The OnePlus nine Pro (starting up at $969.99) delivers a streamlined flagship knowledge to T-Cellular and Verizon subscribers, eventually catching up to its competition. The telephone by itself is mild in the hand, and the consumer experience is weightless as effectively. The cameras choose knockout photos in very much all ailments and the integrated quick charging is the greatest we’ve witnessed. The Galaxy S21 Ultra scores a little bit far better in our battery and wireless radio testing, functions with Samsung’s exceptional S Pen stylus, and its digital camera offers killer optical zoom, so it just edges out the nine Professional to be our Editors’ Decision amid flagship smartphones. Continue to, the OnePlus nine Pro is outstanding. If you want a best-notch, loaded phone that will make your heart sing, you might be now spoiled for selection.
The OnePlus Assure Is Last but not least Recognized
OnePlus was as soon as a organization that designed a one excellent telephone at a time. Now it has a full line of telephones at T-Cellular (and providers these as Google Fi, Metro, and Mint Cell that use T-Mobile’s networks): the $969.99 OnePlus 9 Professional, the $729.99 OnePlus nine, the $299.99 OnePlus Nord N10, and the $179.ninety nine OnePlus Nord N100. They all share the OnePlus philosophy, which implies fast, elegant software and a streamlined actual physical design.
Cameras have usually been the just one spot OnePlus tended to slide powering Samsung and Apple, so OnePlus created a offer with Hasselblad for shade tuning and bought a new sensor from Sony. As a result, the 9 Pro’s rear camera stack stands out from the levels of competition. It might not have incredible optical zoom like the Samsung Galaxy S21 Extremely, but it presents quite a few far more prospects for resourceful expression. In addition to the conventional broad and ultra-large lenses you will obtain on most telephones, OnePlus extra an XPan manner that creates visuals in a sixty five:24 format.
The OnePlus 9 delivers equivalent total efficiency to the 9 Professional but methods down a little bit on monitor, camera, and radio good quality, and it will not integrate tremendous-quickly wireless charging. If you do not mind individuals downgrades, you can help you save $240 and get an even lesser and lighter mobile phone. See our review of the OnePlus 9 for all the information.
Mild, Smooth Design
The nine Pro’s base model has 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. The 12GB/256GB model charges an additional $100. There is no memory card slot. The phone is correctly sized, measuring six.42 by 2.89 by .34 inches (HWD) and weighing six.nine ounces. That’s a little broader than the two.eight inches we use as the cutoff width measurement for smaller telephones, but it can be noticeably more compact and lighter than the Galaxy S21 Ultra, and narrower than the OnePlus eight Pro. Of the three, the nine Pro is the least difficult to use with a one hand.
Three sights of the OnePlus nine Pro, demonstrating the environmentally friendly and silver case alternatives.
The OnePlus nine Professional arrives in eco-friendly or silver.
The design and style, extremely in tune with OnePlus’ “burdenless structure” philosophy, is trim and tasteful. The phone’s entire body is rounded, with the classic OnePlus mute change on the remaining side and the Hasselblad-branded camera module on the again. The digital camera does not adhere out practically as considerably as the latest Samsung digicam bumps do (for the reason that it isn’t going to have a huge periscopic zoom lens in it). The front-experiencing digital camera is a gap-punch on the higher still left corner, just like on the 8 Pro.
The cell phone has an IP68 ranking for water and dust resistance, and arrives in two hues. If you are not likely to place your mobile phone in a scenario, we like the matte pine environmentally friendly improved than the mirrored silver morning mist glass back again, which draws in greasy fingerprints. Our evaluate device arrived with a black carbon-fiber situation that built that situation moot. (There is certainly a 3rd, black telephone, but OnePlus tells us it is not going to be marketed in the US.)
The back again of the OnePlus nine Professional in silver
The mirrored again of the silver scenario is a fingerprint magnet.
Compared with the Galaxy S21 Extremely and recent iPhones, your OnePlus phone arrives with a cable and a 65W charger. Luxury! You can find a cause: OnePlus makes use of proprietary USB-C chargers. Though the mobile phone will cost from any USB-C supply, it’s going to only attain its best charging speeds with the provided adapter.
