The OnePlus 9 Professional (beginning at $969.ninety nine) provides a streamlined flagship experience to T-Mobile and Verizon subscribers, ultimately catching up to its competition. The cell phone itself is light-weight in the hand, and the consumer experience is weightless as very well. The cameras choose knockout pics in rather a great deal all circumstances and the built-in rapidly charging is the very best we’ve seen. The Galaxy S21 Ultra scores a little bit superior in our battery and wireless radio testing, is effective with Samsung’s exceptional S Pen stylus, and its digicam presents killer optical zoom, so it just edges out the nine Professional to be our Editors’ Decision amid flagship smartphones. However, the OnePlus nine Professional is excellent. If you want a top rated-notch, loaded phone that will make your heart sing, you might be now spoiled for preference.
The OnePlus Guarantee Is Eventually Realized
OnePlus was when a enterprise that created a solitary terrific cellphone at a time. Now it has a full line of telephones at T-Cellular (and companies this kind of as Google Fi, Metro, and Mint Cellular that use T-Mobile’s networks): the $969.99 OnePlus nine Professional, the $729.99 OnePlus nine, the $299.99 OnePlus Nord N10, and the $179.99 OnePlus Nord N100. They all share the OnePlus philosophy, which suggests speedy, tasteful software package and a streamlined bodily design and style.
Cameras have constantly been the just one put OnePlus tended to tumble guiding Samsung and Apple, so OnePlus designed a offer with Hasselblad for shade tuning and purchased a new sensor from Sony. As a result, the 9 Pro’s rear digital camera stack stands out from the level of competition. It may perhaps not have outstanding optical zoom like the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, but it offers many extra options for innovative expression. In addition to the conventional wide and ultra-vast lenses you’ll locate on most phones, OnePlus extra an XPan mode that creates photos in a sixty five:24 format.
The OnePlus 9 delivers similar in general general performance to the 9 Pro but ways down a little bit on display screen, digital camera, and radio excellent, and it doesn’t combine tremendous-quick wi-fi charging. If you really don’t brain those downgrades, you can preserve $240 and get an even scaled-down and lighter cellphone. See our evaluation of the OnePlus nine for all the aspects.
Light, Modern Style and design
The nine Pro’s base product has 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. The 12GB/256GB product charges an added $100. There is no memory card slot. The cellphone is beautifully sized, measuring six.forty two by two.89 by .34 inches (HWD) and weighing six.9 ounces. That’s a minor wider than the 2.8 inches we use as the cutoff width measurement for modest telephones, but it’s noticeably smaller and lighter than the Galaxy S21 Extremely, and narrower than the OnePlus eight Pro. Of the three, the nine Pro is the least complicated to use with a single hand.
Three sights of the OnePlus nine Professional, displaying the green and silver situation options.
The OnePlus 9 Pro comes in green or silver.
The design, really in tune with OnePlus’ “burdenless layout” philosophy, is slim and tasteful. The phone’s entire body is rounded, with the traditional OnePlus mute switch on the still left aspect and the Hasselblad-branded digital camera module on the back. The digicam doesn’t adhere out almost as substantially as current Samsung digicam bumps do (due to the fact it isn’t going to have a giant periscopic zoom lens in it). The front-dealing with camera is a gap-punch on the upper still left corner, just like on the 8 Pro.
The cell phone has an IP68 rating for water and dust resistance, and will come in two shades. If you might be not going to put your cellular phone in a scenario, we like the matte pine eco-friendly far better than the mirrored silver morning mist glass again, which draws in greasy fingerprints. Our evaluation unit came with a black carbon-fiber scenario that created that issue moot. (You can find a third, black telephone, but OnePlus tells us it will never be marketed in the US.)
The back of the OnePlus 9 Pro in silver
The mirrored back of the silver circumstance is a fingerprint magnet.
Compared with the Galaxy S21 Ultra and the latest iPhones, your OnePlus cellular phone arrives with a cable and a 65W charger. Luxurious! There is certainly a motive: OnePlus takes advantage of proprietary USB-C chargers. Though the phone will charge from any USB-C supply, it’ll only obtain its optimum charging speeds with the provided adapter.
