OnePlus 9 Pro review: A case against duopolies By Engadget

Conventional wisdom tells us that when people start shopping for high-end smartphones, they'll, usually wind up with one of two things, an iPhone or a Samsung Galaxy with the new OnePlus 9 pro, though OnePlus is making a pretty convincing argument for skipping the duopoly entirely and trying something different on one hand. That's really not a surprise. I mean OnePlus has been making great stuff for years, but personally this is the first time I felt like an OnePlus phone has really truly earned the flagship title. This improvement comes at a cost, though the basic OnePlus 9 pro with eight gigs of ram and 128 gigs of storage, will run you 970 dollars. That is 70 more than the OnePlus 8 pro started at last year, and it's easily. The most OnePlus has ever charged for the base level of one of its high-end smartphones for better or worse, we've come a long way from the days of 300 flagship killers, but I can't help but like this thing anyway, so what makes the OnePlus 9 pro special? Well, it's definitely not design.

We know the company can make flashy beautiful hardware. I mean just look at this special edition cyberpunk model or this leather clad concept design in partnership with McLaren. By comparison, the OnePlus 9 pro really hasn't changed much since last year. It's a little thinner and a little lighter, which is always good, considering how much time we spend on our phones but other than that, we're looking at really standard. One plus fare, I'm talking dual speakers, a micro, sim slot next to the warp charge, compatible USB c port and one of their alert sliders above the power button to switch between silent vibrate and full volume modes, all of which comes packed in a body.

That's rated ip68 for water and dust resistance. It's about now. I should note that some of its most important components aren't particularly unique either. The nine pro uses a snapdragon, 888, and you're going to be hearing a lot about this thing. This year it is the fastest chipset Qualcomm makes right now and when it's paired with either 8 or 12 gigs of lpddr5 ram like it is here, there is very little that it cannot handle.

In fact, I say that, but I actually haven't found anything that managed to throw the OnePlus 9 pro for a loop in the time I've had it. It is just that fast, but that is also a trade it'll, probably share with every other thousand dollar phone released this year. Battery life is also pretty much on par with what I've seen from rival devices this year. With this screen cranked up to with max resolution of 32 16 by 1440, I've been able to get through full days with the 9 pro with that much trouble, although I have to say days of heavy use, pretty much guarantee. This thing needs a charge by the evening.

Do yourself a favor leave this screen on full HD instead, because most people will never ever see the difference, and that means that the OnePlus 9 pro can last well into the following day. Now, with all of that said, the OnePlus 9 pro does feel like more than just a standard by the book upgrade for one. This screen this 6.7 inch AMOLED display, is one of the nicest I've ever seen on a smartphone, that's partially, because its max brightness is really high, and it produces punchy and expressive colors which make it well suited for outdoor use. Now that it's finally enjoyable to be outdoors and also just sort of being an inert sloth person watching anime on the cache, both of which are really important use cases for me, what's especially important here, is that the OnePlus 9 pro screens has a variable refresh rate at its peak when you're playing Fortnite or like whipping through websites in chrome, the screen refreshes at 120 hertz for maximum smoothness. But when you're looking at photos or reading a page of static text, then that refresh rate can bottom out at just one hertz.

It refreshes one time per second, this isn't strictly speaking new because phones, like the Galaxy Note, 20 ultra and the s21 ultra, have similar dynamic, refresh rate tricks, but none of those screens go as low as one hertz, which, in theory, should give the OnePlus 9 pro an edge in battery life. I haven't seen a huge edge if there is one, but I'll. Let you know if that changes beyond just how nice this screen looks. It's also a lot more pleasant to use than the one we got last year I have been complaining for years. I guess about waterfall displays or displays that curve around the phone size, because the sides of my hands always brush up against something by accident, turns out.

OnePlus has received enough complaints that they did away with that curved look almost completely. The gorilla glass covering the display panel itself does curve slightly around the phone, but the edge of the display stops at just the right spot and just like that, no more accidental touches, and I'm a happy camper. It is also worth noting that there are a ton of really handy screen settings to fiddle with, like a hyper touch mode that increases the phone's screen polling rate, so in other words, it makes the touch screen even more responsive than usual when you're playing one of the four games. This feature works with right now. Theoretically, I guess better screen sensitivity could give you an edge when you're in the thick of combat, but I mean look if you're a serious gamer trying to make some kind of name for yourself, you're, probably better off using a dedicated controller anyway, and if more life-like visuals are what you're after there's a motion, smoothing mode that gives your videos that sort of real-time like in front of your face soap, opera! Look that I'm not a fan of, but I'm not here to judge, there's also an ultra high-res video mode.

That should make your videos look better, but for now only seems to work with Instagram seriously. None of the other apps on my phone play nice with this. So good luck! I suppose these customization options don't end there, either, because oxygen OS is full to the brim with clever add-ons that help give the 9 pro a more distinct sense of identity if you're, tired of the standard date and time on your always-on display. Why not use this artsy thermometer looking thing, so you know in excruciating detail how often you pick up and unlock your phone and since we're this close to being able to safely go out and just be a part of the world again oxygen OS is built in step. Counter and parking spot reminders are kind of nice to have, and just a swipe away from the home screen to be absolutely clear.

