OnePlus 9 Review By MobileTechReview

This is Lisa from mobile tech review and this is the OnePlus 9, not pro. I've already reviewed the pro version, and this is the one that comes with a more accessible price tag, still not exactly what you call cheap. It's 729 starting price, but you get a lot for your money here. At least this is a snapdragon 888. So if you're looking at something like the Samsung Galaxy, s20 fan edition, you do get a newer chipset inside this also supports 5g in terms of carriers in the United States. T-Mobile is selling it directly, or you can buy it.

Unlocked we'll talk about compatibility with other carriers and other very important things now so for 729 dollars, you get a charger in the box and not just any charger. It's the 65 t warp charger, so you know OnePlus and their warp chargers superfast charging. So this one yes, can charge the phone at 65 watt rate, which means empty to full in 30 minutes huzzah. That means you obsess a little less about battery life, probably beyond that. The charge is also compatible with other USB devices, including laptops.

Most Ultrabooks come with 45 watt chargers, and it can charge a laptop at 45 watts, or you know your on their phone or whatever device. You have so nice that the 729 dollar version has eight gigs of ram and 128 gigs of storage and for a hundred dollars more, not yet available, but should be coming. They'll be one that has 12 gigs of ram and 256 gigs of storage, kind of mirroring the option that you see on the pro model and there is no micro SD card slot. So if that's the amount of storage you got and that ain't going to change for the display, we have a 6.55 inch, OLED, 120, hertz, fast refresh display you can put it on 60hz refresh mode. If you want it's not quite as high resolution as the OnePlus 9 pro, and I think that's okay, most people's eyes, you probably can't tell the difference.

You can see the resolution on screen right now. So that's a little of a boost from the OnePlus 8 from last year. That was a 90 hertz refresh display it's a nice enough looking display, and it's also quite accurate. If you put it in natural mode, the default is vivid mode and I think most people like the extra poppy colors. But if you do care about color accuracy, you've got it with natural mode and just like the pro, you have some options for things like extra vivid mode, there's a mode you can turn on.

That makes the colors super pop, like old-fashioned. OLED displays did back in the day. So let's talk about 5g compatibility, it works on T-Mobile, just great and as T-Mobile the United States has been doing. They do sell it to you if you want, and if you don't want to go with the unlocked route and for buying, if you do buy an unlocked version, Verizon is sort of spotted for their lower band 5g coverage, but not they're superfast, but super narrow coverage millimeter wave- and this is the same with the nine pro also and ATT you'll get 4g, but not 5g, because they haven't certified it for their network and no word that they intend to do any such things. So, there's that that's a bit of a hurt versus Samsung and some other brand phones.

You know even say the Google Pixel when you're talking about that. Speaking of the pixel, you know there's a lot. That's similar here in terms of that kind of clean android experience a fast experience, but much faster processor here, and I think that's two. That's one of two things that sets this. Apart from the pixel, the pixel is a considerably smaller phone with a much smaller display and a lower end CPU.

So I'm not sure that people are really going to be cross shopping. These all that much unless you're, just anti-samsung want android you're. Looking at all the possibilities, this runs android 11 with oxygen OS and, as ever as, I always say I really like what they do with it, because it is mostly pretty clean and it's so optimized to feel fast. Even if it's not particularly fast or on benchmarks. The thing just feels fast and fluid and stays that way with OnePlus now I believe, they're rolling, with two major operating system version upgrades and three years of security updates.

If you're wondering about what you're going to get with that in terms of the software, no duplicates no multiple photos, apps, no, multiple messages, apps good stuff there and the rest of it's just thoughtful little customizations, typically for things like controlling the refresh of the display and that vivid mode that sort of stuff. So it's nice- I like it now when it comes to the cameras because they're making a big deal about that this year, because that's typically the big differentiator and seller for a lot of smartphones. These days, you have Hasselblad branding here as well, very high-end camera maker that most of us never actually get to use the real hostile on cameras, and we have a 48 megapixel main camera f, 1.8 lens. So that's nominally the same resolution and f rating as the pro model. But it's a different Sony sensor here, so not quite the same level of imaging hardware, still a large sensor, pretty good, the ultrawide camera, which is quite good.

