The OnePlus 9 Pro (starting off at $969.99) delivers a streamlined flagship expertise to T-Mobile and Verizon subscribers, last but not least catching up to its rivals. The mobile phone itself is gentle in the hand, and the person practical experience is weightless as well. The cameras get knockout pics in really much all disorders and the built-in speedy charging is the most effective we have observed. The Galaxy S21 Extremely scores a little bit superior in our battery and wireless radio screening, will work with Samsung’s excellent S Pen stylus, and its digital camera provides killer optical zoom, so it just edges out the 9 Professional to be our Editors’ Choice among the flagship smartphones. Continue to, the OnePlus nine Pro is excellent. If you want a top rated-notch, loaded mobile phone that tends to make your coronary heart sing, you happen to be now spoiled for decision.
The OnePlus Guarantee Is Eventually Understood
OnePlus was once a corporation that designed a one fantastic phone at a time. Now it has a whole line of telephones at T-Mobile (and suppliers this kind of as Google Fi, Metro, and Mint Cellular that use T-Mobile’s networks): the $969.99 OnePlus nine Pro, the $729.ninety nine OnePlus 9, the $299.ninety nine OnePlus Nord N10, and the $179.99 OnePlus Nord N100. They all share the OnePlus philosophy, which indicates fast, exquisite software and a streamlined actual physical style.
Cameras have often been the a person position OnePlus tended to fall at the rear of Samsung and Apple, so OnePlus created a offer with Hasselblad for colour tuning and bought a new sensor from Sony. As a end result, the nine Pro’s rear camera stack stands out from the opposition. It may perhaps not have incredible optical zoom like the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, but it delivers numerous a lot more prospects for innovative expression. In addition to the normal wide and extremely-extensive lenses you’ll uncover on most phones, OnePlus extra an XPan mode that makes photos in a 65:24 structure.
The OnePlus 9 provides identical general functionality to the nine Professional but methods down a bit on monitor, digicam, and radio top quality, and it doesn’t integrate tremendous-quick wireless charging. If you really don’t intellect all those downgrades, you can help save $240 and get an even lesser and lighter phone. See our evaluate of the OnePlus nine for all the aspects.
Gentle, Smooth Layout
The 9 Pro’s foundation design has 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. The 12GB/256GB model prices an more $100. There is no memory card slot. The telephone is beautifully sized, measuring six.forty two by two.89 by .34 inches (HWD) and weighing 6.9 ounces. Which is a tiny broader than the 2.8 inches we use as the cutoff width measurement for tiny phones, but it’s noticeably scaled-down and lighter than the Galaxy S21 Ultra, and narrower than the OnePlus 8 Professional. Of the three, the nine Pro is the easiest to use with a one hand.
A few views of the OnePlus 9 Pro, demonstrating the inexperienced and silver scenario possibilities.
The OnePlus 9 Pro arrives in environmentally friendly or silver.
The layout, extremely in tune with OnePlus’ “burdenless design and style” philosophy, is trim and exquisite. The phone’s human body is rounded, with the classic OnePlus mute switch on the left aspect and the Hasselblad-branded digicam module on the back. The digicam doesn’t stick out just about as much as recent Samsung camera bumps do (mainly because it would not have a large periscopic zoom lens in it). The front-experiencing camera is a hole-punch on the higher left corner, just like on the eight Pro.
The telephone has an IP68 ranking for water and dust resistance, and arrives in two colours. If you happen to be not going to set your cell phone in a circumstance, we like the matte pine environmentally friendly superior than the mirrored silver morning mist glass back again, which draws in greasy fingerprints. Our evaluate unit arrived with a black carbon-fiber scenario that created that concern moot. (There is certainly a 3rd, black mobile phone, but OnePlus tells us it will not be sold in the US.)
The back again of the OnePlus nine Professional in silver
The mirrored again of the silver circumstance is a fingerprint magnet.
Compared with the Galaxy S21 Extremely and current iPhones, your OnePlus mobile phone will come with a cable and a 65W charger. Luxurious! You can find a rationale: OnePlus makes use of proprietary USB-C chargers. However the mobile phone will demand from any USB-C resource, it will only accomplish its greatest charging speeds with the involved adapter.
