New update has increased minimum brightness so you would not see it anymore. Installing a custom kernel and changing the brightness to lowest you will see it.
Sure, if flagship means adding a bunch of pointless features and charging too much for the phone. I think reviewers failing to take value into account in reviews have to take at least some of the blame for these crazy phone prices.
Oneplus' quest to make their products irrelevant has now met its totally forseen conclusion.
That's kind of what flagship means... Manufacturers bundle the best they have and when they run out of the good stuff they start bundling trinkets, bells, whistles, ribbons... And for most people buying the flagship isn't a matter of need but of want. They have the money, they want the image, even if many of the actual features are superfluous.
I think what the title actually means is that OP started up by branding the devices as "flagship killer", the "80% flagship at 20% of the price" so to speak. With OP8 they are now "just" a flagship. As an OP owner I have a hard time justifying 700-1000E for this. That's not to say it's bad but it doesn't stand out of "the pack" (overstatement, I know) of Android flagships.
I dunno. I see flagships subtracting options. You can't have expandable storage, you can't have a headphone jack, but you need to pay more to do without those things.
Thanks Andrei! I especially appreciate the section and detail on the video performance. However, that leaves me with a question: so, which phone is currently the best for video? It seems that even the so-called flagship models all have significant problems; one has artifacts, the next doesn't do a good job on stabilizing etc. So, which one is currently the leading candidate?
It's pretty much universally agreed to be the iPhone as far as i know. Otherwise, every android phone generally has some kind of downside to their video as you have said.
I agree that the respective top of the line iPhone is usually very good at video, and I have been tempted. My main concerns are 1. price (ouch, especially with 256 GB or more storage and, related 2. No expansion slot (microSD) to add more. Good 4K video really needs at least 50 MB/s even in HEVC, and more tends to be better. Plus, it's better in some situations to be able to remove the storage that has the videos, and you can't do that with an iPhone. So, maybe I should have phrased it this way: which is currently the best phone for video that has removable storage and still good 4k video with stabilization and not completely disastrous in low light?
- Can iPhone play 10bit h265 mkv natively using hardware decode? - Can you sort, rename and tag your photos with the native Photos app? - Can you play games with iPhone on external monitor? Can iPhone play demanding games without being a toaster and performance throttled? - Is Apple capable of making display instead of relying on Samsung‘s AMOLED? And what’s with the fat notch design for 3 generations? - iPhone battery life is far from the top.
Can you stop being a sheeple? If not, please don’t spam the web with misinformation/fake news.
Well,. right there in the charts, the SUSTAINED graphics speed of the iPhone beats the BURST speed of any of the Android phones, so can it play games without excessive thermal throttling? Why yes, it can. The fake news would be claiming Android is just as fast. Funny how iPhones can do it without cramming 12 or 16GB RAM in there, too. That's desktop computer levels of RAM.
1 thing that bothers, on Iphone sometime is not registering my action on screen. Try simple thing like open setting menu, after that scroll down as fast after screen shown the menu. Apple just freeze. Same when open long conversation on whatsapp, click it, than scroll, it freeze for a while. it still happen on my wife iphone 11pro, and previous iphone X.
Unlike android, it may showing some lag or jitters, but it always registers every click, swipe or scroll. I did use iphone 7 and note 10, so I experience this every day.
There are sheeple I agree, but there are also apple baiters. iPhone did not become the most successful smartphone JUST because it looked good. I have never owned an apple device , but seeing what Android devices are on the market I am sorely tempted. If it was not for the price gouging on storage I would have gone over.
Absolutely agree. Maintainance and protection are an absolute nightmare. Hopefully the new note 20 will ditch the curved screens in at least some models.
This phone is even better than the s20 line & way cheaper than them This phone is the pioneer of android os at this moment The android experience is top notch 👌 One plus has done an excellent job Hope Samsung takes cues from one plus Many manufacturers need to learn from one plus How pure android skin shines
Hope you're getting paid to post this promotion of another Chinesium phone with CCP spyware built in the back door. Now get back to cleaning toilets and learning English as a second language. Blatant troll
Uhh, but OnePlus is a leader in Android software support. They have a proven history of supporting their devices years later, even longer than Google, plus, they seem to participate in Android betas, though this year it looks delayed. Once Android 11 beta expands beyond Pixel, OnePlus will be there. This may be the benefits of releasing only 2-3 phones a year. Samsung is objectively bad at software, they have unique features, but they are also slow to resolve issues/bugs in those features. And having either the carrier variant or unlocked from Samsung, updates are a scattered mess.
This phone is even better than the s20 line & way cheaper than them OnePlus is the pioneer of android os at this moment The only complain I would have is from One plus 7 pro Went from full screen to a punch hole in the screen I mean these people spend soo much on screen technology & then punches a hole in the screen which cuts out content
The best part of this phone is it's competitively priced in India It's an absolute steal for that price It outdoes S20 line up in majority of things & is way cheaper than it
In the Indian market Oneplus phones are pretty good with their pricing, though I don't see how they beat the S20 line 'in a majority of things'. What things does it do better that a user notices day to day?
