The OnePlus 9 Pro (setting up at $969.ninety nine) delivers a streamlined flagship experience to T-Cellular and Verizon subscribers, eventually catching up to its competitors. The phone alone is mild in the hand, and the user experience is weightless as nicely. The cameras take knockout pictures in really substantially all conditions and the integrated rapidly charging is the ideal we have noticed. The Galaxy S21 Ultra scores a little bit better in our battery and wi-fi radio screening, operates with Samsung’s fantastic S Pen stylus, and its digicam offers killer optical zoom, so it just edges out the 9 Professional to be our Editors’ Option among the flagship smartphones. Nevertheless, the OnePlus 9 Professional is fantastic. If you want a best-notch, loaded cell phone that can make your heart sing, you are now spoiled for decision.
The OnePlus Guarantee Is Finally Realized
OnePlus was once a organization that produced a one great phone at a time. Now it has a complete line of telephones at T-Cellular (and companies 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.ninety nine OnePlus 9, the $299.99 OnePlus Nord N10, and the $179.ninety nine OnePlus Nord N100. They all share the OnePlus philosophy, which usually means speedy, classy software package and a streamlined bodily style and design.
Cameras have constantly been the 1 place OnePlus tended to slide behind Samsung and Apple, so OnePlus manufactured a offer with Hasselblad for shade tuning and bought a new sensor from Sony. As a end result, the 9 Pro’s rear digital camera stack stands out from the competition. It may perhaps not have amazing optical zoom like the Samsung Galaxy S21 Extremely, but it provides a lot of extra choices for resourceful expression. In addition to the standard extensive and ultra-extensive lenses you can expect to uncover on most phones, OnePlus extra an XPan manner that results in photos in a 65:24 structure.
The OnePlus 9 features similar over-all effectiveness to the nine Pro but techniques down a little bit on display screen, camera, and radio good quality, and it would not integrate tremendous-speedy wi-fi charging. If you really don’t brain all those downgrades, you can conserve $240 and get an even smaller sized and lighter cell phone. See our review of the OnePlus 9 for all the aspects.
Light, Smooth Design and style
The 9 Pro’s base design has 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. The 12GB/256GB product prices an further $100. There is no memory card slot. The cellular phone is perfectly sized, measuring six.forty two by two.89 by .34 inches (HWD) and weighing 6.9 ounces. Which is a small wider than the 2.eight inches we use as the cutoff width measurement for small telephones, but it really is significantly more compact and lighter than the Galaxy S21 Extremely, and narrower than the OnePlus eight Pro. Of the a few, the 9 Pro is the best to use with a single hand.
Three sights of the OnePlus nine Pro, showing the environmentally friendly and silver case options.
The OnePlus nine Pro comes in eco-friendly or silver.
The layout, extremely in tune with OnePlus’ “burdenless design and style” philosophy, is trim and elegant. The phone’s system is rounded, with the regular OnePlus mute swap on the left aspect and the Hasselblad-branded digital camera module on the back. The digital camera does not adhere out almost as much as current Samsung digital camera bumps do (since it doesn’t have a large periscopic zoom lens in it). The front-facing camera is a hole-punch on the upper still left corner, just like on the 8 Pro.
The cell phone has an IP68 ranking for water and dust resistance, and arrives in two colours. If you’re not likely to put your cell phone in a situation, we like the matte pine environmentally friendly improved than the mirrored silver early morning mist glass back, which attracts greasy fingerprints. Our evaluate unit came with a black carbon-fiber case that built that difficulty moot. (There is a 3rd, black telephone, but OnePlus tells us it would not be sold in the US.)
The back of the OnePlus 9 Professional in silver
The mirrored back again of the silver case is a fingerprint magnet.
Contrary to the Galaxy S21 Extremely and new iPhones, your OnePlus telephone arrives with a cable and a 65W charger. Luxury! You will find a cause: OnePlus takes advantage of proprietary USB-C chargers. While the cellphone will demand from any USB-C resource, it’ll only accomplish its maximum charging speeds with the included adapter.
