OnePlus’s newest range-topping Eight Professional cellphone places Samsung on discover, that includes a slick design, 120Hz display, 5G, improved cameras and even wi-fi charging.
Beginning at £799, the Eight Professional builds on the success of final yr’s £649 7 Professional and £699 7T Professional, however with a better value on par with its premium rivals. In providing it, OnePlus has shifted from its self-proclaimed cut-price “flagship killer” roots to immediately competing with the likes of Samsung and Apple and not using a large value benefit.
The Eight Professional simplifies the design of final yr’s fashions. Gone is the novel popup selfie digicam, changed by a extra conventional gap punch located about one-sixth in from the highest left of the display. It’s small and pretty unobtrusive throughout use.
The massive industry-leading QHD+ 6.78in display is the star of the present, filling your complete entrance of the gadget. New for this yr is a bump up from 90Hz to 120Hz refresh price, matching Samsung’s S20 line and a smidgen smoother in gradual scrolls than final yr’s telephones or the cheaper OnePlus 8.
The distinction between the earlier normal 60Hz screens and a 120Hz display is sort of one thing: scrolling via lists, websites, content material and different animations is simply a lot smoother at 120Hz. It’s tough to return.
The display can be utilized in both FHD+ or QHD+ at 120Hz, in contrast to Samsung’s Galaxy S20 Extremely, which is restricted to FHD+ at 120Hz.
A glass again is not only for aesthetics this yr, because the Eight Professional is OnePlus’s first cellphone with wi-fi charging – extra on that later. The 74.4mm-wide, 199g Eight Professional is 1.5mm narrower and 7g lighter than final yr’s fashions, making it much more manageable than most, together with the outsized Samsung Galaxy S20 Extremely. I didn’t really feel the necessity to instantly put a Popsocket or cellphone ring on the again to assist me maintain it. Nevertheless, it’s a full 2.7mm longer than the 7T Professional, which makes it tougher to comfortably slot in a pocket.
The Eight Professional can be the primary OnePlus to come back with an official IP68 water resistance score.
Specs
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Display: 6.78in 120Hz QHD AMOLED (513ppi)
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Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 865
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RAM: Eight or 12GB of RAM
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Storage: 128 or 256GB (UFS 3.0)
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Working system: OxygenOS 10.5 primarily based on Android 10
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Digital camera: quad rear digicam 48MP, 48MP ultra-wide angle, 8MP telephoto, 5MP color filter, 16MP front-facing digicam
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Connectivity: 5G, twin sim, wifi 6, NFC, Bluetooth 5.1 and GPS
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Water resistance: IP86
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Dimensions: 165.Three x 74.four x 8.5 mm
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Weight: 199g
Velocity and battery life
The Eight Professional has the identical Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 processor with Eight or 12GB of RAM, relying on storage model, because the OnePlus Eight and carried out equally brilliantly: snappy and extra responsive than anything, with 5G functionality baked-in too.
The Eight Professional additionally matches the Eight on battery life. It lasts over 32 hours between costs, making it from 7am on day one till 3pm on day two.
Three hours of the 32 was spent on 4G, the remainder linked to wifi, with the FHD+ 120Hz display on for properly over 5 hours, together with 50 minutes of video, plus seven hours of Spotify through Bluetooth headphones and about 20 pictures. Growing the display’s decision to QHD+ diminished battery life by solely an hour or so.
5G efficiency was just like a Samsung Galaxy S20 Extremely on EE and Vodafone, however I couldn’t take a look at its affect on battery life throughout lockdown within the UK. The cellphone is proscribed to 4G-only when two sims are used on the identical time, pending an replace.
Warp Cost 30T superfast wired charging reached 50% in 28 minutes and a full cost in 77 minutes. New for this yr is optimised charging, which preserves the battery by delaying charging to 100% in a single day till simply earlier than you sometimes want it.
Additionally new for the Eight Professional is wi-fi charging, together with normal Qi and OnePlus’s proprietary Warp Cost 30 Wi-fi charging, which requires a particular charger with a cooling fan however reaches a peak of 30W – significantly quicker than the 5 to 15W supplied by rivals. The Eight Professional may also wirelessly cost different Qi-enabled units from its again.
Sustainability
OnePlus charges the battery within the Eight Professional for 800 full-charge cycles until 80% capability – higher than the everyday 500. Battery longevity is aided by the optimised charging system. The battery may be changed and the smartphone is usually repairable by OnePlus within the UK.
The agency presents a trade-in programme for each its personal telephones and fashions from rivals. It didn’t touch upon the usage of recycled supplies in its smartphones.
