Vous avez peut-être pensé que le Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra avait le marché des téléphones Android tout cousu. Mais le OnePlus 9 Pro est arrivé, et tout à coup, nous avons eu une rude concurrence pour le titre de meilleur Téléphone Android.
Depuis son arrivée plus tôt cette année, le Samsung Le Galaxy S21 Ultra est l’exemple ultime de toutes les fonctionnalités et capacités que Samsung peut apporter à un smartphone. Mais il y a un nouveau challenger sur grand écran.
Même ainsi, le OnePlus 9 Pro coûte moins cher que le Galaxy S21 Ultra. Le modèle d’entrée de gamme de OnePlus, avec 8 Go de mémoire et les mêmes 128 Go de stockage, coûte 969 $. La mise à niveau vers un modèle de 256 Go avec 12 Go de RAM vous coûtera 1 069 $.
Il est plus facile d’obtenir un Galaxy S21 Ultra, disponible auprès de tous les principaux opérateurs américains ainsi que de Samsung. T-Mobile est le seul opérateur à vendre le OnePlus 9 Pro aux États-Unis, bien que le téléphone soit également disponible via OnePlus et des détaillants comme Amazon, Best Buy et B&H.
Gagnant : OnePlus 9 Pro
Design OnePlus 9 Pro contre Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra
Sauf pour les différents logos d’entreprise au dos de chaque téléphone, le OnePlus 9 Pro et le Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra se ressemblent beaucoup. Vous trouverez une paire de téléphones avec des écrans subtilement incurvés-la courbe du OnePlus 9 Pro est beaucoup moins spectaculaire que celle de l’année dernière OnePlus 8 Pro-sans beaucoup de bordures en haut et en bas de l’écran. Retournez les téléphones et vous verrez des matrices de caméras rectangulaires dans le coin supérieur gauche; la bosse de l’appareil photo sur le Galaxy S21 Ultra semble un peu moins proéminente grâce à un design découpé dans lequel le réseau se fond dans le côté du téléphone.
Le OnePlus 9 Pro est probablement le plus facile des deux téléphones à transporter, car il est légèrement plus court et pas aussi large comme le Galaxy S21 Ultra de 6,5 x 2,97 x 0,35 pouces. Le téléphone de Samsung pèse 8,08 onces, soit plus d’une once de plus que le OnePlus 9 Pro de 6,9 onces.
Un avantage que Samsung domine généralement sur les téléphones OnePlus a disparu. Le Galaxy S21 Ultra a un indice de résistance à l’eau IP68, tout comme le OnePlus 9 Pro. C’est quelque chose que OnePlus ignore généralement sur ses produits phares. (Le moins cher OnePlus 9, par exemple, n’a pas une telle note si vous achetez la version déverrouillée.)
OnePlus prend plus d’un chance avec la couleur que Samsung, car le Galaxy S21 Ultra est assez standard Couleurs Phantom Black et Phantom Silver. Achetez le téléphone directement via Samsung, et vous pouvez vous diversifier dans les options Phantom Navy, Phantom Titanium et Phantom Brown. En revanche, le OnePlus 9 Pro n’a que deux options de couleur-Morning Mist et Pine Green-le premier offrant un bel éclat semblable à un miroir qui peut attirer les traces de doigts.
Gagnant : OnePlus 9 Pro
OnePlus 9 Pro contre écran Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra
C’est une bataille d’affichages dynamiquement rafraîchissants dans une confrontation OnePlus 9 Pro contre Galaxy S21 Ultra. Samsung a contribué à introduire cette tendance, d’abord avec le Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, et maintenant avec le S21 Ultra. L’énorme panneau AMOLED de 6,8 pouces de ce téléphone ajuste la vitesse d’actualisation, en fonction de ce que vous faites. Des activités telles que le défilement qui bénéficient d’un taux de rafraîchissement plus rapide peuvent amener l’affichage à une vitesse maximale de 120 Hz, tandis que des activités plus statiques font descendre l’écran du S21 Ultra à 10 Hz.
Mais le OnePlus 9 Pro dispose même technologie LTPO dans son écran de 6,7 pouces. La plage de rafraîchissement est encore plus large ici que sur le Galaxy S21 Ultra, avec le OnePlus 9 Pro capable de réduire à 1 Hz.
Le OnePlus 9 capture davantage la gamme de couleurs DCI-P3-84,9% contre 81,4% pour le S21 Ultra. Ces couleurs sont également plus précises, étant donné la note Delta-E du OnePlus 9 Pro de 0,20 contre une note de 0,3 pour le S21 Ultra. (Les nombres plus proches de zéro sont plus précis.)
Where the Galaxy S21 Ultra regains an edge over the OnePlus 9 Pro is in just how bright its screen gets. Measuring 722 nits, the OnePlus 9 Pro is far from dim. But the Galaxy S21 Ultra is even brighter at 821 nits, ensuring that you’ll see all of that display even when you’re in bright sunlight.
