The OnePlus 9 Professional (starting up at $969.99) provides a streamlined flagship knowledge to T-Mobile and Verizon subscribers, lastly catching up to its opponents. The telephone itself is light in the hand, and the person knowledge is weightless as perfectly. The cameras get knockout shots in pretty significantly all situations and the built-in quickly charging is the most effective we’ve seen. The Galaxy S21 Ultra scores a bit greater in our battery and wireless radio tests, functions with Samsung’s exceptional S Pen stylus, and its digicam features killer optical zoom, so it just edges out the 9 Pro to be our Editors’ Alternative among flagship smartphones. Still, the OnePlus 9 Pro is fantastic. If you want a top rated-notch, loaded mobile phone that helps make your coronary heart sing, you happen to be now spoiled for choice.
The OnePlus Promise Is Lastly Realized
OnePlus was after a enterprise that created a single excellent cellular phone at a time. Now it has a complete line of phones at T-Cell (and vendors such as Google Fi, Metro, and Mint Mobile 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 indicates fast, classy application and a streamlined physical structure.
Cameras have normally been the one particular spot OnePlus tended to drop at the rear of Samsung and Apple, so OnePlus designed a offer with Hasselblad for colour tuning and bought a new sensor from Sony. As a final result, the nine Pro’s rear camera stack stands out from the competition. It may possibly not have incredible optical zoom like the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, but it delivers many more choices for artistic expression. In addition to the regular huge and ultra-broad lenses you can find on most telephones, OnePlus added an XPan mode that results in photos in a 65:24 format.
The OnePlus nine offers identical all round performance to the nine Professional but ways down a little bit on monitor, digicam, and radio quality, and it does not combine tremendous-quickly wireless charging. If you really don’t mind people downgrades, you can preserve $240 and get an even lesser and lighter mobile phone. See our overview of the OnePlus nine for all the information.
Gentle, Sleek Style
The nine Pro’s foundation design has 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. The 12GB/256GB design fees an added $one hundred. There is no memory card slot. The phone is properly sized, measuring 6.42 by 2.89 by .34 inches (HWD) and weighing six.nine ounces. That is a small broader than the two.eight inches we use as the cutoff width measurement for little telephones, but it is really significantly scaled-down and lighter than the Galaxy S21 Ultra, and narrower than the OnePlus 8 Pro. Of the a few, the nine Professional is the least complicated to use with a single hand.
Three views of the OnePlus 9 Pro, exhibiting the eco-friendly and silver situation solutions.
The OnePlus 9 Pro arrives in eco-friendly or silver.
The style and design, really in tune with OnePlus’ “burdenless layout” philosophy, is trim and tasteful. The phone’s human body is rounded, with the traditional OnePlus mute swap on the remaining facet and the Hasselblad-branded camera module on the back. The digicam doesn’t adhere out virtually as significantly as new Samsung digicam bumps do (mainly because it won’t have a giant periscopic zoom lens in it). important site -dealing with digital camera is a gap-punch on the higher left corner, just like on the 8 Pro.
The cell phone has an IP68 rating for h2o and dust resistance, and will come in two colours. If you might be not likely to put your telephone in a situation, we like the matte pine eco-friendly better than the mirrored silver morning mist glass back again, which draws in greasy fingerprints. Our evaluation unit arrived with a black carbon-fiber scenario that produced that problem moot. (There is certainly a third, black telephone, but OnePlus tells us it will not be marketed in the US.)
The back of the OnePlus nine Pro in silver
The mirrored back again of the silver circumstance is a fingerprint magnet.
Compared with the Galaxy S21 Ultra and latest iPhones, your OnePlus telephone comes with a cable and a 65W charger. Luxurious! More Bonuses will find a reason: OnePlus makes use of proprietary USB-C chargers. Although the cellphone will charge from any USB-C supply, it’s going to only obtain its best charging speeds with the provided adapter.
There is no headphone jack or USB-C-to-3.5mm adapter in the box. That explained, the 9 Pro sports aptX, aptX Hd, LHDC, and Sony’s LDAC Bluetooth codecs for great wi-fi audio. If you opt for OnePlus’ Buds Professional earphones, you will get tailored faucet capabilities along with 24-little bit/96kHz audio at up to 900kbits/s. If you might be seeking at other wi-fi earbuds, glimpse for a pair with LDAC because it can be a lot more greatly readily available and offers the greatest-resolution audio sent more than Bluetooth.
