Realme entered the fitness wearables segment in India with the launch of the Realme Band earlier this year in March. Although the fitness band wasn’t as well-received as Realme may have expected, the company pushed forth and launched a second fitness wearable, the Realme Watch, in May. The Realme Watch did bring some significant improvements over the Realme Band, we didn’t find it to be as polished of a product as some of its competitors. So when we first got word that Realme was gearing up to launch two premium smartwatches in India, we kept our expectations grounded. After having used the Realme Watch S Pro for a little over a week, I can safely say that Realme has learned from its mistakes and has finally created a product that can hold its own against competitors from Xiaomi and Amazfit.

Realme Watch S Pro: Specifications

Note: The Realme Watch S Pro was loaned to us by Realme India for the purpose of this review. The review was written after a week of use. Realme did not have any input regarding the content of this review.

Realme Watch S Pro: Design & Display

The Realme Watch S Pro offers a premium design that’s befitting of its price tag. It has a 46mm stainless steel case with two buttons on the right edge that control all of its functions. While the case is almost as thick as that of the Mi Watch Revolve, it doesn’t have a raised lip around the display. This, coupled with the matte black finish, makes it seem like the Watch S Pro is a bit smaller than the Mi Watch Revolve and it doesn’t look as massive on my wrist. However, I would’ve still preferred a smaller 42mm or 44mm variant.

Much like the Mi Watch Revolve, the Realme Watch S Pro packs a 1.39-inch AMOLED display in the chunky 46mm case. The display is surrounded by a slim bezel within the case and a thicker bezel around it, which features dial marks that aren’t as subtle as the ones found on the Mi Watch Revolve. To prevent scuffs and scratches in everyday use, the display on the Watch S Pro is protected by Corning’s Gorilla Glass 3.

The Realme Watch S Pro comes in a single black color variant with a black silicone strap. But if you’re not a fan of the muted all-black look, you will be able to purchase three other color variants — Orange, Blue, and Green — early next year. The company also plans to offer premium vegan leather straps for the watch, which will be available in four color options — Orange, Black, Blue, and Green. In case you don’t like any of the aforementioned strap options, you’d be glad to know that the Realme Watch S Pro uses standard 22mm quick-release straps. So, you’ll be able to pick any of the numerous third-party options available online based on your personal taste.

Now that we’ve talked at length about the design of the Realme Watch S Pro, let’s take a closer look at its display. The 1.39-inch touch-sensitive AMOLED panel on the watch offers a resolution of 454 x 454 pixels, a pixel density of 326ppi, a peak brightness of 450nits. As you’d expect, the display is quite vibrant and it gets sufficiently bright for optimal visibility in direct sunlight. This is something that Realme has struggled with in its previous offerings, and I’m glad to see the company taking steps in the right direction.

The Realme Watch S Pro offers 5 levels of brightness settings and an auto-brightness mode. I used the smartwatch on level 3 for the majority of my testing and I didn’t face any visibility issues. As with the Mi Watch Revolve, the Realme Watch S Pro comes with an always-on display feature, which displays the time, date, and day on the display in either a digital or an analog format. But I wouldn’t recommend using this feature if you have raise-to-wake turned on, as it takes a significant toll on the watch’s battery life.

Realme Watch S Pro: Features

As with most other smartwatches in the sub-₹15,000 price range, the Realme Watch S Pro is nothing but a fitness tracker with a large display. It offers pretty much all the fitness tracking features you’d find on the much cheaper Realme Watch, but you can expect to see better tracking capabilities because of the premium hardware.

In terms of sensors, the Realme Watch S Pro features a 6-axis accelerometer, a geomagnetic sensor, a gyroscope sensor, a PPG heart rate sensor, and a wearing monitor sensor. These sensors enable features like continuous heart rate monitoring, blood oxygen monitoring (SpO2), sleep tracking, step tracking, and 15 sports modes (including a new swimming mode). Additionally, the Watch S Pro offers notification support, a sedentary reminder, a water reminder, an alarm clock and stopwatch, music playback controls, camera shutter controls, a compass, breathing exercises, and a Find My Phone feature.

You can keep a track of all the aforementioned features on the watch and the Realme Link app. On the watch, you’ll find five widgets to the right of the home screen, including activity tracking, weather, sleep tracking, heart rate monitoring, and music playback controls.

As seen in the images, the widgets give you a quick overview of each of these features, and you can get more detailed info on the Realme Link app. The sleep monitoring widget is the only exception, as you can swipe up on it to see detailed information about last night’s sleep. Along with these widgets, the watch also shows you incoming notifications for apps that have been whitelisted in the Realme Link app. These notifications are displayed on the watch face as soon as they arrive, and you can view them later by pulling down the notification shade as you would on your Android device.

The Watch S Pro also has a quick settings menu that you can access by swiping to the right of the home screen. It includes five quick settings tiles to enable/disable the power saving mode, flashlight, DND mode, and raise-to-wake features. The fifth tile lets you quickly adjust the display brightness.

You can access the rest of the features by swiping up on the home screen and opening the app drawer. Here, you’ll find the alarm clock, settings, compass, workout modes, weather, heart rate monitoring, breathing training, stopwatch/timer, SpO2 monitoring, camera shutter controls, Find My Phone, and your workout records.

It’s worth noting that you can quickly access the workout modes by clicking the bottom button on the watch. The settings option in the app drawer includes always-on display settings, a screen off timer option, a raise-to-wake option, vibration intensity customizations, DND mode settings, and a System tab to restart, turn off, and reset the watch.

In terms of customizations, the Realme Watch S Pro comes with over 100 unique watch faces. To switch between the watch faces installed on the watch, you can tap and hold on the home screen and then swipe through all the available options.

In case you don’t like any of the pre-installed watch faces, you can open up the Realme Link app, and sync a new watch face to the watch. Additionally, the app gives you the option to use any image of your choice as a watch face. However, you can only select a digital watch face with a custom image.

Along with the watch face customization, the Realme Link app gives you access to all the fitness tracking data collected by the watch. It also features some additional settings to turn on/off the sedentary reminder, water reminder, music playback controls, and Find My Phone features, whitelist apps for the smart notifications feature, and set a step goal. Furthermore, it includes a handy user guide to help you figure out all of the watch’s features.

My experience with the Realme Watch S Pro

While the Realme Watch S Pro isn’t as feature-rich as the Mi Watch Revolve, it delivered a significantly better user experience. I faced absolutely no software issues with the smartwatch and I found its fitness tracking features to be more or less accurate. To check its accuracy, I used it alongside the Apple Watch Series 3 for a couple of days. And in almost all scenarios, the results delivered by the Watch S Pro didn’t deviate more than 5-7%.

