OnePlus launches OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 9 Pro, plus the very first OnePlus Watch

OnePlus has today launched two new OnePlus 9 models, the OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 9 Pro – in collaboration with Hasselblad. In addition, it also announced its first smartwatch.

As usual, OnePlus has left almost nothing left for the launch day – with just about every detail drip-fed before the event took place. In fact, most of you are probably here for the pricing – which you can read below.

If you were hoping OnePlus might have bucked the upward trend on pricing, you’ll be disappointed to discover that all of the prices have gone up since last year’s OnePlus 8 and OnePlus 8 Pro launches.

It was also known for some time that OnePlus had teamed up with Hasselblad to gain some much-needed expertise in the camera imaging department, most notably improving the post-processing of images.

As part of a three-year partnership, Hasselblad has worked with OnePlus to improve the colour accuracy – as well as giving the camera application a bit of a facelift and even Hasselblad’s shutter sound and orange shutter button!

The OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 9 Pro each share the new ultra-wide camera, which has a new lens to reduce distortion. Meanwhile the OnePlus 9 Pro gets a new custom Sony image sensor that reduces motion-blue on HDR photos by taking multiple shots simultaneously.

The OnePlus 9 makes do with the same 48-megapixel primary camera as last year’s OnePlus 8T (and indeed the Oppo Find X2 Pro, showing that this camera might not be new – but it’s still highly respectable).

Both models are powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 888 SoC, with Wi-Fi 6, dual SIM (dual SIM, dual standby), 8 or 12GB of RAM and 128 or 256GB of non-expandable storage. Both also come with a 4,500mAh battery and 65W fast charging – but after that, there are some differences; the OnePlus 9 has Qi wireless charging (15W) and the OnePlus 9 a whopping 50W wireless charging from the optional OnePlus Warp Charge 50W wireless charging stand.

Last of all is the new OnePlus Watch, which will come later in the year in two versions; standard and a Cobalt limited edition that is crafted from cobalt alloy and comes with Sapphire glass. The watch can recognise over 110 workout activities, includes GPS, 4GB of internal storage for music played over Bluetooth, remote control of the OnePlus TV (it can even turn off the TV when it detects you’ve fallen asleep), and control of your phone camera.

Both watches also offer battery life of up to 14 days, or around a week with more average usage.

Pricing and Availability

• OnePlus 9 Pro will be available for pre-order at OnePlus, Amazon, John Lewis and Three from today (March 23rd) at 1530, with open sales from March 31st.
• OnePlus 9 will be available for pre-order on OnePlus from today at 1530. From April 26th, open sales will start at Amazon and John Lewis.
• OnePlus Watch availability will be announced in the coming weeks for UK/Europe.
• Warp Charge 50 Wireless Charger will be available from OnePlus and Amazon.

Key Specifications

OnePlus 9 Review

My full review of the Winter Mist coloured OnePlus 9 will be published soon. I had hoped to get it live in time for the launch, but with the lockdown restricting my ability to properly test the camera, and other work, I’ve decided it is better to wait until I’ve had a bit more time with it

After I have finished with the OnePlus 9, I hope to be able to review the Pro version also.

Press Release

OnePlus Launches OnePlus 9 Series Flagship Smartphones and First-Ever OnePlus Watch

Long-term R&D partnership with Hasselblad kicks off with advancements to OnePlus 9 Series camera system through Natural Color Calibration with Hasselblad

Ultra-premium device series features Hasselblad Camera for Mobile, next-generation display technology and new fast wireless charging technology

First-ever OnePlus Watch marks next step in creating ecosystem of smart devices for seamless connected experience

London, March 23, 2021 – Global technology company OnePlus today launched its most advanced flagship smartphones yet with the OnePlus 9 Series, featuring a top-tier flagship camera experience with the Hasselblad Camera for Mobile system, next-generation high refresh rate displays and fast wireless charging technology that outperforms the wired charging solutions of its competitors. Additionally, OnePlus also introduced its first connected wearable for global markets, the OnePlus Watch, offering up to two weeks of battery life, multiple health and activity tracking features, and a sleek and stylish design.

The OnePlus 9 Series is OnePlus’ biggest leap forward in camera quality, achieved through its long-term partnership with legendary professional camera manufacturer Hasselblad, whose cameras have immortalized some of the most iconic faces and events in modern history – including man’s first steps on the moon. OnePlus’ new flagship camera system, Hasselblad Camera for Mobile, brings multiple breakthroughs in smartphone photography, centered around the company’s new standard for smartphone color performance – Natural Color Calibration with Hasselblad – and premium hardware for improved image quality. The OnePlus 9 Series also offers powerful performance with the latest Qualcomm® Snapdragon^TM 888 mobile platform, the superior Fluid Display 2.0 with a DisplayMate A+ rating, and industry-challenging fast charging solutions, Warp Charge 65T and Warp Charge 50 Wireless.