As for the onboard speakers, the audio good quality is outstanding. Dual stereo speakers provide audio with a peak volume of 98dB and a shocking little bit of mid-bass. For voice phone calls, which have a greatest volume of 81dB, the phone supports the finest voice codec currently out there, Hd voice with EVS.
A Vibrant, Nevertheless Battery-Saving Exhibit
The vibrant and crisp six.7-inch, 525ppi, 3,216-by-1,440-pixel screen can be dialed back again to 1080p in the phone’s configurations if you want to conserve battery daily life. The screen utilizes a somewhat new know-how identified as small-temperature polycrystalline oxide (LTPO) that reduces energy use and gives cellular phone producers extra manage around refresh fees. It can be the same technological innovation that powers Apple’s Apple iphone 13 Professional products as well as the Samsung Galaxy S21 collection.
The LTPO display of the OnePlus nine Professional, displaying an graphic of clouds
The LTPO display screen assists help save electrical power.
This is a best-of-the-line OLED display screen with a bonus: It’s pretty noticeable in immediate sunlight. A display screen protector is preinstalled we failed to eliminate it from our check unit. In accordance to DisplayMate Labs checks, the 9 Pro’s screen set to Car Brightness manner beats the eight Professional, the Galaxy S20 series, and the latest iPhones in ambient light-weight, but not the Galaxy Note 20 Extremely. The 9 Professional also enhances the optimum colour gamut in its vivid display mode, which aids it keep shade saturation in outdoor lights.
Large brightness manner final results
Other than in brightness and shade, the nine Pro’s show isn’t really conveniently distinguishable from other the latest major-of-the-line OLED panels. The actual news is electric power optimization, as the LTPO panel dynamically—and imperceptibly—changes its refresh price from 120Hz all the way down to 1Hz to help you save electrical power. Look at out our in-depth distinctive for much more on the screen.
Coloration shift effects
Extraordinary Speed and Ease of Use
OnePlus telephones are generally quickly, and the OnePlus 9 Professional is no exception. It can be powered by a top rated-of-the-line Qualcomm Snapdragon 888. It scored a little bit improved than the Galaxy S21 Extremely on Geekbench, with single-main scores about 1125 and multi-main scores around 3700. That is a 24% maximize on solitary-core benefits and a 12% increase on multi-main success over the OnePlus 8 Pro. None of these phones can surpass the Apple iphone twelve, although, which scored 1596 SC and 4049 MC with its Apple A14 processor.
The Snapdragon 888 supplies a raise in graphics functionality, much too. On the GFXBench Motor vehicle Chase offscreen benchmark, the nine Professional scored all-around 70fps, with 37fps onscreen in WQHD mode and 58fps onscreen in Hd mode. That is a significant soar up from the 8 Pro, which scored 51fps offscreen and either 26 or 45fps onscreen relying on monitor resolution.
See How We Test Phones
These benchmarks don’t consider into account OnePlus’ software, which incorporates a bunch of efficiency enhancements. In our working experience with OnePlus phones, they truly feel like the speediest Android telephones, even more quickly than Google Pixels (specially because Google begun using midrange chipsets in its flagships with the release of the Pixel five).
The cell phone operates Android eleven with OnePlus’ OxygenOS enhancements, and OnePlus says it’ll get updates as much as Android thirteen along with bi-regular security updates for three decades. For a flagship, that is a minor disappointing, especially considering that Samsung gives at the very least 3 several years of software program updates on its spending budget A collection models.
The nine Pro in a charging cradle displaying a match.
Higher-finish video games perform properly on the nine Professional.
OxygenOS has usually experienced a bunch of great touches, these types of as the skill to put in two copies of social-media apps for various accounts, a placing to change display colour based mostly on ambient light-weight, and a Zen mode that briefly disables the phone’s most distracting features. With this version, OnePlus adds RAM compression that it says raises the range of apps that can continue to be in memory with saved state. Our examination unit experienced no dilemma keeping seven apps in memory, even with the large RAM-hog Genshin Influence at the back again of the line.