For instance, during a 20-minute indoor walk session, the Realme Watch S Pro recorded 2191 steps, 1.70km covered, an average heart rate of 113 BPM, and 137 kcal burnt. The Apple Watch Series 3, on the other hand, recorded 2231 steps, 1.65 km covered, an average heart rate of 122 BPM, and 93 kcal burnt. As you can see, the number of calories burnt was the only metric that showed a larger deviation, but that’s quite acceptable given the significant price difference between the two smartwatches.

I wasn’t able to compare the sleep tracking performance between the two watches, as wearing both to sleep was a bit uncomfortable. But I did keep an eye on my sleep schedule over the last week, and the overall results seemed reasonably accurate. However, I did notice one inconsistency during my testing. On one particular day in the last week, I randomly woke up at around 4 AM and I couldn’t go back to sleep until 7 AM. But the watch didn’t record this instance accurately and showed that I was asleep throughout the night.

It’s worth noting that I wasn’t able to test the GPS performance of the Watch S Pro as I didn’t venture out of the house because of the current pandemic scenario. So, I can’t comment on its accuracy or its impact on battery life. My sports mode testing was also limited to indoor activities and you may get different results with outdoor activities.

All of the Watch S Pro’s remaining features also worked as intended. Raise-to-wake was responsive, so I didn’t feel the need to turn on the always-on display feature, the camera shutter and music playback controls worked as you’d expect, and the SpO2 monitoring also delivered consistent results. All in all, my experience with the Realme Watch S Pro was bug-free and enjoyable.

The Realme Link app also performed quite well and, while syncing watch faces did take an awfully long amount of time, my overall experience was quite positive. The app was responsive, didn’t take too long to sync data from the watch, and displayed all the metrics in an easy to understand fashion.

Battery life & charging

Realme claims that the Watch S Pro offers 14 days of use on a single charge with continuous heart rate monitoring turned on and, in my testing, I found the claim to be more or less accurate. With a week of use, the Watch S Pro’s battery only depleted to 54% with heart rate monitoring set at 5-minute intervals, screen brightness set to level 3, always-on display turned off, no GPS use, and a daily indoor workout of 30 minutes.

This leads me to believe that the watch could easily last two weeks with a similar use case. However, if you turn on the always-on display feature and make frequent use of the watch’s GPS functionality, the battery won’t last the rated 14 days. The charging performance of the included proprietary charging cradle was satisfactory, and it managed to get the 420mAh battery from 50%-100% in about an hour.

Should you buy the Realme Watch S Pro?

If you’re in the market for a premium fitness tracker in the sub-₹10,000 price range, the Realme Watch S Pro is, in my opinion, a good buy. Although it doesn’t offer as many fitness tracking features as the similarly priced Mi Watch Revolve (review), all the features that it does offer work as intended without any unwanted bugs. On top of that, it offers IP68 dust and water-resistance rating and a better six-axis accelerometer, that you don’t get with Xiaomi’s offering.

In case you’re open to slightly older hardware, I would still recommend getting the Amazfit GTS (review) and Amazfit GTR (review) over the Realme Watch S Pro, as they offer almost as many features and you can get them for as low as ₹7,999 during sales. And if you’re willing to spend a couple of thousand bucks extra, the new Amazfit GTS 2 and Amazfit GTR 2 are significantly better options, as they offer a bunch of additional features like Amazon Alexa support, onboard music storage and playback, and more.

The post Realme Watch S Pro Review: Realme finally got it right appeared first on xda-developers.

Amazfit is a fairly popular wearables brand backed by Huami, a company that manufactures the uber-popular Mi Band fitness trackers and is partially owned by Xiaomi and its co-founder Lei Jun. Despite this association with a major brand such as Xiaomi, Huami and the Amazfit brand have operated autonomously since forever and has launched some of the finest value-for-money fitness products. This year, Huami announced the Amazfit GTR 2 and the GTS 2 globally back in October. These premium looking smartwatches are a notch above the Amazfit GTR and the Amazfit GTS in terms of design and address major pain points on the last years’ generations. The successors also come with Alexa integration, onboard storage, SpO2 monitoring, and so much more.

The Amazfit GTR 2 and the GTS 2 were launched in India earlier this month, and the company sent us the Amazfit GTR 2 for review. This review talks about the improvements to the existing features carried over from the first generation and the new features that make Amazfit GTR 2 a smarter watch. These conclusions are made after almost two weeks of usage.

Amazfit GTR 2 Specifications

Design

The Amazfit GTR 2 carries a lot of genetic traits from the first-gen GTR. The circular design, which in many ways was iconic to the Amazfit GTR, is retained on the GTR 2. The two crown buttons — one of which has a red accent — are placed on the right side of the dial, exactly like the previous generation model. However, the button’s functionality on the top has been changed, and instead of acting like a Home button, it now opens the menu; we will discuss it in detail in the later parts of the review dedicated to user experience.

Unlike the first-gen Amazfit GTR, which used ceramic, the bezel on the GTR 2 is made of glass and blends with the display’s cover glass. Instead of a sharp design, the bezels are curved at the periphery. Even though the display size is the same as the last time, the bezel integrated within the display makes the dial look much bigger, especially when using a watch face with a dominantly dark background. The curved glass design is strikingly similar to another smartwatch from Huami’s camp — the Zepp E Circle — also launched recently. The design also appears similar to the Samsung Galaxy Watch Active and Active 2 but lacks support for touch gestures on the bezels. A thin strip where the display meets the aluminum body is transparent and gives an illusion that the glass is floating.

The body of this watch’s variant is made of an aluminum alloy with a brushed metal finish. There is another variant that comes with stainless steel but costs ₹1,000 extra in India. The bottom panel on both of the variants is made of polycarbonate. Amazfit helps buyers distinguish between the model more easily by calling the aluminum alloy one, “Sports Edition,” and the stainless steel variant, “Classic Edition.” As these names imply, the former is more suited for sports because the Sports Edition weighs only ~31 grams (without strap). The Classic Edition isn’t significantly heavier either and weighs only 8g more. Other than its weight advantage, the aluminum alloy variant isn’t likely to hide scratches better than the shinier stainless steel model.

In the longer run, I prefer using fitness bands over smartwatches because they are unintrusive and do not weigh my wrist down, and that is especially convenient while working out and sleeping. Thanks to its lightweight, the same also applies to the Amazfit GTR 2, which is gentle and low-key and does not make you want to take it off as soon as you wish to retire for the day.

The Amazfit GTR 2 does not come with an IP rating, but you do get water resistance till up to 5ATM or 50 meters (~164 feet) in freshwater. This means you can go swimming in a freshwater pool or keep wearing the watch in a shower without worrying about sabotaging it. However, it is not recommended to wear the watch while swimming in the sea or any other saltwater body.

