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[The Lab] - OnePlus 8 Pro Review By @masenov1 Apr 13, 2020

  1. masenov1
    The Lab - OnePlus 8 Pro Reviewer Apr 13, 2020

    masenov1 , Apr 13, 2020 :
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    Hello everyone, my name is Martin! First of all, I wanted to give my gratitude to OnePlus for presenting me with this opportunity and trusting me to be one of the 10 people selected out of 28564 applicants. I hope you will find my review helpful and thorough. While I have tried to be rigorous and in-depth in my evaluation, I will be more than happy to answer any questions you may have.

    I am currently pursuing a PhD in Robotics and Autonomous Systems. More importantly though, I am also a big tech enthusiast, and I have been a while for quite some time now. When it comes to phones (or Pocket PCs/Handhelds as they were more popular back in the day), I have owned a wide range of devices. While I have updated them fairly rarely, I got my first handheld device back in 2005, a few years ago before they became mainstream. I have been through different manufactures and operating systems; I have done various tweaks and hacks to almost all of my phones so they suite my needs. As such I hope I can give you a good overview of what you can expect from the OnePlus 8 Pro, and where does the phone stands. Before receiving my review unit, my daily driver has been the OnePlus 5 since the first day it came out until last week, for almost three years now.

    For my review, I got the OnePlus 8 Pro, 256GB ROM/12GB RAM in Glacial Green colour. OnePlus has asked my and all the reviewers for our honest opinion, whether good or bad. Throughout my review, I am going to discuss some of the newest advancements in the OnePlus 8 Pro, and how it compares to recent flagships, but also discuss it with regards to my OnePlus 5. I hope this gives a good perspective for anyone thinking about whether this phone is for you, but also for everyone who is thinking of upgrading. So, without further do, let’s dive in!

    Unboxing and first impressions

    The feeling of getting a new phone never gets old! Once I got the first delivery notice that the phone is shipped, it looks only a day for the phone to arrive. Hopefully, I didn’t scare the delivery guy with my grinning smile!



    My first impression of the box is that it looked a bit abnormally tall when I first hold it. That's probably to give a hint of the screen ratio of the phone. I prepared a knife to cut some of the wraps around the box, but the OnePlus have thought of this annoying part of every unboxing providing a small piece of paper, that when pulled cuts through the transparent folio wrapping the box. Inside the box you find the phone sitting on the top. Inside the cardboard holding the phone, you find all the paperwork, stickers and a welcome letter from Pete outlining the history of OnePlus up until this very moment. A clear TPU case is included as well, with "Never Settled" engraved on the back (Nice!). Finally, one of the highlights of OnePlus for a few generations now, a 30T Warp charger brick, together with a USB-A to a USB-C cable. Overall, a well throughout packaging with well appreciated accessories (fast charger, case). The only complaint I would have is that I would really like to see a USB-C to USB-C cable, with a USB-C power brick. That being said I can appreciate that some people might like the USB-A cable better, as it might be easier to use to connect your phone to a computer. No headphones are included, but that I imagine is a good way to cut off the price for people who don't really need a new pair, and OnePlus already sells very competitively priced and good quality buds.

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    As I mentioned my previous daily driver was the OnePlus 5. Compare to it, the OnePlus 8 Pro is quite a bit taller, but with similar width. It is also slightly thicker and slightly heavier. Personally, I am not a huge fan of big phones, but OnePlus have done a good job of making the phone comfortable to hold.

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    One thing that I really love about the design is the feeling on the back of the phone. It’s very soft to the touch, and I am happy to report that the matte glacial green doesn’t leave any fingerprints. The colour dynamically changes based on the angle you view it. If you look directly from the top it looks like this:

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    While if you look at the phone at an angle:

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    Speaking of that green colour, there are also a bit more pronounced matte green antenna bands, which add a nice touch to the aesthetics. The buttons feel quite tactile and precise, definitely an improvement over my OnePlus 5. On the bottom of the phone you have the SIM cards slot, microphone cut-out, USB-C and a speaker. On the left of the phone you have the volume buttons. On the right you have the power button and the OnePlus three way slider for Ring/Vibrate/Silent. On the top you have another microphone cut-out and quite a nice indentation of the frame.

