5 things I changed about the OnePlus 9 Pro

OnePlus has been a fan favorite among Android enthusiasts taking place seven years ago. In its early days, the company cultivated a reputation for making good phones and selling them at the right prices. As time went on, this became less true. OnePlus phones are still good, broadly speaking, but they’re getting weirder and weirder in ways we don’t love. In our review, we were not very excited about this year’s 9 Pro – for several reasons. Here are five (about) things we would most like to change.

5. Curved screen

Displays that spill dramatically on the edges of their phones have been in vogue for a few years now, but they are a kind of pain in the ass. Without optimizing the interface, items on the screen near the edge of the screen can be distorted and difficult to touch, and without accidentally rejecting the touch, you have to do things you didn’t want to do. And have you ever tried typing on one of these screens in bed, holding your phone over your face? (If you didn’t: it sucks.)

The industry is slowly moving away from models like these; Samsung, which started the whole trend, has started to straighten its curves and even the regular OnePlus 9 has a flat screen. But not 9 Pro. OnePlus, please: stop this.

4. Inconsistency in battery life

Snapdragon’s top SoCs are known to be starving, and the OnePlus 9 Pro includes the latest and greatest (?) Snapdragon 888 chipset. , could squeeze more than five hours of screen time in three full days, other times, using the phone in similar ways for the same duration in a single day, could leak. That half-week time is very impressive. In one day, it is more or less average for a phone of this size. 9 Pro loads ridiculously fast, but we’d like to rely on this speed less often.

3. Room inconsistency and heat problems

9 Pro can take some very beautiful photos in the right conditions – as any iconic device should be able to do. According to his review, Ryne loves color science, and photos on primary and ultra-wide lenses are generally very good, even in low light conditions. Its macro mode, which takes advantage of the ultra-wide shooter’s very small minimum focal length, is also miles ahead of the macro lenses dedicated to most phones.

But its telephoto camera tends to remove slightly cooler and dirtier images than the rest, and the 9 Pro also has a dedicated monochrome sensor, which doesn’t seem to do much. For so much money, all the rooms should be good – and of course there should be no extra, extremely useful just to qualify technically for a quad flex camera.

Really tired of that. pic.twitter.com/h30dcIB8y1

– Artem Russakovskii (@ArtemR) April 6, 2021

There have also been a number of complaints about how the phone handles heat, especially when taking photos and videos: it is known to have an overheating error and faces completely until it cools down, even in cold conditions. which are not particularly harsh. OnePlus says that a solution is received in the coming weeks and hopefully it is true – the warmer weather is just around the corner.

Price

It’s a tired story in tech journalism right now, but OnePlus phones were cheap – the company carved a niche for building “flagship killer” devices that cost hundreds of dollars less than the competition. With each new generation, however, the latest generation OnePlus phones have risen in price, and the profitability of these increased costs for consumers is declining.

OnePlus 9 Pro starts at $ 969 for the eight-gigabyte RAM model (and you can’t even buy it yet, so you’re stuck paying $ 100 more or waiting). It’s only $ 30 less than the Samsung Galaxy S21 +, which has the same processor, a flat screen and a significantly better upgrade policy. Sure, the 9 Pro boasts some advantages over the S21 + – but for a phone that costs four digits, you wouldn’t be mistaken for not expecting compromises (Never Settle ™ and all). Lower price or improve it.

Update your commitment

Probably the worst thing about the 9 Pro is the absolute OnePlus garbage update policy. The company promised only two updates to the operating system version, plus three years of security patches – delivered every two months. This is the kind of support you would expect from a much less expensive device from a low profile company.

Google and Samsung phones – phones that cost half the price of the 9 Pro or less – promise three operating system updates and monthly security updates. Lots of Samsung phones also promise four years of security patches – and not just the expensive ones. We’d like to see a similar commitment from OnePlus: three years of operating system updates and a minimum of three years of security support, delivered monthly.

Bonus: fingerprint sensor location

OnePlus has had fingerprint sensors on the display for years, and this is still true in the 9 Pro: as you can see above, all you need is a quick touch and you’re inside. But the sensor here is bizarrely positioned at the bottom of the screen, less than an inch from the bottom of the phone’s frame. You get used to it, though Why? Just take it out a little.