No front stereo speakers = no buy. I refuse to cup my hand around a phone to try to hear it in all conditions over background noise, whether home or outside. All phones should have front stereo speakers, there's absolutely no excuse not to have them, they can be mostly hidden behind glass.
Like basically all other flagship phones, this has a front-firing speaker at the top of the phone and a bottom-firing speaker at the bottom, which is a stereo configuration and sounds great (no cupping needed). There are no manufacturers making flagship phones with dual front speakers, so unless you want to keep using an old phone, you're going to be out of luck.
No, it doesn't sound great, it sounds weird. The directionality of the sound is noticeable, it's awkward and unnecessary when I could just have loud, clear speakers facing me directly, like in landscape mode watching a movie or playing a game with a controller. The only reason we don't have front speakers on every phone is that companies want to save 2mm and $2 on a $999 phone, and you've been taught to accept it, just like the lack of a headphone jack.
And not true, the Xiaomi Black Shark and Nubia Red Magic have front stereo speakers. They might be my only choice at this point, too bad they're missing other useful features.
I really love the one plus display It feels even smoother & sharper than s20 line up One plus has been constantly delivering better displays even than the display manufacturer Samsung itself It's a shame Samsung who manufacturers display can't deliver the smoothest sharpest display On the market
It's about profit, market share, and demand. They just started arbitrarily raising price, and decided it was better to sell slightly fewer phones, at a much higher price. It's called market capitalism. It's awful.
Also, around here, the telcos are helping subsidize certain phones again, AND financing: every phone is available for $0 now. So we may only see higher prices.
Nexus 5 was $299 (I think? Don't remember really). OnePlus One was around the same price.. Redmi K20 whatever was $420
If you look at Realme X, it's $145 USD for a 1080p FULLSCREEN phone with SD765. So they can easily make budget phones and sell them at a slight profit... But they artificially limit sales of phones by region!! It barely even works in North American networks.
Exactly, the Android OS is already saturated and removing features like Filesystem advantage and shoving iOS crap into it. The worst part is as you said the insane price tag, this POS phone what does it do better than an S10+ for the same price retail currently, for non tinkerers it does nothing. It has a BL unlock but apart from that S10+ trumps this garbage clone CCP device in everyway.
Their commitment to the display tech is a testament in itself how far they have come They are literally beating display manufacturer SAMSUNG in terms of Quality
I feel like the conclusion leaves out some details on pricing. You can compare the MSRP prices and come to conclusions but in 1 month or so the first big deals will start showing up for Samsung flagships with heavy price drops. You'll be able to get an S20+ for less than 700€ then, while the OnePlus phones stay true to their MSRP pricing year round.
Considering the quality control issues, the 200€ you save on the Samsung and the generally less buggy software I would likely go for the S20+, although the Snapdragon in all markets is a good advantage in Europe for Oneplus!
In order to be a flagship, generally said thing should be able to float on water and support fly the fleet commander's flag. I suppose Anandtech tested both of those requirements in order to verify the accuracy of the claim as such for the OnePlus 8, but publishing the benchmark data and testing methods used would be good journalism. Also, pics of the command center from which fleet operations are coordinated inside of the OnePlus 8 would be a nice addition to this review given the high importance of tossing about the term "flagship" in even opening the article.
Actually, regarding the ability to float: that is a key problem with many (all?) protective cases! What good does IP68 etc. do me if the damn phone (in its protective case) will still sink to the bottom of whatever body of water one is on or close to? I haven't dropped my phone into the sea yet, but friends of mine have while out fishing. So, any protective cases that will let the $ 1,000 smartphone float?
Of course, the charger will need to support Qi's Extended Power Profile to get 10W, which most don't (They usually only support 5W Qi, and then Samsung's and Apple's fast charge above that).
But if the charger is advertised as doing 10W on LG, Sony, or Xiaomi phones, it will most likely do 10W on the 8 pro. You can also just check the charger on the WPC's website and see what wattage is listed.
I think we're well past the point where meaningful differences in computing hardware made much difference, such as the jump Samsung made with the Exynos 7420 in the GS6, or the jump from eMMC to UFS storage. Even for screen resolution for a 5.5-6" display, you can't get much better than 1440p at 90Hz. At this point companies should focus ONLY on the differentiating features, such as putting in a huge battery (path breaking to have a thicker phone that last long), better camera (no one has perfected this yet), better phone protection (less snowflake), and other tiny lil goodies such as an IR port, heart rate sensor, SpO² sensor that actually are different.
But it's as if no one has realised this and people are willing to overpay for LaTeSt CPU BrO and MoAr JiGgAbYtEs and establishing phallic measurements.
They raised the price on the base model from $700-$800 (depending on launch time frame) to $1100 in Canada. Oneplus is dead. Failed company, a huge disappointment. I finally bought an iPhone for the first time, saved a ton of money. How far Android has fallen in the last 5 years in price and quality is sad.