The Sports Edition comes with a silicone strap, while the Classic Edition features a silicone-reinforced leather strap just like the last year’s model — although in black color instead of tan. The buckles on the straps are also made of the same metal as the dials on both variants. While this move may not be as acceptable to all the users, Amazfit GTR 2 uses standard 22mm straps, and you can use an aftermarket strap of your choice. Notably, fibers from your clothes or sweat marks can get deposited on the silicone strap much more easily than the leather.

One more thing to note is that unlike the first-gen Amazfit GTR, which was available in 42mm and 47mm models, the Amazfit GTR 2 is only available in a single size — 46mm.

On the bottom, the Amazfit GTR 2 features a speaker and microphone at the bottom. These are new additions to the Amazfit lineup and allow users to take calls from the watch when paired with smartphones. The speaker can also be used to listen to music stored on the smartwatch while the microphone can be used for voice commands that are apparently powered by Alexa.

Overall, the Amazfit GTR 2 feels very congenial, considering its simple yet elegant design. The usability is further enhanced because of its lightweight build.

Display

The usable part of the Amazfit GTR 2’s dial comprises a 1.39-inch AMOLED display, just like the previous generation. Not only does the display measure the same, but it also has the same resolution of 454 x 454 pixels, leading to a pixel density of 326ppi. This is one of the most pixel-dense displays on a smartwatch, and that is both — impressive and surprising — considering the Amazfit GTR 2’s price. The display is considerably bright and appears equally good indoors and outdoors, thanks to the inbuilt ambient light sensor that controls automatic brightness. Being an AMOLED display, the deep blacks allow the black bezels to blend into the display easily.

The display comes with a fingerprint-resistant coating on top of the glass. Instead of opting for a relatively popular resistance feature such as Gorilla Glass, the top glass on the Amazfit GTR 2 is protected under an oDLC (optical Diamond-Like Carbon) coating. As the name suggests, this technique employs a diamond-like carbon film deposited on the glass with intricate techniques like Magnetron sputtering and it improves the glass’s hardness and resistance to scratches.

The display has punchy and saturated colors, including deep blacks thanks to the AMOLED panel. The Amazfit GTR 2’s display is easily readable outdoor as well as under strong light. Additionally, the smartwatch comes with an ambient light sensor that allows the display brightness to be adjusted according to the external light. Like many other popular smartwatches, the display can be locked by covering it with your palm. The display can also be turned on by flicking the wrist, tapping on it, or pressing the Menu button with a red accent.

The AMOLED display also supports AOD (Always-On Display) if you want the watch to display fundamental information such as the time, steps, date & time, etc., throughout the day. For this, you can either choose between preset digital or analog AOD designs, which have been available since the Amazfit GTR from last year, or custom AOD screens that are set based on the watch face.

The AMOLED display on the Amazfit GTR 2 is as appetizing as it can get in quality and usability. The anti-fingerprint coating feels more than just a marketing gimmick, and you will not feel the need to wipe the display very frequently. Meanwhile, the touch response of the display feels great and better than the first-gen Amazfit GTR. Lastly, the curved bezels allow more room for the finger to move around while interacting with the display even though its size hasn’t changed from the previous generation.

Hardware

Huami does not declare any details about the internal hardware of the Amazfit GTR 2, including its CPU or RAM. It does, however, reveal that the smartwatch comes with 3GB of internal storage, exclusively for storing onboard music. This means the actual total storage is larger than 3GB, but Amazfit does not mention that. The Amazfit GTR 2 supports 2.4GHz Wi-Fi for transferring music files from your phone to the smartwatch, while Bluetooth is used for smaller file transfers, such as in the case of system updates and watchfaces. Unlike the Amazfit Stratos and the Verge, the GTR 2 does not connect to a PC as USB mass storage.

For fitness tracking, the Amazfit GTR 2 comes with a second-generation of Huami’s self-developed “BioTracker 2” PPG (photoplethysmography) sensor. This sensor is used to measure the heart rate and the oxygen saturation level in the blood (commonly known as SpO2). In addition to the PPG sensor and the above-mentioned ambient sensor, the watch also comes with an accelerometer, a gyroscope, a 3-axis geomagnetic sensor, and a barometric sensor. The watch also comes with inbuilt GPS and GLONASS support so that you can track your fitness trails without having to carry a smartphone with you all the time.

User Experience

The Amazfit GTR 2 user interface gets a range of cosmetic upgrades over the first-gen GTR and the GTS. Firstly, the new smartwatch gets a range of new, sharper, and vibrant icons.

Apart from the icons, the Amazfit GTR 2 gets new tiles similar to Android’s Wear OS and allows users to quickly access vital information from different menu items by swiping left or right on the home screen. These tiles include PAI, activity goal status, heart rate details, weather, onboard music controls. You can also add up to five widgets called “Shortcut cards” for quick actions such as alarm, heart rate, weather, SpO2, PAI, and activity goal monitoring on one of the tiles. You can access the menu by pressing the top crown button, whereas the button on the bottom is preassigned to launch the Activities index, wherein you can choose which activities you want to track. The Menu button also acts as a Home button where you are on any other screen.

You can scroll up to open notifications from the home screen and select the apps that can send you notifications from the Amazfit (now called Zepp) companion app. Each of these notifications appears as cards themselves, and you can expand each of them from the list by tapping on them. You cannot clear notifications on the watch, and they will remain in the Notifications pane until you clear them from the smartphone. Further, you cannot reply to the notifications directly from the smartwatch.

Additionally, you can scroll down on display to launch the home screen to launch the quick action toggles for:

• Display brightness,
• Do Not Disturb options,
• Flashlight mode, in which the screen lights up at full brightness with a white background to emulate a flashlight
• Screen lock,
• Volume controls,
• Battery saver mode,
• Find phone,
• Awake mode — which keeps the display on for 20 minutes after being activated, and
• Theatre mode — which keeps the display brightness at the minimum and silences notifications

Other than the new and improved user interface, the Amazfit GTR 2 also receives a few features that weren’t available in the previous model. These include the new Stress management feature that detects any unusual cardiac activity without any movement.

Your stress levels are indicated by numeric values between 0 and 100 with values 0-39 for relaxed, 40-59 for normal, 60-79 for medium, and 80-100 for high stress. The feature description on the app also notes that some amount of stress or nervousness is actually healthy for your performance and mental stimulation, and thus, they have used the word “normal” here. Medium stress might be a reason to worry, and high stress can indicate a risk of high blood pressure or any cardiac diseases. However, unlike the Xiaomi Mi Band 5, the stress feature is not followed by a guided breathing exercise feature on the Amazfit GTR 2.