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    In case you want to check high resolution photos, you can visit the album here.

    That's it for now, stay tuned for more!
     
    Last edited: Apr 17, 2020
    #1
    X1570887452872, deepakjohnn, aris and 53 others like this.

  2. masenov1
    The Lab - OnePlus 8 Pro Reviewer Apr 18, 2020

    Stickied Post
    masenov1 , via OnePlus Community App , Apr 18, 2020 :
    Display

    Probably the highlight feature (definitely my favourite) is the all new screen - and that screen is quite something. When I put the OnePlus 8 Pro next to my old OnePlus 5, the 8 Pro almost looks like one of those bad renderings of future concept phones - the size of the screen and the way it folds on the sides - it almost looks not real. There are a few things that I want to discuss, that really make this, the experience that it is - 120Hz, colour accuracy, front camera cut-out and side curvature.

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    The headline feature of the new display is the 120Hz refresh rate. While I would say that a few years ago, that was more of a gimmick found in gaming phones, there are a few important things that have happened since then in industry. More importantly, OnePlus have implemented multiple features to take full advantage of the fast refresh rate. To give credit to OnePlus, they were actually part of that history as one of the first to seriously push higher refresh rate screens to normally looking, everyday phones with the OnePlus 7 Pro and its 90Hz screen.

    But first of all, why do you need 120Hz you ask? It’s really hard to put into words, or videos. There are some nice slow-motion videos that people have made, where the lag between 60Hz and 120hz can be very clearly seen, but until you hold the phone and experience it - it is very hard to describe. Moreover, once you switch to a high refresh rate screen, it is very very hard to go back. Everything just feels incredibly smooth and fast.

    Almost all of the social apps, note taking, etc. are supporting 120Hz and quite a few games have started to do so as well. OnePlus, however, have not settled on that, and improved things in multiple ways.

    First of all, OnePlus implements Motion Estimation/Motion Compensation (MEMC) technology for dynamically smoothing videos to 120hz, even those shot at as low as 24Hz. What this technology does is essentially interpolating between nearby frames, in order to generate artificial frames and smooth out the video. Of course, as you are trying to reconstruct a video with 5 times more frames, there could be artefacts and inaccuracies. I tried with a few 24fps videos from Vimeo and the results looked very pleasing to my eyes. All the choppiness from the videos was removed, and at least from what I could see there weren’t any noticeable artefacts. Of course based on what you watch, your experience may vary, but it's nice to have such an option.

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    OnePlus 8 Pro also has 240Hz touch sampling rate, which additionally improves things as the phone can quicker recognises when you are about to scroll, swipe, etc. I was also very happy to see that you can run the phone in its full QHD+ resolution (3168x1440) AND at 120Hz at the same time! A potential drawback of such a high resolution and high refresh screen is battery consumption. OnePlus delivers here as well, by including automatic scale down of the resolution and refresh rate whenever appropriate. While I can’t say for sure how big those improvements on the actual battery life are, I can say that I haven’t noticed any slowdowns because of those optimisations and it’s good that OnePlus is thinking about battery life (more on that topic later). If I have to nitpick on something, that would be an inclusion of 90hz mode, in addition to the present 60Hz and 120Hz - this can serve as a nice balance between battery life and smoothness. It would also be nice to add per app setting to for the screen refresh - I found that some apps can, but don’t run in 120Hz (e.g. my browser of choice - Brave). There is a hack to make it work, but it would be nice if there is a setting for this on OxygenOS (similar to what you have with battery optimisations).

    Second, OnePlus spend quite a lot of efforts on the colour accuracy of the screen. They absolutely smashed a bunch of records in the DisplayMate tests, receiving evaluation of "visually indistinguishable from perfect.” for its colour accuracy, as well as display brightness, image contrast and screen reflection. It supports 10 bits colour rather than the traditional 8 bits. At first, I overlooked this a little bit, but there is actually a huge difference! With 8 bits you encode each of the R/G/B colour with 256 numbers, with 10 bits - that's 1024! So, on paper that's 64x more colours, or if you like big numbers more than a billion colours (traditional 8 bit display produce about 16 million colours)! This means that all the colours in images and videos really pop, with smooth transition between colours. The screen support HDR10+ and HDR boost, and brightness up to 1300 nits (about 3 times brighter than the OnePlus 5!) which make the phone a multimedia consumption powerhouse. Finally, the phone also automatically adapts the screen colours based on the emitted light around you (Comfort tone).