You will find no headphone jack or USB-C-to-three.5mm adapter in the box. That mentioned, the nine Professional sports activities aptX, aptX High definition, LHDC, and Sony’s LDAC Bluetooth codecs for outstanding wireless audio. If you opt for OnePlus’ Buds Professional earphones, you can expect to get tailored faucet characteristics along with 24-bit/96kHz audio at up to 900kbits/s. If you happen to be on the lookout at other wireless earbuds, appear for a pair with LDAC considering that it is extra greatly available and offers the best-resolution audio sent about Bluetooth.
As for the onboard speakers, the audio excellent is excellent. Twin stereo speakers provide audio with a peak quantity of 98dB and a stunning little bit of mid-bass. For voice phone calls, which have a most volume of 81dB, the cellphone supports the greatest voice codec at the moment out there, High definition voice with EVS.
A Bright, Yet Battery-Saving Display
The shiny and crisp 6.seven-inch, 525ppi, three,216-by-1,440-pixel monitor can be dialed again to 1080p in the phone’s options if you want to preserve battery existence. The display uses a fairly new technologies known as minimal-temperature polycrystalline oxide (LTPO) that decreases electric power consumption and offers telephone makers much more management about refresh rates. It is really the very same technology that powers Apple’s Iphone 13 Pro styles as well as the Samsung Galaxy S21 sequence.
The LTPO display of the OnePlus 9 Professional, exhibiting an image of clouds
The LTPO display will help help you save ability.
This is a top rated-of-the-line OLED screen with a bonus: It’s quite obvious in direct daylight. A screen protector is preinstalled we didn’t remove it from our exam unit. In accordance to DisplayMate Labs checks, the 9 Pro’s display screen established to Vehicle Brightness mode beats the eight Professional, the Galaxy S20 series, and the newest iPhones in ambient light-weight, but not the Galaxy Observe 20 Extremely. The 9 Pro also increases the highest colour gamut in its vivid display screen mode, which helps it retain shade saturation in outside lighting.
Superior brightness mode outcomes
In addition to in brightness and coloration, the nine Pro’s display screen is not quickly distinguishable from other new best-of-the-line OLED panels. The real information is electric power optimization, as the LTPO panel dynamically—and imperceptibly—changes its refresh charge from 120Hz all the way down to 1Hz to preserve vitality. Check out our in-depth exceptional for additional on the screen.
Shade shift results
Impressive Velocity and Simplicity of Use
OnePlus phones are generally quick, and the OnePlus nine Professional is no exception. It is powered by a top rated-of-the-line Qualcomm Snapdragon 888. It scored a bit much better than the Galaxy S21 Ultra on Geekbench, with single-main scores all over 1125 and multi-main scores about 3700. That is a 24% improve on single-core results and a twelve% maximize on multi-core outcomes around the OnePlus eight Professional. None of these phones can surpass the Iphone twelve, while, which scored 1596 SC and 4049 MC with its Apple A14 processor.
The Snapdragon 888 gives a lift in graphics efficiency, also. On the GFXBench Car Chase offscreen benchmark, the 9 Pro scored around 70fps, with 37fps onscreen in WQHD method and 58fps onscreen in High definition manner. That is a significant jump up from the eight Pro, which scored 51fps offscreen and possibly 26 or 45fps onscreen depending on display resolution.
See How We Exam Phones
These benchmarks don’t get into account OnePlus’ program, which incorporates a bunch of efficiency enhancements. In our encounter with OnePlus phones, they sense like the speediest Android telephones, even more quickly than Google Pixels (specifically since Google started utilizing midrange chipsets in its flagships with the release of the Pixel five).
The cell phone operates Android eleven with OnePlus’ OxygenOS enhancements, and OnePlus suggests it’s going to get updates as considerably as Android 13 together with bi-month-to-month safety updates for 3 years. For a flagship, which is a tiny disappointing, especially considering that Samsung presents at least three a long time of software package updates on its budget A sequence products.
The 9 Pro in a charging cradle displaying a recreation.
Substantial-finish games perform effectively on the nine Pro.
