OnePlus 8 Pro on long-term test: Still a top-class flagship smartphone

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The six.seventy eight-inch Snapdragon 865-based OnePlus eight Pro in Glacial Green, Ultramarine Blue and Onyx Black.


Visuals: OnePlus

Back in April I reviewed the OnePlus eight Pro and concluded that it was a worthy flagship handset. For £799/$899 you get 8GB of RAM and 128GB of inner storage, while £899/$999 will get you 12GB and 256GB respectively. I was despatched the Glacial Green (12GB/256GB) edition and can verify — even in lockdown when social speak to is negligible, and even amid individuals who are used to seeing me with unique phones — that it turns heads.

But looks are not all the things. So how has the OnePlus eight Pro performed while it has been my primary telephone?

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Changing the OnePlus 7T Pro’s pop-up entrance digital camera (still left) with an in-screen punch-gap digital camera (suitable) was a very good go.


Visuals: OnePlus

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Looking through Manner is a useful OnePlus characteristic.


Impression: Sandra Vogel / ZDNet

OnePlus’s choice to ditch the pop-up digital camera it used on the 7T Pro was a extremely very good a person. Soon after just a handful of weeks of use by anyone who does not just take several selfies, the 7T Pro’s digital camera grew to become a bugbear. It was slow to arise, and acquired caked in dust. Good participate in to OnePlus: it experimented with the notion out, and dropped it like a stone. The small punch-gap 16MP entrance digital camera on the OnePlus eight Pro is a substantially far better alternative, not the very least for the reason that replacing the pop-up mechanism can help the eight Pro gain an IP68 ranking for dust and water resistance.

There are two capabilities that I locate a large bonus. A single of these is OnePlus’s Looking through Manner. This pops the screen into both monochrome or a ‘chromatic effect’ with dialled-down color. It can be established to kick in any time specific apps launch, or you can launch it as essential. There is certainly even a button on the brief options menu it is tucked away on the second screen by default, but I moved it to the principal screen and used it a large amount. This is unique, by the way, from the blue-mild filtering Evening Manner, which is also current, and which can be established to toggle at dawn/sunset, at scheduled occasions or be manually picked. It is also unique from Ease and comfort Tone, in which screen colors instantly adapt based on ambient lights situations. I experimented with this and somewhat favored it.

The other characteristic I locate outstanding is the Notify Slider. This minor a few-posture button on the handset’s suitable facet helps make it easy to swap concerning silent, vibrate and ring modes. Both the Looking through Manner and the Notify Slider have been OnePlus staples for a while now, and they are defining capabilities of the line. Extensive might they very last.

The curved screen has gains and downsides. It looks amazing, and obtaining curves on the two again and entrance of the extensive edges helps make the six.seventy eight-inch handset far more snug to maintain. But it can be problematic in use: notably, there’s no touch-rejection along the screen’s curve, which intended I from time to time manufactured accidental screen presses.  

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The six.seventy eight-inch Fluid AMOLED screen curves at the edges, resulting in an 90.eight{fb741301fcc9e6a089210a2d6dd4da375f6d1577f4d7524c5633222b81dec1ca} screen-to-body ratio. The Notify Slider, higher than the ability button on the suitable facet, is an additional useful characteristic on OnePlus handsets.


Visuals: Sandra Vogel / ZDNet

The Fluid AMOLED screen has a 19.eight:9 facet ratio, making this a fairly tall telephone to carry close to. Possessing reported that, it is only somewhat taller than the handset I switched about from, so the transform wasn’t as well noticeable. You can opt for both 2,376 by one,080 resolution (385ppi), which is the out-of-box default, or three,168 by one,440 (513ppi). The greater resolution manufactured negligible visible change for me, and is a battery drain, so I caught with the default selection and did not experience I was missing out on everything. Nor did I typically want to use the comprehensive 120Hz screen refresh: sticking with 60Hz was lots very good adequate for my common utilization pattern. I did appreciate the one,three hundred nits most screen brightness while, as this permitted me to use the telephone outside on some of the sunniest days in May perhaps.

Battery lifestyle continues to be as very good as I reported in my original review, in which I did not see it drop down below 35{fb741301fcc9e6a089210a2d6dd4da375f6d1577f4d7524c5633222b81dec1ca} in common utilization. In fact, I even end some lighter-workload days with the battery closer to fifty{fb741301fcc9e6a089210a2d6dd4da375f6d1577f4d7524c5633222b81dec1ca}. On the other hand, I almost never indulge in gaming, GPS use or extensive stints of online video looking at, and ability consumers will deplete the four,510mAh battery quicker than I do, in which case they are going to appreciate the quick charging.

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Rapid charging is a characteristic I count on as regular these days, and so listed here it just grew to become element of my day-to-day routine. The exact same can’t be reported of the (optional) OnePlus wi-fi charger I was despatched, which was returned to its box fairly promptly. I could not really justify the desk place it needed, or the fact that the handset ought to be in portrait manner to functionality. As a substitute, I placed the OnePlus eight Pro in my personal handset stand, in no matter what orientation suited at the time, and charged it via the provided 30W USB-C charger. This is able of delivering fifty{fb741301fcc9e6a089210a2d6dd4da375f6d1577f4d7524c5633222b81dec1ca} charge in 23 minutes — somewhat quicker than the 30W wi-fi charger can handle (fifty{fb741301fcc9e6a089210a2d6dd4da375f6d1577f4d7524c5633222b81dec1ca} in 30 minutes).

I have not experienced several opportunities to test the OnePlus eight Pro’s cameras — 16MP f/2.5 at the entrance 48MP f/one.eight (large), 8MP f/2.four (telephoto, 3x), 48MP f/2.2 (extremely-large, 120°) and 5MP f/2.four (color filter) at the again — for the duration of lockdown. Day to day photos glimpse fantastic, though it is fair to say that other flagship handsets have far better digital camera setups and I nevertheless can’t see the position of the color filter digital camera — isn’t that what on-product write-up processing software is for? For the file, the OnePlus eight Pro is at this time tenth in the influential DxOMark smartphone digital camera rankings, with an overall rating of 119 (126 for photographs, 103 for movies). The main handset at the time of writing is Huawei’s P40 Pro, which scores 128 (140 photograph, a hundred and five online video).

Over-all then, though I have observed some downsides with the OnePlus eight Pro, it is nevertheless a best-class flagship telephone, and I could certainly stay with it as my principal handset.

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