You will find no headphone jack or USB-C-to-3.5mm adapter in the box. That said, the nine Professional sporting activities aptX, aptX Hd, LHDC, and Sony’s LDAC Bluetooth codecs for outstanding wireless audio. If you choose for OnePlus’ Buds Professional earphones, you will get tailored tap options along with 24-bit/96kHz audio at up to 900kbits/s. If you happen to be searching at other wireless earbuds, search for a pair with LDAC since it truly is extra commonly out there and features the greatest-resolution audio delivered over Bluetooth.
As for the onboard speakers, the audio excellent is exceptional. Twin stereo speakers deliver audio with a peak quantity of 98dB and a shocking little bit of mid-bass. For voice calls, which have a maximum quantity of 81dB, the phone supports the greatest voice codec currently offered, Hd voice with EVS.
A Brilliant, Yet Battery-Conserving Show
The shiny and crisp six.7-inch, 525ppi, 3,216-by-one,440-pixel display screen can be dialed again to 1080p in the phone’s options if you want to preserve battery lifestyle. The show works by using a fairly new technological know-how known as minimal-temperature polycrystalline oxide (LTPO) that cuts down electric power intake and provides cellular phone brands far more command around refresh costs. It is the same technological innovation that powers Apple’s Iphone 13 Pro models as perfectly as the Samsung Galaxy S21 sequence.
The LTPO screen of the OnePlus nine Professional, exhibiting an picture of clouds
The LTPO exhibit aids conserve ability.
This is a leading-of-the-line OLED exhibit with a reward: It is incredibly noticeable in direct daylight. A display screen protector is preinstalled we didn’t eliminate it from our check device. In accordance to DisplayMate Labs exams, the 9 Pro’s display screen set to Car Brightness manner beats the eight Professional, the Galaxy S20 series, and the newest iPhones in ambient mild, but not the Galaxy Be aware twenty Ultra. The nine Pro also enhances the most shade gamut in its vivid show method, which will help it keep colour saturation in outdoor lights.
Superior brightness method effects
Moreover in brightness and shade, the nine Pro’s show is not quickly distinguishable from other new prime-of-the-line OLED panels. The serious information is electric power optimization, as the LTPO panel dynamically—and imperceptibly—changes its refresh level from 120Hz all the way down to 1Hz to help you save electrical power. Check out out our in-depth special for more on the exhibit.
Coloration shift success
Amazing Speed and Relieve of Use
OnePlus telephones are always speedy, and the OnePlus nine Professional is no exception. It can be powered by a major-of-the-line Qualcomm Snapdragon 888. It scored a little bit superior than the Galaxy S21 Extremely on Geekbench, with one-core scores close to 1125 and multi-core scores close to 3700. That’s a 24% maximize on solitary-main benefits and a 12% maximize on multi-core effects in excess of the OnePlus eight Pro. None of these phones can surpass the Iphone 12, nevertheless, which scored 1596 SC and 4049 MC with its Apple A14 processor.
The Snapdragon 888 supplies a lift in graphics effectiveness, far too. On the GFXBench Automobile Chase offscreen benchmark, the nine Professional scored about 70fps, with 37fps onscreen in WQHD manner and 58fps onscreen in Hd mode. That’s a important leap up from the 8 Pro, which scored 51fps offscreen and possibly 26 or 45fps onscreen relying on display resolution.
See How We Check Phones
These benchmarks don’t get into account OnePlus’ computer software, which incorporates a bunch of overall performance enhancements. In our knowledge with OnePlus phones, they truly feel like the speediest Android telephones, even faster than Google Pixels (especially given that Google started out employing midrange chipsets in its flagships with the release of the Pixel 5).
The cellular phone runs Android eleven with OnePlus’ OxygenOS enhancements, and OnePlus suggests it’ll get updates as significantly as Android 13 alongside with bi-month-to-month safety updates for three many years. For a flagship, that is a little disappointing, specifically considering the fact that Samsung offers at the very least three many years of program updates on its price range A collection versions.
The 9 Pro in a charging cradle displaying a match.
Superior-end game titles play well on the 9 Professional.