To take a look at cooling, which OnePlus states it truly is improved about previous designs, we ran a processor-pumping application called CPU Throttling Check on the 9 Professional, the Galaxy S21, and the eight Professional for fifteen minutes. At the ten-minute point, the eight Pro’s efficiency took a sharp dive to about 80% of peak. Each of the newer telephones had been continue to keeping closer to ninety% overall performance at that time. After thirteen minutes of pumping the processor, the Galaxy S21’s efficiency efficiently declined to a minimal above eighty% of peak, even though the 9 Professional remained in the 90% assortment. Last but not least, the nine Pro’s general performance declined drastically at practically particularly 15 minutes as the mobile phone tried to interesting itself down. All through the examination as a full, the nine Pro and Galaxy S21 executed at 87–88% of max efficiency, although the 8 Pro was down at seventy eight%.
Gaming efficiency is amped up with a 360Hz touch response rate, but only in four apps: PUBG Cellular, Simply call of Responsibility, League of Legends, and Brawl Stars. OnePlus suggests it will work on incorporating 360Hz touch assist to more video games. That would undoubtedly support this element increase from a curiosity to a differentiator. The Samsung Galaxy S20 phones supply a 240Hz contact sampling rate Samsung will not give a spec on the Galaxy S21, but we consider it can be the similar.
Ultra-Tremendous-Mega-Quick Charging
The pair of batteries in the nine Pro total four,500mAh. Which is brief of the Galaxy S21 Ultra’s five,000mAh, but OnePlus has a range of computer software tips up its sleeve to continue to keep the cellphone charged—so lots of that we’re not even guaranteed all of them came into use for the duration of our testing.
On our standard battery take a look at, running a YouTube video clip about Wi-Fi at comprehensive screen brightness, the phone lasted for eight several hours, 50 minutes in WQHD resolution and 9 several hours, forty minutes in Hd. Display brightness matters a lot to battery life: Choose the brightness down to seventy five% and these quantities jump to twelve several hours, 40 minutes on WQHD and 13 hrs on Hd. Which is a great deal shorter than the Galaxy S21 Extremely (eleven hours 20 minutes) and the Galaxy S20 FE (twelve hours 30 minutes), but you should really have no issues having by way of a day of moderate use.
But there’s a lot more to this battery than meets the eye. To begin with, the display slows down to 1Hz when you’re searching at static content, this kind of as an email you happen to be mulling over or a web page of an e-e-book. That can be a big electricity saver. OnePlus also has a name for dropping fewer electrical power to background processes than Samsung does. If you use 75% screen brightness most of the time, you are going to in all probability get extra than a day of battery daily life from one particular demand.
OnePlus nine Professional with USB-C Port in target
The Warp Cost 65T charger can entirely recharge the 9 Pro in about thirty minutes.
The nine Professional also has by considerably the speediest charging speeds of any cell phone we’ve ever analyzed. It will come with a Warp Charge 65T USB-C charger, which charges the nine Pro from % to 20% in 6 minutes and to a hundred% in just 36 minutes. That’s two times as rapid as any modern Samsung cellphone costs. If you use a third-celebration charger, the phone will charge at up to eighteen watts, with correspondingly lengthier charge occasions.
The genuine breakthrough is in OnePlus’ new Warp Cost 50 wireless charger, a $69.ninety nine accessory cradle that plugs into your current Warp Demand 65 adapter to give 50-watt wireless charging for the nine Professional, or fifteen-watt Qi charging for any other device. In testing with the Warp Charge fifty, the nine Pro went to 29% in 11 minutes and a hundred% in forty six minutes. Other telephones, such as the 9, just take concerning 90 minutes and two hrs to wirelessly cost entirely.
This all suits with OnePlus’ method to mobile phone electrical power: It may well not have the biggest batteries in town, but it can refill them the quickest.
All the 5G Trimmings, for T-Cell and Verizon
Like other Snapdragon 888 phones, the nine Professional employs a Qualcomm X60 modem, which is effective with all of the features T-Cell and Verizon intend to use in the next few yrs, which include new airwaves and aggregation strategies. It has Bluetooth 5.2 and Wi-Fi 6 as nicely, but not Wi-Fi 6E (contrary to the Galaxy S21 Extremely).