Agree Android is in trouble, Google has let it down badly by allowing all these suppliers to make so much bloat on handsets after starting with the very first Android and now on a S20 Ultra which frankly is rubbish compared to my mate 30pro I had before I think my next phone will be an Apple, I use one for work and whilst its frustrating due to the lack of or ease of customisation options fact is it just works on Android I have 2 calenders, 2 Music players, 2 browsers, I could go on I want to uninstall the Samsung browser and bixby etc etc but I cant, its my goddam device i want them off but you cant and if I root it then my bank apps no longer work...great way to keep customers Google
What is especially worrying is the price bloat. Snapdragon and various Android phone part suppliers seem to be upping their prices dramatically. A Snapdragon 865 should be a lot cheaper and we're hearing rumors they want to charge even more for next year.
Alufan, you can't delete the Apple apps either so they have just as much bloatware as Android. And you can't change the default apps either though that change is coming.
Quite a few of the standard apps on an iPhone can be deleted and re-downloaded from the App Store. But I guess not all – att least not the App Store app. :D
I agree, Google is all in copying spree from iOS, they killed QS tiles from Pie, they killed Filesystem from this Android 11, R. They banned so many APIs, they are even copying the OS navigation to the task switcher, the goddamned flagship Pixel is also a clone of Apple, total disaster. With Android 12 they are now against 32bit apps to slash all the back compat of Android, they put so many mandatory restrictions like App Bundles to force the Playstore deployment and added Google Sign the apps instead of the Developers. The removal of HW features and SW is going to kill Android. Many users are migrating from Android, sad. Esp on the topic of lack of updates, I do not update because I don't want to lose features but many want, and with a Linux Kernel Google can enforce but they don't they don't want people to use their existing phones for a long period and with insane $1000 pricetag for same use and throw garbage it's not going to turn out good.
The freedom is being eroded just like how that CA state is in a pathetic condition from politically correct to other garbage, they even wanted to setup a search engine for CCP from backdoor, good that their own woke employees clashed against them, unlike Apple which is free to do all with CCP, if it was not for Apple I bet none of these OEMs would be in the Manufacturing of the Camera arrays and other phone mechanical engineering. Apple even put lot of money into BOE.
And no MicroSD slot either. This is a pure garbage phone with all cloned technology overpriced to hell, buying an S10+ is the best choice right now. It has everything that this phone cannot do, 120Hz is not at all a mandate, esp given how it destroys the phone's battery quickly, that's why Apple didn't put this yet.
Yes, expandable storage is must. I refuse to buy a phone where I'm totally dependent on overpriced internal storage and can't just take my card to transfer stuff. No expandable storage = automatic no-buy from me. This will all the anti-consumer trends (lack of expandable storage, replaceable batteries, removal of audio jacks), this was started Apple and copied by Google and other anti-consumer companies.
It's not about manufacturers being able to afford to put it, it's about the target customers being able to afford to not have it on their phones. Nearly every phone manufacturer has come up with their own version of wireless gear.
Yup. People with expensive high-fidelity headphones want to be able to listen to their extensive, high-fidelity music catalogs on their expensive, high-fidelity flagship smartphone. I don't see what's so hard for designers/vendors to comprehend about this...
Just because Apple decided to go full retard with deliberate omission of a headphone jack, doesn't mean the rest of the world has to voluntarily lobotomize itself in response. Even though it did, and continues to do so - it doesn't HAVE TO keep on doing it. Idiots....
OnePlus8 pretty much makes the case that flagship killer is henceforth pointless. There is hardly any "need" that can only be possible on $1000+ phones for 99% of the usage cases. Since OnePlus7 Pro, the extra $300-500 tacked onto the flagship class phones are mostly for checklist and not utility. Rational consumer, i.e, the flagship killer demo, pay for need and not marketing.
Not a flagship at all when it lacks 3.5mm jack and no Micro SD slot. Esp with their proprietary bullshit charging and uber high speed, high current, high voltage battery destroying tech all for Samsung level of price with their bloated garbage Oxygen OS.
And it's CCP powered. Only good thing about this phone is its Bootloader unlockability.
"Not a flagship at all when it lacks 3.5mm jack and no Micro SD slot. Esp with their proprietary bullshit charging and uber high speed, high current, high voltage battery destroying tech all for Samsung level of price with their bloated garbage Oxygen OS."
My question to you is whether you have used a OnePlus phone before to come to the conclusion that the Oxygen OS is garbage? I have not tested the OneOS from Samsung, but the Oxygen OS is leaps and bounds cleaner and smoother than the old TouchWiz OS from Samsung. Having used a OnePlus 7 Pro for some time, I feel the software support/updates from OnePlus is also better than Samsung. I am confident to say that Samsung probably included more bloatware than OnePlus, since OxygenOS is pretty much the closest to the stock Android experience.
The lack of micro SD slot is a bummer, but 3.5mm jack is pretty much missing in most of the new flagship phones.
Think the Sony Xperia 1 II is a much more rounded device. Flat 4k screen, 1/1.7" camera sensor, stereo front-facing speakers, SD expansion, 3.5mm headphone jack, no notches or holes, nice build with niceone-handed use, clean software.
For the OnePlus 8 which starts at $/€699, there’s actually very little competition out there at this price range" Don't know why you compare it with the S20. The competition are other non pro flagships. Mi10, P40, ...