OxygenOS has constantly experienced a bunch of wonderful touches, this kind of as the skill to set up two copies of social-media apps for diverse accounts, a location to change display colour primarily based on ambient gentle, and a Zen method that quickly disables the phone’s most distracting features. With this model, OnePlus provides RAM compression that it claims raises the range of apps that can stay in memory with saved state. Our take a look at device experienced no trouble holding seven apps in memory, even with the big RAM-hog Genshin Influence at the again of the line.
To test cooling, which OnePlus suggests it is really improved about prior styles, we ran a processor-pumping app termed CPU Throttling Examination on the nine Professional, the Galaxy S21, and the eight Professional for fifteen minutes. At the 10-minute place, the 8 Pro’s performance took a sharp dive to about eighty% of peak. Equally of the newer phones had been even now protecting closer to ninety% efficiency at that time. Just after thirteen minutes of pumping the processor, the Galaxy S21’s functionality smoothly declined to a small around 80% of peak, when the 9 Professional remained in the 90% vary. Ultimately, the 9 Pro’s general performance declined substantially at virtually specifically fifteen minutes as the cell phone attempted to great alone down. All through the examination as a entire, the 9 Professional and Galaxy S21 carried out at 87–88% of max functionality, though the 8 Pro was down at 78%.
Gaming efficiency is amped up with a 360Hz contact reaction price, but only in four applications: PUBG Mobile, Get in touch with of Responsibility, League of Legends, and Brawl Stars. OnePlus says it will work on incorporating 360Hz touch support to additional online games. That would surely assist this function rise from a curiosity to a differentiator. The Samsung Galaxy S20 phones provide a 240Hz touch sampling charge Samsung doesn’t give a spec on the Galaxy S21, but we believe it’s the exact same.
Extremely-Super-Mega-Quickly Charging
The pair of batteries in the nine Pro total four,500mAh. Which is brief of the Galaxy S21 Ultra’s 5,000mAh, but OnePlus has a vary of computer software tricks up its sleeve to maintain the telephone charged—so numerous that we’re not even guaranteed all of them arrived into use during our tests.
On our standard battery check, managing a YouTube video over Wi-Fi at complete screen brightness, the cellphone lasted for 8 hrs, fifty minutes in WQHD resolution and nine hrs, 40 minutes in High definition. Display screen brightness issues a whole lot to battery lifetime: Just take the brightness down to 75% and people figures bounce to 12 several hours, 40 minutes on WQHD and 13 several hours on Hd. That’s a large amount shorter than the Galaxy S21 Ultra (eleven hours twenty minutes) and the Galaxy S20 FE (twelve hours thirty minutes), but you really should have no troubles having by means of a working day of average use.
But you can find extra to this battery than fulfills the eye. To start off with, the display screen slows down to 1Hz when you might be looking at static content material, these as an e mail you happen to be mulling around or a web site of an e-e-book. That can be a huge electricity saver. OnePlus also has a standing for losing significantly less power to track record processes than Samsung does. If you use 75% screen brightness most of the time, you can expect to probably get more than a day of battery everyday living from 1 demand.
OnePlus nine Professional with USB-C Port in concentrate
The Warp Demand 65T charger can completely recharge the nine Professional in about 30 minutes.
The nine Professional also has by significantly the quickest charging speeds of any cell phone we have at any time analyzed. It arrives with a Warp Charge 65T USB-C charger, which expenses the 9 Pro from % to twenty% in 6 minutes and to a hundred% in just 36 minutes. he said is 2 times as fast as any recent Samsung cellphone prices. If you use a 3rd-social gathering charger, the phone will charge at up to 18 watts, with correspondingly lengthier cost instances.
The true breakthrough is in OnePlus’ new Warp Cost 50 wi-fi charger, a $69.ninety nine accessory cradle that plugs into your present Warp Charge 65 adapter to offer fifty-watt wi-fi charging for the 9 Pro, or 15-watt Qi charging for any other unit. In tests with the Warp Cost fifty, the 9 Professional went to 29% in eleven minutes and 100% in forty six minutes. Other telephones, like the nine, acquire between 90 minutes and two hours to wirelessly demand absolutely.
This all fits with OnePlus’ approach to telephone electric power: It may perhaps not have the most significant batteries in city, but it can refill them the swiftest.