“The OnePlus 9 Series represents a key milestone for OnePlus flagship smartphones. Co-developed with Hasselblad, the new Hasselblad Camera for Mobile will give users the ability to capture their own iconic moments with more accurate colors and premium image quality,” said Pete Lau, Founder, CEO and Chief Product Officer of OnePlus. “Together with the new OnePlus Watch, our latest flagship smartphone series offers a burdenless user experience with even the smallest detail tailored to challenge the smartphone industry and empower our Community through premium technology.

OnePlus 9 Pro

Hasselblad Camera for Mobile on the OnePlus 9 Pro combines state-of-the-art hardware with meticulous software calibration for a significantly improved flagship camera experience. The stunning 120 Hz QHD+ display incorporates next-generation screen technology to improve battery life and gaming performance. Warp Charge 65T and Warp Charge 50 Wireless take charging to a new level, dramatically reducing time spent charging your device. Powered by the latest Qualcomm® Snapdragon^TM 888 mobile platform, the enhanced performance ensures that the OnePlus 9 Series is ready to handle the most demanding tasks with ease.

Hasselblad Camera for Mobile

Color is perhaps the most important factor that determines the quality of mobile photography. With Hasselblad Camera for Mobile, OnePlus aimed to bring Hasselblad’s iconic color performance to a smartphone for the first time. This was a significant challenge for both OnePlus and Hasselblad, since smartphone camera systems work very differently from traditional cameras, and Hasselblad has strict requirements for color performance and image processing. To achieve this goal, OnePlus and Hasselblad jointly calibrated the OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro sensors, carrying out numerous lab tests using Hasselblad’s high standards for color. They then worked together to optimize hundreds of real-life scenes through computational photography to fine tune the color based on their mutual understanding of color performance as well as smartphone users’ needs and habits.

Now, the OnePlus 9 Series uses OnePlus’ new standard for color calibration – Natural Color Calibration with Hasselblad – to bring more perceptually accurate and natural-looking colors to photos taken with the OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro. The first and most significant outcome of the long-term partnership between OnePlus and Hasselblad, this new color solution required months of thorough verification and fine-tuning by both the Hasselblad and OnePlus research and development teams. In addition, a select group of Hasselblad Ambassadors brought extensive professional photography experience to provide invaluable subjective feedback that helped add a new level of aesthetics to the smartphone camera experience.

The OnePlus 9 Pro’s 48MP main camera features a custom-designed IMX789 sensor, co-engineered with Sony, with an impressively large 1/1.4” sensor. The result is exceptional imaging capability, with leading technologies including 2×2 on-chip lens (OCL), 12-bit RAW, dual native ISO, and DOL-HDR. It offers faster focus speeds, four-times more color information for greater color accuracy, cleaner daytime and night shots, and reduced motion blur in videos.

The OnePlus 9 Pro’s unparalleled 50MP ultra-wide camera uses a 1/1.56” Sony IMX766 sensor, which ensures enhanced image quality and lower noise. Its pioneering Freeform Lens uses a series of unique curves to correct the incoming light, bringing distortion at the edge of photos down to around 1%. The ultra-wide camera also allows you to capture high quality macro photos, with the ability to focus from as close as 4 cm away from your subject.

The 8MP telephoto camera on the OnePlus 9 Pro offers 3.3x (77mm) zoom with OIS to reduce blur, maxing out at 30x digital zoom. Also, a dedicated monochrome camera works together with the OnePlus 9 Pro’s main camera to add detail and layering to black and white photos, while a new tilt-shift simulates the special miniature effect of a tilt-shift lens for more creative photos.

The OnePlus 9 Pro’s main camera features 16-times the pixel count of standard 1080p for high-quality videos. It can shoot at 4K 120fps, giving you more creative possibilities in shooting video and editing, with DOL-HDR ensuring you always get the subject in clear view in backlit environments. The OnePlus 9 Pro’s ultra-wide camera can also create time-lapse video when walking.

The new Hasselblad Pro Mode offers incredibly accurate and natural color for a solid foundation for post-editing. It has been revamped with a new user interface based on Hasselblad’s image processing software to give professional-level users a unique Hasselblad look and feel. It also allows for an unprecedented amount of control for expert photographers to fine-tune their photos, with the ability to adjust ISO, focus, exposure time, white balance and more. Users can also shoot in 12-bit RAW format for 64-times the color compared with 10-bit RAW traditionally found in other smartphones.

