REVIEW: OnePlus 9 Pro
Our editorial rating is based on product testing.
- Beautiful glass and slim design
- Color processing on the camera
- Most powerful hardware
- Fast charging, including wireless
- Occasional launcher restarts
- Missing official IP68 certification, even though it’s water-resistant
For a while now, we can no longer consider OnePlus a brand of cheap Chinese smartphones. Step by step, they’ve grown into a premium manufacturer of top-tier devices—and this year, their flagship is definitely OnePlus 9 Pro. We looked at it in detail and tested it.
The flagship for 2021 will of course impress with the latest hardware, including Snapdragon 888, a beautiful 120 Hz AMOLED display, 50 W wireless charging, premium glass processing, but above all with its collaboration with the world-renowned company Hasselblad, with which they refined the quality of their cameras to the highest level.
However, even with this smartphone, there are also a few minor flaws worth noting. We recorded not quite 100% stable system performance of Oxygen OS, and in the price segment of 900 € (according to the official price list), the OnePlus 9 Pro could already have a more advanced periscope camera—one that even some cheaper Xiaomi smartphones already offer. So the Chinese company hasn’t really surprised with the photo hardware, and they’re trying to make up for it in another way: through software tweaks.
Where did we buy it?
We ordered the OnePlus 9 Pro from our partner Banggood, which ships it via reliable EU Priority Line delivery. That’s without customs duty and VAT. Below you’ll find the current best prices.
OnePlus 9 Pro, global ROM
TIPWith Global Priority shipping, you don’t pay any additional fees.
We recommend choosing Global Priority shipping, where you won’t have to pay anything extra. Customs fees and any VAT will be handled by the seller directly for you. Shipping can be selected in the cart after you enter your delivery address. Delivery with Global Priority usually takes about 15 days, but it may also take longer.
TIPWith Global Priority shipping, you don’t pay any additional fees.
We recommend choosing Global Priority shipping, where you won’t have to pay anything extra. Customs fees and any VAT will be handled by the seller directly for you. Shipping can be selected in the cart after you enter your delivery address. Delivery with Global Priority usually takes about 15 days, but it may also take longer.
We ordered it on 12.5., it was shipped from the warehouse on 17.5. and delivered to our home on 31.5. Delivery is therefore fast even from the Chinese warehouse.
We test the global ROM version, which means it’s originally a Chinese version with a global system installed. It has full coverage of our mobile networks—one drawback is the Chinese plug on the charging adapter, but we solve that by using a reducer.
With the base model OnePlus 9, though, you need to be careful with the global ROM version (originally the Chinese version). It lacks wireless charging and has slightly different dimensions and weight. The OnePlus 9 Pro is, however, identical.
You can also order an original 50 W wireless charger for it—our partner Banggood has it available too.
OnePlus 50 W wireless charger
TIPWith Global Priority shipping, you don’t pay any additional fees.
We recommend choosing Global Priority shipping, where you won’t have to pay anything extra. Customs fees and any VAT will be handled by the seller directly for you. Shipping can be selected in the cart after you enter your delivery address. Delivery with Global Priority usually takes about 15 days, but it may also take longer.
A rich red package, including a charger
OnePlus skipped the trend of packaging without a charger, so you’ll also find a powerful 65 W charging adapter in the box under the smartphone, along with an iconic red USB-C to USB-C cable. OnePlus 9 Pro is also packed with an applied display film. Inside the elongated red box you’ll additionally get a manual, a SIM ejector pin, several stickers, a nice grey silicone case, and a few other papers. With the global ROM version, most of the text is in Chinese.
Beautiful design, glass finish
Our tested device is in grey, which—with the glass material on the back—looks really great. OnePlus has always been able to craft its smartphones well, and of course the flagship can’t be an exception. The back, however, is very prone to smudges from fingerprints and also to scratches. It’s glossy, and you’ll see yourself in it like in a mirror.
In the top-left corner, the larger camera cutout dominates, housing 4 sensors, a dual LED flash, an autofocus sensor, a microphone, and the logo of Hasselblad—quality camera sensor maker.
On the right side you’ll find the famous switch for OnePlus smartphones, which originally changes ringtones, but in settings you can change the switch function. Just below it there’s a display wake-up button. On the opposite side you only get a pair of buttons for volume control. At the bottom you’ll see the SIM card slot cover together with the USB-C connector and cutouts for the speaker. All sides are then edged with grey antenna strips.
