OnePlus 9 Pro review

OnePlus 9 Pro

 OnePlus 9 Pro review Design 

 The OnePlus 9 Pro impresses with a gorgeous, eye- catching design. That’s not all that surprising coming from OnePlus, which from the veritably morning has created unique phones. From the sandstone back on the OnePlus One and the OnePlus 2 to the red OnePlus 6, this company knows how to make suitable bias that wow when you see them in person. 

 The OnePlus 9 Pro camera module has a lot going on, and it clashes a bit with the minimalism on the rest of the phone’s back. With four lenses, a ray autofocus, LED flash, and a microphone — not to mention the Hasselblad totem — there’s a lot packed into the upper left corner of the phone. The material girding all of it has a nicesemi-matte look. It clearly does n’t match the glass-suchlike finish on the rest of the phone, but it complements the reverse relatively nicely. 

 With the twisted display and minimum top and nethermost bezels, the OnePlus 9 Pro looks inconceivable from the front. Though neither the Galaxy S21 Plus nor the iPhone 12 Pro are unattractive phones, the OnePlus 9 Pro is one step above them. 

 It comes down to the twisted display on the OnePlus device. The wind is subtle and does n’t hinder usability with accidental traces. With only the hole punch cutout in the top left corner to mar the each- display experience, the 9 Pro looks amazing from all angles. 

 At6.4 x2.9 x0.34 elevation, the OnePlus 9 Pro is a big phone. But importing just6.9 ounces, it’s also relatively light and easy to use. Compare that to the Galaxy S21 Plus’7.05 ounces and the iPhone 12 Pro’s thick6.66 ounces, and the 9 Pro just feels light in my hand. The finish makes the phone veritably slippery, however, so be careful of the OnePlus 9 Pro falling out of a fund or slipping from your grip. 

 Partake into the display is an optic point detector and it’s relatively good. I only had a many false negatives in my time with the 9 Pro. It’s extremely quick and I ca n’t tell a difference between it and the ultrasonic anthology in the Galaxy S21 Plus. It’s a heck of a lot quicker than Face ID and much more accessible out and about ( especially for mobile payments). 

 I've to give OnePlus props for the vibration motor in the 9 Pro. The haptics machine is spectacular — nearly on par with the iPhone 12 Pro in my opinion — and makes for a lovely experience tapping, codifying, authenticating, and entering announcements. 

 One confusing thing has been IP instrument for the OnePlus 9Pro.However, you get IP68, If you buy the phone through T-Mobile. Evidence on uncorked models remained a riddle, until OnePlus CEO Pete Lau verified on Twitter that the 9 Pro is, in fact, IP68. 

 The OnePlus 9 Pro comes in two colors Morning Mist and Pine Green. I entered the Morning Mist model, which has this beautiful glass-suchlike luster to it. Head on, you ’ll see your face reflected, but look at the phone from an off angle and you ’ll notice the finish get darker. Unfortunately, it picks up fingerprints and smirches veritably fluently. 

 OnePlus 9 Pro review Display 

 Still, know that all of that noise ended up being true, If you heard rumors about the quality of the OnePlus 9 Pro’s display leading up to its launch. The OnePlus 9 Pro’s display looks fantastic, both in our lab testing and in my particular use. It’s bright with rich colors, deep blacks, and a smart 120Hz adaptive refresh rate. 

 The 9 Pro scored well in our lab results. In its Natural mode, the phone managed119.9 of the sRGB diapason and84.9 of the trying DCI-P3 diapason. With a Delta-E score of0.2 (where 0 is perfect), the OnePlus 9 Pro stands out among the competition. 

 Take the Galaxy S21 Plus, for illustration. In its natural mode, that device managed103.8 of the sRGB space and73.5 of DCI-P3, with a Delta-E of0.18. The iPhone 12 Pro reproduced115.6 of the sRGB color diapason and81.9 of the more demanding DCI-P3 color space, with a0.24 Delta-E standing that’s not as accurate as the OnePlus 9 Pro’s. 

 Out of the box, the OnePlus 9 Pro display is set to Vivid. At that setting, the 9 Pro reproduced208.1 and147.4 of the sRGB and DCI-P3 color spreads, independently. Its Delta-E was0.32. So if you like bright, pictorial colors, this mode is for you. That said, I decided for the Natural mode and plant it further than punchy enough for my eyes. Everything looks so rich and smooth. 

 I tête-à-tête find the OnePlus 9 Pro’s display to be more intriguing to look at than the Galaxy S21 Plus’or iPhone 12 Pro’s. It may not be as bright as either at an normal of 722 nits (versus 747 on the S21 Plus and 742 on the 12 Pro), but it performs further than adequately outside. 