All the 5G Trimmings, for T-Mobile and Verizon
Like other Snapdragon 888 phones, the nine Professional works by using a Qualcomm X60 modem, which works with all of the features T-Mobile and Verizon intend to use in the upcoming several several years, such as new airwaves and aggregation schemes. It has Bluetooth 5.2 and Wi-Fi 6 as well, but not Wi-Fi 6E (not like the Galaxy S21 Ultra).
T-Mobile is the only provider selling the 9 Professional, but if you obtain an unlocked design from OnePlus or a retailer, it will also work on Verizon. If you test to use it on AT&T, OnePlus says it will only hook up to 4G.
OnePlus nine (left) and OnePlus 9 Pro (right).
OnePlus 9 (remaining) and OnePlus nine Professional (suitable)
The OnePlus 9 Professional has all of the new technologies getting integrated into T-Cellular and Verizon’s networks, together with CBRS, C-band, and millimeter wave.
This is a one-SIM phone, with no eSIM solution. With a T-Mobile SIM in, the cellphone enabled Wi-Fi calling, “intelligent 5G” (which turns 5G on and off to conserve battery), and dual-channel network acceleration (which uses Wi-Fi and 5G at the very same time if important). With an AT&T SIM in, as expected, the phone utilized only 4G and lacked Wi-Fi calling.
The major spec distinction between the nine and the nine Professional is that the 9 Pro has mmWave. T-Mobile currently only uses mmWave in seven cities, and is most probable to roll it out in tremendous-crowded sites: athletics stadiums, live performance halls, conference facilities, and the like. It can be a could possibly-be-pleasant, not a have to-have. It truly is is far more fascinating on Verizon, which has mmWave in the facilities of additional than 70 towns now.
We analyzed the 9 and the 9 Professional towards the Samsung Galaxy S21 with 86 rounds of checks working with Ookla Speedtest application in New York Town, in a variety of community circumstances. (Editors’ Notice: Ookla is owned by Ziff Davis, PCMag’s publisher.) More than seventeen checks, the Galaxy S21 turned in the greatest overall performance, the nine Pro bought a strengthen from mmWave to arrive in 2nd, and the 9 dropped to 3rd. Throughout a range of non-mmWave checks with mixed sign top quality, the Galaxy S21 came in initial area once more. In a standalone T-Cellular mid-band “extremely ability” spot, on the other hand, the 3 telephones performed pretty much identically.
If you are outdoors a significant metropolis, you are likely most worried about weak-signal effectiveness. In our tests, the Galaxy S21 showed the strongest 4G RSRP sign 29 periods the 9 Professional was strongest 26 occasions, and the 9 was strongest 22 times. So the Galaxy S21 wins after again, though not by a lot. Over six rounds of tests in a weak-sign location, the Galaxy S21 showed much better signal only a few of the moments, but the nine Pro had two sign dropouts. The Galaxy S21’s edge is slight but visible.
Blinding You With (Color) Science
Imaging collaborations aren’t 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 preceding US partnership was with Motorola on its clunky but capable Legitimate Zoom Moto Mod, but the nine collection delivers Hasselblad back again to the smartphone industry in triumphant type. The nine Pro is able of having outstanding photos with each and every lens.
The 48MP main lens has an f/1.eight aperture, optical image stabilization (OIS), and electronic image stabilization (EIS). There’s also a 50MP ultra-huge lens with an f/two.two aperture, and a 8MP telephoto lens with an f/two.four aperture, as nicely as a 2MP monochrome sensor. You’ll uncover all the standard flagship bells and whistles on the 9 Pro: twin LED flash, multi-autofocus with omnidirectional Period Detection AF (PDAF), Laser AF (LAF), and Contrast AF (CAF). A substantial 50-megapixel ultra-wide lens will take attractive very low-gentle pictures. There is certainly also 8K movie at 30fps and 4K at up to 120fps, and tremendous-slow motion at up to 480fps in 720p.
Again of OnePlus nine Professional with camera in concentration
A huge 50-megapixel extremely-large lens can take stunning minimal-gentle pictures.