The precise dimensions of the device are 163.2 mm x 73.6 mm x 8.7 mm, and the weight is 197 grams. So it’s not completely heavy, since it’s packed with specs and also feels comfortable to hold with one hand.
Beautiful AMOLED with smart technology
Across the entire front, a curved 6.7″ Fluid AMOLED display takes center stage, with an adaptive refresh rate from 1 Hz up to a maximum of 120 Hz. This technology is called LTPO and is custom-made by OnePlus. The display also uses a refresh rate that matches the type of content shown—if it’s a photo or static text, the frequency is 1 Hz. If you’re scrolling through social media, it can go up to 120 Hz.
The display resolution is 3216 x 1440 pixels, with a sharpness of 525 ppi, meaning everything will look beautiful and finely rendered. The display supports sRGB colors, Display P3, 10-bit Color Depth, and is protected by a sturdier Corning Gorilla Glass layer.
We can’t forget the Hyper Touch feature, which ensures the smallest possible delay in touch response—something especially appreciated by mobile gamers. Display brightness is a solid 1300 nits, and you get 8,192 levels of automatic brightness. With it enabled, the screen is still easy to read even in very strong sunlight—we tested that too.
Was the multi-million cooperation with Hasselblad worth it?
The most prominent side that OnePlus itself promotes is its partnership with the well-known Hasselblad camera sensor manufacturer. They helped tune the colors of photos taken with the OnePlus 9 series, but it’s not some special sensor made by them, which is a little disappointing. Still, OnePlus has been lagging behind the very best in the camera segment in recent years—and this doesn’t seem like a bad move to change that. You can read the camera review from the DxOMark pros.
What pleased us is the use of a unique 48 MPx primary sensor Sony IMX789 combined with a very high-quality 50 MPx ultrawide sensor Sony IMX766, which can capture up to 140° shots. The “ultrawide” is also a Freeform Lens type, meaning it has no edge distortion effect that causes a fisheye look (it’s only 1% compared to 10% or 20%).
In our camera test, we were really impressed by the combination of two primary sensors—one main sensor and an ultra-wide sensor—and the photo post-processing itself is excellent. Hasselblad helped deliver the most vibrant and color-accurate results to match reality. You can view all the test photos on Google Drive using the link below.
View all test photos and videos
Classic shots
With the camera, we start by testing everyday photography. In addition to the original 1x mode, you also have access to an ultra-wide shot (0.6x zoom) and an optical 3.3x zoom, which preserves quality better than digital zoom. The maximum zoom available is 30x. You can also set the aspect ratio to portrait / 4:3 / 1:1. You can switch to high resolution photos, where full 48 MPx are used and the photos also take up much more storage space, but the aspect ratio is fixed at 4:3.
For an average user, it’s very hard to compare the photo quality of today’s flagship phones. In our opinion, the OnePlus 9 Pro is top-tier when it comes to the camera, and Hasselblad’s color balancing in post-processing helps deliver even more true-to-life photos. How the photos came out from the main 48 MPx sensor, you can check below.
Night photos
Night photos are at a very solid level. Below, you can check a comparison between shots in normal mode and using the night scene. The Night mode delivers much better lighting with preserved detail, and it also handles very dark parts of the photo well. After post-processing, we were often surprised by how nicely the OnePlus 9 Pro handled it—definitely thanks to the Hasselblad collaboration. What’s immediately obvious, though, is that wide-angle photos in Night mode lose a lot of detail, and many parts of the images come out blurry—no smartphone can do that perfectly.
Ultra-wide shots, zoom shots
A comparison of the same shot between the wide-angle sensor, the primary sensor, 3,3x optical zoom, and 30x digital zoom can be seen below. Photos from the wide-angle sensor are on a much better level than on OnePlus 8T, thanks to the newer sensor used.
Comparison of shots – ultra-wide – normal – optical zoom and maximum digital zoom
The OnePlus 9 Pro also includes a macro mode that you won’t find in the main menu at the bottom—it’s hidden in the top bar as a flower icon. After tapping that icon, the camera switches to macro mode (it can even turn on automatically if the phone is close to an object), and you can capture a detailed photo. You can see a few macro shots below.
Even panoramic shots are not bad at all. We managed to capture this beautiful panorama of Trenčín.
