After trying the OnePlus 8 Pro for several weeks, it is time to do more than just a test. And the important thing here is to answer the million dollar question: which phone to stay with, the OnePlus 8 model or the Pro version? Well, settle in: I’m going to get you out of doubt.
(Almost) two drops of water
Although at first glance they seem traced, the truth is that the OnePlus 8 and OnePlus 8 Pro have subtle differences. And these, despite being small, are noticed and felt more than you might think with the naked eye. The Pro model is somewhat taller, thicker and heavier than its brother, not scandalously, as I point out, but enough so that the experience in hand is that of a more “forceful” phone.
It is not a difficult terminal to operate with one hand because it still has a narrow drawing, but on certain occasions you will feel that you do not reach everything. So much so that when I analyzed the OnePlus 8 I pointed out that it was not a phone for people who hate big smartphones and of course the Pro is even less so.
At the hardware level, they are practically two exact copies. Both phones enjoy Qualcomm’s latest processor , a Snapdragon 865 chip that literally flies; They come with up to 256 GB of storage capacity and have 8 or 12 GB of RAM, depending on configuration. It is true that the memory of the Pro is better (LPDDR5 vs LPDDR4), but it is not going to be something that you really notice on a daily basis, since the OnePlus 8 offers in itself a fantastic performance, very well used also by Oxygen OS , the layer developed on Android 10, which is a real delight to use today the most minimalist and complete of those on the market.
Where there is a clear difference is in the battery and, be careful, because not in the sense that you imagine. The OnePlus 8 Pro has more capacity (4,510 mAh compared to 4,300 of the OP 8 model), but in my experience I have found that the autonomy is less – it reaches the end of the day and nothing else. This obviously is related to its technology and screen size, which I will talk about a little later, but in short what matters is that with the Pro you will be more limited in this regard.
At least the loads have improved. It comes with the same 30-watt fast charge as the OnePlus 8 -which, well, it is no longer as fast if we compare it to the competition- and also incorporates two new incentives: reverse charging, to give battery to other devices (for example True Wireless headphones (now so fashionable), and wireless charging. We have been asking for the latter for a long time and it seems that OnePlus has finally decided to incorporate a feature that we almost take for granted when we talk about high-end smartphones.
The screen, a turning point
The screen is an important difference between the two phones. It is no longer just because this Pro has a slightly larger panel ( 6.7 inches vs. 6.55 ″) and higher resolution (Quad HD + vs. Full HD +) but because it enjoys a higher refresh rate. If in the OnePlus 8 we enjoyed 90 Hz, the Pro raises the bar to 120 Hz. This, as indicated, index on your battery, but in return you will have more smoothness and fluidity than ever in a panel in which you can also use a graphics smoothing mode (optional) that is responsible, as its name indicates, for “smoothing “The videos that we have in the gallery, those from YouTube and even those from Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, to make them appear more fluid. It is not something that will determine by itself your preference for this model, but it is still an interesting quality to value.
The edges of the panel of this model are also more curved than those present in the OnePlus 8, something that at first glance is more attractive (visually its aesthetics is more imposing) but that day by day it may subtract charm from accidental touches that you can have precisely because of this accentuation of the curve (in its “little” brother it has the right measure in my opinion).
Let’s take pictures
We got to the cameras and here there are differences in clear favor of the Pro. In addition to the main sensor , 48 MP, it is better here (we are dealing with the recent Sony IMX689), it has a wide angle that also goes up to 48 MP, both cameras working really well.
In addition, the third sensor is not a macro, as it happened in the OnePlus 8 (and that was one of the points that I liked the least). In its place is a 3x telephoto lens that still delivers fantastic performance and is infinitely more useful than the first one – first image below. In fact if you want to make macro photo, you can also do it through cropping (by software) and I assure you that the differences are conspicuous by their absence -second image below.
The fourth camera is a 5 MP sensor with a quite unexpected color filter because it is not usual in a mobile phone. This has a glass in front of the lens that filters certain light waves. The result? Well, the famous images of “radiography” effect that circulated on the internet weeks ago and have even caused the provision to be banned in China, where it will be captured shortly by means of an update – it could even be seen under clothing. In the image below we are not going that far, but you can see its effectiveness in the Oculus Quest remote control, whose internal sensors are exposed using the photochromic filter of this sensor.
As for the front camera , no surprises: its 16 MP sensor, integrated through a hole in the screen, takes selfies that will leave you as satisfied as the OnePlus 8 already did – under these lines with portrait mode activated.
What about IP68 certification?
The IP68 certification is one of the topics that has been most curiously commented on this phone. And not everyone knows fully what happens to OnePlus and their resistance to water. It has been announced by hype and cymbal that the Pro is IP68 certified, which guarantees its resistance to water and dust for a certain time and depth, but the OnePlus 8 also has this advantage.
The difference is that the Pro has gone through the certification process (which has an additional cost) and its brother has not , so only one of them can show the guarantee label. What’s more, the OnePlus 7 Series also enjoyed resistance to these elements, but in that case OnePlus preferred not to pay the certification costs for any of its models.
So which one to buy: OnePlus 8 or the Pro?
We are almost at the end of this review and that implies talking about prices. The Oneplus 8 Pro has been a great disappointment in that sense because it is the first phone of the brand that in its maximum configuration (12 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage) exceeds 1,000 euros. It is true that we are talking about a phone that pretends to play in the big league and with certain benefits that must be paid, but this at the same time undermines that identity of “iPhone killer” with which OnePlus became known at the time.
Put things like that, what OnePlus to buy? Broadly speaking, I could say that if you give a lot of importance to the 120 Hz screen refresh, wireless charging or having a telephoto lens instead of macro, your model is the Pro (its price starts from 909 euros with 8 GB and 128 GB of internal memory). For everything else (and it is a lot), I think that with the OnePlus 8 (whose cost starts from 709 euros for 8 + 128 GB) you will be quite satisfied if what you are looking for is to have a complete and round phone (saving some snags, of course), you want to have the latest from the brand and you want to save 200 euros.