OnePlus 8 Pro

amazon OnePlus 8 Pro reviews

OnePlus 8 Pro is a smartphone from OnePlus. It has everything you want, plus bonus features like wireless charging, which enthusiasts demand. However, OnePlus has tackled a weird feature that no one asked. It’s a great phone, just a hair behind the best.

Design

At first glance, the OnePlus 8 Pro doesn’t differ much from the OnePlus 7T Pro in terms of design, but a few small changes make the OnePlus 8 Pro a better phone to hold and use. The phone is a few millimeters longer, not as wide, and a bit thinner. The corners have slightly different curvature, and it’s 7 grams lighter at 200 grams.

I prefer the OnePlus 8 Pro to the OnePlus 7T Pro by some distance. It doesn’t feel clunky or unwieldy and is generally more pleasant to pick up and use. That is still a large phone, and the edges taper to a point. It can be uncomfortable if you grip it from certain angles.

Despite being a significant step up from the OnePlus 7T Pro, the 8 Pro still considers the Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus and Huawei P40 Pro competitors. It can’t take the title of the most ergonomically designed phone in 2020. The competition feels lighter and more agile in hand. OnePlus has followed Huawei closely in using a matte coating on the back, and it’s a great move. It doesn’t show fingerprints easily, and the curved 3D glass looks great in the glacial blue seen above; it turns aquamarine in some light, as you see in the photo.

On the front, OnePlus uses a punch-hole selfie camera for the first time. Like most examples, it’s something you don’t notice after using the phone for a while. The motorized pop-up selfie camera extraction on the OnePlus 7T Pro is instrumental in making the entire 8 Pro more compact and handy. It also means that the phone can be sealed and given an IP68 waterproof rating, despite the company’s utter negative position towards this feature in the past.

Perhaps the only disappointing design feature of the OnePlus 8 Pro is the size of the camera bump on the back. It protrudes more than the 7T Pro, is perhaps twice as thick as the Samsung Galaxy S20 Pro bump, and has sharp edges that could scratch other items if it rubs against them in a pocket. This trend continues on the thin and crisp volume rocker, although the drop-down slider for notification alert status changes has a great texture to it. However, despite these nitpicks, the OnePlus 8 Pro is one of the best-looking phones you can buy.

Screen

The 6.78-inch Fluid AMOLED display has a resolution of 3168 x 1440 pixels for an amazing 531 pixels-per-inch density, delivering superb detail. It also boasts a great 120Hz refresh rate for smooth scrolling and reduced eye strain, plus 240Hz touch sampling for faster response times while gaming. It needs a few more software tweaks to get touch accuracy right in the OS, especially at the edges.

OxygenOS has options to enhance colors and enable motion smoothing. With the color enhancements in play, the display is still natural but with slightly more vibrant colors. It never reached the saturation level of the Galaxy S20 Plus. I enjoyed the crisp whites displayed by the OnePlus 8 Pro’s screen, which outperformed those on the S20 Plus and even the Huawei P40 Pro. Outside in the bright sunlight, the white man still managed to look like a freshly laundered bed sheet. Motion smoothing is less successful because it’s inconsistent, looking great one minute and artificial the next. I ended up turning it off – it’s enabled by default.

The screen appeared exactly right in front of my eyes with color enhancement and smooth motion, and I enjoyed watching movies on the OnePlus 8 Pro. The bezels are minimal, and although the punch-hole camera breaks everything on the screen, it never becomes intrusive. The display is one of the standout features of the OnePlus 8 Pro.

Camera

The OnePlus 8 Pro’s camera is a bit strange. Overall, all seems normal. The 48-megapixel main camera features Sony’s new IMX689 sensor with optical and electronic image stabilization and is joined by a 48-megapixel wide-angle and 8-megapixel telephoto sensor. That means 3x zoom, 4K video recording, and various modes, including night mode and super macro.

The fourth sensor on the OnePlus 8 Pro is the Color Filter camera that inverts the colors in your photos.

Even OnePlus isn’t sure. In press details, the Color Filter camera is described as a way to stand out from the crowd and show off your unique style. You can also do this by standing in the street and howling at the moon, but that doesn’t make it a good idea.

Photos were taken with a color filter to remove greens, reds, and blues, leaving light browns, blacks, whites, and beiges. Think it sounds ugly? You will be right, most of the time. It’s not that the Color Filter doesn’t take interesting pictures because it can, in a nuclear wasteland fashion. I’m just not sure how often I want to use it. It’s hidden away in a menu, so it’s not even visible, and therefore will be forgotten – and that’s probably a good thing. It’s not a disaster all the time, and shooting at the sun can lead to some atmospheric shots. Otherwise, it makes my local park look like a bizarre alien landscape.

When I saw the OnePlus and McLaren concept phones at CES 2020, I was hoping the electrochemical camera feature would be available on the OnePlus 8. Still, instead, we got the Color Filter sensor, which certainly wasn’t a worthy replacement. Calling it quirky fun would be a decent description, but more accurately, it’s an added gimmick to hide the fact that there’s nothing new here other than the main sensor being used to improve.

Otherwise, I like the photos taken by the OnePlus 8 Pro. Dynamic range is great, saturation is decent, and I’m impressed with how effective the night mode is. It brightens the scene very effectively and also works with wide-angle cameras. I don’t understand the inclusion of a Color Filter, and if it is removed from the equation, leaving the camera exposed is relatively normal for a flagship Android phone these days.

