OnePlus smartphones have earned a loyal fan base over the years, initially for offering high-quality hardware at affordable prices. But as those price tags have crept upward in recent years, it’s become more apparent that the company lagged behind some of its competitors in camera quality.
So this year OnePlus has announced a long-term partnership with Swedish camera company Hasselblad, and the companies are kicking things off with the launch of the OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 9 Pro have camera systems with sensors, optics, and color calibration developed in collaboration with Hasselblad.
OnePlus says the phones represent its biggest leap in camera quality to date. Both phones feature 48MP primary cameras with Sony IMX789 image sensors and support for optical image stabilizations, 50MP ultra-wide angle Sony IMX766 cameras, and 2MP monochrome cameras.
The OnePlus 9 Pro also has an 8MP telephoto zoom camera with support for 3.3x optical zoom, and both phones have 16MP Sony IMX471 front-facing cameras.
OnePlus says the 9 Pro can shoot 8K video at 30 frames per second, or 4K video at up to 120 frames per second. There’s also support for DOL-HDR support for recording high dynamic range video content.
Software features include support for hyperlapse (time lapse) video recording and “nightscape” video recording in low-light environments.
But OnePlus and Hasselblad say a key part of their partnership revolves around color calibration for wider dynamic range and more natural color reproduction.
While the cameras are the focus of the new smartphones, the rest of the specs paint a picture of a premium smartphone, including:
- 6.7 inch, 3215 x 1440 pixel (20.1:9) AMOLED display with a 120 refresh rate
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 processor
- 8GB or 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM
- 128GB or 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage
- 4,5000 mAh battery
- 65W fast charging (wired)
- WiFi 6
- Bluetooth 5.2
- In-display fingerprint reader
- Stereo speakers
- USB-C port
For the most part, the OnePlus 9 Pro looks a lot like the standard model, but the Pro model features
- Telephoto camera
- Wireless charging (with support for 30W fast wireless charging using OnePlus hardware or 5W wireless charging with standard Qi hardware)
- IP68 water resistance
The OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 9 Pro go up for pre-order from OnePlus.com today, with prices starting at $729/€699/₹49,999 for a OnePlus 9 in North America, Europe, and India respectively.
The OnePlus 9 Pro will be available for €899/₹64,999 and up in Europe and India, but customers in North America will only be able to buy the 12GB/256GB top-tier model, which is priced at $1069.
OnePlus is also introducing a budget model called the OnePlus 9R that features a 6.55 inch, 2400 x 1080 pixel 120 Hz AMOLED display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 processor, support for up to 12GB of LPDDR4X memory, and up to 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage. But this budget model has a less impressive camera system and expected to be exclusively available in India, where it sells for ₹39,999.
Nice. In the meanwhile the company founder and former soul has quit to find greener pastures.
I’m glad to hear that they have some tangible plans for this partnership.
While they’re at it, hopefully they can also avoid the blotchy/smudgy artifacts of image processing that seem to be from the heavy noise-reduction processing that so many smartphone cameras use today.
Of course, smartphones can’t match a proper camera in this regard. They use much smaller and lower-end sensors, and lack any dedicated image processing hardware. However, it would be nice to see even a small step in this direction.