OxygenOS has generally had a bunch of nice touches, such as the means to install two copies of social-media applications for unique accounts, a location to improve screen shade based mostly on ambient gentle, and a Zen method that temporarily disables the phone’s most distracting functions. With this version, OnePlus adds RAM compression that it states raises the amount of apps that can remain in memory with saved point out. Our examination device experienced no challenge preserving seven apps in memory, even with the giant RAM-hog Genshin Impact at the back of the line.
To exam cooling, which OnePlus suggests it really is improved above prior types, we ran a processor-pumping app termed CPU Throttling Check on the nine Pro, the Galaxy S21, and the eight Professional for 15 minutes. At the ten-minute level, the 8 Pro’s general performance took a sharp dive to about eighty% of peak. Equally of the more recent telephones were however keeping closer to ninety% functionality at that time. Immediately after thirteen minutes of pumping the processor, the Galaxy S21’s efficiency effortlessly declined to a very little more than eighty% of peak, even though the nine Pro remained in the ninety% array. Lastly, the 9 Pro’s effectiveness declined noticeably at nearly accurately fifteen minutes as the telephone attempted to amazing alone down. Throughout the examination as a total, the nine Pro and Galaxy S21 carried out at 87–88% of max efficiency, while the 8 Professional was down at seventy eight%.
Gaming functionality is amped up with a 360Hz touch reaction fee, but only in four applications: PUBG Cell, Call of Responsibility, League of Legends, and Brawl Stars. OnePlus states it will perform on including 360Hz contact aid to far more online games. That would certainly support this characteristic rise from a curiosity to a differentiator. The Samsung Galaxy S20 phones offer a 240Hz touch sampling level Samsung will not give a spec on the Galaxy S21, but we believe it really is the exact same.
Ultra-Super-Mega-Quick Charging
The pair of batteries in the nine Professional total four,500mAh. Which is small of the Galaxy S21 Ultra’s 5,000mAh, but OnePlus has a range of application tips up its sleeve to keep the mobile phone charged—so many that we’re not even absolutely sure all of them came into use through our tests.
On our normal battery check, running a YouTube online video about Wi-Fi at whole display screen brightness, the cellphone lasted for eight several hours, fifty minutes in WQHD resolution and nine several hours, forty minutes in Hd. Display screen brightness issues a good deal to battery existence: Choose the brightness down to 75% and those people figures leap to twelve hrs, forty minutes on WQHD and 13 several hours on Hd. That is a ton shorter than the Galaxy S21 Ultra (eleven hours twenty minutes) and the Galaxy S20 FE (twelve several hours thirty minutes), but you need to have no issues receiving via a day of reasonable use.
But you can find far more to this battery than meets the eye. To begin with, the exhibit slows down to 1Hz when you are looking at static written content, these types of as an e-mail you are mulling around or a site of an e-e-book. That can be a enormous electricity saver. OnePlus also has a reputation for losing considerably less electrical power to track record procedures than Samsung does. If you use 75% screen brightness most of the time, you’ll most likely get additional than a day of battery daily life from a single cost.
OnePlus 9 Professional with USB-C Port in concentrate
The Warp Charge 65T charger can completely recharge the nine Professional in about thirty minutes.
The 9 Professional also has by significantly the swiftest charging speeds of any mobile phone we have at any time tested. It arrives with a Warp Cost 65T USB-C charger, which expenses the nine Professional from % to twenty% in six minutes and to a hundred% in just 36 minutes. Which is 2 times as quickly as any recent Samsung phone fees. If you use a 3rd-celebration charger, the cell phone will charge at up to 18 watts, with correspondingly lengthier demand periods.
The actual breakthrough is in OnePlus’ new Warp Demand 50 wireless charger, a $69.ninety nine accessory cradle that plugs into your present Warp Cost sixty five adapter to provide 50-watt wireless charging for the 9 Pro, or 15-watt Qi charging for any other device. In screening with the Warp Demand 50, the 9 Pro went to 29% in 11 minutes and a hundred% in 46 minutes. Other phones, together with the 9, consider in between ninety minutes and two hours to wirelessly cost entirely.
This all fits with OnePlus’ tactic to cell phone energy: It may well not have the most important batteries in city, but it can refill them the fastest.