Watching the trends in the mobile industry has convinced me to preorder the Purism Librem 5, because it fights all the things that the mobile industry does wrong. Why hasn't Anandtech covered Linux phones? Look at the features of the Librem 5: an SoC manufactured for 10 years, a removable battery, replaceable cellular modem, replaceable WiFi/BT, lifetime software updates, smartcard reader for OpenPGP card, free/open schematics, headphone jack, convergence as a PC.
Someone needs to tell them Xiaomi is making SD865 phones at the $500 mark, and they have both a headphone jack and an SD card. I am still using a Galaxy S9 (Exynos, EU), but was dismayed to see my wife's new Xiaomi Note 8 Pro (Mediatek 90T) is much, much faster than my S9, which cost almost 1K€ back when I got it at release.
Did I miss it somewhere or was the OS covered? More specifically, does the 1+ come with the minimalist OS it used to? I dislike all the bloat from other makers. Appreciated the lack of with 1+ products.
Which model of the 8pro was used for these tests? I did look for it but it doesn't say if it was the 8 or 12 gb version. Not sure if/how much that would alter results... but it would be nice to record that.
I also noticed that in some other comparisons you used the 3dMark extreme slingshot test but not for this one. I have found my 8pro performs that test ~15% better than iPhones. It would be good to include a test where it performs better than iphones for the sake of fairness/completeness.
OnePlus 8 Pro handset comes with an alert slider. With its help, you can easily turn off ringtone alerts. Dual stereo speakers have been provided on the phone. VISIT https:/thepublicmantra.com
OnePlus 8 Pro handset comes with an alert slider. With its help, you can easily turn off ringtone alerts. Dual stereo speakers have been provided on the phone VISIT thepublicmantra.com
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92 Comments
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jaju123 - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
Hi Andrei thanks for the review.Did you encounter the low brightness green tint issue on the OP8 Pro? I haven't seen any mention of it here.
Thanks
Andrei Frumusanu - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
I didn't have the problem on my device.MrPhilo - Tuesday, June 30, 2020 - link
New update has increased minimum brightness so you would not see it anymore. Installing a custom kernel and changing the brightness to lowest you will see it.Flunk - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
Sure, if flagship means adding a bunch of pointless features and charging too much for the phone. I think reviewers failing to take value into account in reviews have to take at least some of the blame for these crazy phone prices.Oneplus' quest to make their products irrelevant has now met its totally forseen conclusion.
BedfordTim - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
It would be nice to see a flagship camera in something like a P30 Lite.close - Tuesday, June 30, 2020 - link
That's kind of what flagship means... Manufacturers bundle the best they have and when they run out of the good stuff they start bundling trinkets, bells, whistles, ribbons... And for most people buying the flagship isn't a matter of need but of want. They have the money, they want the image, even if many of the actual features are superfluous.I think what the title actually means is that OP started up by branding the devices as "flagship killer", the "80% flagship at 20% of the price" so to speak. With OP8 they are now "just" a flagship. As an OP owner I have a hard time justifying 700-1000E for this. That's not to say it's bad but it doesn't stand out of "the pack" (overstatement, I know) of Android flagships.
pjcamp - Tuesday, June 30, 2020 - link
I dunno. I see flagships subtracting options. You can't have expandable storage, you can't have a headphone jack, but you need to pay more to do without those things.s.yu - Wednesday, July 1, 2020 - link
Couldn't agree more!Retycint - Thursday, July 2, 2020 - link
Flagships were never meant to be good value-for-money. Not in the smartphone industry, not in the electronics industry, not ever.eastcoast_pete - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
Thanks Andrei! I especially appreciate the section and detail on the video performance. However, that leaves me with a question: so, which phone is currently the best for video? It seems that even the so-called flagship models all have significant problems; one has artifacts, the next doesn't do a good job on stabilizing etc. So, which one is currently the leading candidate?jaju123 - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
It's pretty much universally agreed to be the iPhone as far as i know. Otherwise, every android phone generally has some kind of downside to their video as you have said.eastcoast_pete - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
I agree that the respective top of the line iPhone is usually very good at video, and I have been tempted. My main concerns are 1. price (ouch, especially with 256 GB or more storage and, related 2. No expansion slot (microSD) to add more. Good 4K video really needs at least 50 MB/s even in HEVC, and more tends to be better. Plus, it's better in some situations to be able to remove the storage that has the videos, and you can't do that with an iPhone.So, maybe I should have phrased it this way: which is currently the best phone for video that has removable storage and still good 4k video with stabilization and not completely disastrous in low light?
chaose - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
iphone seems to be the best all around phone for video, photos, gaming, screen, and battery life.sonny73n - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
- Can iPhone play 10bit h265 mkv natively using hardware decode?- Can you sort, rename and tag your photos with the native Photos app?
- Can you play games with iPhone on external monitor? Can iPhone play demanding games without being a toaster and performance throttled?
- Is Apple capable of making display instead of relying on Samsung‘s AMOLED? And what’s with the fat notch design for 3 generations?
- iPhone battery life is far from the top.
