The TRUTH about The OnePlus 8 Pro: Two Months Later By SuperSaf

- What's up guys? Saf here on SuperSaf TV and this is my OnePlus 8 Pro review, after using it for almost two months now I know a lot of you guys are going to be saying, "How have you been using this for two months, "when it was just announced a month and a half ago?" Well, I was fortunate enough to get this a little bit early before the announcement date. And I have been using it quite heavily since. There's lots to like about this phone. There's a few things not to like and there's definitely room for improvement. And I'm going to be trying to cover as much of that as possible. So this will be a long video, but as always I will try to leave some timestamps down below in the description or in a pinned comment so you can skip to a particular section.

Right, with that out of the way, let's get straight to it. The first thing I want to talk about is the display. So you may have heard a lot of people already say that this has the best display in the market right now, and don't get me wrong, it's a really, really good display, but it's not perfect and we'll go into that. So firstly, let's talk about the good. Of course, it's a big display.

It's bright, it's brighter than what we had last year. It's got a Quad HD plus resolution, supports HDR, 10 plus. But most importantly it has a 120 hertz refresh rate. OnePlus were really one of the main manufacturers last year that popularized high refresh rate screens with OnePlus 7 Pro. This year, they've gone even more ahead from 90 hertz to 120 hertz and it really does make a difference.

And unlike other competitive devices, you can have 120 hertz at Quad HD plus resolution. So you're getting the maximum sharpness as well as the maximum smoothness all in one. And that's something that I really like. But we do have this punch out. Now personally, I really don't mind this punch out, but according to a lot of other people, this is a step back from the OnePlus 7 Pro series which did have the pop out to camera, so you didn't have any interruptions on the display.

And from a poll that I did recently, it seems like it is pretty much 50, 50. Some people don't mind the punch out but some people do prefer the pop out, especially because of privacy. That pop camera when it's not being used, it is physically hidden. Now one of the reasons why OnePlus has gone with the punch out rather than the pop up is for IP 68 water and dust resistance and the OnePlus 8 Pro is the first OnePlus device to have that official rating. So I do think it's going to come down to your personal preference.

As I said, I personally don't mind it and it's something that you kind of ignore after a bit because it is out of the way in the top corner. Now let's talk about a few of the negatives. So you'll see that this is a very curved display from either side. And although this looks really cool in terms of usability, it can sometimes be a bit of a problem. Samsung, the company that actually popularized the cup display format, they themselves have now started to move away from that.

So if you look at the S20 line, the displays are much flatter than they have been previously. The OnePlus 8 Pro has a very curved display and although it is going to come down to your personal preference whether you like it or not. There are some palm rejection issues that I've experienced, especially if it's reaching to the opposite bottom corner. The far of my hand will kind of cover the screen a little bit and then I'll have to reposition my hand to be able to press that button. So although this has improved with software updates, I still think there is more room for improvement.

Another area for improvement is with an always on display. The OnePlus 8 Pro still does not have an always on display. OnePlus has been making OLED displays for some time on their devices and they still don't have an always on display, whereas the competition out there on the Android side, whether it's Samsung, Google, LG, they will have always on displays. Now this may not be specific to you. You may not want an always on display.

I am somebody who really appreciates an always on display. It's really useful to just see things at a glance without having to pick my phone up each time and although I do think the OnePlus 8 Pro is going to be getting an update from what I've read on forums soon. It has been some time since this has been out and although we had lots of other updates, we've still not got that always on display. OnePlus, there's really no excuse now, give us an always on display. Right, so those are some of the issues that may or may not apply to you, but let's talk about some issues that I think will apply to most people.

Recently, we did start hearing of display issues with the OnePlus 8 Pro. In particular around green tint as well as black crush. Now on my personal unit, I did not experience any green tint, but I did experience some black crush. Now this was only visible in very dark environments when the brightness was all the way down. And you could definitely notice some areas of the screen which were inconsistent compared to others.

When you have something like a grey background. Now OnePlus did release some updates to improve this. But from what I found in my experience was that all these updates really did was to limit how dim the display could go. Which would make those issues less noticeable, but they were still there. Here you can see an image of the OnePlus 8 Pro right next to the OnePlus 7 Pro at the lowest brightness settings and you can see that the OnePlus 7 Pro goes much dimmer compared to the OnePlus 8 Pro after this updates.

Now I'm somebody who really likes to use my phone in darker environments. I usually am on my phone say half an hour, an hour before bed. So I don't like the display to be too bright because I don't want it to affect my eyes. And I do eventually want to get to sleep. So this was something that I noticed quite a bit and I did tweet about it and a lot of you guys also noticed this.

