OnePlus 9R hands-on review

Competition

The OnePlus 9R faces some pretty severe competition, including some from other BBK brands.

The toughest competition comes from the Xiaomi Mi 10T Pro. This phone has a 108MP camera, Snapdragon 865, 144Hz LCD, and a 5000mAh battery and costs less than the OnePlus 9R in India. Then there's the Mi 10T, which swaps out the 108MP camera with a still fairly impressive 64MP one and costs even less.

Next is the Samsung Galaxy A72. Samsung doesn't try as hard in the specs department, with a relatively tame 90Hz display and Snapdragon 720G but it does have a 64MP main camera, a proper telephoto camera, and a 5000mAh battery. It's also a fair bit cheaper than the 9R.

The older Galaxy S20 FE 5G is still quite a good option. It's a bit more expensive than the OnePlus 9R but it does have all the bells and whistles, including a 120Hz AMOLED display, an impressive triple camera system, Snapdragon 865, and a 4500mAh battery.

Finally, there's the Realme X7 Pro 5G. This phone is a lot cheaper than the OnePlus 9R but has a surprisingly similar spec sheet, including a 120Hz AMOLED display, MediaTek Dimensity 1000+ chipset that is fairly close in performance to the Snapdragon 870, 64MP main rear camera, and 65W fast charging.

Conclusion

The OnePlus 9R is an unusually lazy product, so much so that we are left wondering why OnePlus didn't just drop the price on the 8T and continue selling it. It's like showing up to the class with the same homework two days in a row and expecting the teacher to not notice.

It's not that the OnePlus 9R is a bad product; we thought the 8T was quite good overall and being largely the same phone, the OnePlus 9R is also a good smartphone for most users. However, it doesn't exactly push the needle forward in terms of innovation, technology, or even value.

Yes, the 9R is cheaper now than what the 8T launched for in India but after six months, that is to be expected. In the meantime, the competition has gotten much more aggressive and many of them are now better value.

Of course, OnePlus still holds an advantage in terms of the software experience over its rivals. It's something that one can only experience first-hand and not something that can be quantified on a spec sheet. However, the company has continued to push the limits of what the users might find annoying in terms of promotional content by masquerading it as value-added services. The whole host of features that were added over the course of a couple of years also tend to be quite nagging and attention-hungry. These may seem like small things, especially if you are coming from other manufacturers but when your entire brand is built on a reputation for clean and distraction-free software, it will always be the little thing that breaks the camel's back.

As lazy as it is, we do still recommend the OnePlus 9R for buyers in India as it is still a more robust complete package compared to some of its rivals. However, there's some good competition out there right now and you can't really go wrong with any of it.

Pros

• Premium build quality and finish
• Great display performance
• Excellent UI performance
• Good main camera performance in daylight
• Blazing fast charging speeds
• Great stereo loudspeakers
• Relatively clean and well-designed software

Cons

• No water and dust resistance rating
• Mediocre ultra-wide and macro camera
• Useless monochrome camera
• Outdated front camera
• Minor annoyances in software
• Most games locked to 60Hz