Fluid Display 2.0

The OnePlus 9 Pro’s Fluid Display 2.0 boasts a new generation of advanced mobile display technology, integrating low-temperature polycrystalline oxide (LTPO) technology, the most advanced backplane technology used in high-end OLED displays, and lightning-fast touch response for gaming. LTPO technology enables the OnePlus 9 Pro’s display to automatically adjust the refresh rate from 120 Hz all the way down to 1 Hz to match the current user scenario, resulting in significantly lower power consumption. Hyper Touch technology also gives you much faster response time when playing certain games by increasing the syncing speed between the processor and display to 360 Hz – up to six-times faster than before.

The OnePlus 9 Pro’s display earned an A+ rating from DisplayMate, offering QHD+, up to 1,300 nits of peak brightness, native 10-bit color depth, E4 emitting material, HDR10+, MEMC, automatic color temperature adjustment, front and back ambient light sensing and more. The display offers the most accurate and natural color reproduction with an exceptional JNCD (Just Noticeable Color Difference) of less than 1.0, for color rated as “visually indistinguishable from perfect”, even exceeding the performance of leading professional monitors.

Performance

With cutting-edge 5G, the Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 888 mobile platform delivers lightning-fast speeds and unprecedented power. With 25% faster CPU performance and 35% faster graphics rendering plus the new 5nm process node, the Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 888 offers significant power-savings, allowing for extensive usage on a single charge.

5G connectivity is powered by the fully integrated X60 5G Modem-RF System. A third-generation global 5G solution, the X60 is world’s first 5nm baseband architecture delivering faster, low-latency 5G mobile speeds using 5G carrier aggregation across FDD and TDD. Also, the X60 reduces power consumption and heat, improving performance and battery life in the OnePlus 9 Pro.

The OnePlus 9 Pro comes with both LPDDR5 RAM and UFS 3.1 storage to deliver the fastest and smoothest experience yet on a OnePlus flagship device. Flagship-level LPDDR5 RAM is 1.5x faster than LPDDR4X and offers speeds up to 6400Mbps. Together with enhanced power-saving capabilities, these technologies complement a hyper-connected lifestyle, taking full advantage of 5G speeds and making multitasking seamless.

Warp Charge

Warp Charge 65T delivers a day’s power in just 15 minutes – and can charge from 1-100% in just 29 minutes. The OnePlus 9 Pro achieves these speeds using a custom 4,500 mAh battery with an improved dual-cell design to reduce internal resistance and heating while charging. This gives the OnePlus 9 Pro the ability to charge at a higher output for an extended period.

Warp Charge 50 Wireless is OnePlus’ fastest-ever wireless charging technology – and one of the fastest solutions in the industry. With both battery cells charging at 25W, Warp Charge 50 Wireless even outpaces most wired fast-charging solutions, charging from 1-100% in just 43 minutes. And our newly designed wireless charger is equipped with two charging coils, so the OnePlus 9 Pro can charge just as quickly both horizontally and vertically.

The power adapter included in the box can also be used to turbo charge non-OnePlus devices including laptops, tablets and more up to 45W using USB PD or PPS.

Design

The OnePlus 9 Pro continues the brand’s vision for burdenless design, offering an integrated, unified and stylish look and feel. With a 2.2 mm thin aluminum frame, the device is very well balanced and comfortable to hold even for extended periods of time. Compared with the previous generation, the curved display of the OnePlus 9 Pro has been carefully optimized to minimize discoloration and mistouches.

The OnePlus 9 Pro comes in three nature-inspired colorways – Morning Mist, Pine Green and Stellar Black – and offers an IP68 rating for water and dust resistance.

OnePlus 9

The OnePlus 9 offers a similarly powerful flagship experience as the OnePlus 9 Pro, with a full 120 Hz display, Qualcomm® Snapdragon^TM 888 mobile platform, next-generation 5G connectivity, Warp Charge 65T as well as the powerful Hasselblad Camera for Mobile for an all-around fast and smooth smartphone experience.

Camera

Hasselblad Camera for Mobile on the OnePlus 9 uses the same advanced color standards as the OnePlus 9 Pro – Natural Color Calibration with Hasselblad. The triple camera system gives users the power to capture stunning images with some of the most natural color on any mobile device for a professional-level photography experience.

The OnePlus 9 uses the same industry-leading 50MP ultra-wide camera as the OnePlus 9 Pro, with a 1/1.56” Sony IMX766 sensor and uniquely curved Freeform Lens to minimize edge distortion. The 48MP main camera also boasts exceptional imaging capabilities, thanks to a custom-designed 1/1.43” Sony IMX689 sensor, 2×2 OCL, 12-bit RAW, dual native ISO, and 3-HDR. The OnePlus 9 camera system offers faster focus speeds, 64-times more color information compared with traditional 10-bit sensors, cleaner daytime and night shots and higher dynamic range in videos. A dedicated monochrome camera works with the main camera for detailed and layered black and white photos.