Software and battery

The 4,510mah battery on the OnePlus 8 Pro is a superstar. Admittedly, I only use Wi-Fi most of the time, but that doesn’t make the performance less impressive. Mode I can’t believe that moderate all day from 8 am to midnight uses only 25% power, I didn’t charge the phone, and overnight, it went into Sleep mode on its own, where it minimized power consumption, so it only used 4% of the battery the entire time I slept. From 8 am to 3 pm the next day, it remained at 53%. I end the day with 5% around midnight after a few voice calls and at least an hour of video calls.

Its great performance and charging are also very fast. The included Warp Charge 30T brick and cable take up a flat battery to 55% in 24 minutes. It continues to charge in an hour fully. A new feature for the OnePlus 8 is optimizing overnight charging times by learning your habits and only fully charging the battery a short time before you normally wake up. It works well for me and should help drain the battery-less over time.

OnePlus has added wireless charging to the OnePlus 8 Pro, a welcome addition that should have come a long time ago. It pulls to 50% in about 30 minutes. Despite supporting the Qi standard, to get OnePlus’ fast wireless charging, you’ll have to buy a OnePlus wireless charger, which costs £80 or £70. Admittedly it’s beautiful, but it’s a huge expense. Other Qi wireless chargers will work if you don’t buy them but only offer slow charging speeds.

This fast-charging comes with another cost – the OnePlus wireless charger has a built-in fan that can spin itself away when you place the phone on an upright stand. It’s acceptable enough when it’s sitting on my desk, but I’m not sure I would feel the same way if I was trying to sleep.

The OnePlus 8 uses OxygenOS 10.5, which is based on Android 10, and it’s almost identical to OxygenOS 10 on the OnePlus 7T Pro. There are some changes to dark mode, plus Google One support. A bunch of live wallpapers has been added, and they look great. OxygenOS is one of the best skins you can get, and using it once again reminds me why I like it.

It’s really fast, doesn’t overload with pointless apps, and is well designed. The sliding screen, Google Assistant controls are helpful, including news and weather updates and quick access to your very own Assistant page with personalized updates. I like the subtle haptic feedback; the quality feels much better than most other phones I tested, right down to the cute little vibration when someone answers a call.

It’s not perfect, though. The lack of an always-on display is disappointing, although you can tap the screen to see the information. OnePlus says a feature is always under development, but it baffles why it took so long. I also had some issues with the screen edge being too sensitive. A software update has improved things a lot, but the sensitivity is still not right. The Settings search isn’t smart either, making it hard to find hidden features like Dark mode, called Tone.

These are minor annoyances, though, and like the rest of the phone, the battery life and software experience are among the best you can find at the moment.

Performance and gaming

The OnePlus 8 Pro has a Snapdragon 865 chipset and an X55 5G modem, plus a whopping 12GB of RAM. Due to social distancing measures, I could not test the 5G component but used 4G and made calls as usual. Calls are crystal clear, and it’s easier to put the speaker in your ear than it was on the Galaxy S20 Plus. Here are the benchmark results before we look at gaming.

Geekbench 5: 3,352 Multi-core / 890 single-core

3DMark: 6,589 (Volcano)

These are higher results than the Galaxy S20 Plus with the Samsung Exynos chip inside and slightly higher than the Oppo Find X2 Pro with a similar capacity. The OnePlus 8 Pro has two gameplay modes, a standard mode and a hardcore Fnatic mode (because it was developed with the e-sports team of the same name), which boosts CPU, GPU, and RAM turn off everything unnecessary at the same time.

I didn’t notice anything different playing Asphalt 9 Legends, DariusBurst SP, and Vectronom with Fnatic mode on and off. The 120Hz refresh rate makes Asphalt 9 Legends look great. The screen’s 19.8:9 aspect ratio means you have to play DariusBurst in a smaller window if you want to see everything going on, which is a problem for many phones of all sizes and shapes the same similar. The phone stays completely cool during gameplay.

What about OnePlus 8?

The OnePlus 8 Pro is the new flagship phone for 2020 and released alongside the OnePlus 8, which costs $700 or more and is smaller. That phone has a 6.55-inch Fluid AMOLED display with a 90Hz refresh rate, a triple-lens camera without a Color Filter sensor, a smaller battery, no wireless charging, and basic splash resistance. The design is very similar, lighter, and thinner, making it easier to use with one hand.

where can you get a OnePlus 8 Pro online

OnePlus 8 Pro Ultramarine Blue, 5G Unlocked Android Smartphone U.S Version, 12GB RAM+256GB Storage, 120Hz Fluid Display,Quad Camera, Wireless Charge, with Alexa Built-in: Buy it now

OnePlus 8 Pro (5G) Dual-SIM IN2023 256GB/12GB RAM (GSM + CDMA) Factory Unlocked Android Smartphone (Ultramarine Blue)- International Version: Buy it now

OnePlus 8 Pro 5G iN2020 128GB 8GB RAM (GSM Only, No CDMA) – Glacial Green: Buy it now

OnePlus 8 Pro 5G IN2020 128GB 8GB RAM (GSM Only, No CDMA) International Version (Onyx Black): Buy it now