Can you stop being a sheeple? If not, please don’t spam the web with misinformation/fake news.
rrinker - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
Well,. right there in the charts, the SUSTAINED graphics speed of the iPhone beats the BURST speed of any of the Android phones, so can it play games without excessive thermal throttling? Why yes, it can. The fake news would be claiming Android is just as fast. Funny how iPhones can do it without cramming 12 or 16GB RAM in there, too. That's desktop computer levels of RAM.m00bee - Tuesday, June 30, 2020 - link
1 thing that bothers, on Iphone sometime is not registering my action on screen.Try simple thing like open setting menu, after that scroll down as fast after screen shown the menu.
Apple just freeze. Same when open long conversation on whatsapp, click it, than scroll, it freeze for a while. it still happen on my wife iphone 11pro, and previous iphone X.
Unlike android, it may showing some lag or jitters, but it always registers every click, swipe or scroll.
I did use iphone 7 and note 10, so I experience this every day.
Sorry for my English.
star-affinity - Sunday, July 12, 2020 - link
@m00beeStrange. Not a behaviour I recognize on my iPhones. And I’m quite picky with those sorts of things I think.
drajitshnew - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
There are sheeple I agree, but there are also apple baiters. iPhone did not become the most successful smartphone JUST because it looked good. I have never owned an apple device , but seeing what Android devices are on the market I am sorely tempted. If it was not for the price gouging on storage I would have gone over.Daro - Tuesday, June 30, 2020 - link
True that. Years and years and there is not a good android phone. Please stop with the curved screens!. S10e its the best.Daro - Tuesday, June 30, 2020 - link
True that. Years and years and there is not a good android phone. Please stop with the curved screens!. S10e its the best.liquid_c - Tuesday, June 30, 2020 - link
You call others “sheep” while you, yourself ask that Apple make their own displays, rather than relying on Samsung. Which is retarded.quijeros - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
After using a Samsung flagship for the past two years, I absolutely refuse to consider any phone that has a curved screen.drajitshnew - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
Absolutely agree. Maintainance and protection are an absolute nightmare. Hopefully the new note 20 will ditch the curved screens in at least some models.Daro - Tuesday, June 30, 2020 - link
Amens.yu - Wednesday, July 1, 2020 - link
Sony FTW?Kishoreshack - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
This phone is even better than the s20 line & way cheaper than themThis phone is the pioneer of android os at this moment
The android experience is top notch 👌
One plus has done an excellent job
Hope Samsung takes cues from one plus
Many manufacturers need to learn from one plus
How pure android skin shines
superflex - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
Hope you're getting paid to post this promotion of another Chinesium phone with CCP spyware built in the back door.Now get back to cleaning toilets and learning English as a second language.
Blatant troll
ralphwiggum1 - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
Uhh, but OnePlus is a leader in Android software support. They have a proven history of supporting their devices years later, even longer than Google, plus, they seem to participate in Android betas, though this year it looks delayed. Once Android 11 beta expands beyond Pixel, OnePlus will be there. This may be the benefits of releasing only 2-3 phones a year. Samsung is objectively bad at software, they have unique features, but they are also slow to resolve issues/bugs in those features. And having either the carrier variant or unlocked from Samsung, updates are a scattered mess.Daro - Tuesday, June 30, 2020 - link
Chinese spy, USA spy, Israel spy...whatever. All phones are compromised.Retycint - Thursday, July 2, 2020 - link
Personal attacks instead of listing rational points just make you look patheticgolemB - Monday, July 6, 2020 - link
Really, superflex? You had to go to racism?Kishoreshack - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
This phone is even better than the s20 line & way cheaper than themOnePlus is the pioneer of android os at this moment
The only complain I would have is from One plus 7 pro
Went from full screen to a punch hole in the screen
I mean these people spend soo much on screen technology & then punches a hole in the screen which cuts out content
Kishoreshack - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
Very important questionHas one plus done a very good job with 4500mah battery or
Samsung has done a bad job with it's 5000mah battery?
Andrei Frumusanu - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
They're both falling within the same range in terms of efficiency.Kishoreshack - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
The best part of this phone is it's competitively priced in IndiaIt's an absolute steal for that price
It outdoes S20 line up in majority of things & is way cheaper than it
Dexter101 - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
In the Indian market Oneplus phones are pretty good with their pricing, though I don't see how they beat the S20 line 'in a majority of things'. What things does it do better that a user notices day to day?flyingpants265 - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
No front stereo speakers = no buy. I refuse to cup my hand around a phone to try to hear it in all conditions over background noise, whether home or outside. All phones should have front stereo speakers, there's absolutely no excuse not to have them, they can be mostly hidden behind glass.Is that a typo in the title?