    Finally, I wanted to finish off with two topics, that while I personally didn’t have issues with, can imagine would be polarising for people - the front camera cut-out and the side curvature of the display.

    I applaud the move from the front pop-out camera from the OnePlus 7 Pro to the front cut-out camera in the display. While the all-screen experience is nice, I will take a small cut-out for the advantage of no moving parts any day. The size is small enough to the point that it doesn’t really bother me at all. While initially, I thought it would be nice to have the cut-out in the top centre of the screen, I think I have actually grown to like its position on the top left. As you watch videos or play games the cut-out is in the bottom left/top right part of the screen, which is preferable to being in the centre right/centre left, as it is much less distracting.

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    Secondly, the side curvature. There are arguments to be made that this makes the phone more fragile when dropped and it’s prone to “ghost” touches. The point about being fragile is a valid one, but personally I always put a screen protector anyway - as a favourite person of everyone says: "Glass is glass. And glass breaks." - regardless of whether your screen is curved or not. I didn’t have any issues with ghost touches either. One issue that I did have was with SwiftKey - the very left and very right letters and numbers were hard to press being on the curvature. That being said that was extremely easy to fix by just shrinking down the keyboard a little bit. The default Google keyboard was doing this already by what I can tell - there was no issue there. Personally, I really like the feeling that the curvature has, especially when swapping between pages on the home screen - you get the effect that the screen rolls on the back of the phone.
     
    Last edited: Apr 18, 2020
    #21
    aris, Swatiranjan, jlasensiofi and 15 others like this.

  3. masenov1
    The Lab - OnePlus 8 Pro Reviewer Apr 18, 2020

    Stickied Post
    masenov1 , via OnePlus Community App , Apr 18, 2020 :
    Performance

    Let’s start with the specs. OnePlus stayed true to their nature by providing top of the line components across the board - Snapdragon 865, 8/12GB LPDDR5 RAM, 128 GB/256 GB UFS 3.0 storage, Adreno 650 GPU, the list goes on and on.

    OnePlus phones are known and loved for their across the board speed and performance, but the once again top of the line specs, combined with the 120Hz screen, really makes the phone fly. My daily usage usually includes heavy email usage, browsing on the Internet, moderate usage of social apps, pictures/video taking, navigation, and quite a lot of calls/video conferences given the current situation. I am not a big gamer, but for the review, I tried a few games to test the 120 Hz screen (Asphalt 9, Mortal Combat and Real Racing 3) and action-heavy demanding titles (Mobile Legends: Bang Bang). The phone performed excellently in all of them, and thanks to the large RAM was able to keep a few games in memory and switch between them. I found the screen ratio quite comfortable for gaming, with the screen being big enough to display content while being used for controlling joysticks. In terms of raw performance is hard to report anything else - the phone is silly fast and it handles everything you throw at it.

    Already covered, but again important to point out. The display does make a huge difference, of how quick the phone feels. If you think about it, most of us (not all) don’t spend that much time doing heavy processing tasks on our phone. We do a lot of scrolling and swiping, through web pages and social media. The combination of 120Hz refresh rate and 240Hz touch sampling rate, really makes those tasks quite a lot smoother and pleasant to do.

    Onto the performance of some of the peripherals. The under-display fingerprint feels quite fast, but probably shy of the speed of the one found in OnePlus 5 (which is super fast at 0.2 seconds) - you must tap/turn on the screen before using the optical under-display fingerprint; and it takes just a moment more to hold your finger so it could be recognized. Don't get me wrong, it's still super fast on the OnePlus 8 Pro, but the nature of the technology (how the finger needs to be lid up, before being read), makes it hard to beat the 5. Something that I was skeptical about, but very pleasantly surprised were the speakers. There are dual speakers, with one firing from the earpiece, and one firing under the phone - I found them loud and clear, comparable to speakers from a good quality laptop. Another very pleasant surprise for me was the haptics of the phone. They are very strong, but the part that I enjoyed, even more, is how precise they are - it feels very concentrated and targeted, rather than a vibration throughout the whole phone. Another small point, but something I enjoyed was the buttons, especially the 3-way slider - I found it more precise and easier to slide than the one on my OnePlus 5.