There’s no headphone jack or USB-C-to-three.5mm adapter in the box. That explained, the nine Pro sporting activities aptX, aptX High definition, LHDC, and Sony’s LDAC Bluetooth codecs for exceptional wi-fi audio. If you choose for OnePlus’ Buds Professional earphones, you’ll get custom-made tap attributes along with 24-little bit/96kHz audio at up to 900kbits/s. If you’re searching at other wi-fi earbuds, look for a pair with LDAC given that it is extra greatly available and provides the highest-resolution audio delivered more than Bluetooth.
As for the onboard speakers, the audio high-quality is fantastic. Dual stereo speakers deliver audio with a peak quantity of 98dB and a stunning bit of mid-bass. For voice calls, which have a most quantity of 81dB, the cellphone supports the most effective voice codec now available, Hd voice with EVS.
A Shiny, However Battery-Preserving Show
The dazzling and crisp six.seven-inch, 525ppi, 3,216-by-1,440-pixel display screen can be dialed back again to 1080p in the phone’s options if you want to conserve battery existence. The show utilizes a reasonably new know-how referred to as lower-temperature polycrystalline oxide (LTPO) that minimizes electrical power consumption and presents telephone suppliers extra manage about refresh charges. It really is the similar technology that powers Apple’s Iphone thirteen Professional types as nicely as the Samsung Galaxy S21 sequence.
The LTPO display of the OnePlus nine Professional, exhibiting an picture of clouds
The LTPO display can help help you save electrical power.
This is a prime-of-the-line OLED display with a reward: It is extremely noticeable in immediate daylight. A screen protector is preinstalled we did not take out it from our take a look at unit. According to DisplayMate Labs tests, the nine Pro’s display set to Vehicle Brightness mode beats the eight Professional, the Galaxy S20 series, and the most current iPhones in ambient gentle, but not the Galaxy Take note 20 Ultra. The 9 Professional also increases the greatest coloration gamut in its vivid screen manner, which can help it maintain colour saturation in outdoor lights.
Significant brightness manner success
Besides in brightness and coloration, the 9 Pro’s display is not conveniently distinguishable from other the latest leading-of-the-line OLED panels. The real news is energy optimization, as the LTPO panel dynamically—and imperceptibly—changes its refresh fee from 120Hz all the way down to 1Hz to help you save power. Examine out our in-depth distinctive for additional on the exhibit.
Shade shift results
Remarkable Speed and Ease of Use
OnePlus telephones are always quickly, and the OnePlus nine Professional is no exception. It is really run by a leading-of-the-line Qualcomm Snapdragon 888. It scored a little bit greater than the Galaxy S21 Extremely on Geekbench, with single-main scores about 1125 and multi-main scores all over 3700. That is a 24% increase on solitary-main outcomes and a twelve% boost on multi-main effects around the OnePlus 8 Professional. None of these phones can surpass the Apple iphone 12, while, which scored 1596 SC and 4049 MC with its Apple A14 processor.
The Snapdragon 888 delivers a lift in graphics performance, also. On the GFXBench Vehicle Chase offscreen benchmark, the 9 Pro scored about 70fps, with 37fps onscreen in WQHD method and 58fps onscreen in High definition method. That is a significant soar up from the eight Professional, which scored 51fps offscreen and either 26 or 45fps onscreen depending on screen resolution.
See How We Examination Telephones
These benchmarks you should not choose into account OnePlus’ program, which incorporates a bunch of efficiency enhancements. In our knowledge with OnePlus telephones, they come to feel like the speediest Android phones, even a lot quicker than Google Pixels (in particular since Google started off making use of midrange chipsets in its flagships with the release of the Pixel five).
The cell phone operates Android 11 with OnePlus’ OxygenOS enhancements, and OnePlus states it will get updates as significantly as Android 13 alongside with bi-every month protection updates for three yrs. For a flagship, that’s a small disappointing, primarily because Samsung offers at the very least a few yrs of application updates on its spending budget A sequence types.
The nine Professional in a charging cradle exhibiting a match.
Substantial-conclusion game titles enjoy properly on the 9 Professional.