Andrei Frumusanu - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
It does have stereo speakers, albeit the bottom one is traditional bottom firing. What title?Maxpower2727 - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
Like basically all other flagship phones, this has a front-firing speaker at the top of the phone and a bottom-firing speaker at the bottom, which is a stereo configuration and sounds great (no cupping needed). There are no manufacturers making flagship phones with dual front speakers, so unless you want to keep using an old phone, you're going to be out of luck.flyingpants265 - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
No, it doesn't sound great, it sounds weird. The directionality of the sound is noticeable, it's awkward and unnecessary when I could just have loud, clear speakers facing me directly, like in landscape mode watching a movie or playing a game with a controller. The only reason we don't have front speakers on every phone is that companies want to save 2mm and $2 on a $999 phone, and you've been taught to accept it, just like the lack of a headphone jack.And not true, the Xiaomi Black Shark and Nubia Red Magic have front stereo speakers. They might be my only choice at this point, too bad they're missing other useful features.
wr3zzz - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
Same here. The dual speakers setup used on OnePlus7/8 does not sound good, or correct, for video viewing.What happened to display audio that don't need speaker holes? Sony and LG had them a few years back and then never heard from again.
Kishoreshack - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
I really love the one plus displayIt feels even smoother & sharper than s20 line up
One plus has been constantly delivering better displays even than the display manufacturer Samsung itself
It's a shame Samsung who manufacturers display can't deliver the smoothest sharpest display
On the market
NOTELLN - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
It seems phones are more about bragging rights than how they actually perform now a days. $1000usd for a phone? No thank you.flyingpants265 - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
It's about profit, market share, and demand. They just started arbitrarily raising price, and decided it was better to sell slightly fewer phones, at a much higher price. It's called market capitalism. It's awful.Also, around here, the telcos are helping subsidize certain phones again, AND financing: every phone is available for $0 now. So we may only see higher prices.
Nexus 5 was $299 (I think? Don't remember really). OnePlus One was around the same price.. Redmi K20 whatever was $420
If you look at Realme X, it's $145 USD for a 1080p FULLSCREEN phone with SD765. So they can easily make budget phones and sell them at a slight profit... But they artificially limit sales of phones by region!! It barely even works in North American networks.
Quantumz0d - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
Exactly, the Android OS is already saturated and removing features like Filesystem advantage and shoving iOS crap into it. The worst part is as you said the insane price tag, this POS phone what does it do better than an S10+ for the same price retail currently, for non tinkerers it does nothing. It has a BL unlock but apart from that S10+ trumps this garbage clone CCP device in everyway.Kishoreshack - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
Their commitment to the display tech is a testament in itself how far they have comeThey are literally beating display manufacturer SAMSUNG in terms of Quality
Sharma_Ji - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
Lmao, 1+ fanboy.Just stop.
mobutu - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
More interested in the OnePlus Nord or whatever they'll end up calling it.mrochester - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
Why is the manual brightness on android phones so low?Andrei Frumusanu - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
Probably to avoid having people needlessly blasting the brightness at full intensity all the time.Dexter101 - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
I feel like the conclusion leaves out some details on pricing. You can compare the MSRP prices and come to conclusions but in 1 month or so the first big deals will start showing up for Samsung flagships with heavy price drops. You'll be able to get an S20+ for less than 700€ then, while the OnePlus phones stay true to their MSRP pricing year round.Considering the quality control issues, the 200€ you save on the Samsung and the generally less buggy software I would likely go for the S20+, although the Snapdragon in all markets is a good advantage in Europe for Oneplus!
Andrei Frumusanu - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
I compared it at current street prices - the price drops already happened.PeachNCream - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
In order to be a flagship, generally said thing should be able to float on water and support fly the fleet commander's flag. I suppose Anandtech tested both of those requirements in order to verify the accuracy of the claim as such for the OnePlus 8, but publishing the benchmark data and testing methods used would be good journalism. Also, pics of the command center from which fleet operations are coordinated inside of the OnePlus 8 would be a nice addition to this review given the high importance of tossing about the term "flagship" in even opening the article.eastcoast_pete - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
Actually, regarding the ability to float: that is a key problem with many (all?) protective cases! What good does IP68 etc. do me if the damn phone (in its protective case) will still sink to the bottom of whatever body of water one is on or close to? I haven't dropped my phone into the sea yet, but friends of mine have while out fishing. So, any protective cases that will let the $ 1,000 smartphone float?Omair - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
Hi Andrei, The 8 pro actually supports 10W Qi Wireless Charging, not 5W. You can verify it on the Wireless Power Consortium's Website: https://www.wirelesspowerconsortium.com/products/8...Of course, the charger will need to support Qi's Extended Power Profile to get 10W, which most don't (They usually only support 5W Qi, and then Samsung's and Apple's fast charge above that).
But if the charger is advertised as doing 10W on LG, Sony, or Xiaomi phones, it will most likely do 10W on the 8 pro. You can also just check the charger on the WPC's website and see what wattage is listed.
