The OnePlus 9 Pro (beginning at $969.99) provides a streamlined flagship experience to T-Mobile and Verizon subscribers, finally catching up to its competition. The cellular phone alone is gentle in the hand, and the user expertise is weightless as effectively. The cameras choose knockout photos in really considerably all problems and the integrated rapid charging is the finest we have found. The Galaxy S21 Ultra scores a bit far better in our battery and wireless radio tests, performs with Samsung’s outstanding S Pen stylus, and its digital camera gives killer optical zoom, so it just edges out the nine Pro to be our Editors’ Choice among flagship smartphones. Even now, the OnePlus 9 Pro is outstanding. If you want a prime-notch, loaded cell phone that would make your heart sing, you are now spoiled for selection.
The OnePlus Guarantee Is Lastly Understood
OnePlus was after a corporation that produced a solitary wonderful phone at a time. Now it has a complete line of phones at T-Cell (and providers these types of as Google Fi, Metro, and Mint Cellular that use T-Mobile’s networks): the $969.ninety nine OnePlus nine Pro, the $729.99 OnePlus 9, the $299.ninety nine OnePlus Nord N10, and the $179.ninety nine OnePlus Nord N100. They all share the OnePlus philosophy, which implies speedy, elegant software program and a streamlined actual physical design and style.
Cameras have often been the just one area OnePlus tended to tumble guiding Samsung and Apple, so OnePlus designed a offer with Hasselblad for colour tuning and acquired a new sensor from Sony. As a outcome, the 9 Pro’s rear digicam stack stands out from the levels of competition. It may not have remarkable optical zoom like the Samsung Galaxy S21 Extremely, but it provides numerous extra alternatives for imaginative expression. In addition to the typical huge and ultra-broad lenses you’ll find on most telephones, OnePlus included an XPan manner that creates photographs in a 65:24 format.
The OnePlus nine offers comparable in general performance to the 9 Pro but techniques down a bit on monitor, digital camera, and radio high-quality, and it won’t combine super-rapid wireless charging. If you you should not brain those downgrades, you can save $240 and get an even more compact and lighter phone. See our evaluate of the OnePlus 9 for all the particulars.
Mild, Sleek Layout
The 9 Pro’s foundation product has 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. The 12GB/256GB design prices an added $100. There is no memory card slot. The cell phone is flawlessly sized, measuring six.forty two by 2.89 by .34 inches (HWD) and weighing six.9 ounces. That is a little broader than the two.eight inches we use as the cutoff width measurement for compact phones, but it’s noticeably smaller sized and lighter than the Galaxy S21 Ultra, and narrower than the OnePlus 8 Pro. Of the 3, the nine Professional is the most straightforward to use with a solitary hand.
A few sights of the OnePlus 9 Pro, displaying the green and silver circumstance options.
The OnePlus 9 Pro comes in inexperienced or silver.
The design, extremely in tune with OnePlus’ “burdenless style and design” philosophy, is trim and sophisticated. The phone’s entire body is rounded, with the conventional OnePlus mute switch on the still left side and the Hasselblad-branded camera module on the back. The digital camera does not stick out practically as substantially as current Samsung digicam bumps do (since it does not have a large periscopic zoom lens in it). The front-facing digicam is a gap-punch on the higher remaining corner, just like on the 8 Professional.
The telephone has an IP68 score for drinking water and dust resistance, and comes in two shades. If you happen to be not going to set your cellular phone in a situation, we like the matte pine eco-friendly much better than the mirrored silver early morning mist glass back again, which appeals to greasy fingerprints. Our critique unit came with a black carbon-fiber scenario that designed that concern moot. (You will find a 3rd, black cellular phone, but OnePlus tells us it won’t be marketed in the US.)
The back of the OnePlus nine Pro in silver
The mirrored back again of the silver situation is a fingerprint magnet.
Unlike the Galaxy S21 Extremely and new iPhones, your OnePlus cell phone will come with a cable and a 65W charger. Luxury! There is certainly a reason: OnePlus uses proprietary USB-C chargers. Even though the telephone will charge from any USB-C resource, it’s going to only achieve its best charging speeds with the involved adapter.