    The phone is a strong performer, but what brings me even more confidence it seeing how well my OnePlus 5 aged. Given the future-proofing of the phone with all the internal top of the line components, I am sure that the phone will last and be as fast for quite some time. Lead with speed is a good slogan for this phone - OnePlus have truly established themselves as leaders when it comes to performance.
     
    Last edited: Apr 19, 2020
    #22
    aris, Helder_DAlmeida, Swatiranjan and 8 others like this.

  4. masenov1
    The Lab - OnePlus 8 Pro Reviewer Apr 18, 2020

    Stickied Post
    masenov1 , via OnePlus Community App , Apr 18, 2020 :
    Camera

    Before talking about the camera, a few points to put everything in perspective:
    1. Due to the current situation, almost all of the pictures I have taken were from inside my flat/through the window. There are a few outdoor shots I was able to take as part of bike rides.
    2. I tend to be quite casual when it comes to photography, and I have used my OnePlus 5 primarily for the last three years. I don’t claim to be an expert in evaluating picture quality, nor to be a particularly good photographer.
    3. The photos were taken with Oxygen OS 10.5.2.IN11BA, Camera app version 4.0.213

    Here I have uploaded compressed images, I strongly encourage you to check the original images in full resolution. You can check the full resolution photos from this review here, extended album here and sample video shots here.

    This year OnePlus went with a quad-camera setup on their Pro model. The specs in a nutshell are:

    Main shooter: 48 MP, Sony IMX689 sensor, f/1.78 aperture, OIS, EIS
    Macro: 3X Telephoto camera, with 30X Digital Zoom, OIS
    Ultra-Wide: 48MP, 120° field of view
    Color filter camera

    Within the camera you are presented with quite a few different modes, with their respective options:

    Time-lapse: Normal/Macro/Ultra Wide; Flash; 1080P 30FPS/1080P 60FPS/4K 30FPS/4K 60FPS/4K CINE 30FPS/4K CINE 60FPS
    Panorama: No options
    Slow motion: Flash; 720P 480FPS/1080P 240FPS
    Video: Normal/Macro/Ultra Wide; Flash; Super stabilisation; HDR; Colour filters; 1080P 30FPS/1080P 60FPS/4K 30FPS/4K 60FPS/4K CINE 30FPS/4K CINE 60FPS
    Photo: Normal/Macro/Ultra Wide; Timer; Flash; 12MP/48MP; Super Macro; Colour filters; UltraShot HDR; Aspect ratio; Smart Content Detection; Mirrored selfie photo
    Portrait: Timer; Face retouching; Normal/Wide angle
    Nightscape: Timer; Normal/Wide angle; Tripod long exposure
    Pro: TON of options - ISO, Shutter speed, focus, RAW, Histogram, etc.

    OnePlus aimed to cover all the bases with a solid main shooter, ultra-wide camera for those immersive photos and a macro camera for close up shots. The fourth camera is a color filter camera, capable of infrared photography. I guess what OnePlus is going for a solid all-around camera and a bit of a ‘wow’ factor with their color filter camera. It’s quite an interesting experiment, and I know a lot of people will appreciate it, but for me, I will mainly focus on the rest of the three cameras, as they will carry the heavy lifting shooting for most of the people.

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    As mentioned I mainly compared the photos with my OnePlus 5, and not surprisingly the camera of the OnePlus 8 Pro performed much better. The camera support up to 30x digital zoom, but once you start zooming after 3x the quality quickly deteriorates. Overall, I was happy with the color reproduction, level of details and dynamic range. Here you can check a few shots I took with my 5 (left) and 8 Pro (right):

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    The main/macro/wide cameras give a lot of flexibility - it essentially allows you to do 0.6x/1.0x/3.0x zoom (and it between) which is great for most of the day to day scenarios. Those are example shots from the three cameras with an object about a hand away:

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    OnePlus seems to be doing a lot better in computational photography than before, with clearer portrait and nightscape shoots. In portrait photos, there is a good separation between the person and the background. There was an ever so slight blur around my ears, which can probably be attributed to the similarly colored background around them.