All the 5G Trimmings, for T-Cell and Verizon
Like other Snapdragon 888 telephones, the nine Pro takes advantage of a Qualcomm X60 modem, which performs with all of the functions T-Mobile and Verizon intend to use in the subsequent handful of several years, together with new airwaves and aggregation techniques. It has Bluetooth 5.two and Wi-Fi 6 as properly, but not Wi-Fi 6E (compared with the Galaxy S21 Extremely).
T-Cell is the only carrier providing the 9 Pro, but if you invest in an unlocked model from OnePlus or a retailer, it will also do the job on Verizon. If you consider to use it on AT&T, OnePlus suggests it will only connect to 4G.
OnePlus 9 (remaining) and OnePlus nine Professional (proper).
OnePlus nine (left) and OnePlus nine Professional (right)
The OnePlus 9 Professional has all of the new systems staying integrated into T-Cellular and Verizon’s networks, which include CBRS, C-band, and millimeter wave.
This is a one-SIM phone, with no eSIM possibility. With a T-Cell SIM in, the cell phone enabled Wi-Fi contacting, “wise 5G” (which turns 5G on and off to preserve battery), and dual-channel community acceleration (which works by using Wi-Fi and 5G at the similar time if required). With an AT&T SIM in, as envisioned, the telephone employed only 4G and lacked Wi-Fi contacting.
The massive spec variation in between the nine and the nine Professional is that the 9 Professional has mmWave. T-Cell now only utilizes mmWave in 7 cities, and is most very likely to roll it out in super-crowded places: sports stadiums, concert halls, convention centers, and the like. It really is a may well-be-good, not a must-have. It is is a lot more fascinating on Verizon, which has mmWave in the facilities of far more than 70 metropolitan areas now.
We analyzed the 9 and the nine Professional against the Samsung Galaxy S21 with 86 rounds of checks employing Ookla Speedtest software in New York Town, in a variety of network situations. (Editors’ Take note: Ookla is owned by Ziff Davis, PCMag’s publisher.) Over 17 tests, the Galaxy S21 turned in the ideal effectiveness, the 9 Professional obtained a strengthen from mmWave to appear in second, and the nine dropped to third. Across a variety of non-mmWave assessments with mixed sign top quality, the Galaxy S21 arrived in very first spot once again. In a standalone T-Cellular mid-band “ultra ability” region, on the other hand, the a few phones carried out pretty much identically.
If you happen to be exterior a main metropolis, you are possibly most worried about weak-sign efficiency. In our checks, the Galaxy S21 confirmed the strongest 4G RSRP signal 29 occasions the 9 Professional was strongest 26 periods, and the nine was strongest 22 occasions. So the Galaxy S21 wins once all over again, however not by a great deal. In excess of six rounds of screening in a weak-signal region, the Galaxy S21 confirmed stronger signal only a few of the times, but the nine Professional experienced two signal dropouts. The Galaxy S21’s edge is slight but obvious.
Blinding You With (Color) Science
Imaging collaborations usually are not new for smartphone producers. Huawei has partnered with Leica for a long time the Zeiss name 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 able Real Zoom Moto Mod, but the nine collection brings Hasselblad back again to the smartphone industry in triumphant fashion. The nine Pro is capable of having unbelievable pics with each individual lens.
The 48MP primary lens has an f/one.eight aperture, optical image stabilization (OIS), and digital graphic stabilization (EIS). There’s also a 50MP ultra-large lens with an f/2.two aperture, and a 8MP telephoto lens with an f/two.4 aperture, as effectively as a 2MP monochrome sensor. read this ’ll obtain all the regular flagship bells and whistles on the nine Professional: dual LED flash, multi-autofocus with omnidirectional Period Detection AF (PDAF), Laser AF (LAF), and Contrast AF (CAF). A large 50-megapixel extremely-vast lens takes gorgeous small-light-weight shots. There’s also 8K video clip at 30fps and 4K at up to 120fps, and super-sluggish motion at up to 480fps in 720p.
Back of OnePlus 9 Professional with digital camera in concentration
A large 50-megapixel extremely-broad lens will take stunning low-light-weight images.
