OnePlus 9 Pro and OnePlus 9 has finally been presented and marks one of the largest launches of flagship mobiles to date in 2021.
As expected, these two mobiles offer many improvements compared to OnePlus 8 Pro respective OnePlus 8, especially with the new Hasselblad-adjusted cameras whose goal is to fix previous weaknesses on the OnePlus mobile cameras. But the question we are going to try to answer in this article is: how do they compare to each other?
What do you really get from choosing Pro and is it worth the extra amount you have to pay for the privilege? Let’s take a closer look at how these two mobiles compare to each other.
Price and availability
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Both OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 9 Pro represent a price increase compared to their predecessors, OnePlus 8 and OnePlus 8 Pro respectively.
But we leave the discussion about it to another article. What is important to us here is how they compare with each other, and on that front there have also been some changes.
The starting price for OnePlus 9 is SEK 7,700 for the model with 8 GB RAM and 128 GB storage, while the model with 12 GB RAM and 256 GB storage costs around a thousand kroner more. OnePlus 9 Pro, on the other hand, has a starting price of around SEK 9,700 for the model with 8 GB RAM and 128 GB storage and goes all the way up to SEK 10,700 for the model with 12 GB RAM and 256 GB storage.
It is thus a fairly large price difference from the lowest to the highest price in the series and marks a larger gap between these two mobiles compared to counterparts in the OnePlus 8 series.
Design
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OnePlus has not done anything new, bold with the design of the OnePlus 9 Pro and OnePlus 9. These are simply two nice, well-built mobiles. They undoubtedly lack the visual appeal of Samsung’s and Apple’s latest mobiles, but they certainly do not look bad.
Of the two, the OnePlus 9 Pro is the mobile that both looks better and feels better. It may sound obvious considering its Pro status, but last year’s OnePlus 8 was at about the same level as its OnePlus 8 Pro sibling, and the two models were actually difficult to distinguish. But that is not the case this time.
The reason for this is largely due to the OnePlus 9 model. While the OnePlus 9 Pro is more or less a continuation of the OnePlus 8 Pro design – albeit with a less prominent camera module – the OnePlus 9 represents something of a regression.
The cheaper mobile phone’s chassis no longer consists of aluminum. Instead, OnePlus has chosen to use a “fiberglass-reinforced polymer frame” – what ordinary people call fine plastic. Even if it looks good, and you still get a glass back, it undoubtedly makes the phone feel cheaper than the Pro model.
The colors are also a little different. OnePlus 9 Pro is available in the glossy silver color Morning Mist, the matte Forest Green and the glossy Stellar Black, while the OnePlus 9 is available in the light purple color Winter Mist, the light blue Arctic Sky and the glossy Astral Black.
Although the OnePlus 9 Pro is 3 mm higher than the OnePlus 9 at 163.2 mm, it is also half a millimeter narrower. This is because the OnePlus 9 has a completely flat screen and has larger frames around the sides, while the screen on the OnePlus 9 Pro is slightly rounded at the edges and has thinner frames, which gives a narrower and more premium design. (Interestingly, the sides of the screen are less rounded compared to the OnePlus 8, as many users found that their fingers slid easily over the edge).
Despite the difference in size and material, both mobiles weigh almost equally. OnePlus 9 Pro weighs in at 197 grams, while OnePlus 9 weighs 192 grams.
Both mobiles have the standard OnePlus slider on the right edge, which allows you to set your mobile to silent mode, vibration or ringtone with a simple click.
Screen
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The OnePlus 9 Pro screen is better than the one on the OnePlus 9 in almost every way. It is 6.7 inches larger than the 6.55 inches on the OnePlus 9.
You also get a sharper screen on the Pro model – a QHD screen with a resolution of 3216 x 1440, while OnePlus 9 has an FHD screen with a resolution of 2400 x 1080. This gives much more pixel-dense images on the Pro model with 525 ppi compared to 402 ppi on OnePlus 9.
Both are AMOLED screens and have similar powerful colors and deep blacks. But even here, the OnePlus 9 Pro gets higher scores, with a higher peak brightness of 1300 nits (compared to 1100 nits) and built-in 10-bit color depth.
Although both monitors support a refresh rate of 120 Hz (an improvement over the OnePlus 9 series compared to the OnePlus 8 series which only offered 90 Hz), the OnePlus 9 Pro has more features. Thanks to the addition of LTPO technology, it can adjust the frame rate from 1 Hz to 120 Hz depending on what is displayed (for example, if you are watching a saved photo or playing an intense online game), which saves energy. It also has a faster touch sampling rate with its Hypertouch feature, which recognizes fingerprints faster than ever for top-notch gaming performance.
Both screens are fantastic in themselves, but it feels like the OnePlus 9 Pro screen is half a generation ahead. Which, considering that the OnePlus 9 screen continues from the OnePlus 8T launched at the end of 2020, is not that far from the truth.
When run side-by-side, the OnePlus 9 Pro screen is clearly the brighter, more vibrant and more colorful of the two. But of course, the vast majority will not compare them in this way.
Another point to note here is the presence of a fast fingerprint reader inside the screens of both mobiles, but they may read the fingerprints incorrectly if you do not have your thumb exactly on the reader.
Camera
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OnePlus 8 Pro was the first OnePlus mobile with a really good camera. Both OnePlus 9 Pro and OnePlus 9 continue in the same direction.
