I used to produce a LOT of comparison videos. They were some of my favorite to shoot, and I would often stage them as showdowns.

“FIGHT FOR BLOOD!” [Punching Sound Effects]

I think it’s still helpful to compare different devices, highlight pros and cons, maybe even help guide someone shopping a new phone. We know this is MOSTLY entertainment for techies, but they’re still experiences worth sharing.

Producing comparisons as text pieces, the first battle to tackle is OnePlus! In my recent OnePlus 10 Pro review video, I said the toughest competition for the 10 Pro did NOT come from another manufacturer.

Allow me to explain…

The reality for phones produced in 2022, they’re facing intense pressure from their 2021 counterparts. This is true for EVERY manufacturer, but OnePlus highlights this especially well.

OnePlus is selling only one configuration of the 10 Pro, while still selling the 9 Pro at a reduced price. This gives us a perfect pairing of phones that a consumer might shop today. No differences in sales or trade ins, no confusing differences in storage options, this is a one to one phone comparison.

CONFIGURATION

The 10 Pro is an evolution over the 9 Pro. Nearly every component gets some polish or improvement. The most immediate challenge for a customer shopping on OnePlus.com might be storage and RAM.

The 10 Pro is new, and carries a “current phone” MSRP of $899 for an 8GB / 128GB build. The 9 Pro is stocked at a higher tier 12GB / 256GB build for an “older phone” price of $799.

A $100 price difference swings in favor of the less expensive phone for those people who want a storage upgrade. It’s easily the most difficult tech spec to shop between the 10 Pro and 9 Pro.

More info on the 10 Pro at OnePlus.com.
More info on the 9 Pro at OnePlus.com.

DESIGN – 10 Pro

HOT TAKE! I like the 10 Pro better than the 9 Pro!

On first glance, I wasn’t a fan of the rear camera housing. Sculpting from the edge of the phone frame, to create a panel of lenses, it’s definitely controversial. Seeing the phone in person, and using it, I like the transition into the camera panel better than the “lump of a domino” on the back of the 9 Pro.

There’s a practical aspect to the 10 Pro camera housing. Ceramic should prove a touch more durable than a larger glass surface area. You know, like how Samsung cameras would crack…

On a personal preference, I enjoy the color and finish of the 10 Pro over the 9 Pro. The 9 Pro’s mirror finish is nice, but makes for a more slippery and fingerprint smudgy experience.

The 10 Pro looks like the old sandstone rear of classic OnePlus phones, but has a satin matte texture closer to the 8 Pro.

SCREEN – Draw

Honestly, to the eye, I doubt anyone is really going to see any difference between these two phones. They’re both some of the best screens you can find on a phone. The performance people really use is nearly equal. The same QHD+ resolution, similar brightness, similar contrast and color, similar HDR.

The 10 Pro features newer technologies that should help with power and battery life, but the 9 Pro includes similar refresh rate scaling. It can’t scale down as low as the 10 Pro, but the end user feel isn’t going to be radically different.

If you had to twist my arm to pick a winner, the 10 Pro fingerprint sensor nudges me over the edge. The 9 Pro display fingerprint sensor is a little too low. The 10 Pro fingerprint sensor is back to where it was on the 8 Pro, and fits my thumb better.

That’s the main daily driver difference for me. Both screens are great.

CAMERAS – 9 Pro

The camera battle is the next most brutal comparison point between these two phones.

The 8 Pro ushered in the “BIG SENSOR” era for OnePlus. The 9 Pro improved on the hardware. The 10 Pro trades some features around. It’s not a linear upgrade.

There’s a different focus on features and performance. The 10 Pro has some modes not found on the 9 Pro, and the 9 Pro is capable of a few tricks the 10 Pro omits.

The 10 Pro wins some victories for camera modes. The new Movie mode includes great manual controls to adjust the look of your video, or shoot LOG for better color grading.

Dual View is always fun for shooting front and back video at the same time. Long Exposure can produce some fun motion streaking or light painting images.

The 10 Pro is built around more “fun” than the 9 Pro.

The new ultra-wide uses a smaller camera sensor, but employs a much wider lens. It’s a fun sensor with bolder output, and can morph into an extreme fish-eye view.

The 9 Pro isn’t as “fun”, but it outperforms the 10 Pro in core use.

The main sensors are extremely similar and fantastic performers. Both phones can clear data fast, and shoot 120fps 4K video. This is a HUGELY unique feature for both phones, and the footage is stunning.

However, the 9 Pro steps up to 8K at 30fps, where the 10 Pro can only shoot 8K at 24fps.

The 9 Pro ultra-wide isn’t as bold or as wide, but it’s a significantly larger sensor. The 9 Pro is better for low light ultra-wide images, and video is better too. The 9 Pro ultra-wide can shoot 4K at 60fps, and 8K at 30fps, while the 10 Pro can only shoot 4K at 30fps from the ultra-wide, with no option for any 8K.

The 9 Pro also remains one of the only phones ever made that can switch from the main sensor to the ultra-wide while shooting 4K at 60fps. Every other phone on the market (including the 10 Pro) requires the user to stop recording, switch cameras, and then record again.

