[OnePlus 9 Pro] kristofpetho:
Hi All,

I decided to do a mini review, in case someone is on the fence with buying the device, or just wants to read a different perspective than what you can find on Youtube about the 9 Pro.

This first post will be a general overview, focusing on changes coming from the 8 Pro. The second will be more development-related, and a deeper dive into the device itself.

The 9 Pro vs the 8 Pro

Coming from the 8 Pro, here are the biggest changes that stick out:

- The screen itself is much higher quality. I used to have black crush as well as a green tint at lower brightness levels on the 8 Pro, but the 9 Pro is free of these issues. Screen gets darker when it's pitch black and no longer burns my eyes out.

- The camera is much better (as advertised). I'm finally able to take photos of my kids running/jumping around and the image is no longer blurred.

- Google Dialer and Google Messages are default. FINALLY. I love the Google Dialer and it's great to see this as the default app on the 9 Pro.

- Battery life is definitely improved vs the 8 Pro, I would say somewhere between 10-20% better.

Setup

It took about an hour to setup from scratch. Yes, I know there is a Oneplus Switch app, but that would rob me from experiencing the setup itself, and I need that. In the past I also had issues with the Oneplus Switch, iPhone backups, etc., so I just prefer to set everything up myself.

Near stock Android experience, with just the right additions. I can tweak to exactly how I like it.

For those who are like me, and want to turn off vibration for everything (since I find it annoying). Go into USB debugging mode, and do:

adb shell

appops set android VIBRATE ignore

This disables all standard Android vibrations. If you are finnicky and want to be more granular, or do away with vibrations coming from a certain app:

Microsoft Teams - which I use quite a lot - seems to ignore every single setting I have in notifications, but you can disable app-specific vibrations with:

appops set com.microsoft.teams VIBRATE ignore

Just substitute "com.microsoft.teams" with the package name you want to turn vibrations off for...

I always disable Sleep Optimization under Battery settings, but keep Adaptive Battery and Enable App Power Consumption enabled.

The screen I always have on QHD+ and 120Hz, and disable power savings in the display setting.

The display

Adaptive refresh rate (LTPO) rocks. This is probably why I'm seeing better battery life. The overall feel of the device is just much smoother than on the 8 Pro (and I was using my own custom kernel on that). Colors are beautiful, the screen doesn't have any tint even on lower brightness, so it's great.

Performance

My primary usage is: emails, WhatsApp, Microsoft Teams, phone calls, camera, photos. I do tons of multitasking, listen to music in the meantime, etc., and not a glitch, no lag.

Multitasking

Snappy, no reloading of apps, everything stays in memory (and I have 8Gb version). Switching on a "regular" work-day between emails, calendar, Teams, Spotify, etc. is so seamless, it's an incredible experience.

Everything stays in memory (it does get cleared overnight to help with idle drain, but I'm good with that).

Camera

OK, it's camera time! It's now been 3 weeks with the phone, let's talk about the camera. Mainly comparing with the 8 Pro.

Camera - general

This rocks. I'm finding that 80-90% of the shots I do turn out great. It's better than the 8 Pro, where I would say 60-75% of the shots turned out great.

Camera - everyday shots

Excellent colors, sharp images, even though I keep the settings on 12 megapixels to ensure better handling of light.

Camera - videos

Just perfect. I'm now defaulting to 4k 60fps HEVC videos, and they all turn out great. No complaints here. Stabilization of videos is perfect as well.

Camera - low light

Low light shots got a massive boost with the 9 Pro. Much better handling, less noise, better colors overall.

That sums it up (for now), do let me know if you have any questions!