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    Nightscape looked great as well. If you look through the photos, you will notice that you can see some of the stars in the sky as well as quite a few street lamps on the road. Being able to balance that variable amount of light in the different parts in the scene is quite impressive.

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    You can take nightscape photos with the main camera, but also the wide-angle one, which is not a feature found on many phones. I found the images to be of a worse quality though. I suspect that part of the reason could be the fact that you have even more different levels of amount of light in different parts of the scene. Moreover, you have fewer pixels and light you capture for any given part of the scene. As such the optimization is more challenging, while you have much less information. Overall, I like the idea of taking nightscapes with the wide-angle camera a lot, but I think there is an area for improvement here.

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    One thing that I would love to see is more in the optical zoom department. 3X hybrid zoom is fine for most purposes, but other manufacturers have started pushing quite heavily in that direction, and I would love for OnePlus to do so as well. That being said, the camera does take very good closeup shots.

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    Finally, as mentioned this time around there is an infrared color filter camera as well. As far as I could tell that’s only used for “Photochrom” style photos, as this was the only filter presented in the back camera, but not the selfie one. I read about the technology a bit and it sounds interesting in theory, but I wasn’t able to think of interesting scenarios to test it. I would be curious whether people have suggestions, or there is something, in particular, you want to see (feel free to leave a comment below!). Here is an example image with color filter camera (there are a few more examples in the extended album):

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    In terms of video, I was able to capture a few short clips while out with my bike, testing slow motion and image stabilization, and one of our neighbors’ dogs to task out the zooming capabilities. I was pretty impressed with the image stabilization - my bike was shaking a fair amount (I was riding with one hand, holding the phone with the other) while moving the phone around the scene - still, the video appeared very smooth. In the video department my main complaint is again the zooming capabilities - up to 3X it works great, but after that noise starts to quickly appear, that the camera is trying to compensate with by smoothing.

    Overall, OnePlus has grown quite a lot in this category. It’s been something that has always been a bit of an Achilles heel for the company, but this year OnePlus has gone for a nice overall shooter in different scenarios, while throwing an extravagant feature in the mix for avid photographers.
     
    Last edited: Apr 19, 2020
    #23
    aris, Helder_DAlmeida, Swatiranjan and 9 others like this.

  5. masenov1
    The Lab - OnePlus 8 Pro Reviewer Apr 18, 2020

    Stickied Post
    masenov1 , via OnePlus Community App , Apr 18, 2020 :
    Battery and charging

    Battery life is a topic that tends to be quite subjective on the usage. Within my testing I had almost every feature of the phone on - Wifi, 4G, Location Services (with some GPS usage), etc. The default refresh rate is 120Hz, with a FHD+ resolution (2376x1080). I did some tests with both the default FHD+ resolution, but also switching to the QHD+ (3168x1440). Throughout my experiments, I kept the 120Hz (as I said, there is no turning back 🙂). In general I was getting about 6-6.30 hours on screen time with the FHD+, and about 5 hours screen on time with the QHD+, which I find quite impressive given the resolution and the refresh rate of the screen. I was getting comfortably through a day even with my heavy usage, so I didn’t feel the urge to tune down the settings. Yet, I can imagine with FHD+ resolution (which still looked good), and moderate usage the phone can probably last for two days or even more. The standby battery life is great, so it all depends on how much you time spend using your phone daily - if you have 5+ hours screen on time, it’s a one day battery; if you have about ~2 hours screen on time, it might just last beyond 2 days. The flexibility is there, and if needed the screen can be tuned down to 60Hz/FHD+. Those were my observations for the first few days where I had very heavy usage, exploring the phone and all of its features. As I settled down to my more usual usage (emails, browsing, camera, YouTube, a lot of notifications, but no games or heavy syncing of files, etc.) the phone started lasting for about a day and a half with similar 5-6 hours screen on time, even with all the features as above turned on. One thing that I would be curious to test in the future is the impact on 5G on the battery. Finally, here are the exact statistics from my usage:

