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OnePlus – a brand well-known for its killer specs at marginally lesser price than the high-end and flagship phones. Which is also why it was pretty much portrayed as the “Flagship killer”, for the simple reason that it gave brands like Samsung, LG, Apple a run for their money.

Coming to 2021, that’s no longer the case anymore as OnePlus is itself a fully emerged smartphone brand where it has started catering to every price segment of the smartphone market. The OnePlus Nord N series for the budget segment (in the US), the Nord series for sort of upper mid-range smartphone market and the OG OnePlus number series catering to the high-end market. Unfortunately, its not the “flagship killer” brand anymore we have known all these years.

Here we’ll focus more on just the OnePlus 9 series and pit it against others in the available phones with the Snapdragon 888 and alike chipsets.

OnePlus 9: Could’ve put in More Efforts

The pricing for OnePlus 9 i.e. at Rs. 50,000 is okayish but for that price, the device could’ve been better. Also, for some reason the Indian variant of OnePlus 9 is quiet inferior as compared to the US or European variant which feels like OnePlus is creating a joke out of Indians. The aspects which OnePlus has missed on the OnePlus 9 as per the price

Shortcomings or Cons of OnePlus 9 –

No wireless charging

The Indian version of OnePlus 9 doesn’t support wireless charging which is a shocking fact when global variants are equipped with the same. Also, atleast at the Rs. 50,000 price mark, wireless charging should have been provided as one expects some premium features.

5G bands

Lack of more 5G bands could be a downside when using 5G though only time will tell how much this affects the data and internet performance of the device. Also, OnePlus has openly clarified that more 5G bands cannot be unlocked via a OTA software update which seems fishy.

Lack of OIS

Another missed opportunity would be the lack of OIS. With the evolution in smartphone photography, there has been more emphasis on the software front but that doesn’t mean that hardware doesn’t play a role. No matter how great the algorithms of the camera post processing are, OIS is a mechanism which can do wonders especially for night time pictures.

Plastic frame

This is a literal downgrade in terms of design and quality of the phone. Since OnePlus 1 the brand has never used inferior materials to metal such as plastic in its phones (Nord is an exception and lower priced) which disappointed many loyal fans. Fortunately enough, the back of OnePlus 9 is glass which delivers some premium feel. Not that plastic is completely cheap but for the price, OnePlus could’ve done better.

Over-hyped cameras? Maybe

At this point, everyone has realized this “Hasselblad” stunt from OnePlus couple of week before the launch of OnePlus 9 series and how abruptly it failed. Though certainly with future updates, the camera can be tweaked and that has been actually being done since the launch. Both devices have received couple of camera updates to iron out the problems. But this should all have been done before the launch. It feels like the owners are treated as beta testers.

All in all, the OnePlus 9 feels like a device full of compromises. Wonder how long can its well regarded software skin OxygenOS run the train going for OnePlus.

OnePlus is 99% of the times related with as phones with exceptionally good performance, incredible charging speeds and one of the best Android experience. OnePlus 9 certainly checks all of these pointers (which it always has) and nothing to write home about apart from this.

Also, speaking of Android experience, OnePlus has been lately real bad with the software updates on its old phones such as OnePlus 8 and OnePlus 7 series. The software updates especially Android 11 has made users’ devices plagued with issues ranging from performance slow down, battery drain, frame drops and tons of bugs in the UI. Despite taking such a long time to roll out the Android 11 update, yet so many issues.

If this continues to happens and remains more often in the limelight, other brands will surely catch up with OnePlus in its own game – software experience. One such example is the Asus Zenfone 8 which may seem a small phone, but packs beast specifications and brutally has an edge over the OnePlus 9.