You can find no headphone jack or USB-C-to-three.5mm adapter in the box. That stated, the nine Professional sports activities aptX, aptX High definition, LHDC, and Sony’s LDAC Bluetooth codecs for excellent wi-fi audio. If you choose for OnePlus’ Buds Pro earphones, you may get personalized faucet capabilities together with 24-little bit/96kHz audio at up to 900kbits/s. If you’re seeking at other wi-fi earbuds, glimpse for a pair with LDAC considering that it truly is far more greatly out there and features the highest-resolution audio shipped above Bluetooth.
As for the onboard speakers, the audio top quality is great. Twin stereo speakers provide audio with a peak volume of 98dB and a astonishing little bit of mid-bass. For voice phone calls, which have a highest quantity of 81dB, the cellular phone supports the greatest voice codec currently obtainable, Hd voice with EVS.
A Shiny, Nonetheless Battery-Conserving Display screen
The brilliant and crisp 6.7-inch, 525ppi, three,216-by-one,440-pixel monitor can be dialed again to 1080p in the phone’s configurations if you want to conserve battery lifetime. The display screen takes advantage of a relatively new technological know-how known as small-temperature polycrystalline oxide (LTPO) that minimizes electricity intake and offers cellphone companies additional control in excess of refresh fees. It truly is the exact same technology that powers Apple’s Apple iphone 13 Professional styles as well as the Samsung Galaxy S21 collection.
The LTPO display of the OnePlus nine Pro, displaying an picture of clouds
The LTPO exhibit assists help save energy.
This is a best-of-the-line OLED display screen with a bonus: It truly is extremely obvious in immediate daylight. A display screen protector is preinstalled we didn’t take out it from our test unit. In accordance to DisplayMate Labs tests, the nine Pro’s display screen established to Auto Brightness method beats the 8 Pro, the Galaxy S20 series, and the newest iPhones in ambient mild, but not the Galaxy Observe 20 Extremely. The nine Professional also increases the greatest colour gamut in its vivid show manner, which can help it maintain colour saturation in outside lights.
Significant brightness mode effects
In addition to in brightness and colour, the 9 Pro’s display screen is not easily distinguishable from other modern top rated-of-the-line OLED panels. The true news is energy optimization, as the LTPO panel dynamically—and imperceptibly—changes its refresh fee from 120Hz all the way down to 1Hz to save strength. Check out out our in-depth unique for much more on the screen.
Shade change benefits
Remarkable Velocity and Relieve of Use
OnePlus phones are often quickly, and the OnePlus nine Pro is no exception. It truly is driven by a prime-of-the-line Qualcomm Snapdragon 888. It scored a bit superior than the Galaxy S21 Ultra on Geekbench, with solitary-core scores all-around 1125 and multi-core scores all over 3700. Which is a 24% boost on single-main success and a 12% raise on multi-core outcomes around the OnePlus 8 Pro. None of these phones can surpass the Iphone 12, even though, which scored 1596 SC and 4049 MC with its Apple A14 processor.
The Snapdragon 888 supplies a raise in graphics general performance, way too. On the GFXBench Car or truck Chase offscreen benchmark, the nine Pro scored all-around 70fps, with 37fps onscreen in WQHD manner and 58fps onscreen in High definition manner. That’s a main soar up from the 8 Professional, which scored 51fps offscreen and either 26 or 45fps onscreen dependent on display screen resolution.
See How We Check Telephones
These benchmarks don’t just take into account OnePlus’ computer software, which incorporates a bunch of effectiveness enhancements. In our working experience with OnePlus telephones, they truly feel like the speediest Android phones, even more quickly than Google Pixels (in particular due to the fact Google started applying midrange chipsets in its flagships with the launch of the Pixel 5).
The cellphone runs Android 11 with OnePlus’ OxygenOS enhancements, and OnePlus says it’ll get updates as significantly as Android thirteen along with bi-monthly stability updates for three yrs. For a flagship, that is a tiny disappointing, in particular since Samsung gives at least a few years of program updates on its price range A collection models.
The 9 Professional in a charging cradle displaying a game.
Significant-stop game titles engage in nicely on the 9 Professional.
