OnePlus 9 Pro review
OnePlus has always tried to make flagships that can compete with the best android smartphones on the market in terms of quality, the number of features, and especially price. But for some reason, the opinion has developed in a society that these are still niche phones that may be of interest only to a narrow circle of enthusiasts looking for a mobile device “not like everyone else”. The OnePlus 9 Pro is truly different because it offers flagship specs at a lower price point and has some features that the competition lacks.
And this is good.
Sales and marketing have played a large role in shaping the image of niche phones. In Russia, OnePlus does not even officially sell its devices. Most of the smartphones that we sell are imported from Europe with a surcharge. Therefore, many do not see the point in saving not the biggest savings and prefer more familiar and touted brands such as Samsung. The Korean company works closely with some operators, advertises itself well, and almost no one knows about the Chinese one. A well-known manufacturer of smartphones from China for most Russians is Xiaomi or Huawei, but not OnePlus.
However, this company also has a lot to offer you. After seven years of existence and several dozen models released, it managed to establish itself as a manufacturer capable of creating excellent flagships at a lower cost than the average price on the market. The $ 970 OnePlus 9 Pro once again underscores this property, albeit with some compromises.
The flagships of this brand always have an impressive list of top specs, but the 9 Pro is not good in numbers. This phone is intended to show how good these best features can be when combined in one device.
Advantages and disadvantages
Great screen
Exquisite firmware
Very fast charging
The camera sometimes over-processes photos
Weak digital zoom
Design
The OnePlus 9 Pro is the most sophisticated and stylish smartphone this firm has ever created. Their designs have never had a particular style, so the new flagship looks really chic against the background of the rest. Although in comparison with some competitors it is still inferior.
It's a big phone. It has a 6.7-inch curved display that's narrow enough to be comfortable to use with one hand. The build quality is impressive. The glass merges with the aluminum border without any seams at all. The smartphone looks solid and refined.
It should be noted that the 9 Pro looks almost exactly the same as the Galaxy S20 Plus. Move a couple of buttons, place the front-facing camera in the center, change the logo and you will understand that this is the same phone. But this is by no means a bad thing. The fusion of curved glass and aluminum looks incredible every time.
OnePlus 9 Pro and Galaxy S20 Plus
There is, however, a hint of OnePlus identity in this device. It is a three-step physical call mode switch: melody, vibration and silent. It is convenient to use it, although software switching of modes on other smartphones also does not cause any difficulties. It is difficult to judge its usefulness, so we will just consider it a trademark of the brand.
Three-stage physical call mode switch
Speaking of vibration mode - it's bad. The vibration of the 9 Pro is very weak and quiet, unlike many other Android smartphones. For some users, this will even be a plus, since it does not bother and does not hum too loudly. However, I would like to hear and feel when the phone vibrates in my pocket.
Battery and charging
OnePlus is renowned for its proprietary smartphone charging technology. The 9 Pro comes with a 65W fast charger that can charge your battery in minutes. The 4500mAh battery is split in two here, which also helps speed up recharge times.
Battery life may not be the greatest, but a great charging ecosystem will always help you recharge very quickly.
Wireless charging is also supported. If you have $ 70 to spare, you can buy the OnePlus Warp Charge 50 wireless charger. Its power is only 25W, but since the battery is in two parts, it is almost the same as 50W. You can set up your phone for charging both vertically and horizontally, which allows you to use it as a convenient stand for watching videos. The OnePlus 9 Pro charges from zero to 100% wirelessly in 45 minutes. It is unlikely that you will discharge it to zero, so your charging time will be reduced by another 10-15 minutes. And it is very fast compared to other similar devices. The wired charger gets the job done even faster. Just plug your smartphone into a power outlet in the morning while you drink your coffee, and pick it up when you go to work. The charge will be replenished to 100%. You no longer need to leave your phone connected to the network overnight.
OnePlus Wireless Charger
The autonomy is not the greatest, but it is in line with many competitors. The 9 Pro lives for about a day and a half with normal use. However, if you want to shoot 4K video and play games continuously, the battery will last for about four hours of screen time.
Battery life may not be fabulous, thanks to the excellent charging ecosystem, you can always bring your smartphone back to life much faster than many other Android devices. But remember that you only need to use the original charger from OnePlus for this.
Charger
Display
Immediately after impressive wireless charging, the display is on the OnePlus 9 Pro's most impressive specs list. As mentioned earlier, the screen has a diagonal of 6.7 inches. It is large enough, but narrow and curved, so there are no problems with convenience. In the wake of Samsung, OnePlus has decided to move to OLED LTPO panels, which are better at conserving battery power and allowing you to dynamically adjust the refresh rate.
In some respects, the experience with the OnePlus 9 Pro's screen is even better than that of Samsung's new flagships .