120 Hz Fluid Display

The OnePlus 9’s 120 Hz Fluid Display provides an immersive viewing experience regardless of what you’re watching. Using the same top-notch flat display as the OnePlus 8T, which received a DisplayMate A+ rating, the OnePlus 9’s 6.55” Fluid Display features a 120 Hz AMOLED panel with industry-leading color accuracy and improved automatic brightness control.

The brightness of the OnePlus 9’s display can go up to 1,100 nits with HDR10+ certification, to improve your experience when watching HDR videos. It is also equipped with two ambient light sensors with 8,192 levels of brightness for smoother automatic brightness control. Comfort Tone also adjusts the color temperature of the display to match your environment for a more comfortable reading experience.

Warp Charge

The OnePlus 9’s 4,500 mAh battery utilizes an improved dual-cell design that is able to charge from 1-100% in just 29 minutes. North America and Europe versions of the OnePlus 9 also support up to 15W Qi wireless charging for added convenience.

Design

The OnePlus 9 features a sleek look in line with OnePlus’ burdenless design heritage. The curved design on the back and light weight give the device a comfortable feeling in the hand. It comes in three colors inspired by nature – Winter Mist, Arctic Sky and Astral Black.

OxygenOS 11

Co-created with the OnePlus community, OxygenOS 11 brings speed, smoothness and customization to the OnePlus 9 Series for the most intuitive, efficient and personalized Android experience and a simple yet bold design that makes navigation easier even with one hand.

The new Turbo Boost 3.0 memory optimization enables you to keep more than 25% more apps open in the background than before. OnePlus achieved this with the help of RAM compression, which makes data on the RAM smaller, and virtual RAM, which turns phone storage into RAM so your phone can have more physical RAM to work with.

OnePlus devices are built to support high frame rate experiences for the highest performance and most demanding games. Pro Gaming Mode unlocks the power of the OnePlus 9 Series’ CPU and GPU and blocks notifications from apps, calls and other distractions to let users fully dive into their favorite mobile games. An improved five-layer gaming-grade cooling system, OnePlus Cool Play, also helps with heat dissipation during intensive gaming.

OnePlus Watch

The OnePlus Watch is the latest extension of the company’s strategic plan to offer the OnePlus experience to more users around the world with our growing portfolio of best-in-class products offering a burdenless user experience.  As the company’s first global wearable device, the OnePlus Watch aims to integrate into the daily digital life of OnePlus users, offering stylish design, seamless connection, smart fitness tracking and incredibly long battery life.

Design

The OnePlus Watch showcases the same sense of craftsmanship and build quality as OnePlus smartphones, resulting in a product that is powerful to use and beautiful to hold. The round design emulates the look of a traditional watch, with a smooth arc on the side of the case that is hand-polished with more than 20 treatments for a refined finish. The 46mm case is crafted from quality stainless steel, with 2.5D curved glass on the face a subtle yet radiant glossy CD pattern on the display bezel for an added touch of class.

OnePlus Watch Cobalt Limited Edition

Complementing the minimalist aesthetic of the Classic Edition, the OnePlus Watch Cobalt Limited Edition takes premium design a step further with materials traditionally found only on luxury watches. The watch case of the Limited Edition is crafted from cobalt alloy, a unique hypoallergenic material that is twice as hard and more corrosion resistant than traditional stainless steel. Meanwhile, the watch face is made from specially-treated sapphire glass, with a Mohs rating of 9, for enhanced brightness and exceptional scratch resistance.

Seamless Connectivity 

The OnePlus Watch seamlessly connects to your digital life, helping you immerse yourself in every moment of your life. It conveniently allows you to view and respond to notifications, make and answer phone calls, play music and take photos. The OnePlus Watch comes with 4 GB of standalone storage (2 GB for actual use), enough for over 500 songs, and is compatible with most Bluetooth earbuds for wireless music playback on the go. It also connects with the OnePlus TV, acting as a smart remote control that can lower volume when a call comes in or even turn off the TV before when it detects that you have fallen asleep.

Powerful Battery, Proactive Fitness   

The OnePlus Watch gives users exceptional battery life quickly, delivering all-day power in just five minutes or a week’s power in just 20 minutes. The long-lasting 402 mAh battery gives you enough power for up to two weeks of sustainable use, as well as up to a week of power for the most active users.

Featuring 5ATM + IP68 water and dust resistance and 110+ workout types, including automatic workout detection for jogging and running, the OnePlus Watch keeps up with the most intense workouts. Push your personal performance with metrics such as pulse, distance, calories, speed monitoring and SWOLF efficiency for swimmers. With a built-in GPS, the OnePlus Watch tracks all your activity accurately, even when the phone is not next to you. It also offers blood oxygen saturation monitoring, stress detection, breathing training, rapid heart rate alerts and sedentary reminders, all easily manageable on the OnePlus Health app.

Official Photos