Portrait shots
The portrait (depth) mode on the OnePlus 9 Pro is definitely something you’ll appreciate. It often happened that smartphones weren’t able to adjust the photo enough to make the subject stand out in the foreground, but on this flagship, the function is on a very good level. It can handle background blur even though the subject isn’t clearly separated from the background. When creating portrait shots, we used the ultra-wide sensor more often, because the standard one is in a 4:3 aspect ratio and uses too much zoom.
Photo in full 50 MP resolution
In the camera app settings, there’s also an option to enable full resolution, because it’s disabled by default. Activating it gives you an aspect ratio of 4:3, but the shots still look great even when viewing on large monitors. It can produce truly beautiful 50 MPx images.
Very high-quality video, up to 8K resolution
Nowadays, video quality is one of the main factors when choosing a smartphone. We’d say that with the OnePlus 9 Pro, you’ll be able to create more professional content too—and when combined with a gimbal, the result can be really high quality. Even just optical stabilization can deliver a genuinely impressive result with shaky shots.
The maximum video resolution is 8K at 30 frames per second. You can record in 4K at 120 frames per second, which is really fantastic. Video also supports HDR, but not at all resolutions. There’s also the Super Stable mode (available only in 4K / 30 fps and 1080p / 30 fps), and as with the predecessors, stabilization is even more noticeable. The new feature is portrait video, which can blur the background.
Naturally, there’s also ultra-wide video, and we liked how OnePlus tuned the transition between individual sensors. It’s very smooth and doesn’t break the integrity of the video when zooming in or out to a 0.6x wider field of view, or when switching to the telephoto sensor.
We also had to test the time-lapse video function, which you’ll find in the accelerated motion mode in the top bar. It’s possible to shoot it in 4K resolution and the result looks something like this:
Good battery life and 50 W wireless charging
The battery in this smartphone doesn’t surprise you with a high capacity, but the endurance is quite solid. With a capacity of 2x 2,250 mAh, i.e. a total of 4500 mAh, we were getting roughly 5 – 6 hours of screen-on time. Of course, it depends on how you use it. We managed to pull up to 10 hours from the smartphone when using social networks, occasional calls, with Wi-Fi or mobile data running, and occasionally watching videos on YouTube. So battery life on this smartphone is at a good level.
The smartphone supports 5G and a more powerful processor, but especially the demanding AMOLED display—so you really need enough power. The battery is split into two parts to enable fast charging, so you get continuous power up to 65 W, which Oneplus calls fast charging Warp Charge 65.
What would a flagship be without wireless charging? The power 50 W for a wireless charger is really solid, and here OnePlus 9 Pro compensates for the not-fully-largest battery capacity. So in terms of battery life, it’s well balanced, but if you use the smartphone very often every day, you’ll likely have it on the charger quite a lot. Still, that’s not a big problem, because you’ll get your daily boost in around 15 minutes.
Oxygen OS 11 just makes us happy
We’ve been testing OnePlus smartphones since the seventh generation and their Oxygen OS skin still keeps impressing us. Over the last year, there have been significant improvements, such as Always-on-AMOLED, which for a long time ironically used to be missing. Otherwise it still maintains its design cleanliness and smoothness, even though with this model there are still a few things that need tweaking, because we noticed a couple of crashes and subsequent launcher restarts.
In our opinion, the biggest pluses of Oxygen OS 11 are the modern, clean design with a notification bar, the wide range of system customization options (icon packs, colors of interactive elements, dynamic wallpapers, creative screen savers, nice animations, …), system stability/smoothness, and excellent built-in apps.
Even though at higher device temperatures and while using the camera app we noticed a few launcher restarts, during normal operation everything is nicely smooth and trouble-free. In this case, it’s most likely an unfinished version of the latest Oxygen OS.
We discussed system customization in detail in our OnePlus 8T review, so you can read everything about this part of the upgrade there. The smartphones use the same system version, so they’re identical in that respect. We also talk here about a handy app, OnePlus Switch, which lets you transfer files from your old smartphone to the new one very easily and wirelessly, including setting up your launcher.
Smoothing motion and ultra-high resolution
A new feature in the system, specifically on the OnePlus 9 series, is the motion smoothing feature. It takes care of smoother video playback depending on which apps you choose. We mainly used it for YouTube. It’s sort of an alternative to the MEMC feature used in smart TVs, where post-processing artificially increases the video’s frame rate—so it looks much smoother.
This feature works automatically as long as the video is playing full-screen, i.e., in landscape mode. We noticed a slight drop in video quality, but it’s great that you can turn a normal 30 fps clip into a nicer, smoother result.
