- It is OnePlus phone review time.

There are two new models this spring.

This is the OnePlus 9 Pro and it's the version

that I'm gonna be focusing on.

- And there's also the regular OnePlus 9,

which is 240 dollars cheaper.

I'll jump in a little bit later and talk about that.

- So, OnePlus, you might think of this brand

as the upstart challenger

that costs way less than the competition,

that was the old days.

Or maybe you know the newer OnePlus phones

that are aimed squarely at competing with Samsung.

OnePlus has done a lot

to establish its brand over the years.

It's not really a household name yet,

but it's not really niche anymore either.

Now, in the US, only T-Mobile

is selling these phones directly.

So it is still a you know, you know, kind of phone,

but a lot of people know now.

And one more thing to know

is that the price is higher this year.

This 9 Pro is 960 bucks for 128 gigs of storage,

and it's a 100 dollars more to get to 256.

If you add up those new prices

and the fact that OnePlus really is an established brand,

you see that it's time for the company

to take the next step, to become the establishment.

The OnePlus 9 Pro isn't a scrapper taking on the big guys,

it is a mainstream alternative

to the Galaxy S21s of the world in its own right.

It's a straight up flagship, let's get into why.

(upbeat music)

Now, if you're gonna be the establishment

of flagship phones on Android,

there is one thing that you cannot skip on

and that is specs.

OnePlus likes to throw everything

but the kitchen sink in

and it has certainly done that here.

Let's take a look at what we've got.

It's got a 6.7 inch 1440 by 3216, LTPO OLED display

with 120 Hertz refresh rate,

optical fingerprint sensor,

360 Hertz touch response rate,

Snapdragon 888 processor, all kinds of 5G,

4500 milliamp battery,

dual stereo speakers with a WiFi 6 Bluetooth 5.2

and a new Sony IMX 789 camera sensor.

It got 8K 30, 4K 120, 1080 slow-mo at 240,

4K 30 time lapse, 3.3X optical zoom

on the telephoto camera,

a monochrome like helper aid, Hasselblad partnership.

There is a 65 watt wired fast charging.

This fast charger comes in the optional 50 watt,

wireless fast charge, et cetera et cetera, et cetera.

So, yeah, the specs are there

and really the only Android phone

that can outclass these specs is the Galaxy S21 Ultra

with it's better telephoto lens, but also higher price.

Look though, a laundry list of high-end specs

is to be expected here.

What matters is how well the phone uses them

and whether they come together into an integrated whole.

And the answer is yes, they do.

Just look at the design here.

I don't like this morning mist color way myself

but I can't deny that the build quality

in this phone is top-notch.

If you just look at the tolerances on the aluminum rail

and the way the screen curves into it,

and even the arrangement of the lenses on the camera bump,

this Galaxy S20 is just really, really well-made.

That was a joke, because this OnePlus 9 Pro

really looks like a Galaxy S20.

And I know there's only so many ways

that you can sandwich glass and aluminum together,

but yeah, wow.

(upbeat music)

If I had a complaint, I guess,

it's that while the haptics feel nicely tuned

and not very buzzy, they're also not very strong.

I can barely feel this thing ring in my pocket.

One last thing before we get off specs

and this is a weird one, both the 9

and the 9 Pro won't support 5G on AT&T.

And as of this recording, OnePlus is still waiting

on certification on Verizon's 5G network.

I have more to say about how the specs translate

into the experience of using this phone

but we should probably just get

to the spec that usually differentiates flagship phones,

the camera, because when you're talking about being part

of the establishment of flagship phones,

there aren't many camera brands

more established than Hasselblad.

We have seen camera brand partnerships

before on smartphones.

I mean, heck Hasselblad itself has done it

with things like the Moto mount attachment.

The real question is, what exactly does this logo mean?

Let's talk about it.

Let's just start with the hardware.

As I said earlier, there are three cameras

on the back plus a helper monochrome camera.

And you know how the Pixel phone has a look

that's contrasty and kind of blue,

and the iPhone has a look that's very flat and even,

and Samsung phones have a look,

they turn the vibrancy up to 11,

I think with this new camera system

and the Hasselblad partnership,

we can start to say that OnePlus phones

have their own look too.

See Hasselblad apparently helped

out with the color science here.

And I think the result is a melding

of those other three phone styles.

So I think OnePlus' color tuning tends towards the blue side

of colors more so than Samsung anyway,

but it is also more vibrant

than what you get out of an iPhone or a Pixel.

One Plus also really likes to bring up the shadows a lot.

But look, like most smartphone cameras

the photos are great in good light.

In the dark, I think OnePlus' nightscape mode

is a bit too bright for my tastes, but it works really well.