OxygenOS 10.5
The Eight Professional ships with the identical OxygenOS 10.5 primarily based on Android 10 as the cheaper OnePlus 8.
Google’s Uncover feed now options on the house display, alongside good touches equivalent to the power to decide on which icons present within the standing bar, full theme assist and selections for animations equivalent to that across the fingerprint scanner.
OxygenOS has developed into one of the best model of Android you will get on a cellphone, balancing options, aesthetics and velocity like no different.
OnePlus solely presents software program assist for 3 years from launch, together with two years of Android model updates after which an additional yr of safety updates on a bimonthly schedule. Samsung presents 4 years of assist for its S20 units and Apple presents 5 for its iPhones, so there’s nonetheless work to be achieved for OnePlus.
Digital camera
The Eight Professional has a quad-camera on the rear of the gadget, combining a 48MP major digicam, a 48MP ultrawide digicam, an 8MP telephoto digicam and a 5MP color filter digicam.
The principle 48MP digicam is nice, producing some wonderful, extremely detailed and properly uncovered photographs. The auto-HDR mode handles high-contrast scenes properly, whereas low-light efficiency is far improved from the 7T Professional and 8 without having the devoted Nightscape mode. It shoots 12MP photos by default, with a 48MP mode out there, which suffered extra from digicam and object shake.
The 48MP ultrawide-angle digicam can be one of many higher modules on a cellphone, producing some good photos in vibrant mild in 12MP mode. It was weaker in middling mild, producing extra noise and artefacts than the principle digicam, however it might probably use Nightscape in actually darkish scenes to assist.
The 8MP digicam is nice too, however as may be anticipated has considerably weaker low-light efficiency than the principle digicam. It has a 3x hybrid zoom, which is excellent, and an additional digital zoom as much as 30x that rivals all however these telephones with telescopic optical zoom lenses, such because the Samsung Galaxy S20 Extremely. In case your topic remains to be you’ll get fairly good photos all the way in which as much as 24x zoom in good mild.
The 5MP photochrom color filter digicam is a gimmick that may be safely ignored, producing poor photos even in good mild. You are able to do higher with software program color filters.
The front-facing 16MP digicam is de facto good too, producing extremely detailed and properly toned photos in good mild. It will get barely softer in poor mild, however nonetheless respectable.
Observations
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OnePlus’s wonderful alert slider toggles between silent, vibrate and ring.
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The stereo audio system are fairly good.
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A pre-applied display protector and good clear-plastic case are included within the field.
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Name high quality was wonderful on either side of the decision.
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The primary cellphone examined had a defective display that confirmed a inexperienced tint to darkish. colors with the display brightness set to below 40%.
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The brand new elective textured sandstone instances (£22.95) are one of the best for including grip to a cellphone I’ve ever used.
Worth
The OnePlus Eight Professional prices £799 with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage in black or £899 with 12GB and 256GB in glacial inexperienced within the UK. Different colors can be found in different areas.
For comparability, the OnePlus 8 prices £599, the OnePlus 7T Professional prices £699, the Samsung Galaxy S20 Extremely prices £1,199 and the Apple iPhone 11 Professional Max prices £1,149.
Verdict
The Eight Professional exhibits OnePlus is now not the underdog considerably undercutting the large boys on value.
As an alternative it has stuffed the cost-cutting gaps with options that actually rival one of the best from others. The Eight Professional has a genuinely improbable display, a cracking design that’s massive however comparatively simple to deal with, and it lastly has wi-fi charging and correct water resistance – two hallmarks of top-end telephones.
The Chinese language agency has additionally addressed a conventional weak point in its digicam, producing a cellphone that competes favourably with all however the easiest and costliest super-camera telephones.
Add that to OnePlus’s conventional strengths of slick software program, severe velocity and powerful battery life and you’ve got a really potent mixture. It merely presents a greater day-to-day expertise than virtually anything, beating Samsung, Google and others at their very own sport.
It’s not good, in fact. You solely get three years of software program assist the place Apple presents 5. The cellphone is a bit lengthy for small pockets and never with the ability to have 5G in any respect when utilizing two sims is irritating.
It’s now not low-cost at £799, however the OnePlus Eight Professional is solely higher than virtually all the things else. Samsung needs to be anxious as a result of we’ve a brand new Android king.
Execs: improbable display, high efficiency, good battery life, superfast wired and wi-fi charging, nice digicam, nice software program, alert slider, water resistance, 5G, dual-sim, superfast in-screen fingerprint scanner.
Cons: no headphone socket, 5G disabled when utilizing two sims, solely three years’ software program updates, costly, very lengthy.
Different opinions
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