The OnePlus 9 Professional (starting off at $969.99) delivers a streamlined flagship encounter to T-Mobile and Verizon subscribers, ultimately catching up to its opponents. The cellphone by itself is gentle in the hand, and the consumer practical experience is weightless as perfectly. The cameras get knockout photos in really significantly all disorders and the integrated rapidly charging is the most effective we have noticed. The Galaxy S21 Ultra scores a bit better in our battery and wi-fi radio testing, operates with Samsung’s great S Pen stylus, and its digicam features killer optical zoom, so it just edges out the nine Professional to be our Editors’ Choice among flagship smartphones. Nevertheless, the OnePlus 9 Pro is exceptional. If you want a major-notch, loaded cellphone that will make your coronary heart sing, you might be now spoiled for decision.
The OnePlus Guarantee Is Ultimately Realized
OnePlus was at the time a corporation that produced a solitary great cellphone at a time. Now it has a whole line of phones at T-Cell (and vendors this sort of as Google Fi, Metro, and Mint Cell that use T-Mobile’s networks): the $969.99 OnePlus nine Professional, 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 means fast, stylish program and a streamlined physical design and style.
Cameras have constantly been the one particular position OnePlus tended to slide driving Samsung and Apple, so OnePlus designed a deal with Hasselblad for colour tuning and purchased a new sensor from Sony. As a end result, the 9 Pro’s rear digital camera stack stands out from the opposition. It might not have unbelievable optical zoom like the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, but it presents lots of more options for inventive expression. In addition to the standard wide and extremely-broad lenses you may locate on most telephones, OnePlus extra an XPan manner that produces photographs in a sixty five:24 format.
The OnePlus nine offers equivalent total functionality to the 9 Pro but actions down a bit on monitor, camera, and radio excellent, and it would not integrate super-rapidly wireless charging. If you don’t thoughts all those downgrades, you can preserve $240 and get an even smaller and lighter mobile phone. See our evaluate of the OnePlus 9 for all the information.
Light-weight, Smooth Design
The 9 Pro’s base model has 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. The 12GB/256GB design costs an further $100. There is no memory card slot. The cellular phone is completely sized, measuring 6.42 by two.89 by .34 inches (HWD) and weighing 6.nine ounces. Which is a tiny broader than the two.eight inches we use as the cutoff width measurement for smaller phones, but it really is noticeably scaled-down and lighter than the Galaxy S21 Extremely, and narrower than the OnePlus 8 Professional. Of the three, the 9 Pro is the easiest to use with a one hand.
A few sights of the OnePlus 9 Pro, exhibiting the inexperienced and silver circumstance solutions.
look at here in environmentally friendly or silver.
The design and style, extremely in tune with OnePlus’ “burdenless style and design” philosophy, is slender and classy. The phone’s body is rounded, with the standard OnePlus mute switch on the left facet and the Hasselblad-branded digicam module on the again. The camera does not stick out approximately as a great deal as current Samsung camera bumps do (because it doesn’t have a large periscopic zoom lens in it). The entrance-struggling with camera is a hole-punch on the upper left corner, just like on the eight Pro.
The mobile phone has an IP68 rating for drinking water and dust resistance, and arrives in two shades. If you happen to be not heading to put your cellular phone in a situation, we like the matte pine eco-friendly better than the mirrored silver early morning mist glass back, which appeals to greasy fingerprints. Our evaluation device arrived with a black carbon-fiber scenario that designed that difficulty moot. (There’s a 3rd, black cellphone, but OnePlus tells us it would not be bought in the US.)
The back again of the OnePlus nine Pro in silver
The mirrored again of the silver scenario is a fingerprint magnet.
Unlike the Galaxy S21 Ultra and new iPhones, your OnePlus mobile phone will come with a cable and a 65W charger. Luxury! There’s a motive: OnePlus employs proprietary USB-C chargers. While the cellphone will charge from any USB-C supply, it will only attain its maximum charging speeds with the integrated adapter.