OxygenOS has usually experienced a bunch of pleasant touches, this kind of as the skill to install two copies of social-media applications for diverse accounts, a setting to transform display shade primarily based on ambient light, and a Zen method that briefly disables the phone’s most distracting capabilities. With this variation, OnePlus provides RAM compression that it states raises the number of apps that can continue to be in memory with saved state. Our take a look at unit had no challenge holding 7 applications in memory, even with the large RAM-hog Genshin Influence at the back of the line.
To take a look at cooling, which OnePlus states it’s improved around preceding styles, we ran a processor-pumping app known as CPU Throttling Check on the 9 Pro, the Galaxy S21, and the eight Pro for 15 minutes. At the 10-minute issue, the eight Pro’s performance took a sharp dive to about eighty% of peak. Both of those of the more recent telephones were being however preserving closer to 90% functionality at that time. Soon after thirteen minutes of pumping the processor, the Galaxy S21’s general performance smoothly declined to a small over 80% of peak, even though the 9 Pro remained in the ninety% range. Eventually, the nine Pro’s performance declined drastically at pretty much specifically 15 minutes as the phone tried to cool alone down. Through the test as a complete, the 9 Pro and Galaxy S21 executed at 87–88% of max performance, whilst the eight Professional was down at 78%.
Gaming functionality is amped up with a 360Hz contact response amount, but only in four apps: PUBG Mobile, Get in touch with of Responsibility, League of Legends, and Brawl Stars. OnePlus claims it will operate on incorporating 360Hz touch assistance to much more online games. That would certainly enable this element rise from a curiosity to a differentiator. The Samsung Galaxy S20 phones give a 240Hz contact sampling amount Samsung would not give a spec on the Galaxy S21, but we imagine it can be the exact.
Ultra-Tremendous-Mega-Speedy Charging
The pair of batteries in the 9 Pro complete 4,500mAh. Which is limited of the Galaxy S21 Ultra’s five,000mAh, but OnePlus has a vary of application tips up its sleeve to continue to keep the telephone charged—so a lot of that we’re not even certain all of them came into use during our tests.
On our normal battery take a look at, running a YouTube video clip over Wi-Fi at entire monitor brightness, the cellular phone lasted for eight hrs, 50 minutes in WQHD resolution and 9 hrs, forty minutes in Hd. Display brightness matters a good deal to battery existence: Choose the brightness down to seventy five% and those people quantities leap to twelve several hours, forty minutes on WQHD and thirteen hours on Hd. That is a ton shorter than the Galaxy S21 Extremely (eleven hours twenty minutes) and the Galaxy S20 FE (12 hrs thirty minutes), but you ought to have no troubles acquiring by means of a day of moderate use.
But you can find much more to this battery than meets the eye. To commence with, the display screen slows down to 1Hz when you happen to be looking at static content material, these as an email you are mulling more than or a site of an e-e-book. That can be a huge power saver. OnePlus also has a name for dropping a lot less electrical power to background processes than Samsung does. If you use seventy five% display screen brightness most of the time, you may probably get far more than a working day of battery existence from 1 cost.
OnePlus nine Professional with USB-C Port in aim
The Warp Cost 65T charger can absolutely recharge the nine Pro in about thirty minutes.
The 9 Professional also has by far the speediest charging speeds of any phone we’ve ever examined. It arrives with a Warp Demand 65T USB-C charger, which fees the nine Professional from % to 20% in 6 minutes and to a hundred% in just 36 minutes. That is twice as rapidly as any the latest Samsung telephone expenses. If you use a third-social gathering charger, the cellular phone will cost at up to eighteen watts, with correspondingly extended cost moments.
The genuine breakthrough is in OnePlus’ new Warp Demand 50 wireless charger, a $sixty nine.ninety nine accessory cradle that plugs into your present Warp Demand 65 adapter to present fifty-watt wi-fi charging for the 9 Pro, or 15-watt Qi charging for any other system. In tests with the Warp Charge 50, the nine Professional went to 29% in eleven minutes and 100% in 46 minutes. Other phones, like the nine, acquire concerning 90 minutes and two several hours to wirelessly cost entirely.
This all matches with OnePlus’ approach to telephone electric power: It may well not have the largest batteries in town, but it can refill them the speediest.
