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OnePlus 9 Pro Vs Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra. How does these two Giants fair against each other?

 

OnePlus 9 Pro Vs Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra.

OnePlus have launched their best Smart ever, the OnePlus 9 Pro. Being a 2021 flagship device, the phone comes with a number of high end specs including the Snapdragon 888 Chipset, a QHD LTPO dynamic AMOLED display and a 65W fast charger.

Not being the first phone to feature Wich high end specs, the phone is not the only one at the top spectrum, and has a number of close Competitors and rivals. One of these is the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra released early this year, and in this post we have closely compared the OnePlus 9 Pro Vs the Galaxy S21 Ultra to see how the two flagships fair side by side.

Design.

While the OnePlus 9 Pro measures 163.2 x 73.6 x 8.7 mm, the S21 Ultra measures 166.1 x 75.6 x 8.9mm, both phones are quite huge with the same 20:9 aspect ratio. The OnePlus 9 Pro is however slimmer than the S21 Ultra by 0.2mm. It might look so small a difference, but such level of slimness will have a huge compromise on other specs especially the battery capacity. The overall effect is a much slimmer and lighter phone at 197g compared to the 227g of the S21 Ultra. However the two phones are still way thicker than the Oppo Find X3 Pro at 8.3mm and the Vivo X60 Pro which is just 7.6mm thick.

Both the OnePlus 9pro and the Galaxy S21 Ultra are huge phones, and might require two handed handling most of the time. The extra weight on the S21 Ultra makes it even much more tiring on the hands, and doesn’t feel nice walking with one on your pockets.

These two phones being the best of the best flagships, they both have IP 68 rating, with water resistance upto 1.5M for 30 minutes. This however doesn’t mean you intentionally drop your highly priced device into a pool of water, and you must be careful with them just like in any other electronic devices.

Display

While the S21 Ultra has a 6.8 inch display, the OnePlus has a 6.7 inch screen which might not be much of a difference, though in the Smartphone world a 0.1 inch means a lot.

Both phones use the best display LTPS AMOLED technology. While Samsung calls theirs Dynamic AMOLED, OnePlus calls their display Fluid 2 AMOLED. Both can achieve dynamic refresh rate of between 1 and 120 HZ. They also can display 1B colors and Support HDR10+. This means in terms of display experience the two phones will give you the best display experience possible on a smartphone. 

Both also have QHD resolutions of 1440 x 3216 pixels in the OnePlus 9 Pro and 1440 x 3200 pixels in the S21 Ultra. The Ultra has a pixel density of 515 ppi while the OnePlus 9 Pro has 525 ppi pixel Density. The slight difference could be attributed to the slightly bigger screen in the S21 Ultra. 

Both support the Always-on display feature and are bright enough to be used outdoors even in direct sunlight, with the OnePlus 9 Pro having a maximum brightness of 1300 nits and the S21 Ultra has 1500 nits.

Both phones support in-display fingerprint reader, but while the OnePlus uses the optical scanner, the S21 Ultra uses a more advanced Ultrasonic finger print scanner which is more accurate and fast.

Performance.

The OnePlus 9 Pro is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888, a 5nm chipset first featured on the Xiaomi Mi 11 announced December last year. On it’s part, the Galaxy S21 has the same Snapdragon 888 for those in the US and the Exynoss 2100 for international users. 

While both chipsets are the best at 5nm, I don’t like the thought that Samsung decided to give us their in-house processor, considering that they have been known not to be as fast and advanced as the Snapdragon chipsets. 

In terms of performance both phones promise the best ever experience, and you will be able to multitask, stream high res movies and music as well as do any other phone task without a hitch or clitch. The OnePlus 9 Pro has two memory variants of either 8 or 12 GB RAM, but the Galaxy S21 Ultra pushes the limits further up to 16GB.

Both these phones run the latest Android 11 OS, with the Oxygen OS 11 on the OnePlus 9 Pro and One UI 3.1 on the Galaxy S21 Ultra. Both promises the best ever experience, with the One UI 3.1 promising advanced customization and security while the Oxygen OS 11 on it’s part giving you a much more cleaner sane interface.

There’s no doubt that the biggest selling point of the S21 Ultra is the camera performance, and Samsung Electronics did a good jon in pushing the camera hardware and software performance of this phone to a whole new level, and many phones will have a hard time coming close to the level of camera performance that this phone can achieve. While this could be the major reason why the S21 Ultra is way much expensive, it is good enough knowing that there’s a brand that’s not afraid to push the limits beyond the expectations of the industry. 

It's quad-core rear cameras are made of a primary 108MP lens, a dual 10MP telephoto lenses and a 12MP ultrawide lens.

Since it's first debut on the Xiaomi Mi 10, the 108MP has proofed the best Smartphone camera, with good shots full of detail and vibrancy. The photos can also be cropped without affecting it's detail, something that can also be an alternative to using telephoto lens. 

Samsung telephoto can achieve upto 10x optical zoom, and upto 100x digital zoom, a good advantage of this device over ity close Competitors. The 10x zoom produces very decent photos with detail and even at 30x you still get decent shots.

Samsung have incorporated a number of camera AI algorithms with enhanced subject and distant recognition especially for the macro lens as well as super steady camera performance.

On it’s part, the OnePlus 9 Pro has a quad-rear camera setup made up of a 48MP primary lens, a 8Mp telephoto with 3x optical zoom, a 50MP Ultrawide lens and a 2MP depth sensor. The pictures of this phone are full of detail, sharp and good enough for a phone of it’s price, but there’s no doubt the focus is on the 50MP macro lens which produces amazing shots. 

Both  phones can record videos of 8K resolution with the S21 Ultra proud of it’s new single take feature that allows you take still photos simultaneously with video, then later choose your preferred photos. The 8K snap also allows taking of 8K still photos from your recorded videos. There are also lots of camera features to play with including tripod support and Director view among others.

Battery performance.

The S21 Ultra has a 5,000 mAh battery while the OnePlus 9 Pro has a slightly smaller 4,500 mAh battery. This is the sacrifice OnePlus had to make in exchange for the 0.1mm slimness we talked about earlier. Considering that the two displays have high brightness levels with 120Hz dynamic refresh rates, they could easily drain the Battery, but their highly efficient processors saves a lot.

In order to make it up for their rater small battery capacity, OnePlus gave us one of the best fast charging technology, 65W fast charge that can charge the phone from 1 to 100% in just 29 minutes. On it’s part the S21 Ultra has 25W fast charge. The OnePlus 9 Pro also supports 50W wireless charging which can achieve 100% charge in just 43 minutes. Compare this to 15W wireless charge in the Galaxy S21 Ultra.

Conclusion.

Both the OnePlus 9 Pro and the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra are the best 2021 flagship smartphones, each giving us a smartphone experience anyone would dream of. While the S21 Ultra has a unique design that makes it stand out of the crowd, the OnePlus 9 Pro has a slimmer and lighter design making it easier to carry around and use.

Both manufactures have done their best to give us a phone that has the best be it the display, cameras and battery performance, but there’s no doubt Samsung invested a lot in their camera technology and no phone so far comes close. The OnePlus 9 on it’s part gives us a more balanced phone with a focus on the battery charging technology.

While the Galaxy S21 Ultra banks on it’s design and Cameras to sell, the OnePlus 9 Pro has a much fair price being much cheaper yet with the flagship performance.

Related:

  • Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Pro 5G Vs Nokia 8.3 5G .
  • Infinix Note 10 Pro Vs Tecno Camon 17 Pro


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