Can the OnePlus 9 Pro take on the Galaxy S21 Ultra?
What do you usually get to know when the word flagship comes to mind? In a flagship smartphone, there is no compromise in terms of specifications including both the hardware and software. You get the top-end hardware and great software experience. When it comes to flagship smartphones in the market there are manufacturers like Samsung, Apple, OnePlus, etc. that come to mind.
This year Samsung came up with its S21 series which has the Galaxy S21 Ultra (Review) as the best flagship with all the beefier specifications that include a larger 120Hz AMOLED display, a 5000mAh battery, an excellent set of cameras, and much more to offer. On the other hand, BBK sub-group OnePlus had a great start this year with the OnePlus 9 series with the OnePlus 9 Pro being the best flagship to date.
The OnePlus 9 series created a big hype for their cameras as they have worked with Hasselblad for their cameras. The OnePlus 9 Pro (Review) packs all the flagship features like a larger 120Hz display, a good quad-camera setup, and faster 65W Warp Charge technology. In terms of performance, both pack in flagship chipsets where Samsung has gone for the Exynos 2100, the OnePlus 9 Pro has the Snapdragon 888.
The Galaxy S21 Ultra is the costlier of the two as it carries the brand value of Samsung and does it have enough to take over the OnePlus 9 Pro in every which way to become a flagship or will the OnePlus 9 Pro with a lower price tag edge ahead of the Galaxy S21 Ultra be the best flagship in the market. Let's find out in the full comparison and see which is the best premium flagship of the two?
OnePlus 9 Pro vs Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra Design:
Both the Galaxy S21 Ultra and the OnePlus 9 Pro sport a glass sandwich design with an aluminum frame running around. The back is made of different materials on both smartphones. The OnePlus 9 Pro has a glossy finish to the rear on both the Pine Green and the Morning Mist color whereas the Stellar Black color has the frosted matte finish. The Galaxy S21 Ultra, on the other hand, has a matte finish on both the Phantom Black and the Phantom Silver.
The Galaxy S21 Ultra provides the better grip of the two and has a slightly reflective pattern whereas the back of the OnePlus 9 Pro has a more reflective pattern if you consider the Morning Mist and Pine Green color variants. In terms of weight, the Galaxy S21 Ultra weighs 227 grams which are slightly heavier compared to the 197 grams on the OnePlus 9 Pro.
Coming to the camera modules, the one on the Galaxy S21 Ultra looks unique and elegant with its counter-cut design for the cameras with a larger module that slightly comes out from the back and has been well integrated to the side of the smartphone with a slight curve. The OnePlus 9 Pro has a basic rectangular module that consists the quad cameras with that Hasselblad branding.
To the sides, both smartphones have a power button with volume buttons but the OnePlus 9 Pro gets the signature alert slider to control the notifications. The OnePlus 9 Pro is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5 on both the front as well as back whereas the Galaxy S21 Ultra is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus, both on the front and back thus providing better protection of the two.
Both also have an IP68 rating which means they are water and dust resistant. Other placements which include a USB Type-C port, loudspeaker grille, and the primary microphone all at the bottom and the secondary noise-canceling microphone on the top remain the same for both smartphones. The front has larger punch-hole displays with the difference in location of punch-hole on the displays.
The Galaxy S21 Ultra has the unique look to it with its camera design and has the Gorilla Glass Victus but on the other hand, the OnePlus 9 Pro is lighter as it weighs lesser compared to the Galaxy S21 Ultra. So, build and design is a personal preference and you cannot go wrong by choosing any one of them.
OnePlus 9 Pro vs Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra Display:
On the front, both get massive punch-hole displays with the Galaxy S21 Ultra having a slightly larger 6.8 inches compared to 6.7 inches on the OnePlus 9 Pro. Both these displays are very similar as both are curved around the edges which look premium and also prevent accidental touches and also do get Quad HD+(1440x3216) AMOLED displays with a 120Hz refresh rate.
Both have dynamic refresh rates which means depending on the application in usage, the display switches to different refresh rates where the display can go lower to 10Hz on Galaxy S21 Ultra whereas, on the OnePlus 9 Pro, you can go as lower as 1Hz which is really good. The OnePlus 9 Pro also gets a higher-touch sampling rate at 360Hz which is higher compared to the 240Hz on the Galaxy S21 Ultra.
In terms of color reproduction, both are good and have great viewing angles. There is support for Widevine L1 on both with HDR10+ content making the streaming of HD contents on OTT platforms a bliss. In terms of brightness, the Galaxy S21 Ultra has 1500nits of peak brightness which is slightly higher compared to the 1300nits brightness on the OnePlus 9 Pro.