All the 5G Trimmings, for T-Cellular and Verizon
Like other Snapdragon 888 phones, the 9 Pro takes advantage of a Qualcomm X60 modem, which will work with all of the attributes T-Mobile and Verizon intend to use in the following handful of years, including new airwaves and aggregation schemes. It has Bluetooth five.2 and Wi-Fi 6 as well, but not Wi-Fi 6E (in contrast to the Galaxy S21 Extremely).
T-Mobile is the only carrier advertising the nine Pro, but if you invest in an unlocked design from OnePlus or a retailer, it will also operate on Verizon. If you test to use it on AT&T, OnePlus suggests it will only connect to 4G.
OnePlus 9 (remaining) and OnePlus nine Professional (proper).
OnePlus 9 (still left) and OnePlus nine Professional (proper)
The OnePlus nine Professional has all of the new systems being built-in into T-Cellular and Verizon’s networks, together with CBRS, C-band, and millimeter wave.
This is a solitary-SIM cell phone, with no eSIM option. With a T-Mobile SIM in, the cell phone enabled Wi-Fi contacting, “wise 5G” (which turns 5G on and off to save battery), and dual-channel community acceleration (which takes advantage of Wi-Fi and 5G at the exact time if needed). With an AT&T SIM in, as predicted, the mobile phone applied only 4G and lacked Wi-Fi contacting.
The major spec change involving the nine and the nine Professional is that the 9 Pro has mmWave. T-Cellular at present only makes use of mmWave in 7 metropolitan areas, and is most likely to roll it out in super-crowded sites: athletics stadiums, live performance halls, convention facilities, and the like. It truly is a may possibly-be-pleasant, not a must-have. It is really is extra appealing on Verizon, which has mmWave in the centers of a lot more than 70 cities now.
We tested the nine and the nine Pro from the Samsung Galaxy S21 with 86 rounds of exams working with Ookla Speedtest application in New York Town, in a vary of network conditions. (Editors’ Note: Ookla is owned by Ziff Davis, PCMag’s publisher.) Above seventeen assessments, the Galaxy S21 turned in the ideal efficiency, the nine Professional got a strengthen from mmWave to arrive in second, and the 9 dropped to 3rd. Throughout a array of non-mmWave checks with mixed sign quality, the Galaxy S21 came in initially place once again. In a standalone T-Mobile mid-band “ultra capacity” space, on the other hand, the 3 phones performed almost identically.
If you happen to be outside a main metropolis, you’re possibly most involved about weak-sign general performance. In our assessments, the Galaxy S21 confirmed the strongest 4G RSRP signal 29 situations the 9 Professional was strongest 26 times, and the nine was strongest 22 occasions. So the Galaxy S21 wins at the time once more, though not by considerably. In excess of six rounds of tests in a weak-sign space, the Galaxy S21 confirmed stronger sign only a few of the occasions, but the 9 Pro had two sign dropouts. The Galaxy S21’s edge is slight but noticeable.
Blinding You With (Colour) Science
Imaging collaborations are not new for smartphone producers. Huawei has partnered with Leica for a long time the Zeiss identify is plastered on the back of smartphones from Nokia, Sony, and Vivo. Hasselblad’s only past US partnership was with Motorola on its clunky but able Real Zoom Moto Mod, but the 9 series delivers Hasselblad back again to the smartphone marketplace in triumphant design. The nine Pro is capable of having remarkable photos with each and every lens.
The 48MP principal lens has an f/1.eight aperture, optical impression stabilization (OIS), and electronic impression stabilization (EIS). There’s also a 50MP extremely-extensive lens with an f/two.2 aperture, and a 8MP telephoto lens with an f/2.4 aperture, as nicely as a 2MP monochrome sensor. You are going to locate all the standard flagship bells and whistles on the 9 Professional: dual LED flash, multi-autofocus with omnidirectional Phase Detection AF (PDAF), Laser AF (LAF), and Contrast AF (CAF). A huge 50-megapixel extremely-large lens takes lovely minimal-light pictures. You can find also 8K video at 30fps and 4K at up to 120fps, and tremendous-sluggish movement at up to 480fps in 720p.
Back again of OnePlus nine Pro with digital camera in concentrate
A massive fifty-megapixel ultra-broad lens takes lovely small-light pictures.