You can find no headphone jack or USB-C-to-three.5mm adapter in the box. That explained, the 9 Professional sports aptX, aptX High definition, LHDC, and Sony’s LDAC Bluetooth codecs for excellent wi-fi audio. If you opt for OnePlus’ Buds Pro earphones, you may get personalized tap features together with 24-little bit/96kHz audio at up to 900kbits/s. If you are searching at other wi-fi earbuds, look for a pair with LDAC since it is really extra extensively accessible and provides the highest-resolution audio shipped above Bluetooth.
As for the onboard speakers, the audio excellent is great. Dual stereo speakers deliver audio with a peak quantity of 98dB and a surprising little bit of mid-bass. For voice phone calls, which have a most quantity of 81dB, the phone supports the best voice codec at this time available, Hd voice with EVS.
A Shiny, Yet Battery-Conserving Show
The bright and crisp 6.7-inch, 525ppi, 3,216-by-1,440-pixel display screen can be dialed again to 1080p in the phone’s options if you want to conserve battery life. The show takes advantage of a rather new engineering identified as low-temperature polycrystalline oxide (LTPO) that cuts down ability usage and gives telephone producers additional management more than refresh rates. It really is the similar technology that powers Apple’s Apple iphone 13 Pro models as properly as the Samsung Galaxy S21 series.
The LTPO show of the OnePlus nine Pro, displaying an picture of clouds
The LTPO screen allows conserve power.
This is a prime-of-the-line OLED exhibit with a reward: It truly is pretty visible in immediate sunlight. A display screen protector is preinstalled we failed to get rid of it from our check unit. According to DisplayMate Labs exams, the nine Pro’s exhibit set to Auto Brightness method beats the 8 Pro, the Galaxy S20 sequence, and the newest iPhones in ambient light-weight, but not the Galaxy Observe twenty Extremely. The 9 Professional also enhances the greatest colour gamut in its vivid show manner, which allows it manage color saturation in outdoor lighting.
Superior brightness mode results
Other than in brightness and shade, the 9 Pro’s exhibit just isn’t easily distinguishable from other current prime-of-the-line OLED panels. The serious news is electricity optimization, as the LTPO panel dynamically—and imperceptibly—changes its refresh charge from 120Hz all the way down to 1Hz to help you save energy. Test out our in-depth distinctive for additional on the display.
Color shift outcomes
Extraordinary Speed and Simplicity of Use
OnePlus telephones are usually fast, and the OnePlus nine Pro is no exception. It can be powered by a leading-of-the-line Qualcomm Snapdragon 888. It scored a bit improved than the Galaxy S21 Ultra on Geekbench, with one-main scores around 1125 and multi-core scores all-around 3700. That is a 24% enhance on solitary-core results and a 12% increase on multi-main success over the OnePlus eight Pro. None of these phones can surpass the Iphone 12, although, which scored 1596 SC and 4049 MC with its Apple A14 processor.
The Snapdragon 888 gives a carry in graphics functionality, as well. On the GFXBench Auto Chase offscreen benchmark, the 9 Professional scored around 70fps, with 37fps onscreen in WQHD manner and 58fps onscreen in High definition manner. That is a significant soar up from the eight Professional, which scored 51fps offscreen and possibly 26 or 45fps onscreen relying on monitor resolution.
See How We Check Telephones
These benchmarks never consider into account OnePlus’ software package, which incorporates a bunch of general performance enhancements. In our practical experience with OnePlus telephones, they experience like the speediest Android phones, even more rapidly than Google Pixels (specifically because Google began making use of midrange chipsets in its flagships with the launch of the Pixel 5).
The telephone operates Android 11 with OnePlus’ OxygenOS enhancements, and OnePlus claims it’s going to get updates as considerably as Android 13 alongside with bi-regular monthly stability updates for a few yrs. For a flagship, which is a minimal disappointing, primarily given that Samsung delivers at the very least 3 a long time of software package updates on its spending plan A series styles.
The 9 Professional in a charging cradle displaying a sport.
Substantial-end video games enjoy well on the 9 Pro.
OxygenOS has always experienced a bunch of wonderful touches, such as the potential to install two copies of social-media applications for different accounts, a placing to transform monitor colour centered on ambient gentle, and a Zen manner that briefly disables the phone’s most distracting features. With this edition, OnePlus provides RAM compression that it suggests improves the range of applications that can continue being in memory with saved point out. Our check unit experienced no issue trying to keep seven apps in memory, even with the big RAM-hog Genshin Influence at the back again of the line.