Onboard music, as I mentioned above, is another vital feature that the Amazfit GTR 2 supports. The smartwatch comes with 3GB storage dedicatedly for music. With the music you store on the watch, you can add tracks to your favorites or create playlists. The music can be played via inbuilt speakers or any other audio device connected to the watch directly using Bluetooth. For this, you don’t even need to rely on your smartphone and can conveniently leave it behind when you hit the road to fitness. Although Huami does not specify the Bluetooth audio codecs supported by the Amazfit GTR 2, the audio quality suggests that it only supports SBC connections and not AAC, which might be disappointing for audiophiles. So, if users prefer to carry their smartphones for music — or any other reason, they can also use the smartwatch to control music playback on the connected smartphone.

The speakers on the Amazfit GTR can also be used for receiving calls. You can enable the Zepp app option and then connect the smartwatch as a Bluetooth audio accessory. The feature does allow you to pick up calls directly from the smartwatch without reaching out for the phone, but you must ensure that the phone is not too far. In my usage, I received calls when the distance between the phone and the smartwatch was less than 2m (~6.5ft), and in case the distance increased, there was a great chance of dropping the call. Keep in mind that you cannot dial numbers or call contacts from the smartwatch itself.

Lastly, in addition to listening to music and calling, the Amazfit GTR 2 also supports voice commands. Huami says Alexa powers these voice commands, but instead of saying “Alexa” to initiate voice commands, you can twist your wrist once and then say commands like “Open Weather,” “What is my heart rate?” or “start tracking my workout,” etc. While the feature sounds really cool and useful in theory, it may not perform exactly how it is marketed. During my usage, voice commands are only understood by the watch when you are in a quiet environment, and this means that it will rarely work when you are outside or inside a noisy gym. Furthermore, while the feature is designed to facilitate commands starting with “Open…,” you will need to close the app manually and return to the home screen using the Menu/Home button for the watch to acknowledge your next command.

There is one notable issue that I have faced with the smartwatch, and that is its inability to automatically synchronize weather with an accurate location even though it tracks my outdoor activity without any issues. So, I have to enter my location manually in the Zep app, and it has a fairly short brief of cities. I am not sure if this is a general issue with the Amazfit GTR 2 or specific to my unit, but it is worth pointing out.

Even with its vices admitted, the user experience of the Amzafit GTR 2 is very convenient and better than the older GTR and most other devices in this price segment. Apart from the improved user experience and the new features, the Amazfit GTR 2 also gets better fitness tracking features discussed in the following section.

Zepp (formerly Amazfit) Companion app

The Amazfit app, just like the user interface on the Amazfit GTR 2, has also been overhauled and is now called Zepp. This likely appears to make the brand easy to pronounce and remember in the Western world. Huami also launched the Zepp E Circle smartwatch for the US earlier this year. The changes in the app are primarily new colors and icons, but the information presented is present pretty much the same as earlier. On the Homepage, the Zepp app offers you an overview of your fitness-related data such as daily step count, sleep, calories burnt, heart rate, PAI, and details about physical activity. If you have another smart tool from Huami or Xiaomi — like the Xiaomi digital weighing scale, the overview page will also show you your weight, body composition, BMI, etc. You can view comprehensive details related to physical activities or sleep by tapping on the relevant item from the Homescreen.

Next, you can head over to the Enjoy page, where you will find options such as Alarm Clock, Reminders, voice command tutorial, watchfaces, target setting, call settings, etc.

Then, on the Profile page, you find your active devices, and you can enter into the settings menu for a particular device. On this page, you see various options to change the watchfaces, the order of apps or Shortcut cards, etc. You can also search for system updates, select settings for notifications by choosing which apps show notifications on the smartwatch and when alongside other alerts.

Overall, the Zepp app looks improved over the Amazfit app, and the visual facelift is among the primary reasons. There are a few redundant options, but I actually appreciate that Huami provides multiple options for the same setting so that users can easily spot different options from a set of features.

Zepp (Free, Google Play) →

Fitness Tracking

The Amazfit GTR 2 supports comprehensive activity tracking for 12 categories: running and trail running, treadmill, walking, pool and open water swimming, trekking, elliptical trainer, indoor or outdoor cycling, and free training or skiing. However, it is not limited to those activities and can also be used to track a wide variety of other activities. A few of the most exciting (and/or intriguing) ones, in my opinion, include race-walking, BMX cycling, fishing, parkour, calisthenics, pilates, yoga, a wide range of dance forms, Tai Chi, Taekwondo, hula-hooping, sledding, etc. There are a whole lot of other activities tucked away in the “Others” category. It is reasonable to believe that the Amazfit GTR 2 only measures the primary metrics (such as heart rate and foot movement) for these activities and may not be as accurate as a more premium smartwatch, which also uses data from other sensors.

The smartwatch is capable of measuring continuous heart rate. While the Zepp app only allows you to set the minimum interval to 1 minute, the watch takes much less time to measure the heart rate and detect heart rate changes almost every 15-20 seconds. This data can be read and presented by any third-party companion app like Notify & Fitness for Amazfit.

PAI

The Amazfit GTR 2, just like other Amazfit devices, also supports Personal Activity Intelligence or PAI — a trademarked health metric that combines data from all the different sensors and gives you a score based on your daily activity. The score is calculated for each individual differently based on their age, resting heart rate, gender, etc., and is therefore personalized for each user.

PAI is represented by a numeric value calculated based on all your physical activities in the last seven days. As you push each day, you gain some points and add to this value. Huami recommends that a user must maintain a PAI value of 100 or above for a healthy lifestyle. Since PAI is based on the activity in the last seven days, the number may also decrease if you withdraw from physical activities (as it did with me over the course of holidays).

While PAI is a useful measure of growth and is calculated uniquely for each user, Huami’s Zepp app also suggests ways users can improve this value.

Sleep

Besides detailed fitness tracking, the Amazfit GTR 2 can track sleep fairly well. As an advantage over the older models, the Amazfit GTR 2 also tracks REM sleep alongside the portions of light and deep sleep at night. Other than monitoring your sleep quality, the smartwatch can measure your heart rate throughout the night. If you prefer taking day naps, the Amazfit GTR 2 can track naps taken between 11 AM and 6 PM during the day. During this period, however, it only records light and deep sleep and not REM sleep. The Zepp app gives you suggestions to improve your sleep quality by comparing your sleeping and waking times and your light, deep, or REM sleep values with ideal values and gives you a score up to 100, with 100 representing the ideal sleep.

In addition to tracking the periods of different sleep patterns, the Zepp app takes note of the number of times you wake up or turn over to the other side while sleeping. Another feature uses the blood oxygen concentration, aka SpO2 value, to monitor the quality of breathing at night. This feature is currently in beta but may give you suggestions on how to sleep more comfortably at night.