And having a more closer examination of my OnePlus 8 Pro compared to the OnePlus 7 Pro, I did see quite a bit of inconsistencies in the color when viewing grey backgrounds. So I did get in touch with OnePlus and they did send me a replacement unit. Now this replacement unit was much better than my previous OnePlus 8 Pro unit. However, it still was not perfect. I could still see these inconsistencies of color when viewing it in a darker environment compared to last year's device, the OnePlus 7 Pro, which was absolutely fine.

So this is something that I have spoken to OnePlus about and apparently there's going to be more software updates coming to improve this. Whether or not these software updates are going to fix this issue completely, I don't know. Whether or not this is going to be something that's going to affect your specific device? I don't know. You may be somebody who doesn't really use your smartphone at the darkest settings in dark environments, so you may not even notice some of these issues if your smartphone has it. Nevertheless, it is something that I have experienced and it's something that I have to definitely talk about.

Now another thing I want to talk about around the display is this optical in display fingerprint scanner, which is very fast. It's one of the fastest fingerprint scanners out there, but you do have to wake the device in order to be able to use it. And it's something that I've talked about before on other devices such as the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra which I did do a comparison of with the OnePlus 8 Pro. I'll link that video in the cause and in the description. The fingerprint scanner is always on so you can just press it at any time without having to wake the device.

So the fact that you do have to wake the device before you press the fingerprint scanner actually makes this a little bit slower in my opinion. So that's something that I think with an always on display will hopefully be fixed. And another thing is that, once again this is in darker environments, something that may not be specific to everyone out there, but as soon as you tap the fingerprint scanner, the brightness of the display increases significantly. So I'll be there, I'm kind of in bed, I'm trying to find the fingerprint scanner, I press it and it's just like, "Whoa, why is it so bright?" And it seems to be because it is trying to push some light through the optical fingerprint scanner area to be able to read your fingerprint. But for me, that really does spoil the experience of using this device in the dark.

It's not something that I experience on other devices. They have consistent brightness. So if you do set it to the lowest brightness, it's going to stay like that. It's not going to suddenly brighten up the screen to be able to read your fingerprint. I don't know if this can be improved with the software updates, but it is something that I've definitely noticed.

Right, so that was a lot about the display but of course there was a lot to talk about. Now let's move on to the build on the design. So in terms of the design itself, this is not really anything new. The front as what is the back is something that we've seen previously. The front is practically identical to the OPPO Find X2 Pro which is a device by OPPO, a partner company to OnePlus.

So it's kind of understandable. And the back of the device looks very much like last year's OnePlus 7 Pro. Now these are not necessarily bad things. I think it looks really good from the front and I also think it looks really good from the back. I actually really like the symmetrical central aligned cameras compared to some of the rectangular camera modules that we're seeing these days.

And I also really liked this matte finish at the back. This looks really nice. It's got a bit of a two-tone finish. However, if you do get the black version then that is a glossy black, which I'm not a huge fan of, because it does attract lots of fingerprints. I would definitely recommend picking up a skin from our channel sponsor Dbrand.

I quite like the swarm skin. It gives you that black look but also gives you a bit more texture to the device and there's lots of other options available as well. I'll leave a link to Dbrand in the description below if you're interested in picking one up. Now speaking of this camera module, the camera module does have quite a bit of a bump on. Because it's in the middle, the device will rock from side to side quite a bit.

Now I generally don't use my phone when it's on the table, but just something to bear in mind. Let's talk about these cameras. So traditionally OnePlus devices have always been a step behind other competitive devices. So it's one area where I really think OnePlus has really struggled to kind of keep up with the competition. This year however, things are different and OnePlus has really improved the game when it comes to cameras.

I actually did a mini comparison versus the S20 Ultra in my hands on video. And in a lot of situations the OnePlus 8 Pro actually beats out the S20 Ultra which is a much more expensive device, especially when it came to areas like dynamic range. So I'm very impressed with the cameras here. The Ultra-wide camera is actually using the same sense that we had on the primary camera last year and it does take some really good photos. The primary camera is quite a large sensor as well, so you do get some natural blurry background shots, a natural depth of field effect.

However, as with other smartphones that do have a large sensor, the plane of focus is quite slim. So there might be certain situations where you try to take an image of something and some of it's going to be in focus and some of it is not going to be in focus. And then we also have a telephoto camera, which is going to give you a OnePlus say three times optical zoom. This is technically the same as say you had a 12 megapixel camera with two times optical zoom. As soon as you crop that image to 8 megapixels, then that's kind of the equivalent of three times optical zoom.