ads295 - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
I think we're well past the point where meaningful differences in computing hardware made much difference, such as the jump Samsung made with the Exynos 7420 in the GS6, or the jump from eMMC to UFS storage. Even for screen resolution for a 5.5-6" display, you can't get much better than 1440p at 90Hz. At this point companies should focus ONLY on the differentiating features, such as putting in a huge battery (path breaking to have a thicker phone that last long), better camera (no one has perfected this yet), better phone protection (less snowflake), and other tiny lil goodies such as an IR port, heart rate sensor, SpO² sensor that actually are different.ads295 - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
But it's as if no one has realised this and people are willing to overpay for LaTeSt CPU BrO and MoAr JiGgAbYtEs and establishing phallic measurements.Alistair - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
They raised the price on the base model from $700-$800 (depending on launch time frame) to $1100 in Canada. Oneplus is dead. Failed company, a huge disappointment. I finally bought an iPhone for the first time, saved a ton of money. How far Android has fallen in the last 5 years in price and quality is sad.alufan - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
Agree Android is in trouble, Google has let it down badly by allowing all these suppliers to make so much bloat on handsets after starting with the very first Android and now on a S20 Ultra which frankly is rubbish compared to my mate 30pro I had before I think my next phone will be an Apple, I use one for work and whilst its frustrating due to the lack of or ease of customisation options fact is it just works on Android I have 2 calenders, 2 Music players, 2 browsers, I could go on I want to uninstall the Samsung browser and bixby etc etc but I cant, its my goddam device i want them off but you cant and if I root it then my bank apps no longer work...great way to keep customers GoogleAlistair - Tuesday, June 30, 2020 - link
What is especially worrying is the price bloat. Snapdragon and various Android phone part suppliers seem to be upping their prices dramatically. A Snapdragon 865 should be a lot cheaper and we're hearing rumors they want to charge even more for next year.Daro - Tuesday, June 30, 2020 - link
Agreed. I like google cloud ecosystem (maps, photos, etc) but the android phones are getting worse every day and iphones better.Speedfriend - Tuesday, June 30, 2020 - link
Alufan, you can't delete the Apple apps either so they have just as much bloatware as Android. And you can't change the default apps either though that change is coming.star-affinity - Sunday, July 12, 2020 - link
Quite a few of the standard apps on an iPhone can be deleted and re-downloaded from the App Store. But I guess not all – att least not the App Store app. :Dstar-affinity - Sunday, July 12, 2020 - link
att = atQuantumz0d - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
I agree, Google is all in copying spree from iOS, they killed QS tiles from Pie, they killed Filesystem from this Android 11, R. They banned so many APIs, they are even copying the OS navigation to the task switcher, the goddamned flagship Pixel is also a clone of Apple, total disaster. With Android 12 they are now against 32bit apps to slash all the back compat of Android, they put so many mandatory restrictions like App Bundles to force the Playstore deployment and added Google Sign the apps instead of the Developers. The removal of HW features and SW is going to kill Android. Many users are migrating from Android, sad. Esp on the topic of lack of updates, I do not update because I don't want to lose features but many want, and with a Linux Kernel Google can enforce but they don't they don't want people to use their existing phones for a long period and with insane $1000 pricetag for same use and throw garbage it's not going to turn out good.The freedom is being eroded just like how that CA state is in a pathetic condition from politically correct to other garbage, they even wanted to setup a search engine for CCP from backdoor, good that their own woke employees clashed against them, unlike Apple which is free to do all with CCP, if it was not for Apple I bet none of these OEMs would be in the Manufacturing of the Camera arrays and other phone mechanical engineering. Apple even put lot of money into BOE.
Arbie - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
No audio jack, no sale. Especially at $900.Quantumz0d - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
And no MicroSD slot either. This is a pure garbage phone with all cloned technology overpriced to hell, buying an S10+ is the best choice right now. It has everything that this phone cannot do, 120Hz is not at all a mandate, esp given how it destroys the phone's battery quickly, that's why Apple didn't put this yet.KompuKare - Tuesday, June 30, 2020 - link
Yes, expandable storage is must. I refuse to buy a phone where I'm totally dependent on overpriced internal storage and can't just take my card to transfer stuff.No expandable storage = automatic no-buy from me.
This will all the anti-consumer trends (lack of expandable storage, replaceable batteries, removal of audio jacks), this was started Apple and copied by Google and other anti-consumer companies.
Revv233 - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
*Scans furiously too see if it's a flagship with a headphone jack. **Skips rest of article*
Amazing they can afford the feature in budget phones.
ads295 - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
It's not about manufacturers being able to afford to put it, it's about the target customers being able to afford to not have it on their phones. Nearly every phone manufacturer has come up with their own version of wireless gear.boeush - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
Yup. People with expensive high-fidelity headphones want to be able to listen to their extensive, high-fidelity music catalogs on their expensive, high-fidelity flagship smartphone. I don't see what's so hard for designers/vendors to comprehend about this...Just because Apple decided to go full retard with deliberate omission of a headphone jack, doesn't mean the rest of the world has to voluntarily lobotomize itself in response. Even though it did, and continues to do so - it doesn't HAVE TO keep on doing it. Idiots....
wr3zzz - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
OnePlus8 pretty much makes the case that flagship killer is henceforth pointless. There is hardly any "need" that can only be possible on $1000+ phones for 99% of the usage cases. Since OnePlus7 Pro, the extra $300-500 tacked onto the flagship class phones are mostly for checklist and not utility. Rational consumer, i.e, the flagship killer demo, pay for need and not marketing.Quantumz0d - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
Not a flagship at all when it lacks 3.5mm jack and no Micro SD slot. Esp with their proprietary bullshit charging and uber high speed, high current, high voltage battery destroying tech all for Samsung level of price with their bloated garbage Oxygen OS.And it's CCP powered. Only good thing about this phone is its Bootloader unlockability.