Lastly, the 9 Pro has one additional camera sensor for low light images. The 2MP monochrome doesn’t sound particularly impressive, but it helps gather more light for photos and 1080p video. The 10 Pro tries to match that performance in software, but it’s not the same.

Both of these phones are monster camera options with bleeding edge features. The 9 Pro takes the win for more practical hardware.

BATTERY – 10 Pro

The 10 Pro takes a win here with a larger battery and faster charging for the international variant.

I’m trying to get my hands on an international Warp charger to see if OnePluses sold in the USA can also charge at the faster 80W rate. Regardless, the 10 Pro is significantly faster at 65W than any Apple or Samsung sold, and the 65W is included in the box with the phone.

NETWORK – 9 Pro

Both the 9 Pro and the 10 Pro are champs on WiFi 6. Both support T-Mobile’s “Ultra Capacity” 5G. Both phones support Verizon’s C-Band 5G, though it can be a bit trickier activating it on the 9 Pro.

The 9 Pro supports mmWave, which allows for faster speeds on Verizon’s UW 5G network. The 10 Pro lacks support for that radio.

The majority of coverage nationwide is going to be on “slower” 5G for the immediate future, but when you can get mmWave, it’s REALLY nice.

PERFORMANCE – Draw

Another area that’s REALLY difficult to quantify, how do we grade performance?

Just looking at synthetic benchmarks tells us very little about how these phones perform using real world applications. From a hardware perspective, new SOCs are built to accomplish small tasks as fast as possible. Synthetic benches test that, but in ways which consumers will rarely use their phone.

From a software perspective, numerous companies use some kind of performance profiling to maintain better performance consistency. Even if you’re allowed the FULL power of the SOC, as a phone heats up, the hardware will slow the phone down to prevent damage to the internals.

We’re regularly promised 10-15% yearly improvements, but the reality needs to be balanced against workload and thermals. HOW you use the phone matters significantly.

Video rendering in Kinemaster has remained largely unchanged over three phone generations. My tests often fall in margin of error territory when matching phones on the same generation of Android.

If you run a short workload, the 10 Pro can accomplish a short task faster. If you run a longer workload, the 9 Pro can often close the gap. In my batch photo processing test, which is the hardest test I run, the 10 Pro starts faster, but it throttles more. This is a test that takes the 10 Pro almost 19 minutes to complete. The 9 Pro throttles less, and manages to eke out a small win over the 10 Pro.

As a brief aside, it’s interesting to see the OnePlus 8 Pro manage an even faster overall time, with even less thermal throttling over the course of this test.

We’re talking about phones that can rival laptops in terms of horsepower. This is hardware which is ridiculous overkill for daily tasks, communication, social media, content streaming, etc.

There is almost no benefit at shopping the premium tier of phones to “cover the basics”. We should never talk about “average” use when discussing phone performance near $1000. It’s like trying to sell a top of the line gaming laptop to your great grandmother.

The 10 Pro is better in a short sprint, but the 9 Pro is better behaved in longer use cases. Many of the tasks that set a premium phone apart from a more mainstream device are likely going to be more compute heavy tasks. The 9 Pro gets a NUDGE of a win, but there aren’t many areas where the 8 Pro won’t be right on its heels.

THE WRAP UP

The entire phone industry is in an interesting place right now. This isn’t a unique situation to OnePlus, but because there aren’t other storage options, and there isn’t a “regular” OnePlus 10, this showdown is especially difficult for the 10 Pro.

Keeping the 9 Pro around longer to fill in as a “cheaper” premium phone is great for consumers, but makes this shopping comparison a little more confusing.

It’s my highest praise to say a phone is worthy of a one-year upgrade. That means a new phone is so much improved over its year-old predecessor that it might be worth the time and effort to flip the older phone for the newer phone.

As I write this out, I also have the OnePlus 8 Pro nearby. Getting it updated to Android 12, playing around with the 8 Pro again, I don’t know that I would say the 10 Pro is currently worthy of a two-year upgrade. Not unless the person upgrading tells me they REALLY want to play with more advanced camera modes like 4K/120 or XPAN.

That’s where we find ourselves today. The 10 Pro isn’t “bad”. The 8 Pro and 9 Pro are still “really good”.

If someone needs to buy a new phone, it makes sense to buy the newest you can to secure the longest active software support, or to shop a year older for the best price to performance ratio.

Yet phones from 2020 are still competing phenomenally well.

The 8 Pro lacks 4K/120 and 8K/30 video. The 8 Pro doesn’t have the fancier power efficient screen (but can still operate at 120Hz and QHD+). It’s still a great 5G option, with powerful processing, great cameras, a beautiful screen, and crazy fast charging. It’s PLENTY phone for 2022, and is still gross overkill for most daily tasks.

That pushes us even farther back in terms of a potential upgrade, where now we’re more seriously looking at flipping a OnePlus 7 or OnePlus 6. For anyone who’s held on to a phone that long already, it’s an incredibly difficult question to answer.

Do you want the newer phone with less storage for $899? Do you want the year-old phone with more storage for $799?

I literally can’t answer that in a way that will broadly apply to folks reading this. Which would you pick?

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