To exam cooling, which OnePlus states it really is enhanced about earlier models, we ran a processor-pumping application known as CPU Throttling Examination on the 9 Professional, the Galaxy S21, and the eight Professional for 15 minutes. At the 10-moment point, the eight Pro’s efficiency took a sharp dive to about 80% of peak. Both of those of the newer phones were being nevertheless preserving closer to ninety% performance at that time. Following thirteen minutes of pumping the processor, the Galaxy S21’s functionality effortlessly declined to a very little about eighty% of peak, even though the 9 Professional remained in the ninety% vary. Last but not least, the nine Pro’s effectiveness declined drastically at pretty much precisely 15 minutes as the mobile phone attempted to great alone down. Through the take a look at as a complete, the 9 Pro and Galaxy S21 performed at 87–88% of max functionality, though the 8 Pro was down at 78%.
Gaming performance is amped up with a 360Hz contact reaction rate, but only in four apps: PUBG Cellular, Call of Obligation, League of Legends, and Brawl Stars. OnePlus says it will work on incorporating 360Hz touch help to much more online games. That would certainly help this feature rise from a curiosity to a differentiator. The Samsung Galaxy S20 telephones supply a 240Hz contact sampling charge Samsung isn’t going to give a spec on the Galaxy S21, but we feel it’s the identical.
Ultra-Tremendous-Mega-Quickly Charging
The pair of batteries in the 9 Pro total 4,500mAh. That is short of the Galaxy S21 Ultra’s 5,000mAh, but OnePlus has a array of software package tips up its sleeve to continue to keep the phone charged—so many that we are not even absolutely sure all of them came into use in the course of our testing.
On our standard battery check, operating a YouTube video in excess of Wi-Fi at whole display screen brightness, the cellular phone lasted for 8 hrs, 50 minutes in WQHD resolution and 9 several hours, forty minutes in Hd. Show brightness issues a ton to battery existence: Get the brightness down to seventy five% and all those figures bounce to 12 several hours, forty minutes on WQHD and thirteen hrs on Hd. That’s a large amount shorter than the Galaxy S21 Ultra (eleven hours twenty minutes) and the Galaxy S20 FE (12 several hours thirty minutes), but you should really have no complications obtaining by way of a working day of moderate use.
But there is additional to this battery than fulfills the eye. To get started with, the display screen slows down to 1Hz when you happen to be on the lookout at static content, these types of as an e-mail you happen to be mulling over or a web page of an e-e-book. That can be a enormous ability saver. OnePlus also has a popularity for getting rid of fewer power to qualifications processes than Samsung does. If you use seventy five% display screen brightness most of the time, you will probably get extra than a working day of battery lifetime from one particular charge.
OnePlus nine Professional with USB-C Port in aim
The Warp Demand 65T charger can absolutely recharge the nine Professional in about 30 minutes.
The nine Professional also has by much the swiftest charging speeds of any cell phone we’ve ever tested. It comes with a Warp Demand 65T USB-C charger, which fees the nine Pro from % to 20% in six minutes and to one hundred% in just 36 minutes. Which is two times as fast as any new Samsung cellphone charges. If you use a 3rd-party charger, the telephone will charge at up to eighteen watts, with correspondingly longer cost moments.
The actual breakthrough is in OnePlus’ new Warp Charge 50 wi-fi charger, a $69.ninety nine accent cradle that plugs into your present Warp Charge 65 adapter to supply fifty-watt wi-fi charging for the 9 Professional, or fifteen-watt Qi charging for any other device. In tests with the Warp Charge fifty, the nine Professional went to 29% in 11 minutes and a hundred% in 46 minutes. Other phones, like the 9, take between ninety minutes and two several hours to wirelessly cost entirely.
This all matches with OnePlus’ approach to telephone power: It might not have the most significant batteries in town, but it can refill them the fastest.