 Another crucial aspect of the display’s excellent performance is its touch slice rate. OnePlus calls its super high rate Hyper Touch and claims it sextuples the speed with which the screen communicates with the processor. That gives the OnePlus 9 Pro a veritably low touch quiescence, which is crucial for certain games. At launch, Hyper Touch supports four titles Brawlstars, League of Legends Wild Rift, Call of Duty Mobile, and PUBG Mobile. Further will come in time. 

 In practical, day-to- day use, Hyper Touch does n’t mean important. It shaves off a many milliseconds in the detention between when you touch the screen and the phone responds. Virtually every phone currently has serviceably low touch quiescence, but Hyper Touch is meant to give a slight edge in mobile games. 

 OnePlus 9 Pro review Cameras 

 For 2021, OnePlus has put a huge trouble into perfecting its mobile photography. The cooperation with Hasselblad is substantiation of this. Both companies are fastening originally on producing natural color tones, further akin to what you ’d see on a Pixel or iPhone rather than the oversaturated look of a Galaxy device. 

 There are other effects about the camera setup that OnePlus wants you to consider, too. Some of these include a lack of edge deformation in ultrawide shots, advancements to the low-light Nightscape mode, and a3.3 x optic and 30x digital drone on the blowup lens. That’s each well and good, but how does the OnePlus 9 Pro perform in real- world use? 

 The short answer is veritably well. The 9 Pro is a pronounced enhancement over once OnePlus phones in terms of photography. The lenses are useful in their own ways (though I find the snap one to be the least helpful) and prints come out looking relatively good. 

 The main camera is a 48MP Sony IMX789 able of shooting in 12- bit RAW for advanced shutterbugs and DOL-HDR for rich videotape. The ultrawide is a 50MP IMX766 detector with a freeform lens to correct for edge deformation. Eventually, there’s the 8MP blowup. All of this works in tandem with the snap detector and the ray autofocus above the binary-LED flash. 

 To put the OnePlus 9 Pro through its paces, I spent a weekend out shooting and comparing it to other top- league camera phones in different departments. I substantially challenged the 9 Pro to take on the iPhone 12 Pro and it did really well. For low- light, I put it up against the Pixel 5’s Night Sight and for drone testing, it went head-to- head with the Galaxy S21 Plus. 

 OnePlus 9 Pro review Videotape 

 The OnePlus 9 Pro also does well with recording videotape. I tried a couple of times while out on a hike compared with the iPhone 12 Pro. I recorded my walking on the trail with both phones contemporaneously at 1080p 60 FPS. 

 The 9 Pro did a great job with stabilization and microphone quality — you could hear me huffing and puffing relatively well. The footage was silky smooth and I came down veritably impressed. OnePlus did an excellent job with the videotape capabilities of the 9 Pro, including support for 8K 30 FPS and 4K 120 FPS. 

 Beside visual dedication and frame rate, the OnePlus 9 Pro also supports DOL-HDR, time lapse on the ultrawide camera, portrayal videotape (which works well unless you move too important), concentrate shadowing, and indeed Nightscape Video for landing footage in low light. All by each, it’s a robust suite of features for videographers and you ’ll be relatively pleased with what you can capture. 

 OnePlus 9 Pro review Performance 

 For as long as I can remember, OnePlus has flattered itself on furnishing top- league smartphone performance for lower than its challengers. Indeed with gaming phones floating around that pack huge batteries, large, high refresh rate defenses, ultrasonic shoulder buttons, and high- performance modes that scrounge out every last bit of power from the processor, the OnePlus 9 Pro measures up well to these tricked-out handsets. 

 The OnePlus 9 Pro packs a Snapdragon 888, presently the stylish system-on- chip you can get in an Android device, paired with either 8 GB or 12 GB of RAM. I ’m confident that you can not make this phone stutter or decelerate down. It’s a veritable hustler. Whether I was editing documents, messaging on Slack, harkening to Spotify, or hopping into a Call of Duty Mobile match, nothing made the OnePlus 9 Pro decelerate down. 

 The OnePlus 9 Pro went through the usual suite of marks in our lab. In Geekbench 5, it scored in single- core and in multicore. For reference, the iPhone 12 Pro manages on the single- core test and on themulti-core test, so Apple’s A14 Bionic is still the leader of the pack. But compare the OnePlus 9 Pro to utmost important Android phone that we ’ve tested to date, the ROG Phone 5, and you ’ll see a noteworthy similarity — the ROG Phone scored on single- core and in multicore, just behind the OnePlus model. 