OxygenOS has often had a bunch of awesome touches, this kind of as the potential to put in two copies of social-media applications for unique accounts, a setting to adjust display shade based on ambient light, and a Zen method that briefly disables the phone’s most distracting functions. With this edition, OnePlus provides RAM compression that it states will increase the number of applications that can continue to be in memory with saved point out. Our take a look at device had no trouble keeping seven apps in memory, even with the huge RAM-hog Genshin Effect at the back again of the line.
To exam cooling, which OnePlus claims it is really improved above prior products, we ran a processor-pumping app identified as CPU Throttling Examination on the nine Professional, the Galaxy S21, and the 8 Pro for fifteen minutes. At the ten-moment level, the eight Pro’s functionality took a sharp dive to about eighty% of peak. Both equally of the newer phones ended up still keeping nearer to ninety% effectiveness at that time. Right after thirteen minutes of pumping the processor, the Galaxy S21’s effectiveness efficiently declined to a little about 80% of peak, whilst the nine Professional remained in the 90% assortment. At last, the nine Pro’s efficiency declined noticeably at just about accurately fifteen minutes as the phone tried to cool alone down. For the duration of the exam as a complete, the 9 Professional and Galaxy S21 done at 87–88% of max functionality, whilst the 8 Pro was down at seventy eight%.
Gaming performance is amped up with a 360Hz contact reaction fee, but only in four apps: PUBG Cellular, Call of Responsibility, League of Legends, and Brawl Stars. OnePlus states it will function on incorporating 360Hz touch assist to a lot more game titles. That would surely help this element rise from a curiosity to a differentiator. The Samsung Galaxy S20 telephones offer a 240Hz touch sampling rate Samsung doesn’t give a spec on the Galaxy S21, but we feel it is the similar.
Ultra-Super-Mega-Quickly Charging
The pair of batteries in the 9 Professional complete four,500mAh. That’s small of the Galaxy S21 Ultra’s 5,000mAh, but OnePlus has a assortment of application tips up its sleeve to hold the cell phone charged—so lots of that we are not even certain all of them arrived into use for the duration of our tests.
On our common battery check, running a YouTube video clip above Wi-Fi at total display brightness, the cellphone lasted for eight hours, fifty minutes in WQHD resolution and nine hrs, forty minutes in Hd. Exhibit brightness issues a great deal to battery daily life: Take the brightness down to 75% and these figures leap to twelve hrs, forty minutes on WQHD and thirteen hours on High definition. That’s a large amount shorter than the Galaxy S21 Ultra (eleven hrs 20 minutes) and the Galaxy S20 FE (12 hours thirty minutes), but you must have no problems finding by a working day of reasonable use.
But you will find a lot more to this battery than fulfills the eye. To get started with, the display screen slows down to 1Hz when you are looking at static written content, this sort of as an email you are mulling over or a web page of an e-e-book. That can be a enormous ability saver. OnePlus also has a name for shedding much less electricity to history procedures than Samsung does. If you use 75% display brightness most of the time, you can in all probability get more than a day of battery life from 1 cost.
OnePlus nine Pro with USB-C Port in target
The Warp Demand 65T charger can completely recharge the nine Pro in about thirty minutes.
The 9 Pro also has by considerably the swiftest charging speeds of any mobile phone we’ve at any time analyzed. It comes with a Warp Charge 65T USB-C charger, which expenses the 9 Professional from % to 20% in 6 minutes and to a hundred% in just 36 minutes. Which is two times as fast as any recent Samsung cellphone expenses. If you use a third-occasion charger, the cell phone will charge at up to eighteen watts, with correspondingly extended charge moments.
The serious breakthrough is in OnePlus’ new Warp Charge 50 wi-fi charger, a $sixty nine.ninety nine accessory cradle that plugs into your existing Warp Cost 65 adapter to give 50-watt wi-fi charging for the 9 Professional, or fifteen-watt Qi charging for any other system. In screening with the Warp Demand 50, the 9 Pro went to 29% in 11 minutes and one hundred% in forty six minutes. Other phones, like the nine, consider concerning 90 minutes and two hours to wirelessly charge completely.
This all suits with OnePlus’ technique to cellular phone electrical power: It might not have the most significant batteries in city, but it can refill them the speediest.