You can find no headphone jack or USB-C-to-3.5mm adapter in the box. That said, the nine Pro athletics aptX, aptX Hd, LHDC, and Sony’s LDAC Bluetooth codecs for fantastic wireless audio. If you choose for OnePlus’ Buds Professional earphones, you can get personalized tap characteristics together with 24-bit/96kHz audio at up to 900kbits/s. If you might be hunting at other wireless earbuds, appear for a pair with LDAC due to the fact it is really more extensively offered and provides the greatest-resolution audio shipped in excess of Bluetooth.
As for the onboard speakers, the audio top quality is excellent. Twin stereo speakers provide audio with a peak quantity of 98dB and a shocking bit of mid-bass. For voice phone calls, which have a highest quantity of 81dB, the cell phone supports the greatest voice codec at the moment available, High definition voice with EVS.
A Shiny, But Battery-Conserving Display
The vibrant and crisp 6.7-inch, 525ppi, three,216-by-1,440-pixel display can be dialed back again to 1080p in the phone’s configurations if you want to preserve battery life. The show utilizes a rather new technology known as small-temperature polycrystalline oxide (LTPO) that lessens energy use and offers phone brands extra manage above refresh fees. It is really the very same technologies that powers Apple’s Apple iphone thirteen Professional models as nicely as the Samsung Galaxy S21 collection.
The LTPO exhibit of the OnePlus 9 Professional, exhibiting an image of clouds
The LTPO display screen will help conserve electricity.
This is a top-of-the-line OLED exhibit with a reward: It can be really obvious in direct sunlight. A display protector is preinstalled we did not clear away it from our test device. According to DisplayMate Labs exams, the 9 Pro’s display screen established to Automobile Brightness mode beats the 8 Pro, the Galaxy S20 collection, and the latest iPhones in ambient light, but not the Galaxy Observe twenty Extremely. The 9 Professional also increases the greatest coloration gamut in its vivid display screen mode, which can help it retain coloration saturation in outside lights.
High brightness manner effects
Other than in brightness and shade, the nine Pro’s show isn’t effortlessly distinguishable from other current prime-of-the-line OLED panels. The genuine news is electric power optimization, as the LTPO panel dynamically—and imperceptibly—changes its refresh fee from 120Hz all the way down to 1Hz to conserve vitality. Check out our in-depth distinctive for additional on the display screen.
helpful resources and Relieve of Use
OnePlus phones are often quickly, and the OnePlus 9 Pro is no exception. It is powered by a top-of-the-line Qualcomm Snapdragon 888. It scored a bit better than the Galaxy S21 Ultra on Geekbench, with one-main scores all around 1125 and multi-main scores around 3700. Which is a 24% improve on single-main results and a 12% enhance on multi-core outcomes over the OnePlus 8 Pro. None of these telephones can surpass the Iphone 12, nevertheless, which scored 1596 SC and 4049 MC with its Apple A14 processor.
The Snapdragon 888 delivers a elevate in graphics effectiveness, far too. On the GFXBench Car or truck Chase offscreen benchmark, the nine Professional scored all around 70fps, with 37fps onscreen in WQHD method and 58fps onscreen in High definition mode. That’s a big soar up from the 8 Pro, which scored 51fps offscreen and both 26 or 45fps onscreen relying on monitor resolution.
See How We Exam Phones
These benchmarks do not acquire into account OnePlus’ application, which incorporates a bunch of performance enhancements. In our practical experience with OnePlus phones, they sense like the speediest Android telephones, even quicker than Google Pixels (in particular due to the fact Google commenced utilizing midrange chipsets in its flagships with the release of the Pixel 5).
The mobile phone operates Android 11 with OnePlus’ OxygenOS enhancements, and OnePlus suggests it’s going to get updates as much as Android thirteen along with bi-month-to-month security updates for three yrs. For a flagship, that’s a very little disappointing, especially given that Samsung gives at minimum three a long time of software package updates on its funds A series styles.
The nine Pro in a charging cradle exhibiting a activity.
Significant-conclude games perform perfectly on the nine Pro.