    Screen on time: 6hr 42 mins Stand by time: 24 hours
    Screen on time: 6hr 34 mins Stand by time: 25 hours
    Screen on time: 5hr 49 mins Stand by time: 1 day 4 hours
    Screen on time: 5hr 42 mins Stand by time: 1 day 4 hours
    Screen on time: 5hr 51 mins Stand by time: 1 day 5 hours
    Screen on time: 4hr 57 mins Stand by time: 24 hours (this one was with QHD+ resolution)


    Something that unfortunately I didn’t manage to test is the wireless charging or the reverse wireless charging of the phone. It is very impressive that OnePlus managed to bring the same 30W charging speed to wireless as well. To put that in perspective, other manufactures offer 18W and 25W WIRED charging speeds for their top of the line 1000£+. OnePlus is offering 30W WIRELESS. That’s exactly double of the currently supported wireless charging speeds of most other phones, which tend to be capped at 15W. Developing wireless charging technology is very challenging, so I would be very interesting to try out their wireless charging pad. The phone also features reverse wireless charging at 3W, which can be useful for lending some battery power to other phones, or charging supported wireless headphones or smartwatches. Unfortunately, my smartwatch didn't seem to be compatible - but that seemed to be from the smartwatch side, as not all qi wireless chargers are supporting it. So it might be worth checking whether you gadgets would support this way of charging if you are planning to use reverse wireless charging.
     
    Last edited: Apr 21, 2020
    #24
    aris, Helder_DAlmeida, Swatiranjan and 6 others like this.

  6. masenov1
    The Lab - OnePlus 8 Pro Reviewer Apr 18, 2020

    Stickied Post
    masenov1 , via OnePlus Community App , Apr 18, 2020 :
    Oxygen OS

    As I briefly mentioned I love tweaking my phone - all the phones I had before my OnePlus 5, were with custom ROMs/rooted/jailbroken. "So… I downloaded this new ROM on my phone" was almost a weekly sentence with my last few phones. OnePlus 5 was the first phone, that I used without root, without tinkering with the original software for nearly three years! And I think this is my favourite part about owning a OnePlus phone and Oxygen OS - the long-term speed and performance, combined with good and useful set of features. My OnePlus 5 still feels as snappy at it was on the first day I bought it. This brings me a lot of confidence on how the OnePlus 8 Pro is going to perform, not only today and next week, but for the months and years to come. It’s a very underestimated feature, but one of the most important in my opinion. The other part that makes an operating system pleasant to use, it giving the user enough useful and polished features, so they can make full use of their phones.

    OnePlus and Google have created a good relationship over the years and Oxygen OS is the result. They stay close to the vanilla Android codebase, but with useful features, addons and tweaks on top. I think it's very smart of OnePlus - they let Google do a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of default apps and features developed with machine learning, while OnePlus polish and add tweaks without reinventing the wheel. This also allows for speedy updates, while going an extra mile and providing unique functionality to OnePlus phones. It’s a delicate balance to strike, and OnePlus have done a good job at implementing features, listening to the community, while keeping their entire lines of phones up-to-date for at least a few years. Still, if tweaking and modding is your cup of tea, there is a big community between every single OnePlus phone - unofficially you can run the latest Android on every single phone they have manufactured.

    Now onto the Oxygen OS itself. It’s a fairly light skin on top of Android, but full of small and useful tweaks across the board. I will go over the ones that I like the most.

    1. Settings presentation: Technically not a feature, but how the different features are presented in the settings. Almost every major feature has a clear image or a short video demonstrating its usage
    2. Reading mode/Night mode/Gaming mode/Fnatic mode/Zen Mode/Focused mode: Features not unique to the OnePlus 8 Series, but still worth a highlight. The phone offers different modes based on your usage, needs and content. Reading a long article - turn on Reading mode for a pleasant reading experience with mono/chromatic effects, easy on your eyes. As the sun goes down, the night mode automatically reduces the blue light emitted from the screen to again ease your eyes and help you go to bed easier. Start a game, and gaming mode automatically kicks in offering an improved performance - go a step further with Fnatic mode, cutting all distractions and let you focus on the game. Focused mode, cutting off all the distraction apps, or a step further with Zen Mode, and put down your phone completely for some time.
    3. Display settings - already mentioned in the Screen section, but worth the highlight again - vibrant colour effects, motion graphics smoothing, comfort tones, etc.
    4. Smart features - there are quite a few smart optimisations and features going in the background. Throughout the operating systems there are different optimisations automatically happening in the background, connected with the battery, screen, network usage, etc. The result is quick overall performance, while the phone saves battery when possible.

