I really do feel like it's time to consider switching

to Android from iOS.

So just give me a couple minutes to make my case.

So I've been primarily daily driving an iPhone

ever since the 5S back in 2013.

Now before that I pretty regularly use Android.

I mean phones like the Galaxy Note II

and the HTC One M7 really were way ahead of their time,

especially compared to the iPhones of their day.

But once I got my hands on that iPhone 5S I was hooked.

Part of it was the camera was absolutely top of its class

for back on its day.

But on top of that, the performance,

and especially the fact that iOS 7

was such a big step forward

and the design really did draw me back over

to the iOS side of the camp,

and once I was in, I was in.

FaceTime, iMessage, the lock-in that you find

with these Apple devices is really real.

And in the last seven years I really haven't had

a huge incentive to go outside of the iOS ecosystem.

Yes, I can and absolutely have continued

to use Android devices as a secondary device, right?

So when I'm reviewing something,

when I'm spending time with it,

I will absolutely switch over to that device.

But after the week or couple of weeks

or whatever the case is,

that iPhone always has slid back but not anymore.

All of this started to change with this,

the OnePlus 7T.

Now, like most other devices when I got it,

I started to do my video on it,

I spent some time with it.

But the difference was this stuck around

in my back pocket for most of last year,

at least most of the end of last year,

and for a couple of major reasons.

First of all, I've always appreciated OnePlus phones

for the very clean simple build of Android,

with a lot of emphasis on performance.

So that's one of the things have always drawn me

to the iOS side of the camp.

Because iPhones almost without fail since

that 5S had been one of,

if not the most powerful phone

that you can get your hands on,

and the 7T especially with its 90 hertz display,

made some huge strides in really pulling me away

from the iOS ecosystem.

Because I realized,

this phone had pretty much everything I needed except

for a good camera.

Naturally, that brings us to today

where we of course have the OnePlus 8

as well as the OnePlus 8 Pro.

Now these phones really do promise to deliver

a full flagship experience.

And specifically I spent a lot of time

the last few weeks using the OnePlus 8 Pro.

This display with a 120 hertz refresh rate

and honestly excellent color, excellent resolution.

The entire package has been one of the most appealing things

that I have ever laid my eyes on in the phone space.

But when you look at just how smooth this phone is,

you look at how much work the OnePlus has done

on optimizing all aspects of this phone, right?

With Snapdragon 865,

with the high end LPDDR5 memory,

with the fact that they've done a lot of work

on the optimization side of Android,

and you pair that all with probably what is

the best display on any phone out right now,

it was immediately something that drew me away.

Now that's not to say that you should overlook

the standard OnePlus 8.

Again, this is not only a cheaper phone

and it does have a lot of major features including 5G,

which we'll get into a little bit later,

but this still does have an excellent KDP 90 hertz display,

very similar to that 7T last year that really drew me over.

Sure, if all you're looking for are benchmarks,

then the iPhone still is

an absolutely incredibly powerful device.

Both the iPhone 11 as well as the 11 Pro

have the incredibly powerful Apple A13 chip,

and while yes, they may only have four gigs of RAM,

a.k.a one third as much RAM as my OnePlus 8 pro here,

there's something to be said for these sheer leadership

that Apple has had and continues to have in

the actual chip space.

Where it starts to fall behind,

is when you look at the overall package.

For example, both the OnePlus 8 as well as the 8 Pro

have full fat 5G built in.

Now sure, Apple will likely bring out a 5G iPhone

in six months or whatever,

but I don't care about six months from now,

I care about the experience I can get today.

Not only do they continue to have their Warp Charge 30,

which will charge the entire phone up to a 100%

in less than an hour,

but they also now have Warp Charge wireless.

Now this is something that I've dinged OnePlus

on many times in the past.

While the 7T and the 7 Pro last year were very, very solid,

they weren't the full package, right?

The camera wasn't really there,

there was no official water resistance

and there was no waterproofing.

When you look at the 8 Pro,

pretty much all of those things have been addressed.

It not only has that super fast wired charging,

but you almost get the exact same speed using

the wireless charging.

Sadly, this is not a feature on this standard OnePlus 8,

which still has that wired charging

but doesn't have the wireless charging,

and it also doesn't have the reverse wireless charging,

which I find to be kind of useful.

But one of the things that really does elevate

these phones is the camera experience,

especially on the 8 Pro, it is a major step up.