OxygenOS has always experienced a bunch of nice touches, these as the means to set up two copies of social-media applications for different accounts, a placing to modify screen color centered on ambient light-weight, and a Zen manner that briefly disables the phone’s most distracting capabilities. With this variation, OnePlus provides RAM compression that it suggests will increase the quantity of apps that can continue being in memory with saved condition. Our exam device had no trouble retaining 7 apps in memory, even with the huge RAM-hog Genshin Influence at the again of the line.
To check cooling, which OnePlus states it truly is enhanced more than previous products, we ran a processor-pumping application known as CPU Throttling Examination on the nine Professional, the Galaxy S21, and the 8 Professional for 15 minutes. At the ten-minute stage, the 8 Pro’s performance took a sharp dive to about eighty% of peak. Both of the newer phones have been nevertheless preserving closer to 90% overall performance at that time. Following thirteen minutes of pumping the processor, the Galaxy S21’s effectiveness efficiently declined to a very little about 80% of peak, whilst the 9 Pro remained in the 90% variety. Ultimately, the nine Pro’s overall performance declined noticeably at practically particularly fifteen minutes as the telephone tried to cool itself down. During the check as a total, the nine Professional and Galaxy S21 executed at 87–88% of max performance, though the eight Professional was down at 78%.
Gaming effectiveness is amped up with a 360Hz contact reaction rate, but only in four apps: PUBG Mobile, Contact of Duty, League of Legends, and Brawl Stars. OnePlus suggests it will operate on introducing 360Hz contact aid to extra video games. That would unquestionably aid this function increase from a curiosity to a differentiator. The Samsung Galaxy S20 phones present a 240Hz touch sampling charge Samsung would not give a spec on the Galaxy S21, but we consider it is really the exact same.
Extremely-Super-Mega-Rapid Charging
The pair of batteries in the 9 Pro total 4,500mAh. Which is quick of the Galaxy S21 Ultra’s 5,000mAh, but OnePlus has a assortment of software tricks up its sleeve to maintain the cell phone charged—so many that we’re not even absolutely sure all of them arrived into use for the duration of our tests.
On our common battery check, operating a YouTube video clip in excess of Wi-Fi at total monitor brightness, the phone lasted for 8 hours, fifty minutes in WQHD resolution and nine hrs, forty minutes in Hd. Display brightness matters a large amount to battery daily life: Consider the brightness down to seventy five% and all those figures jump to 12 hrs, forty minutes on WQHD and 13 hours on High definition. That’s a whole lot shorter than the Galaxy S21 Extremely (eleven several hours twenty minutes) and the Galaxy S20 FE (twelve hrs 30 minutes), but you must have no difficulties obtaining through a working day of reasonable use.
But there’s more to this battery than meets the eye. To begin with, the display slows down to 1Hz when you happen to be looking at static material, such as an e-mail you’re mulling around or a page of an e-guide. That can be a massive electrical power saver. OnePlus also has a status for dropping less electricity to track record processes than Samsung does. If you use 75% display brightness most of the time, you’ll most likely get additional than a day of battery existence from a person charge.
OnePlus nine Professional with USB-C Port in aim
The Warp Cost 65T charger can fully recharge the 9 Professional in about 30 minutes.
The 9 Professional also has by considerably the fastest charging speeds of any telephone we’ve at any time analyzed. It comes with a Warp Cost 65T USB-C charger, which charges the 9 Professional from % to twenty% in 6 minutes and to a hundred% in just 36 minutes. That is two times as quickly as any modern Samsung telephone fees. If you use a 3rd-get together charger, the cell phone will demand at up to eighteen watts, with correspondingly for a longer period demand moments.
The actual breakthrough is in OnePlus’ new Warp Cost fifty wireless charger, a $sixty nine.99 accent cradle that plugs into your current Warp Charge 65 adapter to present 50-watt wireless charging for the 9 Pro, or 15-watt Qi charging for any other device. In screening with the Warp Demand fifty, the 9 Pro went to 29% in 11 minutes and 100% in forty six minutes. Other telephones, such as the 9, acquire amongst ninety minutes and two several hours to wirelessly charge wholly.
This all fits with OnePlus’ tactic to cellphone electricity: It could not have the major batteries in town, but it can refill them the quickest.
