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00:00There was this comment that one of you guys posted in one of my earlier videos
00:03where someone was like you either die a flagship killer or you live long enough to become the
00:09flagship. And at the time I thought it was a pretty funny joke, but that phrase is a remarkably
00:15accurate depiction of what we have today. The OnePlus 8 Pro is a full-blown flagship. Like
00:21we're talking IP certified water resistance, wireless charging, a very flagship camera,
00:26we'll get into that a little bit, but this is, it's a flagship, a really good one, but it's also
00:33equipped with flagship pricing. This is now a $900 smartphone. The base price for the OnePlus 8 Pro
00:40is 900 bucks. And I mean, there's a lot to be discussed here, but okay. I'm going to start
00:47this video off with, let's do it like this. I think anyone who's interested in a OnePlus 8 Pro
00:54is probably interested in a Galaxy S20 or an S20 Plus because they have a lot of things in common
01:01between them. The big one for me are the displays. They both have these fantastic 120 Hertz panels.
01:06The OnePlus 8 Pro has a 1440p panel. It's super bright, super color accurate. It's a top tier
01:12display. Visually, I'd put it on par with the S20 Plus. It really is that good. It's honestly strange
01:17to me that OnePlus is able to get these displays, like a smaller company like this is able to get
01:22displays that are better than like the vast majority of smartphones out there, but it really
01:26is like a kick-ass 120 Hertz panel. Now, I can personally tell the difference between the 120
01:32Hertz panel and the 90 Hertz panel from last year's OnePlus 7 Pro, but I have to look for it.
01:37Now, I'm, maybe I'm sensitive to it. Like I play a lot of games at high refresh rates. Like I,
01:42I go for that stuff, but I have to look for it. Right. It doesn't like jump out immediately as
01:48being better, like the 120 over the 90. There is a big difference between 60 and 90, but if you are
01:54someone who's fortunate enough to have a device that does have a 90 Hertz panel, don't let that
01:59120 Hertz jump be the main reason why purchasing this. Like it's, it is noticeable if you look for
02:04it. The other thing is like, it's refresh rate on a phone, right? This isn't like competitive
02:12Reddit browsing. You don't need that tactical advantage of 120 Hertz screen. It's nice. It's
02:17slightly easier on the eyes, but if, for the people that just haven't experienced it ever,
02:22it's not the most important feature in the world. It's just nice to have. The performance is amazing
02:27as you would expect from a Snapdragon 865 with UFS 3 storage and the LP DDR5X memory. It really
02:34is a crazy fast phone. There is a chip inside the OnePlus 8 Pro from a company called Pixelworks,
02:39which helps to amp up the visual experience. So it does stuff like color calibration and upscaling
02:45contents to HDR quality content, but it's got this neat feature called motion smoothening,
02:50which can reduce any kind of motion blur or visual judders in certain types of videos.
02:54Now the front of this camera does not have the pop-up camera, like the OnePlus 7 Pro. It's got
02:59a hole punch camera and I don't mind it. Like I thought I would care because I spent an entire
03:05year on a phone with no front anything, no notch, no bezel, no camera. And this hole punched,
03:12I thought it would just be like an eyesore. I don't mind it at all. Now I don't think this is
03:16like the end stage of front facing cameras. I do think that the under display cameras will be
03:21appearing soon. Like we've seen rumors of that tech appearing like the Note 20 from Samsung
03:25later this year. So I wouldn't be surprised if OnePlus picks up that tech in the next
03:29year, maybe even less, but in its current state, it already looks fine to me. It's got super fast
03:34face unlock, super fast fingerprint unlock. It still has a curved edge. I've talked about this
03:39plenty of my videos, but the S20 series this year, they kind of reduced the curvature on their edge.
03:46So it's not as easy to get misclicks and accidental swipes, but the OnePlus 8 Pro still has a pretty
03:52big curve on that edge. Now, one of the easiest ways to combat this is to have a case. They
03:57include a clear one with the OnePlus 8 Pro. It's got never settle kind of like frosted in the back.
04:02So you can show off that never settling, if you can see that, while you rock it. But it does help
04:10with accidental clicks on this device. Now, I normally don't cover cases on this channel,
04:18but I got to on this one. In the media kit, these things came in. Like look at the color.
04:25You think this channel is going to get these cases and not talk about them? I mean, come on, dude.
04:30These are like the most 2D cases I've ever seen. Like the color is perfectly teal. It's got the
04:36OnePlus sandstone texture to it. So if you want that kind of textured grip, it has that. It also
04:44is slightly different in terms of design from the previous sandstone cases on OnePlus phones. So,
04:50I mean, this is just from long-term usage, but these cases tend to crack over time,
04:54like just on the edges, because they don't have a full bottom. It's kind of cut out.