For the most element, the camera application is intuitive and simple to use. The shutter button is a Hasselblad-branded orange, and it will make a distinctive Hasselblad shutter sound. Our only complaint is that we found Tilt Shift manner a bit clunky and tricky to use.
Picture of rooftop with eco foliage
The OnePlus 9 Pro’s slide update improved small-light-weight performance.
Some of the 9 Pro’s most significant camera attributes are in the software package. Hasselblad labored carefully with OnePlus to update its shade science and produce extra attributes for professional smartphone shooters. In car and Pro modes, shades are warm, with reds and blues getting a balanced saturation boost though yellows and greens to be a tiny undersaturated. Considering the fact that OnePlus and Hasselblad put a major emphasis on the nine series’ colour science, we as opposed the 9 Professional to a handful of other flagships and identified it stood up really nicely to the opposition.
Apple significantly improved its coloration science with iOS 14 and the Iphone twelve. Where the 9 Pro tends to saturate reds and blues, Apple focuses more on boosting luminance, so the Apple iphone 12’s pics are likely to look a very little much more accurate to everyday living than the 9 Pro’s.
Position photos from the nine Pro and the Galaxy S21 Ultra aspect by aspect and you can quickly realize the difference between the two cameras. OnePlus usually takes a lighter hand with boosting saturation and other computational adjustments Samsung is substantially a lot more aggressive. In one particular of our check pictures, a dreary March sky captured on the Galaxy S21 Extremely instantly became blue. The nine Professional was much additional precise in its general representation of the scene.
Aspect-by-facet pictures of a building beneath a cloudy sky in the photo on the still left, the sky looks blue
The photo colors from the nine Pro (proper) are much more precise than the types sent by the Galaxy S21 Ultra (still left).
In Professional method, you can regulate ISO, focus publicity time, white harmony, and a selection of other configurations. There is also the selection to shoot in twelve-little bit Raw format, which gives 64 instances the color facts of the 10-little bit Uncooked on other flagships.
The ultra-extensive 50MP lens is a Sony IMX 766 sensor that’s noticeably more substantial than the one in the Iphone 12 Pro Max. In our checks the lens did a great occupation in equally shiny and reduced gentle. Pictures are crisp with excellent depth of field and sound track record element.
Aspect-by-aspect extremely-vast-angle pictures of a creating
Ultra-broad-angle pictures are a big advantage for the 9 Pro (correct), which generates significantly fewer edge distortion than the Galaxy S21 Ultra (still left).
Our shots taken with the most important lens ended up outstanding as very well. In great mild, the nine Pro retains its own towards other flagships, with realistic depth of discipline and rarely any loss of great element.
In the tumble of 2021, OnePlus sent a major update to the camera’s software package. Test pictures display additional accurate white balance and are crisp with no becoming oversharpened, a widespread difficulty with most smartphone cameras. When we reviewed the shots at entire dimension, the photos remained crisp and experienced much less noise.
The application is also quicker in general and there is less shutter lag. It’s a minor alter, but it will make a major big difference when getting pictures with movement.
A snowy rooftop with a number of sculptures and other objects
The primary lens will take prime-notch pictures even in muted mild.
But in which the camera really excels is in lower light-weight. The most important lens did perfectly, as envisioned. Our examination shots with the slide update remained crisp with an enhanced texture-to-sound ratio. The big advancement, nevertheless, was with dynamic assortment and all round scene accuracy. The two worked in conjunction to generate a far more trustworthy reflection of the minute.
And though we were especially bowled around by the ultra-large lens’ efficiency in our primary exams, the digicam update just manufactured points superior. All of the enhancements we observed in the main lenses were obvious in our ultra-extensive take a look at pictures. All those improvements, merged with the absence of distortion, can make the OnePlus nine Pro’s ultra-huge lens the best we have analyzed.
Get More Info at evening, with lights reflecting off a moist street
Ultra-huge small-light-weight visuals are attractive, with astonishingly minor distortion.
We didn’t see a lot advancement in our shots with the telephoto lens right after the software program update. The OnePlus 9 Pro’s telephoto lens is better than what you can expect to locate on its predecessor, but it still doesn’t evaluate with the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra’s. At decreased zoom concentrations, our test photographs experienced loads of element, however there was some predicted decline of detail in the length.