When it comes to OnePlus 9, the difference compared to OnePlus 8 Pro is clear. It has the same Sony IMX689 48 MP main camera, but without the help of OIS. Still, it takes bright, fairly sharp pictures.
OnePlus 9 Pro takes things to the next level with a new 48 MP custom Sony IMX789 camera. It has the same size as its predecessor at 1 / 1.43 “, and provides the same 12-megapixel images with 2.24 μm pixels using pixel binding technology.
Both mobiles benefit from OnePlus’ new collaboration with Hasselblad. Although the Swedish camera manufacturer has not yet become involved in the hardware side of the cameras (we expect to see it in future OnePlus mobiles), they have instead turned their attention to color science. As a result, both phones can take pictures that are full of color, using the ability to take pictures in 12-bit RAW format.
As previously mentioned, the cameras on the OnePlus 9 Pro stand out more, with fuller colors, greater dynamic range and more detail when you zoom in. The improvements in dynamic range come in part from the provision of DOL-HDR (Digital Overlap High Dynamic Range) technology, which allows both light and dark data to be presented simultaneously.
Nightscape mode on the OnePlus 9 Pro can also take sharper, clearer and brighter images than its sibling, which no doubt gets help from the inclusion of OIS.
Going back to hardware, the OnePlus 9 Pro also benefits from the inclusion of a dedicated 8 MP telephoto lens, which can take 3.3x optically zoomed images. OnePlus 9, on the other hand, does not receive such equipment.
The rest of the camera package is the same between the two mobiles. Both have impressive Sony IMX766 ultra-wide-angle 50 MP lenses, which are 3.2 times larger than the equivalent used on the iPhone 12 Pro Max. They also have freeform lenses, which means that wide-angle images suffer from much smaller edge distortions than most other wide-angle images on mobile phones. You also get a 2 MP monochrome lens on both mobiles, which enhances all the black and white photos you take.
Both mobiles also have a Sony IMX471 camera of 16 MP on the front, which is a pretty decent selfie camera.
Specifications and performance
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While the OnePlus 9 Pro has so far had the clear advantage in each category, it and the OnePlus 9 are largely equal in terms of performance. Both are powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 888-SoC, which is the best chipset chip for Android flagships right now.
This is supported by either 8 GB or 12 GB LPDDR5 RAM in both cases, depending on the model you choose. The performance feels equally fast in both mobiles, even though the OnePlus 9 Pro seems to have a very small lead according to benchmark tests.
We ran Geekbench 5 at the same time on both mobiles, and OnePlus 9 Pro was consistently a fraction faster and had a slightly higher score. The average result of the multi-core tests ended up at 3739 for OnePlus 9 Pro and 3587 for OnePlus 9. That is a very small difference.
Given the high specifications, it was not very surprising that we could play something like PUGB Mobile at the highest settings on both mobiles, with remarkably fluid performance. In the case of the OnePlus 9 Pro, this means a UHD resolution and an Ultra frame rate.
This superb gaming performance is aided by the introduction of larger steam cooling chambers for both mobiles, which provides more efficient heat dissipation when heavily loaded for extended periods of time. The fast processors and GPUs can run at full power longer, without having to stifle performance.
The storage options available are also the same, with the option to choose either 128 GB or 256 GB – although it is not possible to expand, as there is no microSD space.
Both mobiles use stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos support. OnePlus has also equipped both mobiles with improved haptic engines, and of course both mobiles support sub-6 and mid-band 5G, although only OnePlus 9 Pro supports mmWave 5G.
Battery
You get 4500 mAh dual-cell batteries with both mobiles, which is probably why they have similar weight despite their slightly different materials.
This information may worry potential OnePlus 9 Pro buyers. After all, the more expensive mobile phone has a larger, brighter and sharper screen to keep going.
However, the introduction of LTPO screen technology helps to curb some of the extra power consumption. Unlike the OnePlus 9, the Pro screen can drop from 120 Hz all the way down to 1 Hz when appropriate.
The result of this is that both mobiles last about the same amount of time on one charge. You will be able to get through a full day of moderate to heavy use with both mobiles, but intensive use will definitely drain the battery faster.
Both mobiles have a Warp Charge 65T charger included in the package, which is different from what Samsung and Apple have chosen to do for their latest mobiles that have been sent without a charger. The 65W charge is also much faster than what the Samsung Galaxy S21 or iPhone 12 series supports.
With the help of this charger, both mobiles can charge from 1 to 100% in just 28 minutes, which is incredibly fast.
However, only the OnePlus 9 Pro supports fast wireless charging. For that, you need to buy the Warp Charge 50 wireless charger from OnePlus, but if you do, you can go from 1 to 100% in just 43 minutes. OnePlus 9 offers only 15W wireless charging, but it is still competitive with the previously mentioned premium competitors.
Opinion
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OnePlus has created two more compelling devices with its OnePlus 9 Pro and OnePlus 9.
In the OnePlus 9 Pro you have a real flagship challenger, with all the specifications and refined components that you expect for the money. In OnePlus 9, you have an affordable flagship for competing mobiles like Samsung Galaxy S21 and iPhone 12.
OnePlus 9 Pro is without a doubt the better mobile of the two. It has a superior screen, a stronger camera and a more premium design, all in one package that is neither much bigger nor heavier.
But for those who do not want to spend the slightly larger amount of money, the OnePlus 9 still gives you top performance and a solid camera. The differences actually only become apparent when you use these two mobiles side by side, which most people will not do.
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