All the 5G Trimmings, for T-Cellular and Verizon
Like other Snapdragon 888 telephones, the nine Professional utilizes a Qualcomm X60 modem, which performs with all of the capabilities T-Mobile and Verizon intend to use in the following few years, together with new airwaves and aggregation techniques. It has Bluetooth 5.2 and Wi-Fi 6 as nicely, but not Wi-Fi 6E (contrary to the Galaxy S21 Extremely).
T-Mobile is the only carrier marketing the 9 Pro, but if you purchase an unlocked product from OnePlus or a retailer, it will also perform on Verizon. If you try to use it on AT&T, OnePlus claims it will only link to 4G.
OnePlus nine (still left) and OnePlus 9 Pro (right).
OnePlus 9 (still left) and OnePlus 9 Pro (right)
The OnePlus nine Professional has all of the new technologies staying integrated into T-Cell and Verizon’s networks, like CBRS, C-band, and millimeter wave.
This is a one-SIM cell phone, with no eSIM choice. With a T-Mobile SIM in, the cellular phone enabled Wi-Fi contacting, “smart 5G” (which turns 5G on and off to help you save battery), and twin-channel community acceleration (which makes use of Wi-Fi and 5G at the exact time if required). With an AT&T SIM in, as expected, the cell phone utilized only 4G and lacked Wi-Fi calling.
The large spec variation involving the 9 and the 9 Professional is that the nine Pro has mmWave. T-Cell at this time only takes advantage of mmWave in 7 metropolitan areas, and is most most likely to roll it out in tremendous-crowded locations: sports activities stadiums, concert halls, conference centers, and the like. It is really a may well-be-good, not a will have to-have. It’s is more attractive on Verizon, which has mmWave in the facilities of much more than 70 cities now.
We tested the 9 and the nine Pro versus the Samsung Galaxy S21 with 86 rounds of checks employing Ookla Speedtest software program in New York City, in a range of network situations. (Editors’ Notice: Ookla is owned by Ziff Davis, PCMag’s publisher.) In excess of seventeen assessments, the Galaxy S21 turned in the finest efficiency, the nine Professional obtained a strengthen from mmWave to arrive in next, and the 9 dropped to third. Across a array of non-mmWave assessments with blended sign high-quality, the Galaxy S21 came in initially put all over again. In a standalone T-Cellular mid-band “extremely potential” location, on the other hand, the 3 phones done virtually identically.
If you might be outside a big metropolis, you might be in all probability most concerned about weak-sign overall performance. In our exams, the Galaxy S21 confirmed the strongest 4G RSRP sign 29 instances the 9 Professional was strongest 26 occasions, and the nine was strongest 22 occasions. So the Galaxy S21 wins the moment yet again, nevertheless not by significantly. In excess of six rounds of testing in a weak-sign space, the Galaxy S21 confirmed stronger sign only a few of the times, but the nine Professional experienced two signal dropouts. The Galaxy S21’s edge is slight but apparent.
Blinding You With (Colour) Science
Imaging collaborations aren’t new for smartphone producers. Huawei has partnered with Leica for several years the Zeiss identify is plastered on the back of smartphones from Nokia, Sony, and Vivo. Hasselblad’s only earlier US partnership was with Motorola on its clunky but capable Genuine Zoom Moto Mod, but the 9 sequence provides Hasselblad back again to the smartphone industry in triumphant design. The 9 Pro is able of having amazing images with each and every lens.
The 48MP key lens has an f/one.8 aperture, optical picture stabilization (OIS), and digital impression stabilization (EIS). There’s also a 50MP ultra-large lens with an f/2.2 aperture, and a 8MP telephoto lens with an f/two.four aperture, as very well as a 2MP monochrome sensor. You’ll locate all the usual flagship bells and whistles on the nine Pro: twin LED flash, multi-autofocus with omnidirectional Stage Detection AF (PDAF), Laser AF (LAF), and Distinction AF (CAF). A substantial fifty-megapixel ultra-large lens can take stunning small-gentle shots. There’s also 8K video clip at 30fps and 4K at up to 120fps, and tremendous-gradual movement at up to 480fps in 720p.
Back of OnePlus 9 Professional with camera in concentration
A significant fifty-megapixel ultra-broad lens usually takes stunning small-light photographs.