T-Cellular is the only carrier marketing the nine Professional, but if you obtain an unlocked product from OnePlus or a retailer, it will also function on Verizon. If you attempt to use it on AT&T, OnePlus claims it will only hook up to 4G.
OnePlus nine (still left) and OnePlus nine Professional (appropriate).
OnePlus nine (remaining) and OnePlus 9 Pro (suitable)
The OnePlus 9 Pro has all of the new technologies currently being integrated into T-Mobile and Verizon’s networks, like CBRS, C-band, and millimeter wave.
This is a one-SIM telephone, with no eSIM alternative. With a T-Cellular SIM in, the cellphone enabled Wi-Fi calling, “intelligent 5G” (which turns 5G on and off to help you save battery), and dual-channel community acceleration (which makes use of Wi-Fi and 5G at the identical time if essential). With an AT&T SIM in, as envisioned, the cellular phone employed only 4G and lacked Wi-Fi calling.
The massive spec big difference concerning the nine and the 9 Professional is that the 9 Pro has mmWave. T-Mobile now only makes use of mmWave in 7 metropolitan areas, and is most possible to roll it out in super-crowded spots: sports activities stadiums, live performance halls, convention centers, and the like. It really is a might-be-pleasant, not a need to-have. It really is is much more appealing on Verizon, which has mmWave in the centers of extra than 70 towns now.
We analyzed the nine and the nine Professional from the Samsung Galaxy S21 with 86 rounds of assessments working with Ookla Speedtest program in New York Metropolis, in a range of community ailments. (Editors’ Be aware: Ookla is owned by Ziff Davis, PCMag’s publisher.) More than seventeen assessments, the Galaxy S21 turned in the greatest effectiveness, the 9 Professional obtained a raise from mmWave to come in next, and the nine dropped to third. Across a assortment of non-mmWave assessments with combined signal quality, the Galaxy S21 came in initially location yet again. In a standalone T-Mobile mid-band “extremely capability” spot, on the other hand, the three phones performed pretty much identically.
If you are outside a significant town, you’re likely most concerned about weak-signal efficiency. In our tests, the Galaxy S21 showed the strongest 4G RSRP signal 29 moments the nine Professional was strongest 26 instances, and the nine was strongest 22 instances. So the Galaxy S21 wins as soon as once again, nevertheless not by a great deal. About 6 rounds of testing in a weak-sign place, the Galaxy S21 confirmed much better signal only 3 of the periods, but the nine Pro had two signal dropouts. The Galaxy S21’s edge is slight but visible.
Blinding You With (Color) Science
Imaging collaborations are not new for smartphone brands. Huawei has partnered with Leica for a long time the Zeiss name is plastered on the back of smartphones from Nokia, Sony, and Vivo. Hasselblad’s only previous US partnership was with Motorola on its clunky but capable Correct Zoom Moto Mod, but the nine collection provides Hasselblad again to the smartphone market in triumphant design. The nine Professional is capable of having unbelievable pictures with every single lens.
The 48MP main lens has an f/one.eight aperture, optical impression stabilization (OIS), and digital image stabilization (EIS). There’s also a 50MP extremely-huge lens with an f/two.2 aperture, and a 8MP telephoto lens with an f/two.four aperture, as very well as a 2MP monochrome sensor. You will obtain all the normal flagship bells and whistles on the 9 Professional: twin LED flash, multi-autofocus with omnidirectional Period Detection AF (PDAF), Laser AF (LAF), and Contrast AF (CAF). A substantial fifty-megapixel ultra-vast lens usually takes stunning small-light-weight images. There’s also 8K video at 30fps and 4K at up to 120fps, and super-gradual motion at up to 480fps in 720p.
Back again of OnePlus nine Professional with camera in emphasis
A huge 50-megapixel extremely-vast lens normally takes gorgeous very low-mild pictures.
For the most element, the digital camera app is intuitive and straightforward to use. The shutter button is a Hasselblad-branded orange, and it helps make a distinct Hasselblad shutter seem. Our only criticism is that we uncovered Tilt Change mode a bit clunky and challenging to use.