All the 5G Trimmings, for T-Cell and Verizon
Like other Snapdragon 888 telephones, the 9 Pro makes use of a Qualcomm X60 modem, which works with all of the options T-Cell and Verizon intend to use in the future several a long time, which include new airwaves and aggregation schemes. It has Bluetooth five.two and Wi-Fi six as effectively, but not Wi-Fi 6E (contrary to the Galaxy S21 Extremely).
T-Cell is the only carrier advertising the nine Pro, but if you purchase 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 says it will only join to 4G.
OnePlus 9 (still left) and OnePlus 9 Professional (ideal).
OnePlus nine (remaining) and OnePlus nine Professional (appropriate)
The OnePlus 9 Pro has all of the new systems remaining built-in into T-Mobile and Verizon’s networks, such as CBRS, C-band, and millimeter wave.
This is a single-SIM cellular phone, with no eSIM alternative. With a T-Cell SIM in, the phone enabled Wi-Fi contacting, “wise 5G” (which turns 5G on and off to conserve battery), and twin-channel network acceleration (which utilizes Wi-Fi and 5G at the same time if needed). With an AT&T SIM in, as anticipated, the cellphone made use of only 4G and lacked Wi-Fi contacting.
The massive spec difference concerning the 9 and the 9 Professional is that the 9 Professional has mmWave. T-Mobile now only takes advantage of mmWave in seven metropolitan areas, and is most possible to roll it out in super-crowded places: athletics stadiums, concert halls, conference centers, and the like. It’s a may well-be-good, not a will have to-have. It truly is is more desirable on Verizon, which has mmWave in the centers of extra than 70 towns now.
We tested the 9 and the nine Pro against the Samsung Galaxy S21 with 86 rounds of exams making use of Ookla Speedtest software package in New York City, in a assortment of community disorders. (Editors’ Notice: Ookla is owned by Ziff Davis, PCMag’s publisher.) More than 17 exams, the Galaxy S21 turned in the finest efficiency, the 9 Professional obtained a boost from mmWave to come in second, and the nine dropped to third. Throughout a assortment of non-mmWave checks with blended sign top quality, the Galaxy S21 came in first put once more. In a standalone T-Mobile mid-band “extremely capability” place, on the other hand, the three telephones performed pretty much identically.
If you happen to be exterior a significant city, you’re likely most concerned about weak-signal performance. In our tests, the Galaxy S21 showed the strongest 4G RSRP signal 29 occasions the nine Professional was strongest 26 situations, and the nine was strongest 22 times. So the Galaxy S21 wins once once again, although not by substantially. In excess of 6 rounds of screening in a weak-signal space, the Galaxy S21 confirmed stronger signal only 3 of the moments, but the nine Pro had two sign dropouts. The Galaxy S21’s edge is slight but obvious.
Blinding You With (Color) Science
Imaging collaborations are not new for smartphone brands. Huawei has partnered with Leica for several years the Zeiss title is plastered on the back again of smartphones from Nokia, Sony, and Vivo. Hasselblad’s only past US partnership was with Motorola on its clunky but able True Zoom Moto Mod, but the 9 collection brings Hasselblad back again to the smartphone market in triumphant model. The 9 Pro is able of using unbelievable pics with each individual lens.
The 48MP most important lens has an f/one.8 aperture, optical impression stabilization (OIS), and digital image stabilization (EIS). There’s also a 50MP extremely-vast lens with an f/two.two aperture, and a 8MP telephoto lens with an f/two.4 aperture, as effectively as a 2MP monochrome sensor. You will come across all the typical flagship bells and whistles on the nine Professional: twin LED flash, multi-autofocus with omnidirectional Section Detection AF (PDAF), Laser AF (LAF), and Distinction AF (CAF). A significant fifty-megapixel extremely-extensive lens requires attractive lower-light-weight photos. There is certainly also 8K online video at 30fps and 4K at up to 120fps, and super-gradual movement at up to 480fps in 720p.
Back again of OnePlus 9 Professional with digital camera in concentrate
A huge fifty-megapixel ultra-extensive lens requires wonderful small-light-weight photographs.
For the most portion, the camera application is intuitive and effortless to use. The shutter button is a Hasselblad-branded orange, and it makes a distinctive Hasselblad shutter sound. Our only complaint is that we observed Tilt Shift mode a bit clunky and difficult to use.