I have always been and will always scan, stock android, but oxygen OS, and it's mostly practical editions are really starting to grow on me. If there's one change, that's really worth paying attention to this year. It's what's going on with the OnePlus 9 pros cameras if you've never used an OnePlus phone before you should know that their cameras were never bad, but they've never come close to top of the line either this year, OnePlus is trying to change that, not just with clever hardware choices, but with a multi-year partnership with Hasselblad one of the most famous most well-reputed camera brands in the world. OnePlus says that over the next three years, we'll see them working closely with Hasselblad to develop new custom camera hardware- we're not there. Yet, though, this time, the fruits of that partnership are pretty much limited to OnePlus tapping the Hasselblad brain for us to make sure the colors in the photos.

These cameras take are as true to life as possible. Of course, it doesn't hurt that OnePlus is just using better sensors than usual. This year, too, you'll spend most of your time with the 48 megapixel main camera, which uses a custom-made Sony sensor. And what can I say this thing's got game. Hasselblad's color tuning really does feel true to life, though some people, and generally speaking, that includes myself, they will prefer Samsung's approach, even so, it produces richly detailed 12, megapixel stills, with a little help from a tiny monochrome.

Camera you'll never use otherwise, and it's wide f, 1.8, aperture, plus an improved night skate mode means this thing actually does really well in the dark 2. This ultra white camera is no slouch either. It uses a 15 megapixel sensor to capture again really detailed, stills, more so than you generally expect from an ultra-wide camera and OnePlus added what it calls a free form lens to help reduce image distortion around the edges without having to rely exclusively on software. It appears to help, but the distortion is definitely still there still for me at least the relative richness of the images and the really nice colors more than make up for it. If this setup has a weak point for me, it is the 8 megapixel telephoto camera and, of course it is, it has nothing to do with the fact that it shoots at the lowest resolution of the three main cameras or the fact that it's 3.3 times optical zoom seems kind of weak compared to the 10x optical. You get from phones like the galaxy s21 ultra.

More than anything for me, it's this camera's tendency to produce overexposed images in bright situations. The results are never awful, but they're, not nearly as nice as what the other cameras can deliver. So far, I've been talking about what it's like to shoot with these cameras on full auto. Since that is what the vast majority of people are going to do, but if you jump into the phone's pro mode, you'll find more fine-grained controls over your photos, not to mention a better sense of Hasselblad's influence, one plus it had based this pro mode interface on what Hasselblad uses for its own fancy. Digital cameras, which I guess is a nice touch, though I should point out that most people who buy an OnePlus 9 pro have probably never even touched a Hasselblad camera.

I certainly haven't thought about it. The company's cheapest new camera starts a little under six thousand dollars. I don't know that. There's a lot of crossover happening there, but regardless serious smartphone photographers are going to get a kick out of all of these options. In addition to the usual stuff, like ISO and shutter speed and focus controls, you can throw up a histogram swap between different color profiles and even turn on focus peaking just to make absolutely sure your subjects are tack sharp overkill, maybe, but I'm not complaining.

There are just a few other things to note on the camera front as much as I hate to admit it. I do take a lot of selfies and even with face tracking turned on the 9 pros, 16 megapixel front camera always makes my face. Look soft, and I mean soft in the not terribly detailed way, not the round cheeks and Billy lips way, there's also a tilt shift mode built directly into the camera app, which is fine. I guess the effect can be pretty convincing, but I'm really not sure why OnePlus bothered to include this in the first place, oh and if you're more of a video person like I know, a lot of you are the OnePlus 9 pro could shoot at resolutions as high as 8k 30fps and produces surprisingly nice footage. That is maybe a little too nice for most displays.

I certainly don't have a 8k display just lying around, I'm just going to say this is without question. The best device OnePlus has ever made and if you're thinking about splurging on a new smartphone, the 9 pro definitely deserves your consideration. It is a true flagship with the price to match the only thing, keeping me from recommending it more strongly is its competition. You can easily get a galaxy s21 ultra for around the same price, and it comes with a much more flexible camera system, an extra year of software and security updates and generally a more ambitious set of features. I would probably personally stick with the galaxy myself, but make no mistake if you go with the OnePlus 9 pro.

Instead, you can rest easy. You've got a great phone, I just gotta say I mean I really like this phone, but it didn't grab me in the way that I expected it to, and maybe that's not a surprise. OnePlus is now playing in the big leagues. The thousand dollar smartphone range with some really intense competition. You've got to be on point and that's not to say OnePlus isn't, but the whole package doesn't quite seem ready for that level of competition.

If you have thoughts about the phone or the review or the way we handled the review, we'd love to hear about it down in the comments below, or you can email me at beatinggadget. com. Thank you again for watching. We really appreciate your support, and we'll see you the next time a new phone shows up. You.

Source : Engadget