The display can operate both at all 120 Hz and at 1 Hz, depending on what is displayed on it at a particular moment. OnePlus also claims that this screen will be more comfortable and practical for gamers, as it has a high responsiveness with a clock speed of up to 360Hz in some games. The company even called this technology Hyper Touch. It is unlikely that it is very important, but since OnePlus says it does, so be it. Just know what it is here.
The more significant option is the screen resolution of 1440 x 3216 with a density of 525 pixels per inch. The device can work at the maximum resolution and the highest refresh rate at the same time. Naturally, this will lead to a decrease in autonomy, but the main feature of any flagship should be the ability to use its specifications at full capacity. And here she is. Then it's up to you to decide exactly how to set up your phone: for the best picture or the highest autonomy.
OnePlus 9 Pro - OLED LTPO Screen
The smooth high-quality picture, combined with the beautiful animations of OxygenOS, at some points makes the experience from using the OnePlus 9 Pro even better than from the new flagships of Samsung. Color adjustments are also simpler and more natural here than in the Galaxy. Although some will still prefer brighter colors.
Cameras
Without going into specific numbers, it's worth noting that until last year, cameras were the main problem with OnePlus smartphones. And this is a really serious drawback, because very often the only way to compare devices with the same top-end hardware is to look at the photos from their cameras.
OnePlus understands all this and is not even trying to position the 9 Pro as a new competitor to the best cameras from Samsung or Apple. The company decided to go the other way - to ask for help.
This year, the collaboration with Hasselblad only touched on the color and design of the camera interface.
And she turned to no one, but to Hasselblad, to improve the quality of the cameras of the new flagships. Their partnership has just begun, but no one can guarantee that it will bring some kind of innovative results. In most cases, nothing remarkable comes out of such deals when it comes to cameras.
This year, OnePlus' collaboration with Hasselblad only focused on helping to customize colors and adding some elements to the design of the camera's Pro-mode interface. And, of course, the Hasselblad logo, which the company kindly allowed to be placed next to the cameras on the back of the phones. And this is really important for OnePlus, as it can help bring more attention to their new flagships.
Cameras OnePlus 9 Pro
Color customization from Swedish photographic equipment gurus deserves respect. The company clearly has its own vision of what the photos should be. For example, on the iPhone, they are usually neutral with a predominance of warm colors. Pixel has more contrast with more blue. On Samsung - with the brightness turned up to maximum.
The OnePlus 9 Pro sits somewhere in between all of them in this regard. It slightly increases the amount of blues and manipulates shadows to create more even lighting in the photo. His photos look more impressive than those of the iPhone, but they are not as detailed.
The cameras on this phone are generally good, but they don't quite match the photo quality of the iPhone 12 Pro Max or Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra . Each of these devices is head and shoulders above the OnePlus 9 Pro. It copes well with photographs in different lighting conditions, but sometimes they still need to be rehomed in order to achieve higher image quality. It's a little annoying to feel that the viewfinder doesn't really always show what will be in the photo.
As is usually the case with mobile phone cameras, the real difference between the two lies not in the hardware, but in the software. The 9 Pro works reasonably well with color, but sometimes it can go overboard and the images come out overly processed. Most likely, the company is trying to catch up with the Pixel in contrast, but so far it only turns out to be too sharp. Lightening shadows works great for the most part, but sometimes for some reason he wants to add unnecessary noise to them. What it depends on is not clear.
The main lens here is a 48-megapixel sensor from Sony with optical stabilization. What exactly is it better than the one installed in the OnePlus 9, even the manufacturer could not answer. In Pro mode, the camera can shoot 12-bit RAW images. That's two bits more than last year's flagship, in case you're wondering. They say that this way the images are more detailed, but only professional photographers who need RAW files will notice this.
The app's interface in Pro mode is also noteworthy. Here you can clearly see which settings are set manually and which are automatically. Usually such modes in cameras are loaded with various complex information, but this one is simple and convenient. One of the most interesting features is focus, which draws small lines on the subject in focus. It is simpler, more convenient and more intuitive than the standard push-to-focus feature found in all other smartphones. But, if you are used to this option, you can choose it, there is such an opportunity.
OnePlus 9 Pro review
The OnePlus 9 Pro also has a 50MP ultra-wide lens that does its job better than the same sensors found in almost all other smartphones. It smooths the picture around the edges and retains more detail on its own than any software intervention.
The telephoto lens has a built-in 3x zoom, which has nothing of interest. It works just like any other approximation. But the same cannot be said about digital zoom. The S21 Ultra with its periscope smashes it to smithereens. It hurts even to compare these photos. There is also a monochrome matrix, which cannot shoot on its own, but only helps the main camera collect information to improve photos with a monochrome filter. In short, it is almost useless. This time, OnePlus decided to ditch the "color filter" camera that was just as unnecessary on the 8 Pro. Suspicions creep in that next year the monochrome camera will also "fall off".
