OnePlus 9 Pro Review - Preface | OnePlus dropped three new smartphones as part of its flagship 9 series. The OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 9 Pro were introduced alongside a more affordable OnePlus 9R. The OnePlus 9 (Review) and OnePlus 9 Pro got several upgrades over their predecessors across several fronts. Today, we’ll take a look at the most premium phone in the lineup, the ‘OnePlus 9 Pro’. The OnePlus 9 Pro brings new Hasselblad calibrated cameras, the flagship Snapdragon 888 SoC, a brand new QHD+ high-refresh-rate display, and more.
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Preface | However, OnePlus also increased the price of the device, ditching any aspirations of value and moving into the premium flagship space. While the OnePlus 8 Pro (Review) was no flagship killer, it still managed to find a balance in providing some value as a flagship. The OnePlus 9 Pro, on the other hand, is as expensive as the competition from Apple and Samsung and makes no excuses to hide its new premium avatar. But do the upgrades justify the higher price and can they help OnePlus compete with the best of the best, well, let’s find out?
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OnePlus 9 Pro Build | First off, nothing much has changed in terms of build quality, you get the same front and back Gorilla Glass 5 protection as well as an aluminium frame. The IP68 rating for dust and water resistance has also been retained. There are a few positives with the overall design here. I used the OnePlus 8 Pro for quite a while, and just a couple of days with the 9 Pro and I already noticed that it was much more comfortable to use. The OnePlus 9 Pro also has a curved back and a curved screen with minimal bezels. On the back, OnePlus has opted for a rectangular camera island on the top left corner, while a hole-punch camera cutout sits on the top left of the screen.
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OnePlus 9 Pro Finish | The phone is available in three finishes - Pine Green, Stellar Black, and Morning Mist. Our model arrived in the Morning Mist finish, which has a glossy sliver back that has a mirror-like, gradient sheen. While this is arguably the best finish, I’d recommend against it as it is prone to fingerprint smudges. It is worth noting that OnePlus does add a matte opaque case, rather than the traditional transparent one, in the box. OnePlus also sent us the Karbon Bumper case, which I use with the device for most of the review. The case offers a nice layer of protection and is smooth to the touch.
OnePlus 9 Pro Design | As for the rest, the OnePlus 9 Pro has a USB-C port at the bottom, a SIM tray, and a speaker grille at the bottom. On the left, you get a volume rocker and the power button and a traditional OnePlus slider on the right. On balance, the OnePlus 9 Pro has a premium look and feel that can rival the very best. There’s definitely no revolutionary new design, but a good number of quality-of-life improvements that offer a nice balance of style and comfort.
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OnePlus 9 Pro Display | OnePlus has been pumping out some of the best-in-class displays since the OnePlus 7 Pro. And just when you think things can’t get any better, they do. The OnePlus 9 Pro has a state-of-the-art 6.7-inch LTPO Fluid2 AMOLED panel. The display features a QHD+ (1440*3216 pixels) resolution with 1b colours and HDR10+. It also sports a peak brightness of 1300 nits and a pixel density of 525ppi. You also get a 120Hz refresh rate and a touch response of up to 360Hz. And if these stats aren’t impressive enough, the screen can run games on 120Hz and go all the way down to 1Hz when you are reading.
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Display |And because OnePlus is using an LTPO panel, the refresh rate is adjusted automatically on the fly. You can also head to the settings to adjust screen calibration, resolution, colour profiles, temperature tone and more. Even, the optical under-display fingerprint reader is quite fast. The screen has excellent viewing angles and reproduces vibrant colours while maintaining excellent dynamic range and sharpness throughout playback. It is great to see OnePlus is making no comprises on the display of the OnePlus 9 Pro.
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OnePlus 9 Pro Audio | The OnePlus 9 Pro utilizes a dual-speaker setup with a speaker grille on the bottom and an earpiece doubling as the second channel. The speaker system supports Dolby Atmos, further enhancing audio quality by delivering high-quality stereo sound. Additionally, there was no distortion on maximum volume. The audio quality here is just about good enough, but definitely not class-leading, especially coming from the ROG Phone 5 (Review).