 In 3DMark’s Wife Life Unlimited plates test, the OnePlus 9 Pro managed34.5 frames per second with a score of. These results put the 9 Pro neck and neck with the ROG Phone 5, which managed34.8 FPS and a score. The iPhone 12 Pro, meanwhile, easily beats both of them both with a and 51 FPS. 

 When we spoke to OnePlus, the representatives touched on what the company called OnePlus Cool Play. This is principally amulti-layer cooling system that shifts the heat to the outside frame, making the phone more comfortable to hold when you ’re gaming for a long time. While not as advanced as the cooling results you find on gaming phones, it’s still enough emotional and the impact is conspicuous. 

 Make no mistake, the OnePlus 9 Pro is a important phone. Not only does it nearly reach Apple’s crown, but it virtually matches the ROG Phone 5. The OnePlus 9 Pro is the most precious OnePlus device yet, but when it comes down to raw and gaming performance, it leaves nothing to be asked. 

 OnePlus 9 Pro review Battery life and charging 

 The OnePlus 9 Pro comes with a mAh battery that lasts a creditably long time in my experience. In Tom’s Guide’s battery test, where a device is left to endlessly reload webpages constantly on a 5G connection, the 9 Pro equaled 10 hours and 40 twinkles with the Smart 120Hz enabled. Unexpectedly, switching to the 60Hz mode slightly made a difference — it was actually a lower 10 hours and 38 twinkles. 

 What could explain this distinction? My thesis comes down to the LTPO technology. In the 120Hz mode, the OnePlus 9 Pro can go all the way down to 1Hz for static content. The refresh rate will ramp up to 120Hz when it’s demanded, similar as when you ’re scrolling through a web runner. But you ’ll probably be on the lower end of effects a lot of the time. 

 Going for 10 hours and 40 twinkles is relatively good. Though it’s not relatively over to par with the stylish phone battery life list, it’s still relatively nice. The iPhone 12 Pro only managed 9 hours and and 6 twinkles in its 5G mode and the Galaxy S21 Plus lasted for 9 hours and 41 twinkles. Any phone that lasts longer than 10 hours on 5G with a high refresh rate is emotional in our book. 

 OnePlus and its family company Oppo have paved the way for incredibly fast charging. For a long time, OnePlus’Warp Charge ( formerly Gusto Charge) was the fastest charging you could get in the US, destroying Qualcomm’s Quick Charge in every regard. Currently, OnePlus and Oppo have lower of a lead in wired charging, but their VOOC technology is great. 

 The 9 Pro uses what OnePlus calls 65T charging. The T means that there's lower internal resistance, which allows the phone to charge at a advanced wattage for a longer period of time. You do n’t need to be an electrical mastermind to understand that the charging speed on this phone is bonkers. 

 But the OnePlus 9 Pro also supports wireless charging, up to a mind-boggling 50W with the OnePlus Wireless Charger. That’s right, the 9 Pro can charge briskly wirelessly than the Galaxy S21 Plus and iPhone 12 Pro can charge wired! 

 We tested the 9 Pro’s wired charging prowess — in 15 twinkles, the phone went from 0 to 61 and in 30 twinkles, it just about completely charged, reaching 99 from 0. We did n’t test wireless charging times, but OnePlus claims 0 to 70 in 30 twinkles and 0 to 100 in 50 twinkles. 

 A recent scuttlebutt has the OnePlus 10 Pro sloped to come with 125W charging, near doubling the 65W charging the current OnePlus phones have. So the as emotional as the OnePlus 9 Pro's charging pets, are it could be supplanted before too long. 

 OnePlus 9 Pro review Software and OxygenOS 

 The OnePlus 9 Pro vessels with Android 11 out of the box with OxygenOS 11 on top. OnePlus formerly erected a character for offering a stock-suchlike Android experience with OxygenOS. I used to call it “ stock” because it looked and felt like Google’s Android vision, but it had added features like gestures, some theming stuff, and other tweaks. 

 With OxygenOS 11, OnePlus started to move down from that. The new software design felt a bit more like Samsung’s One UI, which itself has aimed for a further stock-suchlike sense. Serve to say, it’s a mess trying to compare OEM skins these days. All that said, I love the OxygenOS experience on the OnePlus 9 Pro. 

 I like how smooth everything feels. I like the theming options, including accentuation colors and alternate fountain option (which I really, really enjoy using). I like the redundant features like fresh gestures similar as double valve to wake or the lanes. Also, I like the stability and how well the software utilizes the power of the tackle powering it. I was using a press figure, so the software will be tweaked slightly for the final release, but I only came across a many effects that OnePlus told me would surely be fixed for the phone’s launch. 