So I would have liked to have had a standard two times optical zoom camera on here, which you could crop into yourself instead of this kind of cropping in for you. And the other area as well where I think this has an effect is when it comes to portrait mode. So generally, I've said this before, but portrait shots on a smartphone tend to look best at around 50mm So that's around at the 2X point. Also having a look at some portrait shots in comparison to say the iPhone 11 Pro max. I do prefer the colors much more on the iPhone compared to the OnePlus.

Now one underrated feature on the OnePlus is the macro camera. Now I'm definitely not talking about the gimmicky two megapixel macro cameras, which manufacturers are now throwing into smartphones these days and something Mark Hess talked about before. The OnePlus 8 does have one of those two mega pixel macro cameras, which doesn't really give you great results. The OnePlus 8 Pro actually gives you really nice macro shots. And it's something that I found myself using a lot to get some really nice closeups, which you can then use as some abstract backgrounds in things.

And it's something that other smartphones don't really offer. So it's definitely a feature that I think is quite underrated. Now let's talk about the color filter camera, which is interesting. Because initially when OnePlus talked about this color filter camera, I'll be completely honest with you, me as well as many of the tech reviews really did not get it. It's like, what is the point of this camera? Personally speaking, I used it a couple of times, and I did not really use it after that.

But my friend Tom, the tech chap did notice that, this color photo camera could see through sets of materials. Some light plastics and things like that. And not everyone really picked up on that initially, but just a couple of weeks ago, this did get picked up on social media by many people. And I was kind of thinking that, why did OnePlus not really advertise this as a feature, right? Because then it would have made a lot more sense. Okay, we've got this color filter camera, which is going to be something that's going to be quite trippy and you might be able to see through certain objects and things like that.

However, that quickly changed because I then realized that there was a lot of people that were not happy about this because of privacy and the fact that you could potentially see through some very thin materials such as a t-shirt or something. Now are people going to be pointing this at others to try to see through their clothes? I really doubt it. Is it going to be a problem for OnePlus? Well, yes, it is a problem for OnePlus and as far as I'm aware, right now they have updated software on at least the Chinese models to disable this temporarily. So generally speaking, I think this is a feature that is still a gimmick. I mean even if you could see through some items, I'd still only use it once or twice and I'd forget about it, right? It's not something that you're going to be using every single day.

Instead, I think OnePlus should have spent their time on the front facing camera. Now don't get me wrong, the front facing camera is actually quite good. You get lots of detail. Dynamic range is actually really good too, but I have found that it can overexpose in certain situations. This is something that OnePlus devices previously have done a little bit too.

It's not always, but in certain situations I just find that it's just completely washed me out. So this is something that I'm hoping can be improved. But one thing that the OnePlus 8 Pro is definitely missing, which other flagship devices, even half the price of this are offering, is a 4K front facing camera. Now when it comes to video, I've have said this many times before, but the iPhone does have my favorite video camera on any smartphone. One of the reasons for that is consistency.

You could be shooting from the front facing camera or any of the rear facing cameras for photos or videos and then you can match that footage up later on and then you have consistency. On the OnePlus 8 Pro, you've got a max of 10 ATP. So if I'm shooting some video from the front facing camera and then I switched to the rear facing camera, I'm not going to be able to put that footage together. It's not going to be the same resolution. I'll have to downscale my footage from the rear facing cameras.

So this is an area that I am a little bit disappointed about for a flagship device in 2020. I really think that it should have had 4K from the front facing camera. Video from rear facing camera is actually quite good. And we also have an HDR option, which does definitely make a difference for dynamic range. So generally speaking, the cameras are really good.

They are up to the competition in many ways, but there is definitely room for improvement. Now let's talk a little bit about the performance. So OnePlus has always been known for having some of the fastest smartphones out there. A lot of that is thanks to the hardware, but a lot of that is also thanks to the software. So this is powered by the latest and greatest.

So we've got the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 chip set. We do have UFS 3.0 storage, LP, DDR five Ram. So personally speaking, I've had no problems whatsoever in terms of speed and performance. This is a very fast and smooth device like OnePlus say. And a lot of that is thanks to the software as well as the higher refresh rate screen.

The software is one of my favorite skins on Android, OxygenOS. It's really clean. It's really simple. There's not too much on here that you don't really need and as a lot of you guys probably already know, OnePlus is really good with updates. I've already had multiple updates on my OnePlus 8 Pro and it's only been around a couple of months.