Another interesting feature is ultra-high resolution, but it only supports the Instagram and WeChat apps. In our test device, we also had Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, and Messenger installed, but those aren’t supported.
The highest available performance
Inside the OnePlus 9 Pro you’ll find the Snapdragon 888 from US-based Qualcomm, paired with the Adreno 660 graphics chip. On the Pro variant, you get 8 GB and 12 GB of RAM memory of the LPDDR5 type, which is more than enough. Storage comes in 128 GB and 256 GB capacities, and it’s UFS 3.1 2-LANE. Some people would definitely like to see a 512 GB option, but personally, the 256 GB version suits us perfectly as the largest.
The performance segment of smartphones has been, at minimum, a pretty boring part for at least the last year. Every manufacturer already has access to the best Snapdragon chips, large RAM options, and the fastest storage—but differences between flagships are really just in small details that most everyday users won’t even notice. That’s why we didn’t focus on this area primarily, but of course we did the Geekbench and 3DMark tests. You can check them below.
Haptic vibrations and stereo, too
All flagship models also include, for about the past two years now, the haptic vibration motor. It offers a much wider range of vibrations, and different levels also give you different types of feedback, so you’ll know right away what’s going on. You’ll use this feature especially in games.
Of course, you also get stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos® sound, and microphones with active noise cancellation. However, the quality of the top speaker isn’t as impressive as what we felt with the Xiaomi Mi 11. So it’s basically a classic secondary speaker used for calls, synchronized with the main bottom one. Still, it’s not a big drawback—if you want proper sound quality, you’ve got external speakers and headphones.
As for the rest of the equipment, NFC is a given—we actively use it for contactless payments—along with Bluetooth 5.2 supporting aptX & aptX HD & LDAC & AAC codecs, GPS (L1+L5 Dual Band), GLONASS, Galileo (E1+E5a Dual Band), Beidou, A-GPS, WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax, and also Wi-Fi Display support.
Water resistance IP68
If you didn’t know it yet, the OnePlus 9 Pro also has water resistance. The regular versions don’t include official IP68 certification—only the versions sold by T-Mobile do. This is because of OnePlus’s cost-saving approach, since getting official durability certification costs a lot of money, which would make the model more expensive. So don’t worry. If your OnePlus 9 Pro gets slightly wet, it’s water-resistant.
Final verdict
In conclusion, we can say that the OnePlus 9 Pro is a very successful smartphone, but we’re not sure if it’s fully worth its official price in Slovakia. If we didn’t have the global seller Banggood here, the OnePlus 9 Pro would probably not live up to its price/performance ratio, and a competitor like Xiaomi would beat it without any trouble.
What we value most on this flagship is fast charging, the presence of wireless charging, a camera that can deliver truly breathtaking results, a beautiful glass design, as always a practical Oxygen OS system with a minimalist user interface, and last but not least, water resistance.
What disappointed us during the test were occasional launcher restarts and lag when using the camera app, especially when working with 4K video. We hope the developers will fine-tune this inconvenience with the next update.
Available with shipping without customs duty and VAT
If our review convinced you, as we mentioned in the introduction to the review, you can get the OnePlus 9 Pro from our favorite partner Banggood. Shipping is without VAT and customs duty (clo). You’ll likely only need to pay the 2 € fee to the Slovak Post for automated customs clearance.
OnePlus 9 Pro, global ROM
TIPWith Global Priority shipping, you don’t pay any additional fees.
We recommend choosing Global Priority shipping, where you won’t have to pay anything extra. Customs fees and any VAT will be handled by the seller directly for you. Shipping can be selected in the cart after you enter your delivery address. Delivery with Global Priority usually takes about 15 days, but it may also take longer.
TIPWith Global Priority shipping, you don’t pay any additional fees.
We recommend choosing Global Priority shipping, where you won’t have to pay anything extra. Customs fees and any VAT will be handled by the seller directly for you. Shipping can be selected in the cart after you enter your delivery address. Delivery with Global Priority usually takes about 15 days, but it may also take longer.
OnePlus 50 W wireless charger
TIPWith Global Priority shipping, you don’t pay any additional fees.
We recommend choosing Global Priority shipping, where you won’t have to pay anything extra. Customs fees and any VAT will be handled by the seller directly for you. Shipping can be selected in the cart after you enter your delivery address. Delivery with Global Priority usually takes about 15 days, but it may also take longer.
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