For the most aspect, the digital camera app is intuitive and uncomplicated to use. The shutter button is a Hasselblad-branded orange, and it would make a distinctive Hasselblad shutter audio. Our only grievance is that we uncovered Tilt Change method a little bit clunky and challenging to use.
Photo of rooftop with eco foliage
The OnePlus nine Pro’s slide update improved minimal-gentle performance.
Some of the 9 Pro’s most major digicam characteristics are in the software package. Hasselblad worked closely with OnePlus to update its color science and build more functions for professional smartphone shooters. In car and Professional modes, colours are heat, with reds and blues getting a healthful saturation improve while yellows and greens to be a minor undersaturated. Given that OnePlus and Hasselblad place a significant emphasis on the nine series’ shade science, we as opposed the 9 Pro to a few other flagships and discovered it stood up incredibly effectively to the levels of competition.
Apple severely improved its color science with iOS 14 and the Iphone 12. Exactly where the nine Pro tends to saturate reds and blues, Apple focuses additional on boosting luminance, so the Apple iphone 12’s photos are inclined to seem a little extra legitimate to existence than the 9 Pro’s.
Place shots from the nine Professional and the Galaxy S21 Extremely aspect by aspect and you can quickly identify the distinction among the two cameras. OnePlus usually takes a lighter hand with boosting saturation and other computational changes Samsung is much extra aggressive. In just one of our examination shots, a dreary March sky captured on the Galaxy S21 Ultra abruptly became blue. The 9 Pro was much additional accurate in its overall representation of the scene.
Facet-by-side pictures of a making underneath a cloudy sky in the picture on the remaining, the sky appears blue
The photograph colors from the nine Pro (proper) are much more accurate than the kinds shipped by the Galaxy S21 Extremely (still left).
In Pro manner, you can alter ISO, aim exposure time, white equilibrium, and a variety of other configurations. There’s also the solution to shoot in twelve-little bit Raw format, which presents sixty four occasions the color info of the 10-bit Raw on other flagships.
The ultra-large 50MP lens is a Sony IMX 766 sensor that is substantially bigger than the a single in the Apple iphone 12 Pro Max. In our exams the lens did a marvelous occupation in both equally brilliant and reduced mild. Pics are crisp with outstanding depth of subject and good qualifications element.
Side-by-aspect extremely-vast-angle photographs of a building
Extremely-wide-angle shots are a key gain for the nine Professional (appropriate), which results in a great deal fewer edge distortion than the Galaxy S21 Ultra (remaining).
Our shots taken with the key lens had been extraordinary as very well. In great light-weight, the nine Professional holds its personal against other flagships, with practical depth of field and rarely any reduction of good detail.
In the drop of 2021, OnePlus shipped a major update to the camera’s program. Examination photographs display more correct white balance and are crisp with no currently being oversharpened, a widespread trouble with most smartphone cameras. When we reviewed the images at complete measurement, the shots remained crisp and had much less noise.
The app is also faster in normal and there is considerably less shutter lag. It’s a minor alter, but it can make a large variation when getting photographs with motion.
A snowy rooftop with a number of sculptures and other objects
The main lens will take major-notch photos even in muted light.
But exactly where the digicam truly excels is in minimal light-weight. The most important lens did very well, as expected. Our check pictures with the fall update remained crisp with an enhanced texture-to-sound ratio. The huge advancement, nevertheless, was with dynamic selection and over-all scene precision. The two labored in conjunction to produce a extra genuine reflection of the second.
And even though we had been especially bowled in excess of by the extremely-extensive lens’ functionality in our initial checks, the digicam update just produced points far better. All of the enhancements we observed in the major lenses had been apparent in our extremely-broad check photographs. All those enhancements, mixed with the lack of distortion, will make the OnePlus nine Pro’s ultra-wide lens the most effective we’ve tested.
A cityscape at night, with lights reflecting off a moist road
Extremely-vast lower-light visuals are stunning, with incredibly little distortion.
We did not observe a great deal advancement in our pictures with the telephoto lens just after the software update. The OnePlus nine Pro’s telephoto lens is better than what you are going to discover on its predecessor, but it even now doesn’t look at with the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra’s. At lessen zoom stages, our test pictures experienced loads of depth, while there was some expected loss of depth in the length.