For the most part, the digicam app is intuitive and straightforward to use. The shutter button is a Hasselblad-branded orange, and it tends to make a distinctive Hasselblad shutter audio. Our only complaint is that we uncovered Tilt Change mode a bit clunky and difficult to use.
Image of rooftop with eco foliage
The OnePlus nine Pro’s tumble update enhanced reduced-gentle overall performance.
Some of the 9 Pro’s most important digital camera features are in the program. Hasselblad worked intently with OnePlus to update its color science and build supplemental characteristics for professional smartphone shooters. In automobile and Professional modes, hues are heat, with reds and blues finding a balanced saturation strengthen while yellows and greens to be a tiny undersaturated. Considering the fact that OnePlus and Hasselblad set a large emphasis on the 9 series’ colour science, we when compared the 9 Professional to a handful of other flagships and discovered it stood up exceptionally well to the opposition.
Apple critically enhanced its color science with iOS fourteen and the Iphone 12. In which the nine Pro tends to saturate reds and blues, Apple focuses more on boosting luminance, so the Apple iphone 12’s pics tend to search a minimal additional real to existence than the 9 Pro’s.
Put images from the 9 Pro and the Galaxy S21 Ultra aspect by aspect and you can instantly identify the distinction in between the two cameras. OnePlus can take a lighter hand with boosting saturation and other computational changes Samsung is considerably extra aggressive. In one particular of our take a look at images, a dreary March sky captured on the Galaxy S21 Extremely instantly became blue. The 9 Professional was considerably much more accurate in its total representation of the scene.
Aspect-by-facet pics of a building below a cloudy sky in the image on the remaining, the sky seems blue
The photo colors from the 9 Professional (suitable) are additional precise than the ones delivered by the Galaxy S21 Extremely (remaining).
In Professional method, you can alter ISO, focus publicity time, white equilibrium, and a number of other settings. There’s also the choice to shoot in 12-bit Uncooked structure, which provides 64 occasions the color facts of the 10-bit Uncooked on other flagships.
The ultra-large 50MP lens is a Sony IMX 766 sensor which is appreciably more substantial than the 1 in the Iphone 12 Pro Max. In our exams the lens did a fantastic position in both of those vibrant and minimal gentle. Photographs are crisp with outstanding depth of industry and reliable history element.
Facet-by-side ultra-broad-angle photos of a constructing
Ultra-large-angle pictures are a main gain for the 9 Professional (ideal), which generates considerably much less edge distortion than the Galaxy S21 Extremely (still left).
Our photographs taken with the key lens were being amazing as well. In very good mild, the 9 Professional holds its have towards other flagships, with real looking depth of field and rarely any reduction of great element.
In the drop of 2021, OnePlus delivered a key update to the camera’s application. Exam photographs demonstrate much more precise white equilibrium and are crisp without being oversharpened, a frequent issue with most smartphone cameras. When we reviewed the images at total measurement, the shots remained crisp and experienced significantly less sound.
The app is also quicker in typical and there is less shutter lag. It’s a small transform, but it can make a massive variation when using shots with movement.
A snowy rooftop with quite a few sculptures and other objects
The primary lens requires top rated-notch images even in muted light-weight.
But wherever the digicam genuinely excels is in lower light-weight. The primary lens did properly, as predicted. Our check shots with the drop update remained crisp with an improved texture-to-noise ratio. The huge improvement, even so, was with dynamic array and all round scene accuracy. The two worked in conjunction to make a far more genuine reflection of the instant.
And when we were being specifically bowled about by the extremely-vast lens’ functionality in our first assessments, the digital camera update just made issues greater. All of the enhancements we noticed in the main lenses were obvious in our extremely-extensive check photographs. Those advancements, blended with the lack of distortion, would make the OnePlus nine Pro’s extremely-extensive lens the most effective we have tested.
A cityscape at night time, with lights reflecting off a moist street
Extremely-huge lower-gentle images are stunning, with shockingly minimal distortion.
We didn’t observe a lot enhancement in our photographs with the telephoto lens after the computer software update. The OnePlus 9 Pro’s telephoto lens is much better than what you’ll find on its predecessor, but it still does not evaluate with the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra’s. At decrease zoom concentrations, our exam pictures experienced loads of detail, although there was some anticipated loss of detail in the distance.