 In the history, OnePlus has liked to be exorbitantly aggressive with memory operation, but I have n’t noticed this problem with the OnePlus 9 Pro. I entered the unit with 12 GB of RAM and I noway came near to demanding that much. Still, I noway formerly had an issue with Spotify or YouTube closing in the background like I've with former OnePlus phones. 

 OxygenOS is elegant in all the right places while putting on a minimalist face. When you first charge up the OnePlus 9 Pro, you ’ll find a simplistic, easy-to- use experience. But if you dig around in the settings for the phone and the launcher itself, you ’ll find plenitude of effects to tinker with to make the whole thing feel like it’s your device. 

 OxygenOS 12 is now available, but you may want to hold off on streamlining it. The update as it stands is full of bugs and broken features. 

  OnePlus 9 Pro review 5G 

 The story about the OnePlus 9 Pro and 5G has been confusing at best. Then is how it boils down. 

 The 9 Pro has full 5G support on T-Mobile, so if you install an Uncarrier SIM, you are good to go. 

 OnePlus lately blazoned that the OnePlus 9 series is certified to work on Verizon's 5G, both low-band and mmWave. During the course of the review, I used a Verizon SIM and was suitable to connect to low-band 5G. 

 Still, you won't get 5G at each, If you are on AT&T. The OnePlus 9 Pro doesn't support AT&T's 5G bands, so you will be on LTE. In all honesty, that may not be all that bad considering the state of 5G these days. 

 It's not a one and done situation with 5G and the OnePlus 9 Pro. Precisely consider the below data before you make your purchase. For what it's worth, I haven't had trouble using a Verizon SIM in our OnePlus 9 Pro review unit. 

 The only thing I've noticed is a lack of Wi-Fi calling at time of writing — it's possible that OnePlus will address this in a software update since my unit uses a press figure of OxygenOS. 

 OnePlus 9 Provs. the competition 

 Of course, it's been a many months since the OnePlus 9 Pro has launched. It came to light that OnePlus was intruding with strangling app performance, spoofing marks, and that the company would support the phone for longer. All told, the OnePlus 9 Pro is still one of our favorite Android phones, going head-to- head with the important Galaxy S21 Ultra. 

 We would be lazy if we did not mention phones that have released since also, or are anticipated to launch veritably soon. For illustration, Samsung's new foldable Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Galaxy Z Flip 3 have launched to important praise. The iPhone 13 is due in just a many weeks and we are indeed approaching the Google Pixel 6. 

 The OnePlus 9 Pro faces stiff competition in both Android land and the smartphone request at large. OnePlus will have a lot of work to do to make the OnePlus 10 Pro a good adversary for the Galaxy Z Fold 3, iPhone 13, and Pixel 6. But for now, it's hard to go wrong with the OnePlus 9 Pro. 

 OnePlus 9 Pro review Verdict 

 The OnePlus 9 Pro is one hell of a device and bone that I adore using. The OnePlus 9 Pro rejuvenated my love of Android and all that the OS is able of doing, commodity that did n’t be when I tested the Galaxy S21 Plus. 

 OxygenOS is the smoothest Android experience possible. I did n’t formerly have a problem with apps lagging or delaying to launch, I noway saw a single hiatus, and I did n’t have issues with apps closing in the background precociously. I ca n’t say the same effects for my Pixels. OnePlus has taken OxygenOS to new heights and it’s my favorite replication of Android right now. 

 Still, you ’re getting a veritably able camera, If you conclude for the OnePlus 9 Pro. While Nightscape might be a bit inconsistent and just plain inferior to the Pixel’s Night Sight or iPhone’s Night Mode, you can still get decent low- light prints. Out in broad daylight, however, the 9 Pro stays extremely close to its camera rivals, if not outright beating them in certain scripts. 

 Whether you need solid videotape or competent photography, the OnePlus 9 Pro has you covered. While the iPhone 12 Pro does arguably better with videotape, I plant the 9 Pro to be enough good, especially for an Android phone. 

 Yes, a$ 969 starting price is really steep for OnePlus. Long gone are the days where OnePlus’flagship would bring hundreds lower than their counterparts, but I do n’t know if that’s really a bad thing. I ’m a longtime OnePlus stoner and addict, and while it’s sad to see the company leave its heritage behind with the 9 Pro, I see why it happed. The 9 Pro is the zenith of what the company could negotiate. No holds barred, this phone has all the bells and hisses, and other Android phone makers have a lot of work to do to catch up.