All the 5G Trimmings, for T-Mobile and Verizon
Like other Snapdragon 888 telephones, the nine Professional uses a Qualcomm X60 modem, which works with all of the features T-Mobile and Verizon intend to use in the next couple of a long time, which include new airwaves and aggregation techniques. It has Bluetooth 5.two and Wi-Fi 6 as well, but not Wi-Fi 6E (as opposed to the Galaxy S21 Ultra).
T-Mobile is the only provider offering the nine Professional, but if you acquire an unlocked design from OnePlus or a retailer, it will also get the job done on Verizon. If you test to use it on AT&T, OnePlus states it will only link to 4G.
OnePlus nine (still left) and OnePlus nine Pro (correct).
OnePlus 9 (still left) and OnePlus nine Professional (correct)
The OnePlus 9 Professional has all of the new systems becoming integrated into T-Mobile and Verizon’s networks, like CBRS, C-band, and millimeter wave.
This is a one-SIM mobile phone, with no eSIM possibility. With a T-Cell SIM in, the cellular phone enabled Wi-Fi contacting, “sensible 5G” (which turns 5G on and off to conserve battery), and twin-channel community acceleration (which utilizes Wi-Fi and 5G at the identical time if required). With an AT&T SIM in, as envisioned, the mobile phone made use of only 4G and lacked Wi-Fi contacting.
The major spec big difference in between the 9 and the 9 Pro is that the 9 Pro has mmWave. T-Mobile at this time only works by using mmWave in seven cities, and is most probable to roll it out in super-crowded sites: athletics stadiums, live performance halls, convention centers, and the like. It truly is a may-be-nice, not a need to-have. It truly is is more attractive on Verizon, which has mmWave in the facilities of far more than 70 towns now.
We examined the 9 and the 9 Professional in opposition to the Samsung Galaxy S21 with 86 rounds of assessments employing Ookla Speedtest software program in New York Metropolis, in a vary of network circumstances. (Editors’ Notice: Ookla is owned by Ziff Davis, PCMag’s publisher.) In excess of seventeen exams, the Galaxy S21 turned in the ideal efficiency, the nine Professional received a improve from mmWave to come in next, and the nine dropped to 3rd. Across a selection of non-mmWave tests with blended sign quality, the Galaxy S21 arrived in 1st location once more. In a standalone T-Cell mid-band “ultra capacity” spot, on the other hand, the 3 phones performed virtually identically.
If you are outdoors a significant town, you might be probably most concerned about weak-sign effectiveness. In our checks, the Galaxy S21 showed the strongest 4G RSRP sign 29 situations the nine Professional was strongest 26 situations, and the 9 was strongest 22 moments. So the Galaxy S21 wins as soon as once again, while not by considerably. About 6 rounds of testing in a weak-signal space, the Galaxy S21 confirmed much better signal only 3 of the moments, but the 9 Pro experienced two signal dropouts. The Galaxy S21’s edge is slight but recognizable.
Blinding You With (Color) Science
Imaging collaborations aren’t new for smartphone companies. Huawei has partnered with Leica for decades the Zeiss title is plastered on the again of smartphones from Nokia, Sony, and Vivo. Hasselblad’s only past US partnership was with Motorola on its clunky but capable Genuine Zoom Moto Mod, but the 9 collection provides Hasselblad back again to the smartphone current market in triumphant design. The nine Professional is capable of having amazing pics with each and every lens.
The 48MP primary lens has an f/1.eight aperture, optical picture stabilization (OIS), and electronic impression stabilization (EIS). There’s also a 50MP ultra-broad lens with an f/two.2 aperture, and a 8MP telephoto lens with an f/two.4 aperture, as well as a 2MP monochrome sensor. You will discover all the normal flagship bells and whistles on the 9 Professional: dual LED flash, multi-autofocus with omnidirectional Period Detection AF (PDAF), Laser AF (LAF), and Contrast AF (CAF). A large fifty-megapixel ultra-extensive lens normally takes wonderful reduced-mild images. You will find also 8K video clip at 30fps and 4K at up to 120fps, and tremendous-sluggish motion at up to 480fps in 720p.
Again of OnePlus 9 Professional with digital camera in emphasis
A significant 50-megapixel ultra-vast lens requires lovely minimal-light-weight photographs.