SpO2

The Amazfit GTR 2 comes with a dedicated sensor to measure the concentration of oxygen in hemoglobin — a value that is commonly denoted as SpO2 and is measured in percentage. An SpO2 value between 95% and 100% is considered ideal for anyone with healthy lungs, and anything below 95% can be concerning. Patients suffering from chronic pulmonary diseases such as COPD have a much lower blood oxygen concentration value. The SpO2 value also decreases with an increase in altitude because the air gets thinner as we move away from the sea level. In the current times, a lower than usual SpO2 value can also be an early symptom of COVID-19. Of course, every person infected with COVID-19 may not have difficulty breathing or any symptom at all; therefore, just SpO2 cannot be used as a definitive diagnosis for the deadly virus.

When it comes to SpO2 measurement on the Amazfit GTR 2, it falls short of expectations. The measurement takes about a minute, and for that duration, you must keep the smartwatch tightly tied to your wrist. The measurement also requires you to stay stationary and keep the forearm straight on a flat surface like a table. Despite these efforts, the smartwatch can only measure the SpO2 values only one out of three times on average.

The Amazfit GTR 2’s inability to record SpO2 values efficiently also makes me skeptical about its ability to measure the breathing statistics at night.

Battery

The Amazfit GTR is equipped with a 471mAh battery, which is about 15% bigger than the first-gen GTR. With bare minimum functionality, the smartwatch is claimed to last up to 38 days. I, on the other hand, turned every possible feature to determine the minimum battery backup. Over the last two weeks of usage, the features I have turned on include:

• Always On Display,
• 24/7 heart rate monitoring,
• Sleep tracking,
• Sleep breathing analysis (i.e., continuous SpO2 measurement at night),
• All-day stress monitoring,
• Activity detection, which implied shorter intervals of heart rate detection during physical activities, and
• GPS for outdoor positioning for at least an hour every day.

With all these features turned on, I could get 4 days of usage per full charge. Having recently shifted from the OPPO Watch, which needs charging every day, this is surely delightful. Furthermore, the battery saver feature can extend the battery life by only measuring steps and sleep data. While using the battery saver, I could get nearly 10 hours of battery backup with 7% of battery left, and within this duration, the watch was also able to track five hours of sleep. Unfortunately, there is no way to turn off sleep tracking in the mode; otherwise, the backup could have been much longer.

The Amazfit GTR 2 with a charging cradle in the box draws power from USB and supplies power to the smartwatch through pogo pin connectors that align with the electrodes on the back of the watch. Using the in-box charger, the Amazfit GTR 2 takes about 2 hours to charge fully, and that matches up to the official claims for 2.5 hours of charging time.

Conclusion

In my Amazfit GTR review last year, I stressed how the smartwatch was among the most visually appealing smartwatches — primarily for its bright display and the leather strap. This year, the Amazfit GTR 2 builds upon its strong point while also fixing most issues with the previous generation. The slight improvement in design is pivotal, but the most impact is that the user interface is now much more fluid and that the smartwatch now supports onboard storage. In addition to these features, the new SpO2 sensor might appease a few stat nerds that have the patience to deal with it.

Even despite so many improvements and new features, the Amazfit GTR 2 may not be the perfect smartwatch. Some users might even argue about calling it a smartwatch because it lacks support for third-party apps. But all of those expectations are neutralized when we look at the price of the smartwatch. The Amazfit GTR is priced at $179 in the US, £159 in the UK, and ₹12,999 (~$177) in India, making it an excellent value for money.

It lacks a few software features, especially guided breathing and tracking for menstrual cycles — both of which are available on the much cheaper Mi Band 5 — but these features can be added with software updates over time. In terms of hardware, the Amazfit GTR 2 is a solid contender in the budget smartwatch market and could be a great choice for anyone looking for slightly more storage and better community support against the likes of the Honor Magic Watch 2. If you want a square dial, you can check out the Amazfit GTS 2, which was also launched alongside the Amazfit GTR 2 globally and in India.

The post Amazfit GTR 2 Smartwatch Review: The Irresistible Package appeared first on xda-developers.

Over the years, OnePlus has carefully cultivated its brand reputation to rise from a niche smartphone maker offering value-for-money flagships, to a premium brand with a far-reaching mass appeal. So it was only about time that the company would look for ways to leverage its brand value and expand beyond the smartphone market. Having set its foot in the audio and TV segments, the company is now entering the wearables space. The OnePlus Band is OnePlus’s first attempt at wearables and it sets the stage for future smartwatch endeavors. It’s basically a rebadged Oppo Band with the OnePlus logo on it. But since the Oppo Band never launched outside China, it shouldn’t make any difference to potential buyers.

With a price set at ₹2,499, the OnePlus Band locks horns with the current segment leader Mi Band 5 and aims to shake up the entry-level fitness band market. But how does it hold up to the competition? I’ve spent 14 days with the OnePlus Band and here’s what I think about the product.

OnePlus Band: Specifications

About this review: The OnePlus Band review unit was loaned to me by OnePlus India. This review is written after 14 days of use. OnePlus did not have any input in the content of this article.

Design & Display

As far as the design is concerned, the OnePlus Band doesn’t try to deviate too much from other fitness bands on the market. It features a removable tracker module lodged into a cavity between the silicone strap which can be popped out for charging or cleaning purposes. The front of the module is protected with scratch-resistant glass and beneath it is a 1.1-inch AMOLED color display with a discreet OnePlus logo printed below it. There’s no button and the entire surface of the front is flush, making your finger smoothly glide over the display without any resistance.

The silicone strap is made of good material and I didn’t find it uncomfortable or irritating my skin. The band is remarkably lightweight; you can wear it all day long and to sleep without even feeling it’s there on your wrist.

The display is bright and colorful, offering dark contrasts and saturated colors – just like you would expect from an AMOLED. The brightness can be adjusted manually at thresholds of 20%. At 100%, it’s bright enough to be readable under direct sunlight. The display is prone to pick up fingerprints and smudges but they’re easy to get rid of with a simple wipe of a cloth or a splash of water.

User Interface

The OnePlus Band offers a very polished user interface. It’s a breeze to navigate around the UI and everything seems very well thought out and intuitive. Bright, colorful icons and clean typography make it easier to glance over content without having to squint. You swipe up or down to scroll through the preloaded apps. Swiping right takes you back to the previous screen. Meanwhile tapping on the watch face reveals indicators for Bluetooth connection, DND mode, and the battery level. Finally, you can switch between watch faces by swiping right or left.

The band lets you store up to 5 watch faces. Additional watch faces can be accessed from the OnePlus Health app but the process of syncing new faces is so painfully slow, you won’t wish to go through this very often. There are 37 watch faces to choose from and you can also use a photo from your gallery to create your own watch face.

OnePlus Health App

The OnePlus Band needs to be connected to the companion OnePlus Health app. The app is available on the Google Play Store and can be downloaded on any Android phone running 6.0 and above.

