing selfie camera at 16 megapixels? This one is f 2.4. It does come with as and fixed focus.

I actually really liked the selfies coming out of the OnePlus 9, though I am used to more vibrant coloring, especially with my hair. For example, it does look a little more pink and less blue. So, like my face- and my skin tone was a lot more pinkish with this camera, the portrait mode was about the same as my s21 ultra in terms of problematic focus on strands of hair, which is still a thing that you're going to have to deal with whenever it comes to photography on smartphone lenses, but it did have a good general balance of color. There was no distortion to be seen in the edges and the OnePlus did not over sharpen, which was great, so my skin looked perfect. It is pretty narrow, though so, probably not very good for group photos.

So if you do like to take a lot of group pictures with your selfies, you may want to stick with a different smartphone weirdly. It can only do up to 1080p 30 video on the front lens, and it did not filter out wind very well on this front-facing camera example. The stabilization was good, though it was clear as far as the video goes and the audio was good for voice, assuming that you don't have a lot of background noise to cope with. So this is a test of the front facing camera to see how the stabilization is and see how the wind resistance is on these microphones. Let's see how it looks with the bright sun up above me see how the balance is and the audio what do you all think of this front-facing camera.

Let me know in the comments down below and that's about it for the OnePlus 9. I thought it had great battery life and great speeds. It has a very fluid operating system, especially if you like vanilla android, but you want to go with something that has higher specs than a pixel 5, and it has good specs. Overall, it's a well-rounded phone at a very good price point. I am curious to see how the OnePlus 9 pro stacks up compared to it, so I will be checking out that one in a separate video coming up fairly soon on the channel in just a few days so subscribe.

If you haven't already comment below with any questions you might have, and thank you so much for watching. I'm Shannon Morse and I will see you soon- bye you all.

Source : Shannon Morse