Another all-rounder

OnePlus 9 Pro

Year after year, the number one problem with One Plus flagship phones has been their underpowered camera. I think One Plus had enough of that this time around, and decided to partner with Hasselblad - one of the biggest camera names in the industry. So, what does this mean for the camera on the One Plus 9 Pro? Is it playing in the big leagues already? Well, it is almost there, but not quite.

Just like other Pro phones, the OnePlus 9 Pro is packed with features and specs. It comes with the latest Snapdragon 888 processor, Adreno 660 GPU, 6.7-inch 120hz AMOLED display with Gorilla Glass protection, up to 12GB LPDDR5 RAM, 256GB storage and a 4500mAh battery coupled with a 65W fast charger. The phone is available in three colours - pine green, stellar black and morning mist. We tested the morning mist version of the phone, which is essentially a glossy silver.

The phone, of course, comes in a red box, but they have included the Hasselblad branding all around it. Inside the box, you will find a letter thanking you for your purchase, a 65W fast charger and the customary red cable, a very cool grey phone protector, and some documentation.

The phone feels and looks like it belongs to the One Plus family - they have kept the textured slider button for instant muting, vibrate or ring mode. I am not a big fan of the glossy back, because it attracts a lot of fingerprints. The camera module is big and juts out a bit, but the cover does a good job of protecting the module from touching any surface.

OnePlus phones for me have always been about their software and this one is no exception. Oxygen OS is as good as ever, and the phone gets regular updates to iron out any bugs or issues. The apps included are minimalistic and there is minimum bloatware. As long as they keep maintaining this level of proficiency in their software, they will be hard to beat. The Snapdragon 888 is the ultimate chipset in the Qualcomm stable right now. This is why it makes sense for OnePlus to use it in the 9 Pro. Everything runs super smooth and gaming on this chip is excellent. It is the same chip that is also in the ASUS ROG 5 gaming phone, so its gaming credentials are legit. Unfortunately, this chipset gets hot while gaming and this is the case here, as well. OnePlus is aware of the problem and I have seen several updates in the last few weeks that are targeting this issue.

The 9 Pro comes in a 4500mAh battery. While other phones out there do come with more capacity, they don't come with 50W wireless charging capability and a 65W fast charger. The battery life is also well managed, partly thanks to the variable refresh rate display.

On static images, OnePlus dynamically reduces the refresh rate of the screen to 1hz. This helps in pushing the battery life even further, because high refresh rates screens tend to drain batteries quickly. So, while the battery seems smaller than some competitors, the fast wired and wireless charging coupled with the adaptive display, manage to keep the phone alive for long, on a single charge.

Now to the cameras. Hasselblad has been at the forefront of regular camera tech for ages. They have been the first camera on the moon, they were used to shoot a lot of iconic photos that are still famous today, and they have been in the camera business since 1888. The 9 Pro has four cameras on the rear - 48MP main camera, a 50MP ultra-wide camera, an 8MP telephoto camera and a 2MP monochrome camera.

On the front, it has a 16MP selfie camera. This may sound like standard specs, and you may be wondering where is Hasselblad in all of this. The answer lies in colour and photography science.

The Hasselblad connection comes with colour-tuning, helping these components produce a beautiful range of tones and colours from what seems like standard components. There is also science applied behind the wide-angle pictures, where the curving along the periphery of the shots have been reduced drastically. The result is a more natural-looking wide-angle shot, which make the pictures stand out. The colours also seem to be vibrant.

While the camera is good, the software still needs a little work to be perfect. The biggest issue I faced while capturing images was the slight lag between when a picture is clicked and what is actually captured. For example, I was trying to shoot a green and red blinking light, and I was trying to capture the green colour, but every time I took the picture, all I could get was the red.

The phone, however, is great at capturing videos - you can record an 8K video at 30fps or a 4k at 120fps and slo-mo videos can go up to 480fps at 720p. So, while it isn't as groundbreaking as OnePlus claims it is, it is still a fantastic camera. I feel the OnePlus 9 Pro with the Hasselblad collaboration is a phone with lots of hidden potentials. Hasselblad has managed to bring a nice colour depth to the pictures and I like the outcome of the collaboration.

Bugs aside, the phone is still blazing fast, and fans of OnePlus would enjoy getting their hands on this one. Starting at R64,999, the OnePlus 9 Pro is still a great all-rounder with my favourite version of Android.

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