Photograph of rooftop with eco foliage
The OnePlus 9 Pro’s slide update improved small-light general performance.
Some of the 9 Pro’s most considerable digital camera capabilities are in the software program. Hasselblad labored carefully with OnePlus to update its shade science and build supplemental capabilities for professional smartphone shooters. In auto and Pro modes, colors are heat, with reds and blues getting a nutritious saturation enhance while yellows and greens to be a tiny undersaturated. Considering the fact that OnePlus and Hasselblad put a massive emphasis on the 9 series’ colour science, we in contrast the nine Professional to a several other flagships and identified it stood up particularly nicely to the level of competition.
Apple severely enhanced its shade science with iOS fourteen and the Apple iphone twelve. In which the nine Professional tends to saturate reds and blues, Apple focuses far more on boosting luminance, so the Iphone 12’s photos are inclined to look a little additional accurate to lifetime than the nine Pro’s.
Location pictures from the nine Professional and the Galaxy S21 Ultra side by facet and you can straight away realize the change amongst the two cameras. OnePlus usually takes a lighter hand with boosting saturation and other computational adjustments Samsung is a lot additional aggressive. In a person of our take a look at images, a dreary March sky captured on the Galaxy S21 Extremely all of a sudden turned blue. The 9 Professional was a lot much more accurate in its in general illustration of the scene.
Facet-by-facet pictures of a creating under a cloudy sky in the photograph on the left, the sky seems blue
The picture colors from the 9 Professional (suitable) are extra accurate than the ones delivered by the Galaxy S21 Ultra (remaining).
In Professional manner, you can regulate ISO, aim exposure time, white equilibrium, and a amount of other settings. There is also the alternative to shoot in twelve-bit Raw structure, which gives sixty four times the colour knowledge of the ten-little bit Raw on other flagships.
The extremely-wide 50MP lens is a Sony IMX 766 sensor that’s appreciably greater than the one in the Iphone twelve Pro Max. In our checks the lens did a fantastic task in both of those vibrant and low light-weight. Pictures are crisp with outstanding depth of discipline and stable track record element.
Side-by-aspect ultra-wide-angle pictures of a setting up
Extremely-vast-angle pictures are a big benefit for the 9 Pro (suitable), which generates a lot less edge distortion than the Galaxy S21 Ultra (left).
Our shots taken with the most important lens ended up extraordinary as very well. In very good gentle, the 9 Professional retains its very own against other flagships, with sensible depth of industry and barely any loss of fantastic depth.
In the slide of 2021, OnePlus sent a significant update to the camera’s software program. Exam pictures display more accurate white stability and are crisp without having staying oversharpened, a prevalent difficulty with most smartphone cameras. When we reviewed the shots at complete size, the pics remained crisp and experienced less sound.
The app is also speedier in standard and there is significantly less shutter lag. It is really a small improve, but it would make a massive change when using photographs with movement.
A snowy rooftop with numerous sculptures and other objects
The key lens will take leading-notch photographs even in muted gentle.
But where the camera actually excels is in low gentle. The major lens did effectively, as anticipated. Our check pictures with the drop update remained crisp with an improved texture-to-sounds ratio. The significant enhancement, nonetheless, was with dynamic assortment and over-all scene accuracy. The two worked in conjunction to build a far more honest reflection of the minute.
And even though we were being specially bowled more than by the extremely-broad lens’ overall performance in our unique tests, the digicam update just made matters much better. All of the enhancements we observed in the key lenses had been obvious in our ultra-large take a look at pictures. All those enhancements, combined with the absence of distortion, will make the OnePlus nine Pro’s ultra-vast lens the greatest we have analyzed.
A cityscape at night time, with lights reflecting off a damp avenue
Extremely-vast reduced-gentle pictures are lovely, with shockingly little distortion.
We did not recognize substantially advancement in our shots with the telephoto lens immediately after the software program update. The OnePlus 9 Pro’s telephoto lens is better than what you’ll come across on its predecessor, but it continue to does not review with the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra’s. At decreased zoom degrees, our check photographs experienced a good deal of element, even though there was some anticipated decline of element in the length.
