OnePlus 9 Professional evaluate: A real flagship Android gadget

Right here in 2021, it’s tough for flagship Android telephones to face out primarily based on specs alone. Most high producers depend on comparable {hardware}. Look contained in the OnePlus 9 Professional and also you’ll discover a Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 processor. That matches the chip you’ll discover in its largest competitors, the Samung Galaxy S21. And whereas these telephones aren’t precisely breaking molds with each new model, they do present extra selection with regards to high-end Android gadgets, and that’s all the time an excellent factor. 

In brief, the OnePlus 9 Professional smartphone is definitely among the finest general Android gadgets available on the market. It’s not good, however it’s fairly nice. However, is it best for you?

What’s the OnePlus 9 Professional smartphone?

Choose up the OnePlus 9 Professional and it feels acquainted. It’s 2.89 inches broad, 6.4 inches tall, and roughly a 3rd of an inch thick. That may be laborious to image, nevertheless it’s barely narrower than the OnePlus 8 Professional that got here earlier than it and the Samsung Galaxy S21. 

Because the “Professional” suggests in its identify, that is the very high of the OnePlus heap. Its major brag over the remainder of the lineup consists of an upgraded digicam that the corporate claims to have developed with iconic Swedish digicam maker, Hasselblad. 

The bottom mannequin OnePlus 9 Professional comes with 8 GB RAM and 128 GB storage. You possibly can spend an additional $100 or so to get 12 GB RAM and 256 GB storage. When you plan to make use of this cellphone for a number of years, that looks as if a worthy improve to me. 

The show

The display measures 6.7 inches and gives a 3,216 x 1440 decision. It’s slightly skinnier than I’m used to, however I truly want that. Although I’ve pretty stable thumb attain, I discovered the marginally skinny OnePlus 9 Professional much less harrowing to make use of one-handed than a few of its thicker competitors. 

Its 525 PPI is a lot dense, so that you’ll by no means discover particular person pixels together with your bare eyes except you’re some form of superhero whose powers embody nitpicking smartphone shows. The OnePlus display additionally boasts a variable refresh fee. It may possibly go from the smooth-scrolling 120 Hz down to only 1 Hz to save lots of battery. That characteristic comes from the inclusion of a expertise referred to as low-temperature polycrystalline oxide, which Samsung first began utilizing in its Notice collection smartphones final 12 months. You gained’t discover this tech contained in the common OnePlus 9, so solely the Professional model enjoys the efficiency and battery benefits it gives.

Total, the display is vibrant, simple to learn below a wide range of situations, and supplies {smooth} movement in nearly each state of affairs. I nonetheless don’t actually just like the front-facing digicam poking via a gap within the show, however that’s definitely not distinctive to the OnePlus and I additionally appear to be within the minority with my griping.

Speeds and efficiency

As said above, the OnePlus 9 Professional depends on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 processor, which additionally seems within the Samsung Galaxy S21 smartphone. Mixed with 8 GB or 12 GB RAM, it has greater than sufficient energy for any job you propose on doing with an Android cellphone. Verify the Geekbench benchmarking charts and also you’ll discover that the OnePlus 9 Professional is among the many quickest gadgets out there for the time being, even when the iPhone 12 Professional fashions beat it with regards to pure velocity. 

Benchmark numbers hardly ever translate instantly into the true world, nevertheless. I used the OnePlus 9 Professional as my each day driver cellphone for a number of weeks and put it via a variety of resource-intensive actions. It dealt with video enhancing in Adobe’s Premiere Rush app in addition to a number of hours (oops) of Magic: Enviornment amongst different graphics-heavy titles. In each case, the OnePlus 9 Professional dealt with the hundreds simply tremendous. That’s what you’d anticipate and the cellphone delivered. 

A part of that speedy efficiency comes from OnePlus’s capacity to withstand cramming its gadgets stuffed with bloatware. It runs Android 11, but in addition employs OnePlus’s personal OxygenOS, which provides some good tweaks to the system. 

As an example, you possibly can hold two variations of the identical app put in in case you need to entry the platform with two accounts with out consistently having to change profiles or signal out and in. That’s surprisingly helpful, which is greater than I can say for many options that come piled on high of the vanilla Android expertise. 

What concerning the OnePlus 9 Professional digicam?

That is the place flagship smartphones have it out today. OnePlus tapped iconic digicam maker Hasselblad to assist out with its smartphone cameras as a part of a deal that it says will final years. That is supposedly simply step one. 