Side-by-side photographs of illustrated signals at 30x zoom.
The Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra does a a lot greater position at 30x zoom.
As we bumped up the zoom, however, we commenced to recognize important blur and sounds when compared with the very same picture taken on the Galaxy S21 Extremely. The unnatural sharpening we found in our unique examination shots, on the other hand, has been appreciably improved.
Facet-by-side 10x zoom photos of a quit indication
Despite the fact that the Samsung Galaxy S21 Extremely has an edge at 10x zoom, the 9 Pro does a good career with its modern slide digital camera update.
Smartphone macro lenses are hardly ever value making use of, but below the nine Pro actually stands out. Our macro photographs were being much sharper than predicted, and leagues superior than pics taken with the 8’s 2MP macro lens.
A picture of crimson and environmentally friendly macarons on a white plate
Macarons, in macro.
The monochrome sensor will work in tandem with the key sensor to get gorgeous black-and-white pictures with loads of depth and inky blacks. Huawei included a equivalent element for several years and then abruptly taken out it, producing an outcry from smartphone shutterbugs. If you knew and loved that element, the 9 Pro’s resurrection of it will delight you.
Black-and-white picture of public art set up in which a massive white sculpture of a hand grabs a tree trunk
The monochrome lens normally takes strong black-and-white shots.
The greatest, and most outstanding, adjust to the OnePlus 9’s digital camera, nevertheless, is the addition of XPan mode. It really is a attribute that mimics Hasselblad’s now-discontinued XPan cameras to generate an graphic that is reminiscent of people you would acquire with its 30mm and 45mm lenses.
The shots are cropped to a 65:24 component ratio. It is really a spectacular appear that provides you a full new way to convey to tales, and evokes visuals of movie stills. There are solutions to shoot in shade as very well as black and white.
It’s tricky to overstate just how a great deal room XPan offers for creativeness. four:three and sixteen:9 factor ratios are so ubiquitous, that it can take a conquer to get employed to all the different points you can do in the structure.
Panoramic shot of a Catholic rectory at night time.
XPan method makes it possible for you to choose spectacular photographs in a special element ratio.
We examined XPan in numerous lights eventualities and it executed beautifully. Our take a look at photographs had been immersive and crisp, with exceptional dynamic range. Depth of discipline is great as very well.
Black and white impression of a mid-century developing
Monochrome photos in XPan method appear stunning.
Hasselblad’s unique colour science for XPan also generates an entirely unique experience that is identical to shots shot on Kodak Ektachrome or Fuji Provia slide movie. Our shots confirmed much less distinction and much more organic colours that pretty much seem to be slightly undersaturated due to the fact we have become so accustomed to over-saturation on smartphones.
Decommissioned switching station with festive lights
Portraits and scaled-down scenes glimpse superior with the 30mm focal-length environment in XPan method.
On the front of the 9 Pro, you are going to come across a 32MP lens. It performs extremely very well in any lighting affliction. There’s a tiny history blur in our photos, which is to be predicted. Foreground element and depth of area, nonetheless, are place on. Portrait mode operates without the need of a hitch as perfectly. Our test pictures experienced a normal bokeh and ideal depth mapping in every single shot.
A selfie of a bearded white male in eyeglasses and a cap
Selfies are specific and distinct.
A person Small Step Shy of the Crown
The OnePlus 9 Pro is an outstanding cell phone. At $970, it retains its possess against the somewhat a lot more expensive Galaxy S21 Ultra and Iphone 12 Pro. It will not quite match the Galaxy S21 Ultra on digital camera zoom or community effectiveness, but it’s lighter and sleeker, it has some exceptional digital camera tricks, and there is that renowned OnePlus pace and sophisticated software. That astounding quick charging and the battery-saving display screen also make a massive variation in day-to-day use. navigate to this website is improved than the OnePlus eight sequence in every single way, so the up grade is conveniently warranted. It only fails to nab our Editors’ Decision award mainly because the Samsung Galaxy S21 Extremely is even additional excellent and can be made use of on any provider. The 9 Professional and the Galaxy S21 Ultra alongside one another presently outline the Android state of the artwork. Depending on your priorities, both will provide you extremely very well for the future number of years.