Under direct sunlight, both these displays are easily visible so there is not much of a difference and even in low-lighting or dark, both are good but the one on the Galaxy S21 Ultra can go very lower in terms of brightness compared to the OnePlus 9 Pro. The OnePlus 9 Pro covers 84.9 percent of the DCI-P3 gamut scale which is slightly higher compared to 81.4 percent on the Galaxy S21 Ultra.
Both these displays have an in-display fingerprint scanner where the OnePlus 9 Pro has an optical in-display fingerprint scanner, the Galaxy S21 Ultra has the more secured ultrasonic fingerprint scanner which is larger in terms of area and is much better placed compared to the optical one placed way bottom on the OnePlus 9 Pro. But the face-unlock works faster on the OnePlus 9 Pro out of the two.
Overall, with a slightly larger display, a better form of protection in the form of Gorilla Glass Victus, and a slightly brighter display with a better ultrasonic fingerprint scanner, the Galaxy S21 Ultra slightly edges ahead of the OnePlus 9 Pro.
OnePlus 9 Pro vs Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra Performance:
Since both smartphones are flagships so they provide the best performance by having the most powerful chipsets around. The Galaxy S21 Ultra is either powered by the Snapdragon 888/Exynos 2100 chipset depending on the region where you are present. The OnePlus 9 Pro is powered by the Snapdragon 888 for all of its variants.
The daily performance on both remains great with faster app opening/closing speeds and can handle everything thrown at them without breaking a sweat when it comes to gaming, scrolling through webpages, or rendering a video. The Exynos 2100 chipset has a slightly higher clock speed for its Prime core at 2.9GHz whereas the Snapdragon 888 has a clock speed of 2.84GHz for its Prime core.
Other dual cluster configuration includes both the Cortex-A78 and the Cortex-A55 cores. The Snapdragon 888 has the powerful Adreno 660 GPU whereas the OnePlus 9 Pro has the Mali-G78 MP14 GPU. But when it comes to gaming, the Snapdragon 888 has a slight edge over the Exynos 2100 chipset. Many games like Call Of Duty Mobile, Asphalt 9 Legends ran smoothly at the highest graphics and frame rate settings on both.
There were no issues of frame drops on each of the smartphones but after continuous gaming, the back of the smartphones felt warmer. In terms of benchmarks, the Snapdragon 888 powered OnePlus 9 Pro scored higher at 1121 and 3501 compared to 834 and 3295 on the Exynos-powered Galaxy S21 Ultra. Similarly, in Antutu v8, the OnePlus 9 Pro scored 710672 compared to 671219 on the Galaxy S21 Ultra.
The OnePlus 9 Pro is available in two variants - 8/12GB RAM with 128/256GB storage whereas the Galaxy S21 Ultra ships with a base RAM of 12GB and goes way up to 16GB and has 256/512GB storage. Both have faster UFS 3.1 speeds and LPDDR5 RAM speeds. Both of them do not have support for a microSD card for storage expansion. The OnePlus 9 Pro has a cooling system also.
Both have support for 5G but bands do vary from country to country. But when it comes to overall performance, the Snapdragon 888 has the edge when it comes to gaming and performance over the Exynos 2100 chipset thus having the slightest margin. The OnePlus 9 Pro has a clear edge over the Galaxy S21 Ultra if you consider the Exynos-powered Galaxy S21 Ultra.
OnePlus 9 Pro vs Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra Software:
Both smartphones run Android 11 out of the box but have different custom skins. OnePlus 9 Pro has the OxygenOS 11 and the Galaxy S21 Ultra has the OneUI 3.1. Both OS have a lot of similarities like an Always-On display, Android 11 specific features, navigation gestures, and Digital Wellbeing. OnePlus's OxygenOS provides a Stock-Android experience with no bloatware present and has a cleaner interface.
The OneUI, on the other hand, has slightly larger icons on the home screen and the app drawer compared to the OxygenoOS. But there are some third-party applications present on the OneUI which are pre-installed and if you sign up with the Samsung account, there are some minor ads present throughout which does take away the premium experience.
There are only two to three pre-installed apps on OxygenOS. Both have Google's integration in their user interfaces as both have a Google dialler, messages and also when you swipe left of the home screen, there is Google Discover on both.
Samsung has its features like a DeX Mode, Samsung Pay where you can use your debit/credit cards for payments, and most important that the Galaxy S21 Ultra also has support for S-Pen as it has all the S-Pen features which include Air Commands, Screen-off gestures, etc. something which the OnePlus 9 Pro does not have support for. Samsung S series has always provided the best features.
OnePlus does provide more customizations whether it is the fonts, wallpapers, look and design as well as the Always-On display. It has the Work Balance Mode, a Gaming Mode, etc. In terms of software updates, the Galaxy S21 Ultra holds the edge as Samsung provides three years of OS upgrades and four years of security updates whereas on the OnePlus you get two years of OS upgrades and three years of security updates.
