The time for open secrets is over – OnePlus has just announced its new OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro smartphones during a launch event broadcast this morning. As expected, OnePlus has partnered with legendary camera maker Hasselblad. The partnership will eventually see the two companies jointly develop new types of camera hardware. For now, however, the OnePlus 9 series should benefit from advanced color calibration, resulting in more accurate and natural-looking tones in photos taken with both devices.
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The OnePlus 9 Pro uses a 48-megapixel sensor co-developed with Sony as its primary shooter, and is flanked by a 50-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera and an 8-megapixel telephoto with 3.3x optical zoom range. The highlight here is the ultra-wide camera. OnePlus claims that it is one of the largest sensors in a smartphone. What’s more, the company has found a way to significantly reduce edge distortion. This is something you will see when photographing architecture. Photos from the OnePlus 9 Pro’s ultra-wide-angle camera will not have distorted lines.
And since Hasselblad deals almost exclusively with professional-grade medium-format cameras, it may be natural that special attention has been paid to the Pro modes of the OnePlus 9 series. In addition to typical features such as direct control over ISO, focus, exposure and more, Hasselblad Pro mode also allows users to take photos as 12-bit RAW files and work with an editing interface inspired by Hasselblad’s own cameras. Oh, and the OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro will emulate the sound of a classic Hasselbad shutter. Of course, the photos are only half the story. On the video front, the OnePlus 9 Pro can capture 4K video at 120 frames per second and 30 FPS.
Last year’s OnePlus 8 Pro had a screen that was updated 90 times per second, but the new 9 Pro, instead, features an LTPO panel with a 120Hz refresh rate. Most importantly, the screen doesn’t lock at 120 Hz – the refresh rate peaks when the screen is used for games or long web pages, but drops to up to 1 Hz when you are reviewing your photos or reading static text pages . Devices like the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra also carry screens with varying refresh rates, but they can reach as little as 10 Hz. The advantage of the screen working this way is that the phone can save battery power when displaying static content. A new HyperTouch feature will work with selected games, including Call of Duty Mobile, to reduce the entry delay.
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Like the rest of the main smartphones from the beginning of 2021, the 9 Pro includes one of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 888 chipsets, paired here with 8 GB or 12 GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 128 GB or 256 GB of storage. That power should guarantee the kind of agile performance we’re used to on OnePlus phones, as well as one of the Pro’s standout features: its 6.7-inch Quad HD AMOLED screen. To power everything, there is a 4,500 mAh battery. OnePlus says that you will easily have a day of activity on the phone. The super-fast Warp Charge 65T from OnePlus is there to fully charge the phone in about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, with the company’s proprietary wireless charging pad, you can recharge your battery in approximately 45 minutes.
The standard OnePlus 9 takes much of what makes the Pro model interesting and packs it into a smaller, less expensive body. It still uses the Snapdragon 888 and comes in the same RAM and storage configurations, but instead offers a 120 Hz, 6.5 inch screen that peaks at Full HD. The camera configuration is also slightly different: although it uses the same 50-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera as its more premium sister, its main camera uses an older 48-megapixel sensor to save costs. That said, it can still capture video at 8K and 30 frames per second.
The OnePlus 9 Pro will be available in three colors: Morning Mist, Pine Green and Stellar Black. In the meantime, you can get OnePlus 9 in Winter Mist, Astral Black and Arctic Sky. Pre-orders for OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro will open on March 26, with official sales starting on April 2. The OnePlus 9 Pro will start at $ 1069, while the OnePlus 9 will start at $ 729.