OnePlus 9 Pro vs. Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra cameras
Past camera competitions involving Samsung and OnePlus haven’t been much of a fight. Samsung flagships tend to regularly rate among the best camera phones available, while OnePlus’cameras have struggled to keep up. But the OnePlus 9 Pro introduces a new twist to this long-standing rivalry, with OnePlus teaming up with photo specialist Hasselblad to improve its cameras.
This involves more than just stamping Hasselblad’s name next to the rear lenses on the OnePlus 9 Pro (though that branding is certainly there). Instead, the OnePlus 9 Pro benefits from improvements to color calibration that OnePlus and Hasselblad have worked on together.
Going up against the cameras on the Galaxy S21 Ultra certainly requires an extra effort. Samsung’s phone features four rear shooters — a massive 108MP main sensor, along with a 12MP ultrawide angle lens and a pair of 10MP telephoto lenses offering respective zooms of 3x and 10x. In contrast, there’s a single 8MP telephoto lens on the OnePlus 9 Pro with a 3x zoom of its own. You also get a 48MP main camera and 50MP ultrawide angle lens as well as a dedicated monochrome camera that, frankly, doesn’t add much to the picture.
We immediately see the benefit of OnePlus’focus on improved color with this photo of a fruit and vegetable stand. The OnePlus 9 Pro’s shot is vibrant, but still realistic, while the Galaxy S21 Ultra over-saturates the green peppers, which also appear slightly out of focus.
Moving outside for a close-up shot of a flower, the S21 Ultra redeems itself. In the S21 Ultra photo, the flower is in sharp focus, and the S21 Ultra picks up small details like beads of water on the leaf. The OnePlus 9 Pro photo isn’t bad, but those details don’t really stand out, as the green leaves in the background seem to blend together.
Low light photos were one area where we really spotted inconsistencies when testing the OnePlus 9 Pro and that’s continued in the OnePlus 9 Pro vs. Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra face-off. The streetlamp in the OnePlus shot is over-exposed and the night sky around looks fuzzy as a result. Things are placed into much sharper relief in the Galaxy S21 Ultra’s photo where the lamps don’t blow out details all around them, and the yellow hues from the street lights stretch out across the grass.
Testing out the portrait features of the respective camera phones, it’s something of a tossup. My colleague Mark stands out a little better against the background in the OnePlus 9 Pro shot, but apart from his bright blue shirt, there’s a hazy cast to the background. OnePlus also seemed to smooth things out in a way that the S21 Ultra did not — you can see the folds and wrinkles in his t-shirt more distinctly in that photo. The color cast looks more natural in the Samsung shot, too.
For the OnePlus 9 Pro’s ultrawide angle shooter, OnePlus used a freeform lens that’s supposed to remove some of the distortion found around the edges of wide-angle shots. I can’t really say that’s in evidence in this particular shot of a lake, but I have seen improved ultrawide shot comparisons elsewhere that demonstrate the OnePlus 9 Pro’s skill in keeping that bend out of photos. I just think the OnePlus 9 Pro does a better job keeping the entire image in focus — see how the dock looks in both shots — even if the bluer sky in the S21 Ultra photo is more attractive.
We maxed out the zoom on both cameras to 30x to see which telephoto lens you’d trust. Neither photo is really a standout, but the Galaxy S21 Ultra handles colors better — that hazy cast has returned to the OnePlus shot — and everything’s in a little better focus thanks to the Zoom Lock feature that can steady your shot from far away.
Overall, I think the Galaxy S21 Ultra comes out ahead in this camera face-off, though it’s much closer than previous OnePlus vs. Samsung showdowns. The OnePlus 9 Pro features the best cameras OnePlus has put in its phones, and that’s on display here.
Winner: Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra
OnePlus 9 Pro vs. Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra performance and 5G
“Ultra”does not necessarily mean”ultimate.”While the Galaxy S21 Ultra performs very well on benchmark tests, it doesn’t noticeably outperform the OnePlus 9 Pro. In fact, on some tests, the OnePlus 9 turns in the better numbers.
That’s not really a surprise, as both phones are powered by a Snapdragon 888 system-on-chip, the best silicon Qualcomm has to offer these days. Samsung augments that processing platform with either 12GB or 16GB of RAM. OnePlus 9 Pro users get either 8GB or 12GB.
On Geekbench 5, the two phones can match each other stride for stride in the single core test, as the Galaxy S21 Ultra turned in a 1,123 score to the OnePlus 9 Pro’s 1,126. The OnePlus handset pulls ahead withe multicore performance, reaching 3,685 on Geekbench to the S21 Ultra’s 3,400 result.
Graphics are also evenly matched, based on the results of 3D Mark’s Wild Life Unlimited Test. Here, the S21 Ultra turned in a 34.4 frames per second score, essentially tying the OnePlus 9 Pro’s 34.5 FPS result. In other words, you’re essentially getting the same performance from either phone — a mark in the OnePlus 9 Pro’s favor since it’s nearly $250 cheaper than its Samsung rival.