Side-by-side pictures of illustrated signs at 30x zoom.
The Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra does a a lot superior career at 30x zoom.
As we bumped up the zoom, having said that, we commenced to detect considerable blur and noise when as opposed with the exact same image taken on the Galaxy S21 Ultra. The unnatural sharpening we observed in our primary exam photographs, on the other hand, has been noticeably improved.
Side-by-aspect 10x zoom visuals of a cease signal
Even though the Samsung Galaxy S21 Extremely has an edge at 10x zoom, the nine Pro does a strong career with its new drop digicam update.
Smartphone macro lenses are almost never really worth using, but listed here the 9 Pro actually stands out. Our macro photographs had been a great deal sharper than envisioned, and leagues far better than photographs taken with the 8’s 2MP macro lens.
A picture of purple and environmentally friendly macarons on a white plate
Macarons, in macro.
The monochrome sensor works in tandem with the major sensor to consider attractive black-and-white photographs with lots of depth and inky blacks. Huawei incorporated a related aspect for many years and then abruptly removed it, causing an outcry from smartphone shutterbugs. If you knew and loved that attribute, the 9 Pro’s resurrection of it will delight you.
Black-and-white photo of public artwork set up in which a significant white sculpture of a hand grabs a tree trunk
The monochrome lens usually takes stable black-and-white shots.
The most significant, and most outstanding, improve to the OnePlus 9’s digital camera, on the other hand, is the addition of XPan manner. It can be a aspect that mimics Hasselblad’s now-discontinued XPan cameras to make an graphic that’s reminiscent of those you would just take with its 30mm and 45mm lenses.
The images are cropped to a 65:24 aspect ratio. It is a extraordinary appear that gives you a full new way to inform stories, and evokes photographs of movie stills. There are possibilities to shoot in coloration as well as black and white.
It is really challenging to overstate just how substantially place XPan features for creativity. four:three and 16:9 element ratios are so ubiquitous, that it normally takes a conquer to get employed to all the distinctive matters you can do in the format.
Panoramic shot of a Catholic rectory at night time.
XPan mode will allow you to choose spectacular images in a special factor ratio.
We tested XPan in various lights situations and it carried out correctly. Our check pictures have been immersive and crisp, with exceptional dynamic selection. Depth of subject is exceptional as perfectly.
Black and white picture of a mid-century creating
Monochrome pics in XPan manner glimpse stunning.
Hasselblad’s distinctive coloration science for XPan also creates an entirely diverse really feel which is equivalent to photos shot on Kodak Ektachrome or Fuji Provia slide film. Our photographs showed fewer contrast and much more purely natural hues that almost look a little undersaturated due to the fact we have turn out to be so accustomed to above-saturation on smartphones.
Decommissioned switching station with festive lights
Portraits and smaller sized scenes look greater with the 30mm focal-duration location in XPan method.
On the entrance of the nine Pro, you’ll find a 32MP lens. It performs incredibly nicely in any lighting issue. There’s a little history blur in our images, which is to be predicted. Foreground element and depth of area, on the other hand, are spot on. Portrait manner functions without a hitch as very well. Our take a look at pictures had a purely natural bokeh and best depth mapping in every single shot.
A selfie of a bearded white person in glasses and a cap
Selfies are specific and crystal clear.
A single Small Action Shy of the Crown
The OnePlus nine Pro is an excellent telephone. At $970, it holds its very own towards the a bit far more costly Galaxy S21 Extremely and Apple iphone 12 Professional. It would not pretty match the Galaxy S21 Ultra on digital camera zoom or community effectiveness, but it really is lighter and sleeker, it has some distinctive camera methods, and you will find that renowned OnePlus speed and stylish computer software. That wonderful rapid charging and the battery-saving display screen also make a significant distinction in day-to-working day use. The 9 Pro is improved than the OnePlus 8 sequence in each way, so the upgrade is very easily warranted. It only fails to nab our Editors’ Decision award since the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra is even far more fantastic and can be employed on any carrier. The 9 Pro and the Galaxy S21 Extremely with each other now define the Android point out of the art. Based on your priorities, either will serve you really very well for the future handful of years.