For the most component, the digicam app is intuitive and quick to use. The shutter button is a Hasselblad-branded orange, and it helps make a unique Hasselblad shutter seem. Our only criticism is that we observed Tilt Change mode a bit clunky and hard to use.
Photo of rooftop with eco foliage
The OnePlus nine Pro’s slide update enhanced lower-light effectiveness.
why not try this out of the nine Pro’s most considerable digicam functions are in the program. Hasselblad labored intently with OnePlus to update its colour science and acquire added options for professional smartphone shooters. In vehicle and Professional modes, hues are heat, with reds and blues obtaining a healthier saturation increase although yellows and greens to be a tiny undersaturated. Since OnePlus and Hasselblad put a massive emphasis on the 9 series’ shade science, we in contrast the nine Professional to a handful of other flagships and identified it stood up exceptionally well to the competitors.
Apple very seriously enhanced its coloration science with iOS 14 and the Apple iphone 12. Exactly where the 9 Professional tends to saturate reds and blues, Apple focuses additional on boosting luminance, so the Iphone 12’s pics are inclined to glimpse a small much more correct to everyday living than the nine Pro’s.
Place pictures from the nine Pro and the Galaxy S21 Ultra side by side and you can right away identify the variation among the two cameras. OnePlus requires a lighter hand with boosting saturation and other computational changes Samsung is a great deal a lot more intense. In a single of our test photos, a dreary March sky captured on the Galaxy S21 Ultra instantly grew to become blue. The 9 Pro was a great deal additional precise in its in general illustration of the scene.
Aspect-by-aspect photos of a building beneath a cloudy sky in the photo on the still left, the sky appears to be blue
The photo hues from the 9 Pro (right) are more accurate than the types delivered by the Galaxy S21 Ultra (still left).
In Pro manner, you can change ISO, concentration exposure time, white balance, and a range of other settings. There’s also the selection to shoot in twelve-bit Uncooked structure, which features sixty four instances the colour details of the 10-little bit Raw on other flagships.
The ultra-broad 50MP lens is a Sony IMX 766 sensor that is noticeably more substantial than the one particular in the Apple iphone 12 Pro Max. In our exams the lens did a fantastic occupation in both equally shiny and very low gentle. Photographs are crisp with great depth of area and good history depth.
Facet-by-facet extremely-wide-angle images of a setting up
Extremely-broad-angle photographs are a major gain for the nine Professional (appropriate), which generates significantly considerably less edge distortion than the Galaxy S21 Extremely (left).
Our shots taken with the primary lens were outstanding as very well. In very good gentle, the nine Pro holds its own from other flagships, with sensible depth of subject and barely any reduction of fantastic detail.
In the tumble of 2021, OnePlus sent a important update to the camera’s program. Exam photographs show extra precise white equilibrium and are crisp without the need of getting oversharpened, a common issue with most smartphone cameras. When we reviewed the photos at complete dimension, the photographs remained crisp and had considerably less sound.
The application is also more rapidly in common and there is a lot less shutter lag. It truly is a insignificant transform, but it tends to make a significant distinction when getting photographs with movement.
A snowy rooftop with quite a few sculptures and other objects
The principal lens can take major-notch photos even in muted gentle.
But where by the digital camera definitely excels is in minimal mild. The primary lens did nicely, as predicted. Our check pictures with the fall update remained crisp with an enhanced texture-to-noise ratio. The large enhancement, on the other hand, was with dynamic range and all round scene accuracy. The two worked in conjunction to generate a a lot more trustworthy reflection of the second.
And whilst we were being specifically bowled more than by the extremely-huge lens’ efficiency in our authentic assessments, the digital camera update just manufactured matters far better. All of the advancements we observed in the principal lenses ended up apparent in our extremely-large exam shots. Those people advancements, merged with the absence of distortion, will make the OnePlus 9 Pro’s ultra-wide lens the finest we have examined.
A cityscape at night time, with lights reflecting off a damp road
Extremely-wide small-light photographs are attractive, with surprisingly tiny distortion.
We failed to see a great deal advancement in our shots with the telephoto lens after the computer software update. The OnePlus nine Pro’s telephoto lens is improved than what you are going to come across on its predecessor, but it nevertheless doesn’t assess with the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra’s. At reduced zoom amounts, our check shots experienced a good deal of detail, though there was some anticipated reduction of element in the distance.