So this is something that I'm very confident, OnePlus is going to carry on doing. Bringing updates to the device and bringing a lot of these improvements. One improvement that I would like to see however is better one handed usage. So let me give you an example here. So this is my home screen and you can see that I've got lots of icons in here, but they're all very spaced out vertically.

So if I am holding the device in one hand, I can't necessarily reach the icon style all the way at the top. They are out of reach because of the layout. Now if I compare the same icons on something like the Galaxy S20 Ultra, you will see that the icons are much lower even though they are the same icons, everything is the same, but they are much lower. And that's something that I really like about (mumbles). That consideration of one handed usage.

So hopefully OnePlus can improve the software here. So it is generally better for one-handed usage. This is a large display device. For the speakers, we do have one in the earpiece and one bottom firing and they do sound really good. I've not really got any complaints with the speakers.

Now let's talk about the battery life. So the battery life has actually been really good in my experience. And that is at maximum setting. So I am using Quad HD plus resolution with 120 hertz and this has managed to get me through the day and pretty much all occasions. We're talking around five to six hours of screen on time.

So personally speaking, I've not got any real complaints of the battery life. And of course OnePlus very fast with charging, you do get a 30 watt charger out of the box, which tops this up very fast. But for the first time on OnePlus device, we finally have wireless charging. This is something that I used to miss massively on OnePlus devices and it is finally here. And it works really well.

You can get a very fast 30 watt wireless charger, but that is something that you're going to have to buy separately. It is a propriety OnePlus charger. I don't really think you need to get it. I mean it's really nice to have, don't get me wrong, but it's quite big and it's got a fan and honestly speaking, I think wireless charging is more about convenience. This device lasts me through the day generally, so I can just drop this on a wireless charger before I'm about to go to bed and I can wake up to it charged.

So I don't really have to worry about that. And I think that's how most modern flagships should be. They should last you the day. And the wireless charging thing is more of a convenience. So yes, if you really do want those super fast wireless charging speeds, you can go ahead and buy the 30T wireless charger.

But any general cheat enabled wireless charger is going to work absolutely fine with the OnePlus 8 Pro. It's just not going to be as fast of course. Now we also do have a support for reverse wireless charging where you can charge another device on the back of the OnePlus 8 Pro. This is quite slow however. Slower than some of the competition, so it's not really something that I found myself using much.

Now the OnePlus 8 Pro does have support for 5G. I've not really been able to test this much because 5G is still not fully in my area and of course I've not really been at traveling out and about as much. One good thing is that you do have the dual SIM support and you can have two 5G sims in here. Although you'll only be able to use 5G on one sim at one time. Still really good to have.

And the fact that we do have 5G does have an impact on the price. So the price of the OnePlus 8 Pro is now starting at 800 pounds or $900. So it's definitely up there with the competitive flagships. So traditionally, OnePlus devices have been quite a bit cheaper and it's been very easy to recommend OnePlus devices over others purely because of the price. This year, that is much more difficult.

Can I still recommend this at the price point? Yes, I really think that OnePlus 8 Pro overall despite some of the issues is a very good smartphone and it's something that I think most people would really like. But at the same time there is a lot of competition at this price bracket. If you look at the likes of the S20 for example, that will be retailing for around this price, now that it has been out for a couple of months. So it's really going to be a question of do you want to go with one of these other devices? Or do you want to go with this? However, if you're in India, then the decision is going to be a lot easier because the OnePlus 8 Pro is actually a lot cheaper in India compared to everywhere else. Now I think this is partly because OnePlus devices are hugely popular in India.

We've already heard before, that OnePlus is the number one premium smartphone brand in India. And it looks like OnePlus has really worked hard to get the price down in India particularly, which is kind of unfair on the rest of the world. Let's be real. But regardless if you are in India, then I think you're really going to like this deal in comparison to lots of other premium flagship devices out there. That's what I think about the OnePlus 8 Pro.

What do you guys think? Definitely drop me a comment below. Let me know your thoughts. I hope you enjoyed this thorough and very long video. I try to cover as much detail as possible. If you did and you haven't already, then be sure to subscribe and hit that bell icon, maybe? That way, you'll be able to see all of the future coverage that I do.

And also maybe hit that thumbs up button because it really does help me out. Once again, thanks to our sponsor Dbrand. If you do want to pick up a skin for your OnePlus 8 Pro or other devices, I'll leave a link to them in the description below. Thanks for watching. This is Saf on SuperSaf TV and I'll see you next time.

Source : SuperSaf