For click for source , the camera application is intuitive and effortless to use. The shutter button is a Hasselblad-branded orange, and it will make a distinct Hasselblad shutter seem. Our only grievance is that we uncovered Tilt Change mode a little bit clunky and difficult to use.
Image of rooftop with eco foliage
The OnePlus 9 Pro’s slide update enhanced minimal-gentle general performance.
Some of the nine Pro’s most important digital camera characteristics are in the program. Hasselblad worked intently with OnePlus to update its color science and build more options for professional smartphone shooters. In automobile and Professional modes, colors are warm, with reds and blues getting a healthful saturation enhance even though yellows and greens to be a little undersaturated. Due to the fact OnePlus and Hasselblad set a large emphasis on the nine series’ coloration science, we in comparison the nine Pro to a couple of other flagships and observed it stood up particularly properly to the competitiveness.
Apple critically improved its coloration science with iOS fourteen and the Apple iphone twelve. The place the 9 Pro tends to saturate reds and blues, Apple focuses much more on boosting luminance, so the Iphone 12’s images are likely to seem a very little far more true to everyday living than the nine Pro’s.
Position photos from the 9 Pro and the Galaxy S21 Ultra facet by aspect and you can immediately identify the big difference amongst the two cameras. OnePlus takes a lighter hand with boosting saturation and other computational changes Samsung is a great deal more aggressive. In 1 of our check photographs, a dreary March sky captured on the Galaxy S21 Extremely all of a sudden became blue. The nine Professional was substantially extra accurate in its all round illustration of the scene.
Aspect-by-facet images of a developing below a cloudy sky in the picture on the left, the sky seems to be blue
The picture colours from the 9 Professional (ideal) are a lot more exact than the kinds delivered by the Galaxy S21 Ultra (remaining).
In Professional manner, you can adjust ISO, concentration publicity time, white balance, and a amount of other settings. There’s also the possibility to shoot in 12-bit Raw format, which offers sixty four occasions the shade data of the 10-little bit Raw on other flagships.
The ultra-vast 50MP lens is a Sony IMX 766 sensor that’s appreciably larger sized than the a person in the Iphone 12 Pro Max. In our tests the lens did a wonderful position in both of those vivid and low light-weight. Shots are crisp with excellent depth of area and good history detail.
Facet-by-side extremely-large-angle pictures of a constructing
Ultra-broad-angle pictures are a key edge for the 9 Professional (proper), which generates much a lot less edge distortion than the Galaxy S21 Extremely (left).
Our shots taken with the most important lens have been outstanding as nicely. In superior light-weight, the nine Pro holds its have in opposition to other flagships, with sensible depth of subject and rarely any decline of high-quality detail.
In the tumble of 2021, OnePlus delivered a main update to the camera’s application. Check shots display a lot more precise white balance and are crisp with out staying oversharpened, a typical issue with most smartphone cameras. When we reviewed the pics at full dimension, the images remained crisp and had less sound.
The app is also quicker in common and there is fewer shutter lag. It’s a minimal improve, but it tends to make a huge big difference when having pictures with motion.
A snowy rooftop with various sculptures and other objects
The most important lens takes top rated-notch photographs even in muted gentle.
But wherever the camera genuinely excels is in reduced light-weight. The key lens did properly, as expected. Our exam shots with the drop update remained crisp with an improved texture-to-sound ratio. The significant enhancement, on the other hand, was with dynamic variety and all round scene accuracy. The two labored in conjunction to produce a much more sincere reflection of the minute.
And while we ended up particularly bowled in excess of by the ultra-wide lens’ overall performance in our initial assessments, the digicam update just made things superior. All of the enhancements we found in the main lenses had been evident in our ultra-extensive take a look at photographs. These improvements, merged with the absence of distortion, tends to make the OnePlus 9 Pro’s ultra-vast lens the ideal we have examined.
A cityscape at night time, with lights reflecting off a moist street
Ultra-huge low-light images are beautiful, with incredibly minor distortion.
We did not detect a lot advancement in our pictures with the telephoto lens right after the software program update. The OnePlus nine Pro’s telephoto lens is superior than what you are going to find on its predecessor, but it still doesn’t review with the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra’s. At reduce zoom concentrations, our examination pictures had plenty of element, though there was some expected decline of detail in the length.