watzupken - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
"Not a flagship at all when it lacks 3.5mm jack and no Micro SD slot. Esp with their proprietary bullshit charging and uber high speed, high current, high voltage battery destroying tech all for Samsung level of price with their bloated garbage Oxygen OS."My question to you is whether you have used a OnePlus phone before to come to the conclusion that the Oxygen OS is garbage? I have not tested the OneOS from Samsung, but the Oxygen OS is leaps and bounds cleaner and smoother than the old TouchWiz OS from Samsung. Having used a OnePlus 7 Pro for some time, I feel the software support/updates from OnePlus is also better than Samsung. I am confident to say that Samsung probably included more bloatware than OnePlus, since OxygenOS is pretty much the closest to the stock Android experience.
The lack of micro SD slot is a bummer, but 3.5mm jack is pretty much missing in most of the new flagship phones.
Siva - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
Coming from a pixel 3 to the OnePlus 8 this phone is incredible but the camera is straight trash.serendip - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
What's Samsung's secret sauce for the high CPU numbers on the SD865?Roph - Tuesday, June 30, 2020 - link
Too bad both the headphone jack and MicroSD slot are missing, making it totally irrelevant to me. "Never settle", right?Also bizarre that the reviewer says good riddance to a pop-up camera. Having a piece of the screen missing is a negative.
Absolutely don't want these phones, I wouldn't use them even if they were free.
airdrifting - Tuesday, June 30, 2020 - link
It's funny OnePlus's mainstream model beats their high end "Pro" mode practicality wise. I almost never considered the "Pro" model.Brane2 - Tuesday, June 30, 2020 - link
After so many iterations, what does "flagship phone" even mean ?Does anyone even care anymore ?
When you need a toothpick, do you go for base model or check the sites for a "flagship" one ?
AsturzioAugias - Tuesday, June 30, 2020 - link
Thanks for the detailed review, from a new op8pro user.In your opinion, in terms of battery drain what the difference will be between 90hz and 120hz?
paul4na - Tuesday, June 30, 2020 - link
Think the Sony Xperia 1 II is a much more rounded device. Flat 4k screen, 1/1.7" camera sensor, stereo front-facing speakers, SD expansion, 3.5mm headphone jack, no notches or holes, nice build with niceone-handed use, clean software.KarlKastor - Wednesday, July 1, 2020 - link
For the OnePlus 8 which starts at $/€699, there’s actually very little competition out there at this price range"Don't know why you compare it with the S20. The competition are other non pro flagships.
Mi10, P40, ...
amosbatto - Wednesday, July 1, 2020 - link
Watching the trends in the mobile industry has convinced me to preorder the Purism Librem 5, because it fights all the things that the mobile industry does wrong. Why hasn't Anandtech covered Linux phones? Look at the features of the Librem 5: an SoC manufactured for 10 years, a removable battery, replaceable cellular modem, replaceable WiFi/BT, lifetime software updates, smartcard reader for OpenPGP card, free/open schematics, headphone jack, convergence as a PC.AbRASiON - Thursday, July 2, 2020 - link
"no 3.5mm jack"Stops reading.
snowsurferDS - Friday, July 3, 2020 - link
Someone needs to tell them Xiaomi is making SD865 phones at the $500 mark, and they have both a headphone jack and an SD card. I am still using a Galaxy S9 (Exynos, EU), but was dismayed to see my wife's new Xiaomi Note 8 Pro (Mediatek 90T) is much, much faster than my S9, which cost almost 1K€ back when I got it at release.yacoub35 - Thursday, July 9, 2020 - link
Can the 5G modem be turned off / disabled through Settings for those who wish to stick to 4G?Questor - Sunday, July 12, 2020 - link
Did I miss it somewhere or was the OS covered? More specifically, does the 1+ come with the minimalist OS it used to? I dislike all the bloat from other makers. Appreciated the lack of with 1+ products.Bencherian90 - Saturday, August 1, 2020 - link
Nice review. But you guys should add audio review also. Especially review of loud speaker of the phoneJustSayin - Sunday, August 2, 2020 - link
Which model of the 8pro was used for these tests? I did look for it but it doesn't say if it was the 8 or 12 gb version. Not sure if/how much that would alter results... but it would be nice to record that.JustSayin - Sunday, August 2, 2020 - link
I also noticed that in some other comparisons you used the 3dMark extreme slingshot test but not for this one. I have found my 8pro performs that test ~15% better than iPhones. It would be good to include a test where it performs better than iphones for the sake of fairness/completeness.manjit - Tuesday, November 24, 2020 - link
OnePlus 8 Pro handset comes with an alert slider. With its help, you can easily turn off ringtone alerts. Dual stereo speakers have been provided on the phone. VISIT https:/thepublicmantra.commanjit - Tuesday, November 24, 2020 - link
OnePlus 8 Pro handset comes with an alert slider. With its help, you can easily turn off ringtone alerts. Dual stereo speakers have been provided on the phone VISIT thepublicmantra.com