OnePlus 9 Pro 60 Days later Review - For Better & For Worse... By Brian Alex

This smartphone carries a big promise, a promise that is made by one Swedish name on the back hustle blood. What should the cooperation with the Swedish camera icon really sell you on the OnePlus 9 pro, let's find out from the front, it's basically impossible to tell this phone apart from its predecessor or basically any other phone for that matter. Of course, with no bezels to speak of there isn't really much you can do where I really think OnePlus took a step backwards is with the rest of the design. Don't get me wrong? I do like the matte black version I have here. I just wish there were also other more vibrant, matte color options available, like we had in the past, while this matte black version might look like it's textured, like the sandstone finish on the OnePlus one. That is not the case by the way.

The back of this black 9 pro is completely smooth. I also think that the centered camera placement on past OnePlus phones made them a bit more unique. Now we have a big square in the top corner, like virtually every other phone. That said, at least it doesn't stick out as much as it did on the 8 pro. Apart from this, it's back to the familiar story: handy alert, slider, great stereo speakers and the whole thing is ip68 water resistant.

I do think, though, that the vibration motor, while feeling very premium, isn't really that strong. So if you put the phone on vibrate, you might miss some calls. The OLED screen of the 9 pro is stellar. Of course, it is. I don't think you really expected anything else.

OnePlus does say that peak brightness is a bit higher than the pro, but I honestly don't think that's noticeable. This screen does get really bright, but since brightness scales logarithmically, that means that going from 100 to 200 nits is as big of a jump as going from 1000 to 2000 nits. We really are at the point of diminishing returns. Now what is new is that the 1440p 120hz display is now a LPO panel. That means that it can dynamically adjust its refresh rate to match what is displayed on the screen.

When you are playing a game or scrolling, it uses the full 120hz, but when watching a video it ramps down to 24 hertz, this would of course, help with battery life, but unfortunately that doesn't really seem to materialize I'll get back to that a bit later. The curve on the screen is even more subtle now, and I honestly don't mind it in terms of usability, but of course, things can get quite annoying and costly once you drop it and the screen breaks. The phone of course rocks the state-of-the-art snapdragon 888 chips, not that really matters, because high-end smartphone chips have been really fast enough for a while. Now that especially also goes for chips in an OnePlus phone, so I think I can make this pretty quick. What the speed these new chips bring really is important for are more camera and video recording features and things like that.

The standard things like scrolling through social media aren't really impacted by faster chips anymore. In my opinion, that said, OnePlus phones do historically have very optimized software and of course, that's no different here. No hiccups no wait times everything just works super smoothly and since they apparently still have to write that on the box as if it wouldn't be obvious at this point, the 9 pro also has 5g supports. Fingerprint sensors are still very good as well. What I don't like is that OnePlus still refuses to include in ENIM on their phones.

OnePlus software is still one of the main selling points of their phones, as it stays close to Google's conception of android, with not too many in your face alterations, and since the at we, thankfully also get an always-on display, while they have changed a bit in the past. I still think the software skin is the main way in which OnePlus differentiates itself from other Chinese manufacturers that make phones with basically the same hardware but less sleek and clean software. Of course, when it comes to the home screen, this phone is pretty heavily customized by me. If you want to know what is on here and how to get a similar look on your own phone, I recently made a tutorial on that which you can check out in the cards. The camera is by far the feature OnePlus advertised, the most on the nine pro, which I guess also makes sense, given what I just said about the rest of the phone really not having changed that much.

The two big lenses on the back really are great and even better than what we had on the OnePlus 8 pro and that phone already had a camera that was way better than its predecessors. I think the most important point is that the 48 megapixel main camera and the 50 megapixel ultrawide produce photos that are almost indistinguishable in terms of quality. That is something that you just don't see normally on most phones, the wide angle is significantly less capable than the main camera and also often produces pictures with a way different color temperature and profile. That really isn't the case here, except for maybe slightly less dynamic range when the wide angle moves the sun into the shot. But how do the pictures look? Definitely in line with other high-end phones, unbelievably sharp, great dynamic range that doesn't cross shadows, even when shooting directly into the sun and very natural colors.

That last point is something I find very pleasant, but if you prefer a more saturated look, you might need to turn that up in editing. Still, though, I don't think it makes things like food look dull because of the large sensor, you also have a very good natural depth of field, but not so much so that it becomes annoying. What I do find annoying, though, is the automatically activated macro mode, which does produce worse results than if you just turn it off. In my opinion, the telephoto camera is significantly weaker than the other two, but it does still profit from the same sharp and naturally colored look and is thus quite usable. I also think that 3x is a good sweet spot for getting closer, but not too close compared to the main one.

The selfie camera is honestly a bit sad because it doesn't have the same good. Color. Reproduction night mode has already been quite good on OnePlus phones in the past, but this is another step above. The level of detail it preserves is on a level with the pixel phone, but without making the photos unnaturally bright and the night mode also profits from the great ultra white camera. Video recording is possible at 8k or which is much more useful at 4k at 120fps.

You want that in a standalone camera you have to pay a couple of thousand euros. Stabilization is also great. OnePlus phones are definitely among the best android phones for video recording, I'm overall, very happy with the camera quality also compared to something like an iPhone 12. That said, I don't think that the cooperation with hustle blood necessarily made it any better than other high-end phones without such branding, except for the ultrawide, of course, which pictures you like best has more and more become a question of preference and not objective quality battery life on the 9 pro was probably the biggest letdown in my time using it so far. I already noticed that during the days after taking it out of the box- and it hasn't gotten better since in day to day use it's not even really that bad, it's not that great either, but it should get you through the day.

You can expect about four and a half hours of screen on time on average. Of course, that does get better when you turn the screen down to 1080p, but at that point you could probably also just buy an OnePlus 9. Instead, where the battery life really breaks down is when using the camera on a city sightseeing trip, I did recently, I managed to kill the battery from almost completely full in just a couple of hours, and that is with 3 hours of screen on time and 30 minutes of total camera usage. While this is, of course, something you don't do every day, it's still important to recognize that this new camera system has an impact on battery life that basically forces you to take a power bank and charge in the middle of the day. If you actually use it, that really doesn't make it a lot better than an iPhone 12 mini a phone whose battery will have some people would classify as atrocious.

So especially given that this is a way bigger phone with a way bigger battery. I think that's a bit disappointing. Fortunately, the phone charges really fast to somewhat make up for this in just 10 minutes of charging. You can get a third of your battery back, which is really convenient when you're in a hurry and the phone is empty which, as I said, isn't out of the question here. The fact that it's full in under half an hour also means that it's often at 100 before you're done with getting ready in the morning.

Wireless charging at 50 watts, isn't quite as fast but even more convenient. If you have an OnePlus, 8 pro or probably even 7 pro, this phone really isn't worth the upgrade for you not. A lot has really changed, except for the usual small tweaks, especially compared to its direct predecessor. That doesn't mean that it's a boring phone. However, the camera upgrade is really substantial and now firmly secures OnePlus place among the other top dogs and the very natural colors and great ultra-wide angle.

In some ways even have it pull ahead. It's just sad that this camera upgrade really digs into the battery life of the phone, which I would classify as pretty bad for this phone size. But if you can live with that, you get a flagship phone that, while still expensive, gives you exceptional value compared to other even more expensive phones. If you enjoyed this video, you know which buttons to press and don't forget to press that follow button on Twitter. I'm Bienne thanks for watching, and I'll see you in the next one.

Source : Brian Alex