OnePlus 9 Pro Performance | In terms of performance, the OnePlus 9 Pro is up there with the best of the best. Surprisingly enough, the OnePlus 9 Pro is actually the second smartphone to bring the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 mobile platform to India, the ROG Phone 5 being the first. Accompanying the chip is 8GB or 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM. For storage, the OnePlus 9 Pro opts for 128GB or 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage, and like the Galaxy S21 Ultra, there’s no room for expansion.
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Performance | In terms of real-world performance, our model (12GB/256GB) managed a single-core score of 1131 points and a multi-core score of 3415 points. Both Call of Duty: Mobile and Asphalt 9: Legends ran smoothly, without a hitch with the settings cranked up to the max. This is definitely one of the fastest phones in India, and what’s more is that having this much power can push frame rates to 120fps, allowing you to maximize the potential of that excellent screen hardware.
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OnePlus 9 Pro Cameras | For optics, the OnePlus 9 Pro gets a quad-camera setup on the back, which was built in collaboration with Hasselblad, the renowned Swedish camera manufacturer. The four camera sensors consist of a primary 48 MP Sony IMX789 sensor, a 50 MP Sony IMX766 ultrawide shooter, an 8 MP telephoto shooter with 3x optical zoom, and a 2 MP monochrome camera. On the front, the OnePlus 9 Pro opts for a 16 MP selfie camera.
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OnePlus 9 Pro Main Camera | The main 48-megapixel Sony IMX789 sensor generally captures superb photos in a wide range of lighting conditions but excels in daylight because of that large sensor. The OIS here worked well while capturing moving subjects and hardly ever let me down. Every shot I took was very well represented in terms of sharpness and detail, although I did find some instances of unnecessary overprocessing or over-sharpening. The large sensor also offers incredible dynamic range with Sony’s DOL-HDR. Additionally, the laser AF module helps to nail down focusing quickly. You can also capture 12-bit RAW images in the Pro Mode, but they will have to be edited in third-party apps. Another strong suit of the camera system is its true-to-life colours.
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OnePlus 9 Pro Ultrawide Camera | While the main camera does offer an edge over the one on its predecessor, the big step up comes with the new 50 MP ultrawide shooter. Not only does the ultrawide camera retain the same high levels of detail as the main camera, but colour consistency is also well-balanced across the two sensors. Moreover, OnePlus is using a custom lens to help minimize distortion around the edges to the point where it is barely noticeable. While the ultrawide does tend to struggle with dynamic range at times, it works really well, for the most part, making it one of the best ultrawide cameras on a smartphone.
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OnePlus 9 Pro Telephoto Camera | The telephoto lens is the same one seen on the 8 Pro and is quite underwhelming and isn’t able to match the bar set by the main and ultrawide sensors. In daylight, the sensor does manage to capture a good amount of detail, although colours can be a hit or a miss. Additionally, the 3.3x magnification seems too much for regular shots, but too little to get those mind-blowing zoom shots, which we saw on the Galaxy S21 Ultra (Review). Lastly, the 2 MP monochrome sensor and the laser autofocus work with all three cameras, although I didn’t find the former particularly useful.
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OnePlus 9 Pro Night Mode |Low light photography is one of the strongest areas of the 9 Pro’s camera system. When it comes to capturing stills on both the main and ultrawide cameras, the OnePlus 9 Pro definitely offers some of the best results of any smartphone in the market. In most situations, you can get by without turning on Nightscape on the main camera. While details and colours are quite impressive in low light, night mode only serves to further improve exposure, dynamic range, and colour and significantly reduces noise. The ultrawide also does a pretty good job with Night mode enabled. The only drawback with the Nightscape mode is that images can look over-processed and overexposed at times, misrepresenting the time of day.
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OnePlus 9 Pro Video | In terms of video, the OnePlus 9 Pro can record 8K video at 30fps and 4K video at up to 120fps. The phone also features slow-motion, hyper-lapse, and a standard video mode with other resolutions and frame rates. OnePlus did an excellent job with video in 4K resolution with detailed footage and accurate colours. Focus and white balance was also on point for the most part. Stabilization and microphone quality was excellent for the most part. You also get Nightscape Video, Portrait Video, and focus tracking. Overall, the video quality is good across the board, but what was more impressive was the options available at your disposal.