Photograph of rooftop with eco foliage
The OnePlus nine Pro’s drop update enhanced lower-mild performance.
Some of the 9 Pro’s most considerable digital camera attributes are in the software package. Hasselblad worked carefully with OnePlus to update its color science and acquire further attributes for professional smartphone shooters. In vehicle and Professional modes, colours are heat, with reds and blues getting a wholesome saturation improve although yellows and greens to be a little undersaturated. Due to the fact OnePlus and Hasselblad set a significant emphasis on the 9 series’ colour science, we in contrast the 9 Pro to a couple other flagships and uncovered it stood up extremely nicely to the levels of competition.
Apple critically improved its shade science with iOS fourteen and the Iphone twelve. Where by the nine Pro tends to saturate reds and blues, Apple focuses a lot more on boosting luminance, so the Apple iphone 12’s pictures tend to search a little extra accurate to daily life than the nine Pro’s.
Area shots from the 9 Pro and the Galaxy S21 Ultra facet by aspect and you can right away recognize the variation involving the two cameras. OnePlus can take a lighter hand with boosting saturation and other computational adjustments Samsung is significantly additional aggressive. In one of our take a look at images, a dreary March sky captured on the Galaxy S21 Extremely quickly turned blue. The 9 Professional was much extra accurate in its overall illustration of the scene.
Facet-by-aspect images of a making under a cloudy sky in the picture on the left, the sky seems to be blue
The photograph shades from the nine Professional (proper) are far more accurate than the kinds delivered by the Galaxy S21 Extremely (left).
In Professional manner, you can alter ISO, concentration publicity time, white harmony, and a range of other configurations. There is also the choice to shoot in twelve-bit Raw structure, which gives sixty four periods the coloration knowledge of the 10-bit Raw on other flagships.
The ultra-extensive 50MP lens is a Sony IMX 766 sensor that is drastically larger sized than the one particular in the Apple iphone twelve Pro Max. In our tests the lens did a wonderful work in both vibrant and small light. Pics are crisp with outstanding depth of area and good qualifications depth.
Facet-by-facet extremely-vast-angle pics of a making
Ultra-extensive-angle shots are a significant edge for the 9 Pro (right), which creates much much less edge distortion than the Galaxy S21 Extremely (still left).
Our pictures taken with the major lens were impressive as properly. In good light-weight, the 9 Pro holds its own in opposition to other flagships, with reasonable depth of subject and hardly any reduction of wonderful depth.
In the slide of 2021, OnePlus delivered a main update to the camera’s computer software. Test shots demonstrate a lot more accurate white stability and are crisp with no becoming oversharpened, a prevalent trouble with most smartphone cameras. When we reviewed the photographs at entire sizing, the photographs remained crisp and experienced considerably less sounds.
The application is also more rapidly in typical and there is a lot less shutter lag. It truly is a minimal change, but it would make a big change when getting pictures with movement.
A snowy rooftop with a number of sculptures and other objects
The major lens can take leading-notch photos even in muted light-weight.
But in which the camera really excels is in lower light. The primary lens did well, as expected. Our check photographs with the drop update remained crisp with an enhanced texture-to-sound ratio. The significant enhancement, however, was with dynamic vary and over-all scene accuracy. The two labored in conjunction to build a extra honest reflection of the minute.
And whilst we ended up significantly bowled above by the ultra-extensive lens’ general performance in our primary tests, the digital camera update just designed factors improved. All of the enhancements we observed in the main lenses had been evident in our extremely-vast take a look at shots. All those advancements, mixed with the absence of distortion, helps make the OnePlus nine Pro’s extremely-wide lens the most effective we have examined.
A cityscape at night time, with lights reflecting off a moist road
Ultra-wide low-light-weight images are gorgeous, with surprisingly minimal distortion.
We did not observe substantially improvement in our pictures with the telephoto lens following the program update. The OnePlus nine Pro’s telephoto lens is greater than what you can expect to obtain on its predecessor, but it nevertheless does not examine with the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra’s. At lessen zoom ranges, our examination pictures had a great deal of depth, even though there was some predicted reduction of depth in the distance.