Side-by-side photos of illustrated indications at 30x zoom.
The Samsung Galaxy S21 Extremely does a a great deal much better occupation at 30x zoom.
As we bumped up the zoom, on the other hand, we commenced to recognize substantial blur and sounds when when compared with the identical impression taken on the Galaxy S21 Extremely. The unnatural sharpening we seen in our initial take a look at pictures, nonetheless, has been significantly enhanced.
Facet-by-side 10x zoom pictures of a stop indicator
Although the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra has an edge at 10x zoom, the 9 Professional does a solid occupation with its latest drop digital camera update.
Smartphone macro lenses are almost never truly worth applying, but below the 9 Professional really stands out. Our macro shots ended up a lot sharper than predicted, and leagues far better than pics taken with the 8’s 2MP macro lens.
A photograph of pink and inexperienced macarons on a white plate
Macarons, in macro.
The monochrome sensor functions in tandem with the main sensor to just take attractive black-and-white images with heaps of depth and inky blacks. Huawei included a equivalent feature for several years and then suddenly taken off it, causing an outcry from smartphone shutterbugs. If you knew and beloved that element, the nine Pro’s resurrection of it will delight you.
Black-and-white picture of community artwork installation in which a significant white sculpture of a hand grabs a tree trunk
The monochrome lens usually takes reliable black-and-white photos.
The most important, and most impressive, modify to the OnePlus 9’s digicam, on the other hand, is the addition of XPan method. It really is a feature that mimics Hasselblad’s now-discontinued XPan cameras to produce an image which is reminiscent of individuals you’d consider with its 30mm and 45mm lenses.
The photos are cropped to a 65:24 component ratio. It is a dramatic glimpse that offers you a full new way to inform stories, and evokes photographs of film stills. There are solutions to shoot in colour as very well as black and white.
It can be tough to overstate just how a lot space XPan delivers for creativeness. 4:three and 16:nine facet ratios are so ubiquitous, that it takes a defeat to get employed to all the different points you can do in the structure.
Panoramic shot of a Catholic rectory at night.
XPan manner makes it possible for you to just take dramatic pics in a distinctive facet ratio.
We analyzed XPan in many lighting situations and it done completely. Our examination pictures were immersive and crisp, with outstanding dynamic selection. Depth of discipline is exceptional as very well.
Black and white picture of a mid-century building
Monochrome pics in XPan method look beautiful.
Hasselblad’s exceptional coloration science for XPan also produces an completely distinctive come to feel that’s equivalent to pictures shot on Kodak Ektachrome or Fuji Provia slide movie. Our photos showed less contrast and extra all-natural hues that practically appear to be marginally undersaturated considering that we have become so accustomed to in excess of-saturation on smartphones.
Decommissioned switching station with festive lights
Portraits and lesser scenes search better with the 30mm focal-length environment in XPan manner.
On the entrance of the nine Professional, you’ll find a 32MP lens. It performs incredibly effectively in any lighting condition. There is a minimal history blur in our pictures, which is to be predicted. Foreground element and depth of area, even so, are location on. Portrait method performs with no a hitch as effectively. Our examination shots experienced a natural bokeh and fantastic depth mapping in just about every shot.
A selfie of a bearded white man in glasses and a cap
Selfies are detailed and apparent.
1 Tiny Phase Shy of the Crown
The OnePlus nine Professional is an superb cellular phone. At $970, it retains its personal against the a bit extra high priced Galaxy S21 Ultra and Iphone 12 Pro. It doesn’t quite match the Galaxy S21 Extremely on digital camera zoom or network functionality, but it can be lighter and sleeker, it has some unique camera tricks, and there is certainly that renowned OnePlus velocity and exquisite software package. That wonderful quickly charging and the battery-preserving display screen also make a huge variation in day-to-working day use. The 9 Professional is far better than the OnePlus eight sequence in each and every way, so the up grade is simply warranted. It only fails to nab our Editors’ Decision award due to the fact the Samsung Galaxy S21 Extremely is even a lot more remarkable and can be made use of on any carrier. The nine Pro and the Galaxy S21 Extremely jointly now outline the Android point out of the artwork. Depending on your priorities, both will provide you incredibly properly for the future couple years.