Facet-by-facet images of illustrated indicators at 30x zoom.
The Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra does a a great deal superior occupation at 30x zoom.
As we bumped up the zoom, having said that, we began to see significant blur and sound when in contrast with the exact graphic taken on the Galaxy S21 Ultra. The unnatural sharpening we noticed in our unique take a look at shots, having said that, has been appreciably enhanced.
Facet-by-side 10x zoom illustrations or photos of a stop indication
Even though the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra has an edge at 10x zoom, the nine Pro does a stable work with its latest tumble digital camera update.
Smartphone macro lenses are almost never value employing, but here the 9 Professional actually stands out. Our macro shots were being substantially sharper than expected, and leagues far better than images taken with the 8’s 2MP macro lens.
A image of pink and eco-friendly macarons on a white plate
Macarons, in macro.
The monochrome sensor functions in tandem with the principal sensor to choose wonderful black-and-white images with loads of depth and inky blacks. Huawei provided a equivalent attribute for years and then all of a sudden taken off it, triggering an outcry from smartphone shutterbugs. If you realized and beloved that feature, the nine Pro’s resurrection of it will delight you.
Black-and-white image of community art installation in which a massive white sculpture of a hand grabs a tree trunk
The monochrome lens can take reliable black-and-white shots.
The most significant, and most spectacular, transform to the OnePlus 9’s digicam, having said that, is the addition of XPan mode. It is really a element that mimics Hasselblad’s now-discontinued XPan cameras to produce an graphic which is reminiscent of those people you would acquire with its 30mm and 45mm lenses.
The pictures are cropped to a 65:24 factor ratio. It really is a remarkable glimpse that gives you a whole new way to explain to stories, and evokes photos of film stills. There are solutions to shoot in shade as nicely as black and white.
It really is tough to overstate just how much room XPan features for creative imagination. four:three and 16:nine element ratios are so ubiquitous, that it can take a defeat to get utilized to all the unique things you can do in the format.
Panoramic shot of a Catholic rectory at night.
XPan manner permits you to acquire remarkable shots in a exceptional part ratio.
We examined XPan in numerous lights eventualities and it executed properly. Our take a look at photographs have been immersive and crisp, with great dynamic selection. Depth of subject is superb as nicely.
Black and white image of a mid-century making
Monochrome photos in XPan manner glimpse breathtaking.
Hasselblad’s one of a kind coloration science for XPan also generates an totally different feel that is similar to pics shot on Kodak Ektachrome or Fuji Provia slide movie. Our photographs showed less distinction and additional normal colours that almost look a little bit undersaturated considering the fact that we have become so accustomed to about-saturation on smartphones.
Decommissioned switching station with festive lights
Portraits and lesser scenes search better with the 30mm focal-size location in XPan method.
On the front of the nine Pro, you are going to obtain a 32MP lens. It performs very properly in any lights ailment. There’s a very little background blur in our shots, which is to be anticipated. Foreground element and depth of industry, on the other hand, are spot on. Portrait mode operates with out a hitch as very well. Our check pictures had a normal bokeh and ideal depth mapping in each and every shot.
A selfie of a bearded white person in eyeglasses and a cap
Selfies are detailed and crystal clear.
Just Click Here of the Crown
The OnePlus nine Pro is an great cellphone. At $970, it retains its own in opposition to the a little additional high priced Galaxy S21 Extremely and Iphone 12 Professional. It will not very match the Galaxy S21 Extremely on digicam zoom or network effectiveness, but it really is lighter and sleeker, it has some distinctive digicam tricks, and there is that renowned OnePlus speed and tasteful application. That wonderful quickly charging and the battery-saving display screen also make a massive change in day-to-working day use. The 9 Pro is greater than the OnePlus 8 sequence in every single way, so the upgrade is effortlessly warranted. It only fails to nab our Editors’ Option award mainly because the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra is even extra remarkable and can be used on any provider. The 9 Pro and the Galaxy S21 Ultra jointly now define the Android state of the artwork. Dependent on your priorities, both will provide you pretty nicely for the following couple several years.