OnePlus Health (To be announced, Google Play) →

OnePlus did promise to release the app on iOS post the official launch, but so far it hasn’t been listed on the App Store. The app requires you to log in using your mobile or email. It lacks support for Google account login which is rather amusing for an app in 2021. To make matters worse, the app doesn’t save your data to the cloud and you’ll lose everything if you uninstall the app. I learned this the hard way when I switched to a new phone and logged into the app only to find I had to start afresh and my 4 days’ worth of data was lost. How OnePlus missed such a rudimentary thing is beyond me but I wish the company would address this with priority. Having an option for cloud sync would have been a nice touch.

Coming to the user experience, the OnePlus Health app stands in contrast to Xiaomi Mi Fit with its clean and minimal user experience. It cuts straight to the point without bombarding you with a myriad of settings and menus, presenting important stats and data on rounded cards. In the Health tab, you can check out your daily activity including steps and calories burned, heart rate over a period of time, sleep quality analysis, SpO2 levels as well as workout logs. The fitness tab lets you record a walking or running session while the Manage tab is where you will find watch faces and additional settings.

Tracking & Monitoring

Heart rate monitoring

Heart rate monitoring is a staple feature of pretty much every fitness tracker and quite predictably it’s available on the OnePlus Band as well. The band uses an optical sensor that beams green lightwaves through your skin and detects changes in blood flow as blood is pumped through the vessels. Optical sensors (PPG) are considered less sophisticated compared to electrocardiogram (ECG) sensors but they’re cheap and get the job done relatively well, making them a good fit for a cheap fitness tracker like the OnePlus Band. You can initiate the manual heart rate reading from the band or have it taken at intervals of 6 minutes, 2 minutes, and per second.

My initial experience with heart rate monitoring was irksome. The sensor repeatedly failed to obtain reading despite multiple adjustments and fastening the belt ever so tightly. But this was fixed after I discovered that it was my hairy skin that was getting in the way, and once I shaved a small patch of skin around my wrist the sensor started to return reliable readings.

SpO2 sensor

The Blood oxygen sensor, commonly known as oximeter or pulse oximeter, is one of the main highlights of the OnePlus Band. The sensor uses a red LED and infrared light to measure the level of oxygen in your blood. A normal SpO2 level ranges between 95% to 100%. Repeated readings below 90% along with symptoms such as shortness of breath, chest pain, and lightheadedness can be a sign of mild to moderate hypoxemia, a condition indicating oxygen deficiency in arterial blood. Generally, children and young healthy adults don’t need to monitor their SpO2 levels. However, if you’re suffering from lung disease or a heart condition, monitoring your blood oxygen levels can be helpful.

I didn’t have access to a medical-grade pulse oximeter so I wasn’t able to assess the accuracy of the sensor but it did seem to work reliably, with data captured in quick succession showing no unusual readings or wild variations. SpO2 reading can be initiated right from the band. The measurement takes up to 30 seconds to complete and you must keep your hand still throughout the process. You can also have your SpO2 level being monitored during your sleep. There are two options: periodic tracking, in which a reading is taken every 6 minutes, and continuous monitoring which tracks your SpO2 level in real-time. Automatic SpO2 monitoring kicks in only when the band detects you have fallen asleep.

Sleep tracking

Just like other fitness trackers, the OnePlus Band can also track your sleep and provide analysis and insights about the quality of sleep. On the first night, I wore the band to sleep, it didn’t register any sleep data at all. On the next two nights, it did record some data but only registered the first couple of phases even though I did have a sound sleep. It was only on the fourth night that it managed to record my entire sleep session. And from there on forward, it has been consistent at doing its job with accurate detection of when I fell asleep, awake period between sleep, and when I got up in the morning. On a couple of days when I took a nap to make up for lost sleep hours, it was also able to record it pretty accurately. Overall, I feel the OnePlus Band represents a big step up over my Mi Band 3 which often fails to tell apart idling in bed from the actual sleep.

Features

In addition to tracking your steps and calories burned, the OnePlus Band has a wide range of fitness tracking features. It offers 13 dedicated exercise modes including Outdoor Run, Indoor Run, Fat Burn Run, Outdoor Walk, Outdoor Cycling, Indoor Cycling, Elliptical Trainer, Rowing Machine, Cricket, Badminton, Pool Swimming, Yoga, and Free Training. Since the OnePlus Band doesn’t have built-in GPS, it relies on your phone’s GPS and location service to estimate data about speed and distance covered. If you’re someone who doesn’t like to carry their phone while running or cycling, you’re better off with something like the Amazift GTS Mini 2 which comes with a built-in GPS.

Exercise modes can be accessed from the Workout app on your band and you can also set goals like distance, duration, and calories. Heart rate is continuously monitored during the workout and is displayed in real-time on the band’s display along with other stats. There’s a feature called Auto Pause which automatically pauses your on-going workout while you are at rest and resumes it when it detects your movement. After the completion of the activity, collected data is then sent to the Health app and from which a detailed graph along with other statistics is generated which you can find under the Workout logs. Similar to the Mi Band, the OnePlus Band also reminds you to get up and move around if it detects no physical activity for an hour, this is quite helpful for those who spend a great deal of time sitting at their desks.

Aside from the fitness-oriented functionalities, the OnePlus Band offers several other nifty features. You get alarm, stopwatch, music playback controls, and the camera shutter button – all of which can be accessed right from the band. Notification support is also present and you can control which apps you want to receive notifications from. Breathe is another useful addition which guides you through breathing exercise with on-screen instructions and gentle vibration. At the end of the exercise, it shows your average heart rate and the number of breaths. The band can also preview and reject incoming calls. Finally, Find My phone helps you relocate your misplaced smartphone by playing a high pitched sound.

However, the OnePlus Band does miss out on two important features: Stress Monitoring and Period tracking. Both of these features are available on the Mi Band 5. Implementing them doesn’t require any special hardware so this is something that can be easily added via an update.

Battery Life & Charging Speed

The OnePlus Band packs a 100mAh battery and claims to provide up to 14 days of battery life on a single charge. In my testing, however, that claim seemed a little far-fetched. In the first run, the band lasted only three days, — mainly because I was using everything to its fullest capacity: brightness set to 80%, heart rate tracking frequency set to every 2 minutes, notifications enabled for every messaging and work app, and SpO2 tracking during sleep set to real-time.

In the second run, I dialed down things a notch: brightness between 40-60%, night mode enabled, heart rate monitoring every 6 minutes, notifications disabled, and SpO2 tracking at a 6-minute interval during sleep. But even with these concessions, the band barely made it to the seventh day. OnePlus did roll out an update a few days ago addressing the unusual power draw during sleep and standby which has improved the situation to some extent. However, the numbers I’m getting still remains a far cry from what the company is advertising, with the average daily power draw coming in at between 12% to 15% with the same usage pattern.