Aspect-by-aspect images of illustrated signals at 30x zoom.
The Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra does a a lot much better career at 30x zoom.
As we bumped up the zoom, nevertheless, we begun to discover major blur and sound when compared with the same image taken on the Galaxy S21 Extremely. The unnatural sharpening we observed in our unique examination shots, however, has been drastically enhanced.
Aspect-by-aspect 10x zoom illustrations or photos of a cease indication
Whilst the Samsung Galaxy S21 Extremely has an edge at 10x zoom, the nine Pro does a solid position with its the latest drop digital camera update.
Smartphone macro lenses are not often well worth applying, but right here the nine Pro genuinely stands out. Our macro shots have been much sharper than expected, and leagues much better than photos taken with the 8’s 2MP macro lens.
A picture of purple and environmentally friendly macarons on a white plate
Macarons, in macro.
The monochrome sensor functions in tandem with the main sensor to consider beautiful black-and-white photographs with loads of depth and inky blacks. Huawei included a related aspect for several years and then suddenly eradicated it, resulting in an outcry from smartphone shutterbugs. If you understood and beloved that characteristic, the nine Pro’s resurrection of it will delight you.
Black-and-white picture of community art installation in which a massive white sculpture of a hand grabs a tree trunk
The monochrome lens requires stable black-and-white photographs.
The major, and most spectacular, modify to the OnePlus 9’s digicam, however, is the addition of XPan mode. It can be a characteristic that mimics Hasselblad’s now-discontinued XPan cameras to build an picture which is reminiscent of those people you’d acquire with its 30mm and 45mm lenses.
The photos are cropped to a sixty five:24 part ratio. It is a remarkable glimpse that presents you a full new way to inform tales, and evokes pictures of film stills. There are selections to shoot in colour as well as black and white.
It can be really hard to overstate just how a great deal area XPan features for creativity. four:3 and 16:9 component ratios are so ubiquitous, that it usually takes a conquer to get employed to all the diverse matters you can do in the structure.
Panoramic shot of a Catholic rectory at night time.
XPan manner allows you to choose spectacular photos in a special factor ratio.
We analyzed XPan in various lighting eventualities and it executed flawlessly. Our test shots had been immersive and crisp, with excellent dynamic range. Depth of industry is outstanding as properly.
Black and white image of a mid-century creating
Monochrome images in XPan manner glance stunning.
Hasselblad’s exceptional colour science for XPan also results in an entirely diverse truly feel which is similar to pictures shot on Kodak Ektachrome or Fuji Provia slide movie. Our photos confirmed much less distinction and a lot more normal colors that almost appear to be a little undersaturated considering that we’ve become so accustomed to more than-saturation on smartphones.
Decommissioned switching station with festive lights
Portraits and scaled-down scenes search improved with the 30mm focal-duration placing in XPan mode.
On the front of the 9 Pro, you are going to find a 32MP lens. It performs extremely effectively in any lighting ailment. There is a minimal track record blur in our pictures, which is to be expected. Foreground element and depth of industry, however, are location on. Portrait mode is effective without having a hitch as effectively. Our test photographs experienced a all-natural bokeh and ideal depth mapping in each individual shot.
A selfie of a bearded white gentleman in eyeglasses and a cap
Selfies are in-depth and very clear.
A single Little Phase Shy of the Crown
The OnePlus nine Professional is an fantastic telephone. At $970, it holds its own in opposition to the marginally extra highly-priced Galaxy S21 Extremely and Iphone 12 Professional. It will not fairly match the Galaxy S21 Ultra on digital camera zoom or community effectiveness, but it can be lighter and sleeker, it has some unique digital camera tips, and there is that renowned OnePlus pace and exquisite computer software. That incredible fast charging and the battery-preserving show also make a significant big difference in day-to-working day use. The 9 Pro is far better than the OnePlus 8 collection in every way, so the improve is easily warranted. It only fails to nab our Editors’ Decision award due to the fact the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra is even more fantastic and can be utilized on any provider. The 9 Professional and the Galaxy S21 Ultra alongside one another currently define the Android point out of the art. Depending on your priorities, both will serve you really nicely for the future few years.