OnePlus 8 Pro hands-on review

Internals

Under its deeply blue surface, the OnePlus 8 Pro is packing the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 chipset paired with the Qualcomm X55 modem. This is an Octa-core CPU consisting of 1 high-power 2.84 GHz Kryo 585 Gold core, 3 medium load 2.42 GHz Kryo 585 Gold cores, and 4 power-efficient 1.8 GHz Kryo 585 Silver ones.

Aside from 5G support in mid and low-bands (no mmWave), the new chipset also brings support for Wi-Fi 6. Although the new wireless standard is in its infancy (i.e. Wi-Fi 6 routers are few and expensive), it's nice to start seeing the future of Wi-Fi now.

This year, OnePlus is using higher performance LPDDR5 RAM on the 8 Pro, and there will be 8GB and 12GB variants paired with either 128GB or 256GB of UFS 3.0 storage. With the new RAM, OnePlus claims 30% faster performance with 20% more power efficiency.

Benchmark performance will be predictable, as tends to be the case with OnePlus in the past year or so - and it always performed at the top of its class and we expect the same this time around. We praise Its buttery-smooth performance and paired with the 120Hz display - it's going to give Samsung a run for its money without a heavy software skin weighing it down.

Inside the 8 Pro is a 4,510 mAh battery, up from the 7T Pro's 4,085 mAh pack. With the added screen refresh rate and slightly larger display, we expect about the same in terms of battery endurance, but hopefully better. Warp Charge 30T has been carried over from the 7T/Pro. OnePlus expects you can charge the 8 Pro to 50% in just 23-minutes with Warp Charge.

Before OnePlus launched the 7, it was not a fan of wireless charging, and its founder even admitted that the convenience of this feature would not outweigh its added cost.

It seems, they've reconsidered internally, and today, OnePlus finally added the feature, but only because it was able to debut it with the company's Warp Charge 30 Wireless dock. The company promises a 50% charge if you drop the 8 Pro on its proprietary wireless charger for 30 minutes.

The wireless charger has a built-in fan to keep the heat off. The good thing is that it's barely audible. Check out our experience with it in our dedicated hands-on.

OnePlus even added a reverse-wireless charging option so you can recharge a Qi-compatible smartwatch, earphones, or a buddy's phone. OnePlus also added a power management feature in the software that will contextually recharge your smartphone so that it is topped up in time before you normally wake up.

Camera

The OnePlus 8 Pro sees a few new additions to the camera. The first major update is the camera sensor, which is a Sony IMX 689 with 20% larger pixels and all-pixel omnidirectional autofocus and OIS. We are a little concerned with OnePlus' decision to switch to a dimmer f/1.78 aperture lens when its predecessors were f/1.6. This change shouldn't affect daylight performance, but we hope low-light and Nightscape photos are stronger than last year - which was quite strong.

The ultrawide camera's sensor was updated to a 48MP sensor - the same IMX586 that was used on the main camera of the 7 and 7T. This one has a wide 119.7-degree field of view. We still have the dedicated 3X zoom camera with an f/2.44 aperture lens in front of an 8MP sensor. On paper, the telephoto didn't really see any change from last year.

There's a new fourth camera on the 8 Pro and OnePlus calls it the "Color Filter Camera". It enables one- or two-color filters within the standard shooting mode, but it doesn't seem to do much more than that. We'll be looking into this camera and its usefulness in our full review but for now, we're eager to think of it as nothing more than a glorified depth sensor.

The camera app has been refreshed with some slight changes. The Settings menu has been moved to the upper right corner of the viewfinder, and a new resolution toggle lets you shoot full-res images from the main or ultrawide cameras without having to switch to Pro mode.

Main camera samples

A couple of new features have been added to the camera app for improving the photography experience.

First, there's now a much easier way to shoot in the cameras' full-resolutions (you previously could only do this in Pro mode) and you can shoot full-res photos with either the main or ultrawide camera. There's also a new "Tripod long exposure" option in the camera settings that lets you take up to 30s exposures with Nightscape.

Camera sample: ultrawide • main • 3x telephoto

The front-facing camera is carried over from the OnePlus 7 series. It's the 16MP Sony IMX471 sensor with 1-micron pixels and an f/2.45 aperture lens. This was a great selfie camera on the 7-series, so we've not complaints about bringing it over from the 7 and 7 Pro.

Front facing camera selfies

With all the updates made, we're looking forward to seeing how well performance in low-light has improved with the larger main sensor. We're also excited to test out Nightscape with the ultrawide camera.