It is the same as that used the sensor on the 9 pro. You have electronic image stabilization here, not optical. As far as I've seen- and we don't have a telephoto lens, I think this is going to hurt, because even mid-range phones are starting to have triple cameras at this point and for those who want the telephoto lens to take pictures of your little kid without getting up and literally a little kid's face. So the kid stops doing whatever cute thing it was doing there is that for an issue it has 2x digital zoom, it's not bad looking actually, but it's only 2x, which in most cases means moving two three feet with your feed, and you could probably achieve the same thing without really creeping out. Whatever you were taking a picture of the image processing needs some help here, where the 9 pro is really quite good, and you're, just getting a little nitpick about saying how good or bad it is versus the latest iPhone or Samsung s21 family phone.

This one has problems with exposure, but it's not always probably OnePlus will address this with software updates, as they've done with previous generations, phones whose cameras have improved, but I see a kind of pale a little of a washed out overexposed, look to some shots outdoors, mostly, but sometimes even indoors, and it has more problem with dynamic range. Insofar as taking outdoor sunny shots, you will see white-out happening and that really in this price range shouldn't be happening. I do suspect that they're going to fix it. There is a two megapixel monochrome camera on board that help well with monochrome shots and with sharpening things up a bit all in all they're good cameras, but they don't impress me as much as the nine pros, which I suppose is fitting, given the price difference and the tier difference that they're in, but I think they could do a little better with the 9 model. The camera has a couple of fun features.

Of course, the usual slow motion mode you've got tilt shift, so you get the blur in the top and the bottom, and you've got 4k. Video recording at 30 frames per second and 60 frames per second, and it can even do 8k at 30 frames per second, not that that's the most useful thing yet uh, just like with the nine pro. It's not bad that video, but fine details, look a little over sharpened, so things like the water and our pool shot. Look a little weird speaking of taking photos in bright outdoor light. The display is quite visible.

Outdoors. There is a factory installed screen protector on this flat display yay flat, no curves on the sides. I's just the plastic peel, it off sort of thing. You know, but it's unobtrusive, so we've left it on in this video. So you can see what it looks like.

The back of the phone is 3d girl or glass. The front is gorilla glass, not a specified version. My guesses might be like the nine pro gorilla glass five, but there's that you have Wi-Fi six Bluetooth, 5.2 and NFC on board and an in-display fingerprint scanner that worked quite well in my test and a 2d facial recognition for face unlock as well. So you got all the basic bells and whistles of a near flagship sort of phone here, and we also have stereo speakers that are pretty darn good on this. No headphone jack, no surprise there anymore.

That's what Bluetooth and USB-C are for at this point now in terms of battery life, it's good it's better than the 9 pro and now this is a little smaller and lower resolution display. But this one I got about six to five and a half hours of screen on time versus only about five hours with the nine pro that's pretty good. It does have an always on display option and there is an option to have it on at all times. I suggest not doing it, you can have it just wake up and turn on if you tap it or if you pick it up because it's very bright- and I have noticed that it reduces run times on this and again, you know the deal with charging so superfast. It's crazy! There is none of that fast 50 watt wireless charging, like we have on the 9 pro, so you don't have to go and buy that 70 optional wireless charger that they sell in the United States in Europe.

It does support standard, 15, watt, chi wireless charging why it doesn't outside the US and the EU. I don't know now. I think, probably a lot of you might be cross shopping, the Samsung Galaxy s20 Fe. Here you get a newer, faster CPU and that's the selling point with the Fe. You do get ip68 official water resistance, which the unlocked version of the 9 doesn't offer.

Even though we do see things like the little rubber seal around the NATO sim card slot that sort of thing, so it might do okay, but there are no promises on that one. Obviously you lose a telephoto lens on the nine and that is kind of a hurt, I'd say and versus Samsung's a series of phones. Well, you know those are a lot less expensive too. So the big batteries they don't always have the higher end camera and the higher end. Processors, though, so really in a different tier and that's why they are less expensive.

So that's the OnePlus 9 for 2021 they're, almost flagship price phone and for 730 dollars. It's not bad. It's very fast you've got clean software on here without redundancies uh. The things that do hurt on this would be the lack of a telephoto camera. I think for some folks and the fact that nothing really sets it apart.

So much from the competition, as phones typically just evolve very slowly. These days, I do like the flat OLED display a lot. It might not be that fancy variable refresh that you have on the nine pro on this and on the Samsung s21 line, but it's a very nice looking display, and it's a little easier to hold than the nine pro, though honestly, there's not much of a difference physically in the size of the two phones. So I wouldn't use that to decide between them. I'm Lisa from mobile tech review be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more cool tech videos and hit the notification bell.

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Source : MobileTechReview