The band charges via a plastic cradle which feels cheap and finicky and is simply no match for Mi Band 5’s super convenient magnetic charger.

For charging, you’ll need to eject the capsule from the strap and put it into the charging cradle. But I found that snapping the cradle onto the back of the band works just as well and is more convenient than having to pop out the capsule every single time. As for the charging speed, the band takes a little over an hour to reach 100% from an empty state. For reference, the Mi Band 5 takes anywhere between 1.5-2 hours to fully charge.

Conclusion

OnePlus’ first attempt at a fitness tracker is a solid one but not enough to unseat the Mi Band 5 from its position. A bright colorful display, intuitive UI, robust set of fitness features, accurate sleep tracking, and SpO2 monitoring are strongholds of the OnePlus Band. It’s also the only fitness band on the market to offer SpO2 monitoring at this price. But being a first-gen product, it does fall short in a few areas. The lack of cloud sync and missing features such as stress monitoring and period tracking puts the fitness band at disadvantage to the Mi Band 5. The battery-life, although good, is nowhere near to the company claim. But for what it’s worth, most of the shortcomings of the OnePlus Band appear to be fixable with software updates. Should you consider the OnePlus Band over the Mi Band 5? For now, the Mi Band 5 appears a more mature and polished product, offering more customizations and seemingly better battery life. However, the OnePlus Band does have an edge with its SpO2 sensor which is missing on the Mi Band 5’s global variant.

The post OnePlus Band Review: A solid first attempt at fitness tracking appeared first on xda-developers.

With the Galaxy Buds Pro, Samsung has finally made a pair of true wireless earbuds that are at the top of my personal ranking. However, it took them several iterations to get there, and it’s on the back of other industry leaders. It’s not an overstatement to say that Apple’s AirPods changed the course of the wireless earbuds industry. Before the AirPods, the earliest wireless earbuds from brands like Bragi, Moto, FreeWavez, and others took on all shapes and sizes but ultimately didn’t stray too far from our ear canals.

Then Apple released the AirPods, which at the time looked weird as heck with its elongated stems that stuck out of the wearer’s ears and drooped an inch south toward the jaw. I remember an early reviewer saying they looked like “wet soggy cigarettes sticking out the ears” and I couldn’t get the mental image out of my head ever since — I never liked the AirPods look.

But what I thought didn’t matter — those elongated stems allowed the AirPods to provide better connectivity and sound, and soon virtually every brand that made wireless earbuds copied that elongated stem design. As tech improved, the stems became shorter and less unsightly — I even relented and started using the AirPods Pro and Huawei FreeBuds Pro — but the stems are still there, sticking out like sore thumbs.

This is why I feel Samsung deserves praise because they refused to copy Apple and instead stuck to their own design. Last year’s Galaxy Buds Plus and Buds Live were solid offerings but lacked meaningful active noise cancellation or transparency modes. This year’s Galaxy Buds Pro finally adds both features, and it’s enough to push them to the top of my favorite wireless earbuds ranking.

The Galaxy Buds Pro: look ma, no stems!

Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro: Specifications

Design

As I already spoiled in the intro, the most noteworthy thing about the Galaxy Buds Pro is that they look nothing like Apple’s AirPods or the dozens of AirPods-inspired earbuds from other phone brands. They don’t even look anything like Samsung’s last wireless offering, the bean-shaped Galaxy Buds Live!

Otherwise, there’s not a lot to say about the Galaxy Buds Pro in terms of design — they look, uh, fine? It’s a semi-circular bud with a removable silicone ear tip that nestles into my ear canal. The buds are a bit bulky-looking, but at 6.3g each are light enough to stay in my ears for hours on end without issues. The medium silicone tip that comes installed fits my ears fine; there are smaller and larger sized ones included in the packaging. They come in two colors — black or silver — with the silver one having this highly reflective silver coating that is as reflective as a mirror.

Touch controls with the Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro.

This reflective part doubles as a touch panel for controlling audio: a single tap plays or pauses music; a double-tap skips tracks; and a long press cycles between noise-canceling or transparency modes (more on this later). If you’re someone who fiddles with your earbuds a lot and don’t like accidentally triggering actions, you can turn these off with the Galaxy Wear app.

The Galaxy Buds Pro in its charging/carrying case.

The Galaxy Buds Pro charging case is compact and opens like an engagement ring box, which makes taking out the Buds Pro easier than the AirPods Pro or Huawei FreeBuds Pro. The case has a USB-C port for charging and supports wireless charging.

Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro audio and mic quality

With a dual driver system consisting of 11mm woofers and 6.5mm tweeters in each bud, I found audio quality from the Galaxy Buds Pro to be good but not top tier. There’s a separation between the highs and mids, and vocals sound crisp. However, I find the audio from the Huawei FreeBuds Pro to sound more “full,” and the AirPods Pro has better bass for that extra “oomph” when listening to hip hop.

The Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro supports universal SBC and AAC audio standards but also a Samsung-proprietary codec (“Scalable Codec”) if you pair it with a Galaxy device. For what it’s worth, I used the Galaxy Buds Pro with the Galaxy S21 Ultra, iPhone 12 Mini, MacBook Pro, and a Samsung smart TV, and audio quality sounded about the same to me.

I’m impressed with connectivity and the microphones, however, because these Galaxy Buds Pro are smaller in size and do not have an elongated stem which clearly helps Bluetooth signals and microphone input.

People on the other end of calls said they could hear me fine, and in fact, I can use the Galaxy Buds Pro as a wireless Bluetooth mic when paired with a Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra or Galaxy Note 20 Ultra. I like this feature a lot, as I often shoot vlogs on the go.

Noise cancellation and transparency modes

Last year’s Galaxy Buds Live technically had active noise cancellation, but due to the fact the bean-shaped buds sit loosely in your ear and do not seal off the ear canal, the noise cancellation was virtually useless. I’m happy to report the Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro makes huge improvements here. I suppose the fact these buds have silicone tips that seal off my ear canals play a big role, but I think Samsung has made some improvements in the software too.

The Galaxy Buds Pro has three mics built into each bud, and they work in unison to analyze outside sound so Samsung’s software can either mute them (noise-canceling mode) or pass them through selectively (transparency mode).

I find noise cancellation to work very well indoors. I work at a co-working space with a lot of constant chatter, and the Galaxy Buds Pro drown those out quite well. Once I step outside to the streets of Hong Kong — one of the noisiest and densely-populated places in the world — the noise cancellation obviously cannot give me total silence, but it does an admirable job.