Side-by-aspect photos of illustrated symptoms at 30x zoom.
The Samsung Galaxy S21 Extremely does a a great deal much better task at 30x zoom.
As we bumped up the zoom, nonetheless, we begun to notice significant blur and noise when when compared with the same image taken on the Galaxy S21 Extremely. The unnatural sharpening we discovered in our primary check shots, on the other hand, has been significantly enhanced.
Facet-by-facet 10x zoom pictures of a cease indicator
Though the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra has an edge at 10x zoom, the nine Professional does a solid task with its latest slide camera update.
Smartphone macro lenses are not often really worth utilizing, but here the nine Professional really stands out. Our macro photographs had been a great deal sharper than predicted, and leagues better than photos taken with the 8’s 2MP macro lens.
A image of pink and inexperienced macarons on a white plate
Macarons, in macro.
The monochrome sensor works in tandem with the key sensor to get lovely black-and-white pictures with lots of depth and inky blacks. Huawei integrated a very similar attribute for several years and then abruptly eliminated it, creating an outcry from smartphone shutterbugs. If you understood and cherished that aspect, the nine Pro’s resurrection of it will delight you.
Black-and-white photo of general public art installation in which a large white sculpture of a hand grabs a tree trunk
The monochrome lens takes sound black-and-white pics.
The greatest, and most outstanding, change to the OnePlus 9’s digicam, nonetheless, is the addition of XPan manner. It can be a element that mimics Hasselblad’s now-discontinued XPan cameras to produce an graphic which is reminiscent of people you would just take with its 30mm and 45mm lenses.
The pics are cropped to a sixty five:24 aspect ratio. It is really a remarkable look that offers you a complete new way to explain to stories, and evokes images of movie stills. There are options to shoot in shade as well as black and white.
It truly is difficult to overstate just how substantially area XPan gives for creativeness. 4:3 and 16:9 component ratios are so ubiquitous, that it requires a conquer to get made use of to all the diverse matters you can do in the format.
Panoramic shot of a Catholic rectory at night time.
XPan manner enables you to get spectacular photos in a exceptional part ratio.
We tested XPan in many lighting eventualities and it carried out properly. Our check shots had been immersive and crisp, with outstanding dynamic selection. Depth of area is superb as effectively.
Black and white impression of a mid-century setting up
Monochrome pictures in XPan method glance stunning.
Hasselblad’s exceptional colour science for XPan also makes an solely distinct feel which is comparable to pictures shot on Kodak Ektachrome or Fuji Provia slide film. Our photographs showed significantly less contrast and additional pure colours that just about feel slightly undersaturated considering the fact that we’ve turn into so accustomed to about-saturation on smartphones.
Decommissioned switching station with festive lights
Portraits and smaller scenes glimpse much better with the 30mm focal-duration setting in XPan mode.
On the front of the nine Pro, you’ll discover a 32MP lens. It performs very well in any lighting affliction. There is a minimal history blur in our pics, which is to be predicted. Foreground element and depth of industry, nonetheless, are place on. Portrait manner operates without the need of a hitch as perfectly. Our test shots experienced a purely natural bokeh and excellent depth mapping in each shot.
A selfie of a bearded white man in eyeglasses and a cap
Selfies are comprehensive and very clear.
One Modest Step Shy of the Crown
The OnePlus 9 Pro is an outstanding phone. At $970, it holds its have from the slightly more highly-priced Galaxy S21 Extremely and Apple iphone 12 Pro. It isn’t going to rather match the Galaxy S21 Extremely on digicam zoom or network efficiency, but it is lighter and sleeker, it has some one of a kind digicam tricks, and you will find that renowned OnePlus velocity and elegant software. That remarkable speedy charging and the battery-conserving show also make a large variation in working day-to-working day use. The nine Professional is improved than the OnePlus 8 collection in each and every way, so the enhance is easily warranted. It only fails to nab our Editors’ Alternative award because the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra is even far more exceptional and can be employed on any carrier. The nine Professional and the Galaxy S21 Extremely collectively presently define the Android state of the art. Depending on your priorities, either will serve you incredibly very well for the up coming several a long time.