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OnePlus 9 Pro Camera | Check out some of the samples taken from the OnePlus 9 Pro's camera system here.
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One Plus 9 Pro Battery | When it comes to battery, not much has changed from its predecessor, the OnePlus 8 Pro. You still get the same 4,500 mAh battery capacity. In my experience, the battery is more than sufficient to get you through a full day, with some juice leftover to take into day 2. On average, I got nearly 5 to 6 hours of screen on time, although the resolution was set to Full HD+ during most of my testing. Overall, battery life does leave a bit to be desired. Don’t get me wrong, this is more than enough juice to easily get you through an average day, but it’s nothing great.
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OnePlus 9 Pro Charging | However, it didn’t really bother me as OnePlus has bundled a pretty fast charging in the box, unlike other high-end flagships. Warp Charge 65T can fully juice up the phone in a little over 30 minutes. And if that isn’t enough, you also get wireless charging support up to 50W. While it isn’t bundled with the phone, because that would be asking too much, OnePlus did send us the Wrap Charge 50 Wireless Charger that took the phone from 0 percent to 100 percent in about 45 minutes. The decent battery life combined with super-fast charging, help the OnePlus 9 Pro to easily ace the ‘battery’ test.
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OnePlus 9 Pro Software | The OnePlus 9 Pro runs Android 11 with the latest version of OxygenOS. In my view, OxgenOS is right up there among the top Android skins and can even rival stock Android on Pixel devices. The overall interface is quite user friendly and mostly free from pre-installed bloatware. OxygenOS 11 perfectly integrates with the hardware, making the overall experience seamless. While you can customise quite a few things with OxygenOS, the ambient display mode being the best of the lot. Additionally, animations also feel smooth perfectly complementing the high-refresh-rate screen. OnePlus has committed to two years of major OS updates and three years of security updates, although this still put it behind Samsung.
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OnePlus 9 Pro Verdict | The OnePlus 8 Pro (Review) was definitely my favourite phone of 2020 and arguably India’s best. The device offered some of the best hardware and software at an unrivalled price. So, when news of the Hasselblad collaboration broke, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on the OnePlus 9 Pro. And I have to say that now that I’ve tested the phone for a while, it has definitely managed to pull off a few surprises. But it wasn’t all peachy.
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Verdict | Starting with the good. You could put the OnePlus 8 Pro’s screen on any 2021 flagship, and it would still have one of the best displays on a smartphone. But when you consider OnePlus has improved the display even further here, there’s nothing really to say, other than “take a bow OnePlus”. And even if you think battery life’s not too impressive, the charging capabilities are pretty much the best. Add to that is impressive software, a stylish yet comfortable design, and a powerful chipset. All of which makes the OnePlus 9 Pro one of the best smartphones of 2021.
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Verdict | I seemed to have jumped the gun, the proverbial ‘camera gun’. Overall, the cameras on the OnePlus 9 Pro are solid – they are great in daylight and night scenes and are quite consistent across the different lenses. If you are coming from an older flagship, you are unlikely to be disappointed. However, I don’t quite get the hype. “Yes, the cameras are excellent, but no, they aren’t extraordinary.” To end it, I’d say, here’s hoping the cameras get better with time and software tweaks as the Hasselblad partnership is a three year one.
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Should you buy it? | So, finally to the subject of ‘should you buy the OnePlus 9 Pro’? And my instant answer would be “yes”. It is an amazing phone that doesn’t have an equal at this price. Although there’s a good argument to make to buy the standard OnePlus 9 for 15K less, I don’t feel that’s such a good idea. The 9 Pro just offers a whole lot more, which makes it worth the extra price. Maybe if the OnePlus 9 had OIS and a telephoto camera, it would be too much of a ‘no brainer’, thus the decision to take them out. When compared with similarly priced Apple and Samsung devices, the OnePlus 9 Pro still comes out on top in most areas, if not all of them.