Overall, the Galaxy S21 Ultra holds the edge in terms of software updates and has a lot of features to provide, and if you want cleaner software with no ads and bloatware and not concerned about software updates, OxygenOS is the better to go for. But still, OneUI holds the edge by a very slight margin.
OnePlus 9 Pro vs Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra Cameras:
The Galaxy S21 Ultra boasts a larger 108MP f/1.8 Samsung HM3 sensor for the main camera, a 12MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera, a 3x and a 10x optical zoom camera, and a laser autofocus sensor. The OnePlus 9 Pro has the newer set of cameras tuned by Hasselblad where the main camera is a 48MP f/1.8 Sony IMX689 sensor for the main camera, 50MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera, 8MP f/2.4 telephoto camera with a 2MP B/W sensor.
On the front, the Galaxy S21 Ultra has a 40MP f/2.2 camera whereas the OnePlus 9 Pro still sticks with the 16MP f/2.4 Sony IMX471 sensor for the front camera. Comparing the main cameras on both smartphones, both take excellent images with sharper details and have a good dynamic range. While OnePlus goes for a more natural look for the colors while Samsung has more oversaturated colors.
The images from the Galaxy S21 Ultra have slightly better details when you start pixel peep and zoom into the images. The noise level is lower on both smartphones but the dynamic range is better on the OnePlus 9 Pro most of the time thanks to the Hasselblad tuning of the cameras. Overall, if you want a more natural look choose the OnePlus 9 Pro, or else the main camera is better on the Galaxy S21 Ultra.
Similarly, at night, both cameras do an excellent job in terms of details and have a good dynamic range. Both have their dedicated Night Mode where the Galaxy S21 Ultra has lesser noise or you can say no noise when compared to the OnePlus 9 Pro. The contrast, long exposure in images is better on the Galaxy S21 Ultra and it has slightly sharper details but in terms of color saturation, the OnePlus 9 Pro has a more natural look and slightly better dynamic range.
The Galaxy S21 Ultra has two telephoto cameras where you can do a 3x or 10x optical zoom and still, you get the massive 100x space zoom as seen on the Galaxy S20 Ultra whereas, on the other hand, the OnePlus 9 Pro can do only 3.3x optical zoom and also has 30x digital zoom. In terms of images from the telephoto camera, the ones from the Galaxy S21 Ultra came out better compared to the OnePlus 9 Pro.
The dynamic range and the details look more sharper on the Galaxy S21 Ultra as there is very little noise present when compared to the OnePlus 9 Pro. However, the OnePlus 9 Pro does a better job in color saturation with more natural colors compared to oversaturated colors on the Galaxy S21 Ultra. Even at night, the details and dynamic range were better on the Galaxy S21 Ultra.
In terms of macro images, the Galaxy S21 Ultra does a better job in terms of details and dynamic range compared to the OnePlus 9 Pro as the two telephoto cameras can switch between each of the lenses to take a macro image whereas the OnePlus 9 Pro uses the ultrawide camera for a macro image. In terms of portraits, the Galaxy S21 Ultra does a good job in terms of edge detection and sharper details.
The dynamic range and color saturation are better on the OnePlus 9 Pro compared to the Galaxy S21 Ultra. The background blur is good on both but here the OnePlus 9 Pro has better background blur and has a 2MP B/W sensor to apply the color filters.
On the front, the Galaxy S21 Ultra has a 40MP camera which is better in terms of color saturation and dynamic range compared to the 16MP camera on the OnePlus 9 Pro. There is a lot of noise and inconsistency in colors from the selfies on the OnePlus 9 Pro as it is using a 2-year old IMX471 sensor. The Galaxy S21 Ultra has a more natural-looking skin tone and you can also take wide-angle selfies also.
In terms of videos, both smartphones can record videos at 8K at 30fps. The video footage has better details on the Galaxy S21 Ultra compared to the OnePlus 9 Pro which has better color reproduction and dynamic range. The 4K videos are equally good on both smartphones but the OnePlus 9 Pro goes one step ahead by providing 4K at 120fps.
However, in terms of ultrawide camera videos, the OnePlus 9 Pro has a wider dynamic range with better color saturation compared to the Galaxy S21 Ultra. Both have OIS on all three cameras but in terms of videos from the telephoto cameras, the Galaxy S21 Ultra edges ahead of the OnePlus 9 Pro. On the front, the OnePlus 9 Pro is only restricted up to 1080p at 30fps whereas Galaxy S21 Ultra can do 4K at 60fps video recording.