However, the Galaxy S21 Ultra hol ds an edge over the OnePlus 9 Pro when it comes to 5G connectivity. You can use Samsung’s phone on any 5G network in the U.S. The OnePlus 9 Pro is a little more restricted. It works perfectly fine with T-Mobile’s 5G, but not at all with AT&T 5G.
After this OnePlus 9 Pro vs. Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra face-off first appeared, Verizon and OnePlus announced that the OnePlus 9 Pro will work on Verizon 5G — both the slower nationwide network as well as the fast Ultra Wideband 5G Verizon has launched in more than 60 cities. The cheaper OnePlus 9 won’t work with Ultra Wideband, Verizon says.
Winner: Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra
OnePlus 9 Pro vs. Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra battery and charging
The Galaxy S21 Ultra would seem to have an edge in battery life, given that it’s powered by a 5,000 mAh battery to the 4,500 mAh power pack inside the OnePlus 9 Pro. And to be sure, the S21 Ultra lasted a long time on our battery test, in which we have phones surf the web continuously over cellular (5G in this case) until they run out of power. With a time of 11 hours and 25 minutes, the Galaxy S21 Ultra lasts long enough to land on our best phone battery life list.
But there’s a big caveat there. We got that long-lasting result when we set the Galaxy S21 Ultra’s refresh rate to 60Hz. Enabling the dynamic display feature ate up more battery life, with the S21 Ultra lasting 10 hours and 7 minutes on that test. That’s still better than the average smartphone, but it’s not as good as the 10 hours and 40 minutes that the OnePlus 9 Pro lasted with its dynamic display feature turned on. (Setting the OnePlus 9 Pro to a 60Hz refresh rate actually lowered the result by 2 minutes, which is puzzling.)
If the OnePlus 9 has a slight advantage in terms of battery life, it’s got a big edge over the Galaxy S21 Ultra when it comes to recharging the battery. OnePlus equipped this phone with WarpCharge 65T technology which essentially powered up the OnePlus 9 Pro after just 30 minutes. (It got the phone’s to 98%, if you want to split hairs.) The OnePlus 9 Pro also supports 30W wireless charging with the right charging accessory.
That wireless speed is faster than the 25W charging speed that the Galaxy S21 Ultra offers. After 30 minutes of charging, our S21 Ultra battery was at 56%, well behind the OnePlus 9 Pro. And we had to supply our own charger — the Galaxy S21 Ultra doesn’t ship with one.
Winner: OnePlus 9 Pro
OnePlus 9 Pro vs. Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra software and special features
Personally speaking, I prefer the Oxygen OS build of Android that OnePlus uses in its phones over Samsung’s One UI skin. OnePlus’approach looks cleaner and feels more like a pure Android experience. I’ve also never warmed up to the rounded, large icons that Samsung favors on its phones.
Despite all that, Samsung has an edge over OnePlus that has nothing to do with the software. For starters, the Galaxy S21 Ultra is the first phone outside of Samsung’s Galaxy Note series to support the S Pen stylus. (You buy the stylus separately for $40 and you’ll need a case to store it in, as there’s no place on the phone itself to store your new S Pen.)
Then there’s the not inconsiderable matter of Android support. Samsung says it will support three major Android updates along with four years of security updates. That’s a year longer than what OnePlus promises for both software updates and security.
Winner: Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra
OnePlus 9 Pro vs. Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra verdict
By the thinnest of margins, the OnePlus 9 Pro noses its way past the Galaxy S21 Ultra as the best Android phone you can buy. A lot of that comes down to value — the OnePlus 9 Pro is noticeably less expensive than the Galaxy S21 Ultra, while offering most of the same features. And areas like camera where Samsung used to dominate OnePlus are closer than they ever were before.
| OnePlus 9 Pro | Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra | |
| Price and availability (10 points) | 8 | 6 |
| Design (10 points) | 8 | 7 |
| Display (15 points) | 14 | 15 |
| Cameras (20 points) | 16 | 17 |
| Performance and 5G (20 points) | 15 | 16 |
| Battery life and charging (15 points) | 14 | 12 |
| Software and special features (10 points) | 8 | 9 |
| Overall (100 points) | 83 | 82 |
The OnePlus 9 Pro’s narrow win shouldn’t obscure the fact that the S21 Ultra remains a great phone. And for many people, it will still be the better choice in any OnePlus 9 Pro vs. Samsung Galaxy S21 decision. Besides the slightly better cameras, the S21 Ultra offers a brighter, bigger display, and it’s easier to connect to 5G networks on Samsung’s phone. The added year of Android support is also ideal if you want to hold onto your phone longer.
But a Snapdragon 888 processor, impressive battery life and fast charging make the OnePlus 9 Pro a compelling phone. The fact that the cameras are now in the same conversation as some of the best camera phones out there cinches the deal for OnePlus.