So as usual, you have to look

at the edge cases and the difficult situations

to see where the real differences are.

So for example,

I think OnePlus adds unnecessary noise sometimes

by brightening those shadows.

And in general, there is a bit of a processed look

from over sharpening, especially on the ultra wide,

it can get into trouble with that.

I mean, just look at this fringing.

On the other hand, the ultra wide is really good

at getting rid of distorted lines on the edges.

Now the telephoto lens, it's only 3.3 optical

and I think it's actually fine enough at that zoom level.

Yeah, and if you try and do digital zoom at up to like 30X,

it's just gonna get pantsed by the S21 Ultra.

Oh, and there is that monochrome helper camera

but if it does anything that you couldn't just do yourself

the black and white photo filter, I really couldn't see it.

Finally, the selfie camera is good

and that it doesn't over smooth faces.

But I do think that OnePlus

could have tried a little bit harder

to clean up the details on a lot of these photos.

The color tuning is fine, but if I'm honest,

the Hasselblad influence that I liked the most,

is Pro mode, it is great.

It's very easy to see what settings you have changed.

You can see what's in automode

and it even has focus peaking draws that will line

or what's it focus?

This camera has a relatively narrow focus steps.

So it's super fun to play with what is in focus

and what's out of focus.

Honestly, I wish my full-on mirrorless camera

had an interface that was this good.

As for video, well, I mean, OnePlus put up a number,

is 8K 4K 120, et cetera, et cetera,

and it has big talk about improved HDR

but it just doesn't come through.

The HDR can't really hold up to an iPhone 12 Pro Max at all

and the basic quality and the details,

especially in a 4K and especially in 8K, it's just lacking.

That was a lot of criticism.

So let me go back and put all of that in context.

I am being very picky

and I'm comparing this phone to the best of the best,

the iPhone 12 Pro Max and the Galaxy S21 Ultra,

both of which cost more than this phone.

The fact that the OnePlus 9 Pro can hang even a little bit,

is a win.

So that's the camera system on the OnePlus 9 Pro,

but we've also got the OnePlus 9

and by we, I mean my colleague, Alison Johnson,

who is reviewing it and who's gonna be coming

to this channel more in the future.

So let's find out how that phone is different

from the Pro version.

- If you're not too concerned with the camera

and you wanna save a few dollars,

the OnePlus 9 is a really great offer.

There are a few notable differences

between the 9 and the 9 Pro, beginning with the price.

The 9 starts at $730 for eight gigs of RAM

and 128 gigs of storage.

And then there's the camera.

The OnePlus 9 uses a different main image sensor.

It's the same size and pixel count,

it's just from last year's OnePlus 8 Pro.

The main camera doesn't include optical image stabilization

and there's no telephoto lens here either,

just digital zoom, which doesn't look great.

But you do get the 50 megapixel ultra wide camera

which I really like using.

And of course there's still a Hasselblad color tuning,

which does a nice job with landscapes,

but it's kind of a mixed bag overall.

Outside of camera stuff, the OnePlus 9 misses out

on a few features.

The big one is that there's no IP rating

for dust or water resistance.

Though, I can tell you from personal experience,

a little drizzle doesn't do any damage.

The T-Mobile version will have an official IP 68 rating,

but it's the exact same hardware as the unlocked version,

so make of that what you will.

You don't get the faster wireless charging speed.

The screen is a bit lower resolution

and the display is flat rather than slightly curved.

Oh, and it doesn't support millimeter wave 5G,

but no big loss.

None of these felt like significant trade-offs to me.

The fast refresh rate screen is excellent,

the phone is super responsive jumping between apps

and scrolling through social media

and wired charging is seriously fast.

The 6.5 inch screen is big

but the phone's tall aspect ratio makes it easier to handle

than its dimensions suggest.

You won't sacrifice build quality for opting

for the more basic model either.

The back panel is Gorilla Glass, just like the Pro,

and that's not the case with the Samsung S21 series.

Overall, it's a phone I really like using.

It just gets out of your way,

handling tasks quickly and seamlessly.

The interface feels minimalized and grown up

and I really love using the ultra wide camera.

I've probably used it as much as I used the main camera.

This is a very good premium mid range device,

so long as you're okay with some camera trade-offs

and its lack of broad 5G support.

- Now if you wanna go from the premium mid range,

OnePlus 9, to the flagship OnePlus 9 Pro,

you have to spend an extra $240.

And that's where the rest of the specs

and how OnePlus integrates the really comes in.

The camera system is a bit of an upgrade,

but really performance isn't any better on the Pro.

The difference is that the overall experience is nicer.

So the screen is beautiful.