Overall, you can consider any of these cameras but with a better main camera, front camera, and telephoto cameras, the Galaxy S21 Ultra is the clear one to choose and if color saturation is what you care about the most, the OnePlus 9 Pro with the Hasselblad branding will fit very well.
For a detailed camera comparison between the Galaxy S21 Ultra and OnePlus 9 Pro please check:
Mrwhosetheboss: OnePlus 9 Pro vs Samsung S21 Ultra Camera Test Comparison. - YouTube.
OnePlus 9 Pro vs Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra Battery Life:
The Galaxy S21 Ultra sports a larger 5000mAh battery compared to a 4500mAh battery on the OnePlus 9 Pro. The average screen-on time on the Galaxy S21 Ultra was around 7-8 hours which is the best for any flagship smartphone and this was achieved with good battery optimizations provided by OneUI. On the other hand, the OnePlus 9 Pro had a screen-on time of 5.5-6 hours which is good but lower than the Galaxy S21 Ultra.
Using both the displays at 120Hz, the OnePlus 9 Pro lasted easily for one single day with all the heavy usage like playing Call Of Duty Mobile, rendering videos, running benchmarks, and also streaming social media whereas the Galaxy S21 Ultra could easily last one and a half day with such usage. With normal usage, both can last easily for two days if the display is set at a standard 60Hz refresh rate.
So battery life, the clear winner is Galaxy S21 Ultra but when it comes to charging, the Galaxy S21 Ultra cannot match up to the OnePlus 9 Pro as the OnePlus 9 Pro ships with a fast charger inside the box which the Galaxy S21 Ultra does not. Both support fast charging but the charger provided with the OnePlus 9 Pro is Warp Charge 65T which can take the OnePlus 9 Pro from 0 to 100 percent in 30 minutes.
The Galaxy S21 Ultra can only support up to 25W fast charging by using Samsung's 25W fast charger and that needs to be purchased separately. Both have wireless charging support where the Galaxy S21 Ultra can output at 25W and the OnePlus 9 Pro supports 50W Warp Wireless charging which is very fast if you use the Warp wireless charging pad and can go from 0 to 100 percent in 45 minutes.
(Credits: OnePlus)
There is also support for reverse wireless charging on both. Though the Galaxy S21 Ultra has slightly better battery life with the quick charging capabilities and the fact that the fast charger is bundled inside the box of the OnePlus 9 Pro which the Galaxy S21 Ultra does not have, the OnePlus 9 Pro takes the battery round and edges over the Galaxy S21 Ultra.
OnePlus 9 Pro vs Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra Audio Quality:
Both the Galaxy S21 Ultra and the OnePlus 9 Pro come with a stereo speaker setup that includes the loudspeaker grille at the bottom and the earpiece at the top. The sound output is good on both smartphones with the Galaxy S21 Ultra having the edge in terms of volume level and better bass level. Both lack a 3.5mm headphone jack though. There is support for Dolby Atmos on both smartphones.
Verdict:
Overall, both smartphones had a very close battle as each smartphone has a lot to go for. Since both the OnePlus 9 Pro and the Galaxy S21 Ultra are flagships, they have larger higher refresh rate displays, flagship level camera setup, large batteries and both offer good software experience. Howver, there are certain differences between both.
The OnePlus 9 Pro is a very good and the best ever flagship made by OnePlus as it has some very unique features like a LTPO display where the display can go as low as 1Hz compared to 10Hz on the Galaxy S21 Ultra, has support for 65W fast charging and 50W Warp Wireless charging and comes with peace of OxygenOS thus providing a clean and bloatware free software experience.
Another area where OnePlus has improved is in terms of cameras over all of its previous smartphones by collaborating with Hasselblad. However, the camera experience is not as good as the Galaxy S21 Ultra which is now the by-far has one of the best camera setup with that massive 108MP main camera and two telephoto cameras with 3x and 10x optical zoom.
The Galaxy S21 Ultra has a slightly larger display, a better display with higher brightness and a more secured fingerprint scanner, the software though having some bloatware provides better long-lasting experience in terms of software updates and security patches for the nest 4 years which is one of the best in the smartphone industry.
The Exynos 2100 variant may not be as powerful as the Snapdragon 888 chipset but still better compared to last year's Exynos 990 chipset on the Galaxy S20 series. So clearly, in terms of performance, the OnePlus 9 Pro with the OxygenOS and Snapdragon 888 has the edge clearly.
So if you are looking for great cameras, a better display, better software updates and a well built smartphone with good performance and some compromises like fast charging, then the Galaxy S21 Ultra is the clear one to go for. And if you want the best performance with a cleaner Stock Android like user interface, faster charging speeds and the natural look to the cameras, then the OnePlus 9 Pro is the perfect one to choose.
So it all depends on personal preference on whatever you choose as you cannot go wrong by choosing either of the two.
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