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    Some criticism arises with certain features taking time to be implement within Oxygen OS. Always on display (AOD) is a good example, as it wasn’t present until now, but OnePlus officially confirmed that this is now on the roadmap. Again, I think it is important to acknowledge that implementing every single feature for the sake of having all the features, can very quickly become a downward slope, leading to bugs, reduced performance, slower updates. OnePlus have insisted on quality and performance throughout the years, and consistently asked for opinions and listening to feedback. They have came a long way in terms of quality of their software and having genuinely useful features. While I would love to see certain features (Desktop mode would be amazing, although I suspect they might leave this to Google), and I am sure other people have their wish list, I get their approach and I think it's the way to go.
     
    Last edited: Apr 22, 2020
    #25
    aris, Helder_DAlmeida, jlasensiofi and 4 others like this.

  7. masenov1
    The Lab - OnePlus 8 Pro Reviewer Apr 18, 2020

    Stickied Post
    masenov1 , via OnePlus Community App , Apr 18, 2020 :
    Summary

    I feel that this year is a bit of a bittersweet moment for the company. OnePlus has moved away from being the “flagship killer” - offering affordable and high-quality phones, but with some clear disadvantages compared to flagships. The company grew and with them growing, they want to deliver the best phone possible - period.

    OnePlus has been on the front line with pushing the speed on all key components, processor, RAM, storage, screen, software, etc. This year they have come to the point of catching up on almost all the grounds they used to be lagging behind. They have addressed their long standing criticism, and now the 8 Pro has flagship quality cameras, FAST wireless charging and Ip68 water resistance, while having a top of the line performance and polished software. And of course that screen.. I mentioned it in different parts of the review, but again it's seriously impressive what OnePlus have achieved. 120Hz with QHD+ resolution, 10 bit colors, 240Hz touch sampling rate, and all the software they have to take a full advantage of it - MEMC, screen calibration, comfort tone, vibrant color effects - the list goes on and on. I think it is more than fair to say that OnePlus is becoming one of the best phones to get regardless of price.

    Lead with speed - OnePlus wants to start leading and not follow anymore - they have became the "flagship" that others are now comparing with. And this brings us to the question that OnePlus has become famous for - price. The prices of OnePlus phones have increased throughout the years, and this year is no exception. So has the overall price in the industry though, and compare to it OnePlus still delivers great value for money. If my previous OnePlus phone serves as an example, you should expect the OnePlus 8 Pro to last you for a few good years, if you want it to be. And with all the hardware and software baked inside, I am sure that it will be a pleasant ride.

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Apr 23, 2020
    #26
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  8. MosheG1
    The Lab - OnePlus 8 Pro Reviewer Apr 17, 2020

    #2
    aris, Helder_DAlmeida, meatandy and 6 others like this.

  9. masenov1
    The Lab - OnePlus 8 Pro Reviewer Apr 17, 2020

    #3
    aris, Helder_DAlmeida, Jimbo the Great and 2 others like this.

  10. manojsurya99
    Jelly Bean Apr 17, 2020

    #4
    aris, Jimbo the Great, G_plusone and 2 others like this.

  11. G_Bédouin_Axel_vZuV
    The Lab - OnePlus 8 Pro Reviewer Apr 17, 2020

    #5
    aris, AbhilashSaikia, Jimbo the Great and 3 others like this.

  12. masenov1
    The Lab - OnePlus 8 Pro Reviewer Apr 17, 2020

    masenov1 , via OnePlus Community App , Apr 17, 2020 :
    I tried measuring it just now, but it's a bit tricky unfortunately since it's in the middle of the phone :/ it does look around 2mm though
     
    #6
    aris, AbhilashSaikia, Jimbo the Great and 1 other person like this.