04:58Because these are built in a way to, I mean, they're just fully, it's a full case around the
05:03edge. So I think these will last longer without cracking, like previous sandstone cases have.
05:09But there's also, I mean, I'm going into so much detail about these cases, but they're teal. They
05:13deserve it. It's got these lines in the design. And even after only a couple weeks of using these,
05:18they've become quite dirty. So I think that over time, these lines might become dark from use,
05:24but that's just the case. Okay, enough about these damn things.
05:29The phone itself. So this has a blue ultramarine color, and it is a very blue color. It comes in
05:36a green, also in the same kind of satin finish. I much prefer the visual appearance of that green
05:41over the blue. This is just super loud. It's just not my thing, but it's a very nice texture. It's
05:46got this smooth finish, and they've also matched the edges of the phone to have that same kind of
05:51smooth finish. There's another color variant that I have here. This is not an 8 Pro, but an 8.
05:58Notice I had to wipe it to get rid of the fingerprints. But this is called Interstellar
06:02Glow, and it's similar-ish to the Samsung's Aura Glow, in the sense that it's like a reflective,
06:09polished finish. It's a different process, though. This is more of like a pearlescent,
06:14mirrored effect, whereas the Samsung material looks almost prismatic. There's 30-watt wireless
06:19charging on this, which is super fast, and I was able to get the advertised 50% in 30 minutes.
06:24I do find it a little bit warm to the touch, warmer than I'd like. Even Warp Charge, just the
06:30regular 30-watt Warp Charge, does make these devices warm, but it feels slightly warmer on
06:36the wireless charger, which could affect battery durability over time. Battery life is great on
06:41this device. So this is getting a comfortable 7 hours of screen-on time. That's with 120 Hz,
06:481440p. Like, that's just... right? If you drop the resolution, or drop the refresh rate, you just
06:54get longer from there. But 7 hours of screen-on time, with everything turned up, that's a huge
06:59win in my books. Okay, speakers. So there are stereo speakers. They sound really good, but when
07:06I try to compare to the S20, I think that music sounds better on the OnePlus 8 Pro. I think movies
07:12sound better on the S20. I can't explain it. I feel like maybe they handle sound, like punchy
07:18sounds, a little bit better on the S20. And it's not just, like, bass, or any kind of mid-tones,
07:23or anything. It's just... music sounds better on this, in my opinion. Movies and shows sound better
07:28on the S20. Take that for whatever you will. The haptics on this device are also improved.
07:34It feels more pingy now, instead of, like, thumpy and buzzy. This, like, the OnePlus 7 Pro already
07:39had pretty good haptics. I just like this better. It just feels sharper and more precise. Now, the
07:45S20 this year, they also have improved haptics. I would say that the S20 vibration motor, or haptic
07:51motor, feels more robust. Like, you can do more stuff with whatever mechanism they have in here.
07:56Like, they've created sensations that, when you take pictures, it feels like something's, like,
08:00rolling around in there really quickly. You don't get that with this. This is just more of, like,
08:04a cleaner, precise ping, which I personally like. But they're both good. Now, I need to talk about
08:10the cameras, because I think the camera on the OnePlus 8 Pro is probably the most important
08:15feature. First of all, it is huge. Like, the camera bump on this thing sticks out, like, if I'm
08:20eyeballing, like, three millimeters. It's very large. It's, like, bam. You looking for this? A ramp?
08:28Because I got a ramp for you. It's a very, very big camera bump, especially if you don't have a case
08:33on it. Now, I'm okay with the bump, the size of the bump. Because this year, for the first time
08:38ever in OnePlus history, they have an excellent camera. Like, a truly excellent camera that can
08:44sit on the shelf with any of the top-tier flagships. Because before this, every phone that has ever come
08:49out from OnePlus, but the reviews are always the same. It's like, the camera system this year is
08:54good. It's really good for the price, but it can't compete with the top-tier flagships. That's, like,
08:59the OnePlus story. It's what you guys have been hearing for years. It's what I've been saying for
09:04years. And it's probably what OnePlus has been hearing for years in the reviews. And they got
09:08sick of it. Quite frankly, this is an excellent camera. It's really good in daylight. It's sharp,
09:13great color, fast, like, super fast shutter. The ultra-wide is on point. There's some color shift
09:18between the lenses, but it's better this year than last year. The 3x telephoto, I would say,
09:23is where these two cameras differ the most. Because the regular lens and the ultra-wide,
09:28they're both really good on the S20 and the OnePlus 8 Pro. But the 3x zoom, they both look
09:34great. I do prefer the images from the S20, though. It just has better contrast to me,
09:39and the whole image looks a little bit cleaner. Now, when you crank that up to a 30x digital zoom,
09:44they also have some differences. The Samsung looks cleaner. It's just way less noisy, but that
09:50software is potentially a little too aggressive. Because now you're losing detail that the OnePlus
09:55kept. It is noisier, but you can always de-noise in post, but I'm not sure if you can regain the
10:00loss of detail. But let's be real here. We're talking about 30x digital zooms here. I don't
10:06know if people can be using it that often, but if that's super important to you, well, now you know
10:10the differences between them. The nighttime photos are also really good. All three lenses perform
10:16really well. Now, I do feel like OnePlus phones have a bit of an advantage for the type of low
10:21light shooting that I like to do. If you follow my channel, I shoot a lot of nighttime landscapes,
10:26and the thing is, the low light feature in this phone is called Nightscape. So, maybe the software
10:31is really good at just picking out architectural details and amplifying that stuff in low light,
10:37but they look so good on the OnePlus 8 Pro. They did an incredible job this year.