So first of all, with the OnePlus 8 Pro,

the 48 megapixel main camera is much better.

So importantly just like a lot

of others flagships this year,

they've gone with a much larger sensor,

which means that you actually get surprisingly

good low-light performance within 12 megapixel mode,

and when you're out and about with

the sort of really nicely lit like daylight conditions,

48 megapixels actually looks pretty good.

Unfortunately, the night mode really can't hang

with something like the iPhone or the S20.

And while I really liked the look of

the 3X telephoto camera on the 8 Pro,

that is sadly something which is missing on

the standard OnePlus 8.

Speaking of the OnePlus 8, it's similar,

although it still has on paper,

48 megapixel camera,

is a much smaller sensor.

And generally speaking, I have found the results

to be better on the 8 Pro.

And if I'm being real, I still feel like while OnePlus

has sort of stepped up the game,

they're still behind something like the iPhone

or the Galaxy.

And specifically when you look at the iPhone 11

it's 700 bucks,

it's kind of a little bit of a tough sell on the OnePlus 8,

because it just simply cannot compete.

Video is also somewhere where OnePlus have...

Well, I mean they're trying,

they're making some progress,

but really the iPhone is the undisputed video champ

as far as I'm concerned in smartphones,

which is a problem,

because obviously as someone who spends

a lot of time working with video,

the OnePlus is not really something

I feel comfortable using,

whereas I will use the iPhone to shoot video all day long

for the channel.

Is this OnePlus 8 Pro an expensive phone?

Absolutely.

But iOS is expensive,

pretty much every other flagship out there, right?

$900 is a lot of money, but so it was a $1,000, so is $1,400

for the Galaxy S20 Ultra,

and so is the other phone that

has really tempted me away from iOS.

Look, I have absolutely no problem recommending

the OnePlus 8 or the 8 Pro.

There's certainly many people who will be very happy

with these phones,

but if you've listened to the Test Drivers,

you will know that I am a proud member of the Z Flip gang.

Yes, that's well we call ourselves.

- I'm Mike Hurley and I'm Austin's new podcasts co-hosts on

the Test Drivers.

When I saw that first Galaxy fold,

I felt like I knew that I'd seen a future.

I think the jury's still out if folding phones could work

for everyone, right?

But I think I could see in that device,

this was something else,

this was something different,

this is something we hadn't seen before.

And since then there's been a lot of interesting stuff,

and nothing has caught my attention in the same way

that the Z Flip has,

which I know is exactly the same for you.

I pick up the Z Flip just to play with it after having owned

it for months.

Not in a, "Oh let me check out what's going on,

"on Instagram," kind of way,

but like, "Let me just hold this device," kind of way,

because it's so much fun.

- For all the faults of this phone,

and they're many starting with

the absorbent $1,400 price tag.

But if you could look past that for a second,

I have found that I have fallen in love with this phone

in a way which is not particularly irrational,

but it's also not a way that I've fallen in love with

a piece of technology in a very, very long time.

Now, if you can ignore me being a Z Flip weirdo

for a second, there are many, many downsides to this phone.

It doesn't have 5G like the OnePlus does.

It doesn't have water resistance like the iPhone

and the OnePlus does.

It only has a 60 hertz display like the iPhone,

and unlike the excellent display on the OnePlus,

it only has a single mono speaker as opposed to

the Stereo speaker on those other two devices.

I mean there are many, many reasons why this falls behind.

It also has an older 855 verses 865 Plus.

So I mean, there's a lot of sacrifices that you make.

But the thing is, all those sacrifices in my opinion

are totally worth it.

Now, am I recommending you to go out and buy

a Samsung Galaxy Z Flip?

Absolutely not, right?

It is a very niche product,

it is very much for early adopters.

The thing is while it might be behind in some areas,

there's no deal breaker.

And that's usually what I look for in something like

the Moto Razr for example,

which while it had that awesome flipping design,

fell short in most other aspects.

But with this for example,

I have reasonably fast wired, fast charging, sweet.

I also have wireless charging, reverse wireless charging,

doesn't really matter that maybe this is a little bit slower

because I can actually fit it in my pocket,

unlike the giant OnePlus 8 Pro.

I've always appreciated something which is

a little bit smaller, a little bit easier to carry,

and that's really where the idea of a foldable

has made a lot of sense for me.

Being able to unfold the phone

and getting much larger display,

I fold it up and not have something massive

in my pocket all day, that's what she said,

is really, really helpful.