OnePlus 9/Pro 5G land with America's best displays, fastest charging, and Hasselblad cameras

Well, even if its flagship phone pricing differs less and less from the Apple-Samsung duopoly pricing, the goodwill of the fans that it built just culminated in the fresh OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro that pinpoint what a user wants in a phone, and execute mercilessly. How come? We'll spare you the usual specs rundown, and just go straight for the details that make the new OnePlus 9 series unique among phones that can be bought in the US.

OnePlus 9 Pro

- 12GB + 256GB storage

$1069

Buy at OnePlus

OnePlus 9

$499 ⁹⁹

$599 ⁹⁹

Expired

According to OnePlus, "Morning Mist shimmers from silver to black, resembling fog on a glossy mirror," while "Pine Green uses a double-layer matte finish resulting in a softer and warmer hand feel with fewer fingerprints," and these are exactly the colors we are getting in the US. Unfortunately, the "frosted matte glass of Stellar Black resembles the classic sandstone look and feel of the OnePlus One, now smoother than ever before and practically free of fingerprints" is not making it at this side of the ponds.

Key OnePlus 9 Pro display features:

What's the most important part of a phone? The call quality, the processor, the camera, the memory? Nah, that thing you'll spend a fifth of your adult life staring at, the display. There is a reason the OnePlus 9 Pro screen bagged A+ rating from the panel testing honchos from Displaymate, and, even though they seem to give those ratings like candy lately, in the case of the OnePlus 9 Pro the score is utterly warranted.

The phone takes on the current best phone display we've measured in a review - that of the Find X3 Pro - and makes it even better by lowering the minimum refresh rate threshold to hit the absolute 1Hz-120Hz range, compared to 5Hz-120Hz on the X3 Pro, or 10Hz-120Hz on the Galaxy S21 Ultra. That's in addition to all the other bells and whistles the OnePlus 9 Pro panel has - frugal LTPO technology that manages the refresh rate on a hardware level, Pixelworks fine-tuning and factory color calibration, 120Hz@1440p refresh, HDR10+ imaging abilities, the works.

What about the OnePlus 9's 6'5" 1080p flat screen? It's every billion-color bit as factory calibrated as the 9 Pro, and offers 120Hz refresh rate as well, it's just not as granular and variable as it is on the Pro - you'll get 60Hz display when the software upscales YouTube and other video, or 120Hz in most other scenarios, and that's that.

Key OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro camera features:

Speaking of color calibration, that transforms to the camera units on the OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro as well, courtesy of the newfangled partnership with the storied Swedish camera company Hasselblad. You know, the one used to shoot Earth from the Moon during the Apollo 11 mission. 

Just like in some Leica (Huawei) and Zeiss (Nokia) partnerships, OnePlus claims that this is not a simple case of logo appropriation, but rather a concerted, 3-year, multimillion dollar effort to improve on its phones' cameras, the only Achilles heel left to protect. OnePlus wanted to take "rich aesthetic knowledge of traditional photography and blend it together with the computational photography that we already do well," and that's precisely why the first Hasselblad for Mobile effort called Natural Color Calibration with Hasselblad was developed exclusively for the OnePlus 9 series:

While OnePlus tips that the $150 million Hasselblad for Mobile camera splurge it is preparing over the next three years will at some point include not only color calibration efforts, but also jointly developed hardware like exclusive lenses and sensor calibration, the exclusivity push has already started. The 9 Pro sports a 48MP sensor, which may sound like the same IMX689 one that the OnePlus 9 and the OnePlus 8 Pro have, but is actually a bespoke IMX789 sensor from Sony no other phone maker has used yet. Add to it the best ultrawide camera for mobiles - Sony's 50MP IMX766 sensor - and, while the 9 Pro won't win any zoom records with its 8MP 3x telephoto cameras, it will deliver where it matters most to users.

 

The OnePlus 9 swaps the new Sony sensor for the 48MP IMX689 one that is also used in the OnePlus 8 Pro, and skips on the telephoto camera, but something had to give to hit that $729 price sweet spot. It still offers Hasselblad's Natural Color Calibration, though, as well as the unique Hasselblad Pro shooting mode that "allows for an unprecedented amount of control for professional photographers to fine-tune their photos, with the ability to adjust ISO, focus, exposure times, white balance and more." To top it all off, the Pro mode offers "authentic" Hasselblad user interface based on its image processing software, and allows to record in 12-bit RAW mode for the ultimate in mobile photography tinkering.

Barring Xiaomi's Ultra models, OnePlus offers the fastest wired charging out out there, and has supplied its 65W brick in the box of both the OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro. The WARP charging now has improved controls, both on the hardware and software sides, and takes the dual-cell 4500mAh batteries of the phones from zero to a 100% in 29 minutes, ensuring 50% charge until you've brewed a cup of coffee.

OnePlus 9 Pro

- 12GB + 256GB storage

$1069

Buy at OnePlus

OnePlus 9

$499 ⁹⁹

$599 ⁹⁹

Expired

If you think that's impressive, wait to hear why the OnePlus 9 Pro offers the fastest charging combo of any phone on the market. You'd have to buy a dedicated Warp Charge 50 Wireless Charger for $69.99 to make it work, but the OnePlus 9 Pro can be filled up to the brim wirelessly for just 40 minutes! Yep, you read that right - 50W wireless charging is a thing now, and puts Samsung or especially Apple's fast charging efforts to shame, both in the wired, and in the wireless department. The OnePlus 9 makes do with what Apple and Samsung are offering - 15W wireless charging - which one would you get?