10:42I like the camera. For the first time ever, I can be like, this is an amazing camera. And it
10:48also has that super macro feature, so you can zoom in on things and see details that are both gross
10:53and really interesting at the same time. And the video function is also really good. Well-stabilized,
10:59good auto-focus, you're going to like it. I'm going to talk about the biggest difference between
11:03these phones, which is their software. Now, I'm someone that values the kind of clean nature of
11:10OxygenOS. I'm someone that doesn't even like... I don't like text in my apps. You can tell that
11:17I'm going to prefer something like this. I just like stuff as clean as possible. One UI is
11:22excellent. 2.0 looks so much better than it has in the past, but it still has redundant apps.
11:27The moment you have a Samsung browser and Samsung Pay that's baked into the phone,
11:34it's not as clean as OxygenOS, but they're both good. It's just that if you value the most minimal,
11:40cleanest software experience possible, OxygenOS on the OnePlus is going to win.
11:45Okay. Now, let's talk about pricing. And that's, I think, where I'd like to close off this video.
11:53This is a $900 phone, which is so much more expensive than this was when it launched. This
11:59was a $670 phone, I think, when it launched, the OnePlus 7 Pro. This is 900 bucks, which is
12:05$230 more. Yeah, $230 more. My math isn't that great right now, but this is a huge jump up in
12:17price. Now, some of that pricing comes from the IP certification and some of that price comes
12:22from the wireless charging, I'm sure. But I think the biggest portion of that jump up in price is
12:27the camera. When you want to compete in the big leagues and you want to have cameras that can
12:32compete with iPhones and Samsungs and Pixels, you need the best lenses, the best sensors. And that
12:39stuff is crazy expensive. It's what we have. We have a really good overall package. In my opinion,
12:45this is the best flagship on the market right now for Android users, but the price tag is weird
12:51for OnePlus. Now, I think it was last year, I made a video entitled, I think it was called like
12:57the OnePlus we knew was dead or something like that. And basically, it was just the story of
13:01how OnePlus had shifted very, very quickly over the years from a company that was very budget
13:07minded to a more premium device. Right now, we're seeing extremely expensive flagships. This stuff
13:14is, it's flagship territory. Now, if you didn't, I think one of the problems that reviewers have
13:21when it comes to products like this, and it's not a problem, it's just something that we inherently
13:25look, it's the way we look at devices. We look at track record. We look at history. We have
13:31expectations of what products will be and what they should be, right? So, imagine you didn't
13:37know anything about these phones, like these two. Let's say you had the S20 and the OnePlus 8 Pro.
13:43They didn't have any branding. There was no kind of association of history or expectations with
13:48these products. I think most people, just blind reviewers out there would be like, this is the
13:53better phone. Empirically, objectively speaking, this is the better phone all around because it's
13:58faster, it's cheaper, everything about this is a better phone. But because this is a Samsung
14:03branded phone, we have expectations. Because this is a OnePlus branded phone, we also have
14:08expectations. We want this to be cheaper because at one point in time, this was really cheap.
14:12And at one point in time, this was the best camera system on Android phones. So,
14:17that is the problem when it comes to reviewing stuff like this. Because
14:21part of me wants to review this stuff completely objectively, without any buys, without any kind of
14:27any agenda. But I think it's gone to the point where we see OnePlus has shifted to a completely
14:33different space. We can no longer look at this brand as a, hey, I wish they were cheap. Hey,
14:38I wish they were, you know, $600 phones at the top end. It's not going to be that way anymore.
14:44What they have made is, in my opinion, the best flagship. It's expensive and it is what it is.
14:51Now, in this video, I did not talk about this phone, the OnePlus 8. I actually think this is
14:56the more important phone of the two. I think there's a way more important and interesting
15:00discussion to be had with this phone, but I didn't include it because it's going to be in
15:04a separate video. I'll probably drop it in two or three days. But stay tuned for that.
15:09I just feel like the OnePlus 8, it's the best flagship in Android right now, in my opinion.
15:15Okay. Hope you guys enjoyed this video. Thumbs if you liked it, subs if you loved it. I'll
15:19see you guys next time.