OnePlus 9 review

The competition

The OnePlus 9 starts at $729, which is a fairly serious price tag that gets it some fairly serious competition. For starters, it's more expensive than the Samsung Galaxy S21, which starts at $699 but can occasionally be found for a lower price. Probably the most underrated of the three new S21 phones, the standard S21 is still a great smartphone whose only real flaw is perhaps opting for a plastic back in a market full of glass phones.

But if that's a real deal-breaker to you or if you just want something larger, then there's the S21+, which goes for $799 or at times even $749. The S21+ is a fully-featured smartphone that leaves very little on the table and has the performance to match the price tag. Samsung may even throw in an accessory or two in some regions or offer a discount on them if you pick this up, which makes the deal even sweeter.

Samsung Galaxy S21 5G • Samsung Galaxy S21+ 5G • Asus ROG Phone 5 • Apple iPhone 12

The newly launched ASUS ROG Phone 5 is also a tough competitor in this segment. ASUS has not just chosen to pack this phone with as many features as possible but also opted for an aggressive pricing at around the same price as the OnePlus 9. While clearly marketed as a gaming phone (and it's a damn good at that), the ROG Phone 5 is also a fairly complete package, with respectable performance in nearly every area.

If you're looking for something a bit different, then maybe you'd want to consider the Apple iPhone 12. Possibly the best value iPhone in a while, the standard iPhone 12 manages to pack great design and build quality, a high quality display, best in class performance, a high quality set of cameras, easy to use software with unparalleled software and game library, legendary customer support and a high resale value to boot. The iPhone 12 will also be appealing to those who are looking for a more compact smartphone but for those who want something even smaller, there's the $100 cheaper iPhone 12 mini as well, which does basically everything the iPhone 12 does in a smaller size. Yes, the 60Hz display aren't exactly modern and the lack of any kind of charger in the box may be frustrating to some but as a complete package, the iPhone 12 is still hard to beat.

Verdict

From being the hero of its own story to becoming the sidekick, the non-Pro line of OnePlus phones has had a tragic demotion over the years. We first saw this with the OnePlus 7 and two years later, not much has changed.

It's clear the Pro device is going to get all the best stuff moving forward but at times it feels like OnePlus swings the cripple hammer too hard on the non-Pro mode. A plastic frame, no certified ingress protection, lower resolution display from last year's model, no telephoto camera and downgraded main sensor, no 4K 120fps recording, no OIS, and no wireless charging outside of NA and Europe.

As reviewers, it's hard to get excited about the OnePlus 9. Just as it was hard to get excited about the OnePlus 8 and the OnePlus 7. As a phone, it's perfectly adequate and for the most part it's quite nice to use. But at $729 starting price, it's supposed to be nice. The brakes on the OnePlus price hike train stopped working years ago and the company clearly has no plans on slowing down. So then why are things being taken away instead of being added?

We can't decipher these mixed signals. If the OnePlus 9 is available in your region at a reasonable price, then it is a reasonable phone to pick up. But if OnePlus wants to play the price hike game, it will have to do better than this.

Pros

• Good display performance
• Relatively clean software and great UI performance
• Powerful loudspeakers
• Good performance from the main wide and ultra-wide cameras
• Fast charging

Cons

• Plastic frame
• No official IP rating
• No OIS
• No dedicated telephoto camera
• Outdated front camera
• Hasselblad partnership mostly a marketing gimmick
• Monochrome camera is useless
• No wireless charging outside of NA and Europe
• Worse battery life performance than previous models
• Most games still locked to 60fps