Don’t get too excited if you happen to’re a digicam nerd. Hasselblad didn’t construct the {hardware} that’s within the OnePlus gadget. As a substitute, the Swedish digicam producer helped OnePlus with the colour science that went into the general digicam system. 

The OnePlus 9 Professional gives three major cameras. The principle module sports activities a 48-megapixel seize behind a wide-angle, f/1.8 lens with optical picture stabilization. The super-wide digicam sports activities a 50-megapixel decision and a set f/2.2 aperture. The telephoto digicam rounds out the {hardware} with a smaller 12-megapixel decision and a set f/2.4 aperture. Whereas these megapixel counts are undoubtedly excessive, the lenses supply some acquainted focal lengths, so you possibly can anticipate a comparatively comparable expertise to different flagship gadgets just like the iPhone 12 Professional Max and the Samsung Galaxy S21.

Total picture high quality

Relating to general imaging efficiency, I discovered the OnePlus 9 Professional spectacular. Whether or not it’s as a result of Hasselblad involvement or not, I appreciated the comparatively pure colour and tone copy the principle digicam gives. It supplies a outcome that’s nearer to what I’d anticipate from a devoted digicam with out the overly formidable colour enhancements Samsung usually applies. It additionally doesn’t fall into the entice of overdoing it with HDR-like the iPhone digicam generally does. 

I used to be significantly impressed with the super-wide lens. OnePlus did a extremely stable job firming down the standard distortion that normally seems across the edges of a super-wide body. As a result of it makes use of an unusually giant sensor, the picture high quality can be above common. When you’re significantly within the super-wide-angle views, the 9 Professional is value robust consideration. 

Zooming, nevertheless, is one other story. Relating to attain, the Samsung Galaxy S21 Extremely is the champ. It has a real optical zoom lens that handily beats most different gadgets round. The OnePlus 9 Professional isn’t unhealthy, it’s simply not near the Samsung GOAT this time round. 

Different imaging options

Along with the standard digicam sensors, OnePlus included a 2-megapixel monochrome sensor it may possibly use to assist make extra genuine black-and-white photos. It’s good at what it does, however black-and-white conversions have gotten superb–particularly with enhancing presets–that I wouldn’t anticipate to make use of it fairly often. 

The 9 Professional shoots as much as 8K video, however once more, I don’t discover all that decision significantly helpful. Capturing 4K at as much as 120 fps is intriguing, nevertheless. Excessive-res, slow-motion footage tends to look actually cool when you have sufficient mild for it. You may get even slower, too. Dial the decision all the way down to 720p and you may go all the best way as much as 480 fps. That’s 16x slower than actual life. Just about all the things that occurs shortly seems cool when recorded at that velocity. 

The OnePlus 9 Professional’s super-fast charging

The OnePlus 9 Professional fees so shortly that it’s virtually humorous. The cellphone ships with a 65T Warp Cost unit that guarantees to take the cellphone from completely lifeless to one hundred pc in simply over a half-hour. I attempted it and in lower than 40 minutes, the cellphone went from zero to one hundred pc. It solely took 7 minutes for it to hit 20 %. It’s bonkers. 

You possibly can solely obtain these speeds with the devoted charger, although. Change to a third-party plug and also you’re handcuffed all the way down to a well-known 18 watts. 

When you’re keen to shell out some further money, you may also get super-fast wi-fi charging. The $70 Warp Cost 50 Wi-fi Charger can take a 9 Professional gadget from zero to one hundred pc in nicely below an hour with out having to plug it in. It would definitely generate some warmth within the course of, however that’s critically quick. 

That quick charging makes up for the truth that the battery itself isn’t big. I had no downside getting a full day and night time of use, however I nonetheless felt higher placing the cellphone on the charger each night time. 

Who should purchase the OnePlus 9 Professional

When you’re out there for a flagship Android cellphone, then the OnePlus 9 Professional needs to be in rivalry. In comparison with the Samsung Galaxy 21, you’ll get a equally stunning display, quick efficiency, and very succesful cameras that excel in most conditions. Samsung nonetheless has the sting in just a few spots, significantly with regards to the built-in zoom lens and compatibility with the corporate’s S Pen stylus. However, OnePlus has a cleaner model of Android, and that borderline bananas charging velocity. 

Whereas there’s little or no to complain about right here, it’s vital to do not forget that we’re speaking a couple of cellphone that may price you roughly $1,000. As all the time, it’s value actually analyzing whether or not these options and spec bumps are value spending the additional money over one thing just like the less expensive Nord 2 when it hits the US.