You either die as a flagship killer or live long enough to see yourself become the flagship and apparently, this seems to be the case for OnePlus. After nearly 6 years of offering remarkable smartphones with flagship level specification at valued priced, the company true to its motto of “never settle”. Finally released their very own flagship smartphone at a flagship level price tag.
In the past, OnePlus has always cut some corners to provide a smartphone which was nearly flagship material but missing some key features which weren’t essential, but could have been there. Mostly to reduce the overall cost of the smartphone. That seems to have changed with the arrival of the new OnePlus 8 Pro.
Best Smartphone Display in the Industry
Yes, you read that right. The display on the OnePlus 8 Pro right now has to be the best display on a smartphone, period. Previously, it was Samsung who held the crown. However, OnePlus has outdone Samsung this time. OnePlus 8 Pro spots a 6.78 inches QHD+ AMOLED display made by Samsung. The display on the 8 Pro is much brighter (1300 nits) than the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra. The color calibration on the display is much better and true to life like. Display Mate, the equivalent of DXO Mark for displays, say it’s the best display they have tested on a smartphone.
That’s not all folks, the OnePlus 8 Pro’s display has a staggering 120Hz refresh rate and offers more customization than ever. You can tweak it to work at a 60Hz and FHD, if you so wished; offering much power to the hands of the users. The brand new MEMC technology on the OnePlus 8 Pro also provides a software based upscaling of videos. Which allows videos shoot at 24fps, 30fps or 60fps to be upscale to 120fps. However, the whole thing can be called a work in progress, as the whole 120fps conversion might not be that smooth.
Flagship Specifications and Less Compromises
Powered by the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 865, LPDDR5 RAM and UFS 3.0 Storage with Turbo Write; the OnePlus 8 Pro offers Flagship level performance, in some cases scoring much higher benchmarks compared to its close rivals. But, that’s pretty much expected of OnePlus smartphones. But, what’s actually new on the flagship is how they made so much less compromises this time around. The 8 Pro now comes with official rating of IP68 and a 30W wireless charging. It also supports traditional 30W wired charging and the 30W Warp charger brick is included within the package. The 4510 mAh battery on the 8 Pro can be charged both wired and wireless within an hour or so.
It’s actually sad to see how OnePlus hasn’t gone beyond the 30W for its wired charger. When they first introduced the WARP charging, it was really something. Now even a sub USD 500 smartphone comes with 50W charger, while flagships even going close to 65W. Really hope they will improve on that. Another, piece of information OnePlus has not provided was the fact that 30W wireless charging was only possible on their own wireless charger not on universal Qi wireless chargers. So, if you want to experience that sweet 30W wireless charging you might need to buy an OnePlus wireless charger instead.
Much Better Cameras
Compared to last year’s OnePlus 7T Pro, this year’s OnePlus 8 Pro comes with a quad camera setup. A newer sensor based primary 48 MP (f/1.8) lens, an 8 MP (f/2.4) telephoto lens with 3X optical hybrid zoom, a 48 MP (f/2.2) ultra-wide lens which doubles as a macro and lastly a 5MP Color Filter lens. The first 3 lens of the OnePlus 8 Pro offers significantly better quality for the images they capture and provides an overall better experience when you just want to capture some decent photography in auto mode. The dynamic range has improved and so has the video processing. The video quality and stability of the OnePlus 8 Pro is on par with most of the other flagships. Sometimes offering much better quality in low light conditions. The OnePlus 8 Pro traded the pop-up camera for a 16 MP (f/2.45) corner punch hole selfie camera. Well, some might argue this is a downgrade, as the pop-up camera offered much better full screen display quality. But, I’ll say it’s more of a personal preference, which will vary person to person.
Although, the camera section has improved significantly over its predecessor, but it leaves so much room for nitpicking.
In this era, where numbers speak louder, a 48MP primary lens does seem a bit obsolete, even though it performs really well. However, when you compared the OnePlus 8 Pro’s 48 MP camera samples to the newer 108 MP camera samples. It’s very easy to notice how much more detail the 108 MP camera captures for each photo. The 48 MP ultra-wide lens is basically the primary camera of the older OnePlus 7T Pro, hence the ultra-wide images quality will be much better, however the overall field of view is much smaller compared to normal ultra-wide lens. Last but not the least is the 5MP color filter lens, which absolutely makes no sense. I mean, it’s basically what a photo filtering software does. But, now you have a camera that was made for that specific purpose instead. Another thing I noticed was how OnePlus kept boosting about their Display Mate score but hasn’t done any DXO Mark test for their cameras. This leave room for doubt, that even OnePlus might not have the confidence that the OnePlus 8 Pro can top the chart.
The Competition
The base model of the OnePlus 8 Pro starts at USD 900 and at this price point, there are so many other flagships that are waiting to contest the OnePlus 8 Pro. One of the closest competition of the OnePlus 8 Pro is the Samsung Galaxy S20+, which is so similar to the OnePlus 8 Pro. Currently the Samsung Galaxy S20+ is much cheaper compared to OnePlus 8 Pro. Next up, is the Xioami Mi 10 Pro 5G which is similarly priced and can offer similar performance like the OnePlus 8 Pro, but lacks few feature here and there. Lastly is the flagship killer from Xiaomi, the RedMi K30 Pro Zoom which offers flagship level performances and quality but for a much lower price.
Verdict
The OnePlus 8 Pro is an excellent flagship with top of the class display, performance, good cameras and the stock like Oxygen OS, making it one of the best overall flagship you can buy for this price point, if you are willing to overlook some of its flaws.