For night shooting, the phone has a proprietary OnePlus Nightscape mode. It works great, but at times the images are too light. Although this is probably already tasty. Overall, night shots are really good. Portrait mode is a mixed bag. Sometimes one gets the impression that a person's head is simply glued onto some kind of blurred background. It can take good portrait photos, but it often requires taking the same shot twice. The front camera copes well with selfies during the day, but in the dark it quickly loses all its qualities.
Filming also evokes ambiguous feelings. On the one hand, the OnePlus 9 Pro gives you the ability to shoot video in 8K @ 30fps and 4K @ 120fps. But on the other hand, neither one nor the other looks normal. Even regular 4K / 30 FPS shooting over processes the picture, as is usually the case with video on many phones. The new improved HDR effect could be noted, but it's minimal at best. For the most part, you can't see it at all.
There are many points in which this phone's camera falls short of the competition. And despite the price difference between the two, the OnePlus 9 Pro is a flagship smartphone and its cameras should match the flagships. They are not bad, but not the best.
OnePlus 9 Pro and OnePlus 9
Performance
The performance of this device is the only area in which there are no complaints about it. And there is practically nothing to say about her. The OnePlus 9 Pro is powered by Qualcomm's most powerful Snapdragon 888 processor to date, 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. If those specs aren't enough for you, for an additional $ 100 you get the 12/256 GB version. None of them have a microSD card slot, so 256GB looks preferable. Especially if you're going to indulge in 4 and 8K videos a lot.
Overall, the 9 Pro's performance is top notch. He doesn't stutter or stop at nothing. Games, videos - any content on it works quickly and smoothly. The optical fingerprint scanner under the screen does a good job too, unlocking the phone quickly and clearly.
Software
The new OnePlus smartphones run on Android 11 with the proprietary OxygenOS shell. Some solutions in it are borrowed from One UI from Samsung. For example, shifting important content to the bottom of the screen for more convenient thumb control and support for the Always-On-Display function, which allows you to display some information on the screen. New animations look nice and play smoothly. It also seems like OnePlus has finally learned that constantly closing apps in the background isn't cool.
OnePlus has made a more elegant version of Android than Samsung.
The company promises at least two more Android versions for its devices and three years of security updates every two months. That's a decent support period, but still not as long as Google and Samsung.
OxygenOS has many customization options such as icons and fonts. There's also one interesting feature that includes a bar that displays how often you've used your phone that day.
There are a few more borrowed features, this time from Apple (or Microsoft). We are talking about the possibility of placing widgets on a separate panel so that they do not clutter up the desktop. You can open this panel with a simple swipe down on the screen. The function is interesting, but its control is not intuitive. The fact is that in exactly the same gesture, absolutely all Android smartphones open the notification curtain. This creates some dissonance and confusion.
Possibilities of placing widgets on a separate panel
It seems that OnePlus has managed to make a more elegant and sophisticated version of Android than Samsung. OxygenOS does not impose its own app ecosystem on you (although it may still change with the release of the OnePlus Watch). And, unlike the Korean giant, it doesn't "decorate" its branded apps with advertisements.
Of course, the shell still has a lot to strive for, and One UI currently offers more useful features (and just looks more stylish). But this is a movement in the right direction, which is really good news.
Outcomes
The OnePlus 9 Pro does not aim to wipe out every flagship device on the market. This is a full-fledged flagship. While it still costs a little less than the advertised brands, it is still an expensive smartphone that offers some of the best specs. Despite the fact that not very many people buy OnePlus smartphones, the company has been on the market for a long time and produces good devices, which has already been proven more than once. Therefore, it also has the right to be called a recognized brand. This means that you need to ask her in the same way as with the others.
The OnePlus 9 Pro is a nice, sophisticated flagship that really can appeal to more than just a small circle of enthusiasts. If you are happy with the weirdness of its Android version and not the best cameras, otherwise it will not disappoint you.
Which model to choose
Do not rush to close the review, because that's not all. Having considered both new flagships, it is worth making a general conclusion and saying a few words about which model to choose for the average buyer. If you haven't seen the OnePlus 9 review yet , now is the time.
OnePlus 9 Pro and OnePlus 9
It's actually hard to say which of the two OnePlus flagships this year is more worthy. On the one hand, there is the issue of price. The smaller version costs $ 240 less than the Pro. And when it gets to Russia, the difference in price could become even greater depending on the seller. But when you look at it from a different angle, with the older model you get fast wireless charging, optical stabilization of the camera, a telephoto lens and a slightly larger display with higher resolution. However, performance, high refresh rates and fast wired charging remain the same.
Whether all of the above features are worth $ 240 is up to everyone to decide for themselves. But to be honest, the reason for choosing the 9 Pro over the 9 is exactly the same as why most people buy a Samsung smartphone over the OnePlus. It's just a little better and looks more solid than those devices that sit in the pockets of people around you.
Design
eight
Display
nine
Performance
ten
Autonomy
nine
Cameras
eight
Software
eight
Total
8.7
High quality, sophisticated, but still a niche flagship offering high performance and user-friendly software.
