OnePlus 8 Pro Review: As Best As Flagship Smartphone Gets In 2020

There are largely three premium smartphone manufacturers in India- Apple, Samsung and OnePlus. If you’ve fully adapted the iOS ecosystem, there’s very little chance you will spend a fortune on a premium Android flagship handset. If you have been a long-time flagship Android user, it is highly likely that you are a Samsung Galaxy user […]

PROS

Best Smartphone Display (120Hz, QHD+) Premium Aesthetics&Sturdy Design IP68 Rated For Water-Dust Protection Clean Software Experience Excellent Rear Camera Solid Battery Life & Connectivity Power-packed Performance

CONS

Heating Issues Selfie Camera Could Have Been Better No microSD Card Slot If not a Samsung fan, OnePlus is the go-to premium smartphone manufacturer that offers high-value handsets with best-in-class hardware and clean software user experience. Until now, OnePlus has always held itself back from delivering a true flagship device. The company's previous handsets always lacked one or two important features required to win the flagship game in the highly competitive market. This changes with the all-new OnePlus 8 Pro. The new flagship smartphone leaves no stone unturned and is simply the most refined product from the house of OnePlus. Available in two variants (8GB/128GB- Rs. 54,999 & 12GB/256GB- Rs. 59,990), it is the company's most expensive flagship handset in the Indian market and is going on sale today. A week's usage has given me a fair idea of the OnePlus 8 Pro's capabilities and how it fares against the competition. Should you consider it over the recently launched Xiaomi Mi 10 5G or the Samsung Galaxy S20-series? Let's find out.

Best Smartphone Display (QHD+, 120Hz)

The OnePlus 8 Pro sports a 6.78" QHD+ AMOLED display with the biggest difference being the fluid 120Hz refresh rate. The screen offers a resolution of 3168 x 1440 pixels which results in an impressive pixel density of 513 PPI. Everything looks crisp and vibrant on this QHD+ panel. Colors pop out well and the phone's software offers plenty of customizations in the display section to play around with. You must enable ‘Vibrant color effect pro' as it enhances the contrast and colors to make the content look more vibrant. You will find several color profiles in the ‘Screen Calibration' section. The Natural profile is very accurate in displaying colors but you can also enable sRGB, Display P3 and AMOLED wide gamut to make colors look more vibrant and punchier. Importantly, I did not face any Black Crush issues which were reported earlier by some users. The review unit worked just fine. Display Runs At 120Hz With QHD+ Resolution Unlike the Samsung Galaxy S20 Series, the OnePlus 8 Pro's display can be set to run at 120Hz refresh rate with the max QHD+ resolution, which adds up to the overall user-experience. Add to it the best-in-class haptic feedback and you get a display experience that's simply unmatched by any other flagship smartphone in the market.

Performance- 8GB/12GB LPDDR5 RAM, UFS 3.0 Storage, SD865 SoC

The OnePlus 8 Pro is a performance champion. Powered by the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 chipset, 8GB or 12GB LPDDR5 RAM and UFS 3.0 storage, the smartphone feels blazing fast no matter how many applications you are running and the number of tabs you have opened in Google Chrome. We got the 8GB RAM variant and it ensured flawless multitasking and gaming performance. I also did not face any connectivity or call quality issues on the handset. Backed by the latest Wi-Fi 6 modem and Bluetooth 5.0, the OnePlus 8 Pro ensures top-class networking performance. The in-screen fingerprint scanner is considerably faster than the ones we have tested on the Xiaomi Mi 5G and the Galaxy S20+. The same is also valid for the software-backed face-unlock. As far as audio is concerned, the OnePlus 8 Pro features Dual Stereo speakers that produce loud and clear audio. The speakers are Dolby Atmos-enabled and produce sound with impressive clarity. You can enjoy movies and play games on the handset even if you don't have headphones handy

Excellent Camera Performance

The OnePlus 8 Pro flaunts a quad-lens rear camera setup. The 48MP f/1.78 primary camera uses the latest Sony IMX689 sensor and is OIS and EIS enabled. It is paired with a 48MP f/2.2 Sony IMX586 wide-angle senor. The third lens in the configuration is an 8MP OIS enabled telephoto lens using a darker f/2.4 aperture. It offers 3x optical zoom and 30x digital zoom. There's no dedicated depth-sensor on the OnePlus 8 Pro but you get a 5MP color filter lens. The color filter was highly criticized to be able to see through some objects like plastic layers and even fabrics. OnePlus has rightfully disabled it in India but also informed that a software update will make it work again with limited functionality.

Impressive Battery Life

The OnePlus 8 Pro is powered by a 4,510mAh battery cell which is backed by the Warp Charge 30T power adaptor alongside Warp Charge 30 wireless charging support. The phone's battery can easily last a day even when you are running the UI at 120Hz, provided that the screen resolution is set to full HD. There's a noticeable drop in battery life if you bump the screen resolution to max QHD+. I mostly used the device with the resolution set to full HD+ with 120Hz refresh rate and experienced all-day's battery life on one full charge with moderate to heavy usage. The bundled Warp Charge 30T refuels the battery from zero to 100% in less than 60 minutes, which is super handy.