Facet-by-aspect photographs of illustrated signals at 30x zoom.
The Samsung Galaxy S21 Extremely does a much superior task at 30x zoom.
As we bumped up the zoom, even so, we started to detect major blur and noise when in comparison with the same impression taken on the Galaxy S21 Extremely. The unnatural sharpening we observed in our primary take a look at pictures, on the other hand, has been significantly improved.
Aspect-by-aspect 10x zoom pictures of a prevent signal
While the Samsung Galaxy S21 Extremely has an edge at 10x zoom, the nine Professional does a strong career with its recent fall camera update.
Smartphone macro lenses are hardly ever worth utilizing, but right here the nine Pro really stands out. Our macro shots have been substantially sharper than anticipated, and leagues superior than shots taken with the 8’s 2MP macro lens.
A image of red and green macarons on a white plate
Macarons, in macro.
The monochrome sensor works in tandem with the primary sensor to just take lovely black-and-white pictures with plenty of depth and inky blacks. Huawei provided a similar function for decades and then all of a sudden removed it, resulting in an outcry from smartphone shutterbugs. If you realized and loved that function, the 9 Pro’s resurrection of it will delight you.
Black-and-white photograph of community art installation in which a large white sculpture of a hand grabs a tree trunk
The monochrome lens usually takes solid black-and-white shots.
The most significant, and most outstanding, transform to the OnePlus 9’s digicam, even so, is the addition of XPan manner. It is a aspect that mimics Hasselblad’s now-discontinued XPan cameras to make an picture that’s reminiscent of individuals you would get with its 30mm and 45mm lenses.
The images are cropped to a sixty five:24 component ratio. It truly is a extraordinary appear that gives you a whole new way to inform stories, and evokes photos of movie stills. There are selections to shoot in color as nicely as black and white.
It truly is tough to overstate just how a lot place XPan gives for creativeness. 4:3 and sixteen:9 element ratios are so ubiquitous, that it normally takes a conquer to get applied to all the distinct items you can do in the structure.
Panoramic shot of a Catholic rectory at evening.
XPan method will allow you to just take dramatic pictures in a one of a kind part ratio.
We analyzed XPan in several lighting eventualities and it executed completely. Our test pictures were immersive and crisp, with outstanding dynamic variety. Depth of discipline is fantastic as properly.
Black and white image of a mid-century constructing
Monochrome pics in XPan method search gorgeous.
Hasselblad’s one of a kind coloration science for XPan also produces an totally different come to feel that is comparable to images shot on Kodak Ektachrome or Fuji Provia slide film. Our photos confirmed fewer contrast and much more natural shades that nearly seem to be slightly undersaturated considering the fact that we’ve develop into so accustomed to more than-saturation on smartphones.
Decommissioned switching station with festive lights
Portraits and scaled-down scenes appear far better with the 30mm focal-length setting in XPan method.
On the entrance of the nine Pro, you are going to locate a 32MP lens. It performs really very well in any lighting issue. There’s a little track record blur in our pictures, which is to be predicted. Foreground element and depth of subject, nevertheless, are location on. Portrait method will work without the need of a hitch as well. Our check pictures had a all-natural bokeh and ideal depth mapping in each and every shot.
A selfie of a bearded white guy in eyeglasses and a cap
Selfies are comprehensive and apparent.
1 Tiny Step Shy of the Crown
The OnePlus nine Professional is an outstanding phone. At $970, it retains its individual versus the marginally additional pricey Galaxy S21 Ultra and Iphone 12 Professional. It does not fairly match the Galaxy S21 Extremely on digital camera zoom or community general performance, but it is really lighter and sleeker, it has some one of a kind digital camera tips, and you can find that renowned OnePlus speed and classy application. That remarkable quick charging and the battery-conserving exhibit also make a massive difference in working day-to-day use. The 9 Pro is far better than the OnePlus 8 series in every way, so the improve is simply warranted. It only fails to nab our Editors’ Decision award mainly because the Samsung Galaxy S21 Extremely is even more outstanding and can be made use of on any carrier. The 9 Professional and the Galaxy S21 Extremely jointly currently define the Android condition of the art. Relying on your priorities, either will serve you really nicely for the future number of years.