  13. masenov1
    The Lab - OnePlus 8 Pro Reviewer Apr 17, 2020

    #7
    aris, AbhilashSaikia, superplus and 1 other person like this.

  14. Black Forest Ham
    OnePlus Accessory Tester Apr 17, 2020

    #8
    aris, masenov1 and superplus like this.

  15. superplus
    Head Moderator Head Moderator Apr 17, 2020

    superplus , Apr 17, 2020 :
    Very illustrative so far, thanks @masenov1 :D

    That's what I was wondering too when seeing the pictures like that.

    Yes, I had no idea it was the green until it was mentioned :p It looks so nice and blue :cool:
     
    #9
    aris, Helder_DAlmeida, cdnfarmer and 2 others like this.

  16. superplus
    Head Moderator Head Moderator Apr 17, 2020

    superplus , Apr 17, 2020 :
    Yes, it's soo nice that it starts with receiving the phone and the music in anticipation :cool: Also nice bicycle :D
     
    #10
    aris, Helder_DAlmeida, Jimbo the Great and 1 other person like this.

  17. Edward_
    Ice Cream Sandwich Apr 17, 2020

    Edward_ , Apr 17, 2020 :
    OP5 was my favourite in terms of how slim and light it was. Compared to the 8pro, which is an absolute brick, your arm must ache when you use it
     
    #11
    aris, G_plusone, masenov1 and 1 other person like this.

  18. masenov1
    The Lab - OnePlus 8 Pro Reviewer Apr 17, 2020

    masenov1 , via OnePlus Community App , Apr 17, 2020 :
    Yeah I love the blue as well, especially when you look it under angle!
     
    #12
    aris, Helder_DAlmeida and superplus like this.

  19. masenov1
    The Lab - OnePlus 8 Pro Reviewer Apr 17, 2020

    #13
    aris, Helder_DAlmeida and superplus like this.

  20. masenov1
    The Lab - OnePlus 8 Pro Reviewer Apr 17, 2020

    masenov1 , via OnePlus Community App , Apr 17, 2020 :
    I am an avid cyclist, can't wait until I can start going out more again! [e]1f601[/e]
     
    #14
    aris and superplus like this.

  21. masenov1
    The Lab - OnePlus 8 Pro Reviewer Apr 17, 2020

    masenov1 , via OnePlus Community App , Apr 17, 2020 :
    Hah, yeah it did take some time to get used to it, I had a very similar transition with iPhone 4 - Nexus 4. The screen I think it's worth it though - it's very hard now to go back to the OnePlus 5 - I tried a few times out of curiosity to see how it would feel
     
    #15
    aris likes this.

  22. TibiTibi
    Photography Expert Apr 17, 2020

    #16
    aris, Helder_DAlmeida, G_plusone and 1 other person like this.

  23. Edward_
    Ice Cream Sandwich Apr 17, 2020

    Edward_ , Apr 17, 2020 :
    In terms of brightness sure, but I simply cannot accept a curved display. Aside from false touches, the distortion and glare along the curve make it impossible for pleasurable media consumption for me.
     
    #17
    aris, Jimbo the Great and masenov1 like this.

  24. G_plusone
    Marshmallow Apr 17, 2020

    G_plusone , Apr 17, 2020 :
    Nice start Martin :)
    Liked the unboxing shots and the hints of blue in the device.
    Nice side by side comparison with the 5 (my fingerprint scanner looks like that too :D) the 5 looks so much slimmer and the camera protrusion very much noticeable.
    Bumper case is the way to go I guess.
    Look forward to other things
     
    #18
    aris, Helder_DAlmeida, Jimbo the Great and 1 other person like this.

  25. masenov1
    The Lab - OnePlus 8 Pro Reviewer Apr 17, 2020

    masenov1 , via OnePlus Community App , Apr 17, 2020 :
    Thanks, I hope you enjoy the rest of the review as well! [e]1f60a[/e]
     
    #19
    aris and Jimbo the Great like this.

  26. Helder_DAlmeida
    Lollipop Apr 18, 2020

    #20
    aris, masenov1 and superplus like this.

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