Galaxy Wearable app connected to the Galaxy Buds Pro

I can’t say I’m a true wireless earbud expert as I haven’t tried any of Jabra or Sony’s buds, but compared to the AirPods Pro and Huawei FreeBuds Pro, Samsung’s noise cancellation holds up.

Transparency mode, too, is excellent. At the default medium setting, it lets in just enough crucial sound like human voices and car honks while still muting white noise like air conditioning hums and whirls of a computer fan. I can listen to music and still hold a conversation with someone with transparency mode on.

But my favorite feature of the Galaxy Buds Pro — and something I feel competitors will need to offer in their next releases — is automatic switching between noise-canceling and transparency mode. Samsung calls this “voice detect,” and how it works is that whenever the Buds hears my voice, it lowers the audio volume and turns on transparency mode (if it isn’t enabled already) for anywhere between 5-15 seconds. This means I can wear the Galaxy Buds Pro with noise-canceling on, but if I need to have a short conversation, I can do so without ever touching the earbuds or my phone.

The voice detection feature works very well — before I’ve finished uttering my first word, the Galaxy Buds Pro will have lowered audio volume and let sound through already. In fact, it took some getting used to for me because I have a habit of singing along with songs, and anytime I sang, the volume goes down.

The good news is I can turn this feature off in the Galaxy Wearable app if I want. In fact, the Galaxy Wearable app has a lot of customization options, including changing the level of noise-canceling or transparency mode, as well as adjust audio EQ.

Galaxy Buds Pro Plugin (Free, Google Play) →

Battery life, other bits, and conclusion

The Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro can last about five hours on a single charge with either noise-canceling or transparency mode on. The case itself carries another 2.5 charges for a total of around 18 hours. The Buds are also rated IPX7, and I’ve worn them for a five-minute shower without issues.

You can trigger Bixby with voice command but not Google Assistant or Siri. This is a major bummer as the Huawei FreeBuds Pro can trigger both. You also can’t really adjust volume directly on the buds unless you reassign the long-press command to it, but doing so means you can no longer switch between noise-canceling and transparency mode with touch.

At $200, the Galaxy Buds Pro costs less than both Apple’s AirPods Pro and Huawei’s FreeBuds Pro, and I love the no stems look, so for me, these are my new favorite earbuds. However, the inability to trigger any form of digital assistant other than Bixby could be a dealbreaker for certain people. For example, when I’m cycling, I love being able to trigger Siri or Google Assistant mid-ride and check things like the weather, time, or location.

Whatever the case, I respect Samsung for refusing to do what almost literally every other phone brand has done — copy Apple.

The post The Galaxy Buds Pro are the best earbuds that aren’t an AirPods clone appeared first on xda-developers.

For years, Motorola had fallen behind in the budget and mid-range segments of the smartphone market. The company’s smartphone releases didn’t compete well in terms of specifications and value-for-money against offerings from Xiaomi, Realme, and even Samsung. At one point, it seemed Motorola could not recover from its self-inflicted wounds, as the brand increasingly slid into irrelevance. Since the latter half of 2018, however, it has started a bit of a course correction, with phones such as the Motorola One Power, Motorola One Action, and especially the well-received Motorola One Fusion+ in mid-2020. The Moto G 5G, launched in December as the company’s first mid-range 5G phone, aims to carry on this momentum.

Apart from 5G support and the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 750G SoC, the Moto G 5G doesn’t have many distinguishing features. It doesn’t have an AMOLED display, nor does it have a high refresh rate display. The battery capacity is a hefty 5,000mAh, but even that doesn’t stand apart anymore when competitors now have 6,000mAh and even 7,000mAh batteries. The camera setup looks run-of-the-mill on paper as well. On the other hand, it can be thought of as a phone that goes back to the basics and tries to execute them well. From the beginning, it’s an open question whether the Moto G 5G can compete against phones such as the Xiaomi Mi 10i, POCO X3, Realme 7 Pro, Samsung Galaxy M51, and the OnePlus Nord. Let’s see how it does.

About this review: Motorola India sent me the 6GB RAM + 128GB storage variant of the Moto G 5G. I used the phone for a month before returning the review unit. Motorola had no input on the content of this article.

Moto G 5G Forums

Moto G 5G – Design

The Moto G 5G has a pretty standard design for a 2020 mid-range phone. You get a 6.7-inch display with a centered hole-punch front camera. There is a matte plastic frame. The back is made of a glossy plastic material and has an interesting textured rainbow effect underneath. The build quality won’t win any awards as there is no metal and glass construction to be seen here, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing at this price point.

The thickness and weight figures are acceptable as well at 9.9mm and 212 grams respectively. The Samsung Galaxy M51 manages to fit in a larger 7,000mAh battery in a thinner footprint while maintaining the same weight, though, which is a bit of a minus for the Moto G 5G.

In terms of ergonomics and in-hand feel, the Moto G 5G holds itself up admirably. The matte finish of the plastic frame helps for grip, and the curved back with slightly rounded sides is beneficial for ergonomics. The power and volume buttons are placed on the right side, while a Google Assistant button is placed on the left side. It’s all unremarkable, but not in a bad way.

The top-left side of the back contains the square camera enclosure with symmetrical placement of the 48MP + 8MP + 2MP sensors along with the LED flash. Thankfully, the camera bump is minor thanks to the thickness of the frame, which is good to see. Motorola has opted to stick with a rear-mounted physical capacitive fingerprint sensor, instead of integrating it with the power button. It works very well, as expected.

The color options of the phone are simple: Black and Silver. The phone does have an understated charm in the black color, as it doesn’t stand out at all due to the fact that in terms of color, it’s a monolith.

The Moto G 5G has IP52 water and dust resistance. There’s a dedicated microSD card as well.

Overall, the Moto G 5G’s design is unexciting but still acceptable for a phone in the mid-range segment. You can find phones with better looking gradient finishes, more premium material construction, and phones with water resistance. Even the Motorola One Fusion+ had a more attractive design. The Moto G 5G skips out on all three, but for most buyers in this price range, these factors probably won’t matter much.

Moto G 5G – Display

The Moto G 5G’s display is unexciting, just like its design. It has a 6.7-inch LTPS IPS LCD with HDR10 support. The HDR10 support is nice to see, but it’s becoming prevalent in this price segment, so the phone doesn’t bring anything new in this respect. The lack of either one of the two major headlining display characteristics is found on the Moto G 5G, as its display is not AMOLED unlike the Galaxy M51 and the Realme 7 Pro, and it doesn’t have a high refresh rate unlike the Xiaomi Mi 10i, POCO X3, and others. So it’s 0/2, which reflects poorly on Motorola especially at this price point.

The lack of a high refresh rate display is probably the biggest downer with this phone. The lack of AMOLED means contrast levels are just OK, while there is brightness and contrast degradation across viewing angle changes. On the other hand, the display does perform well when weighed on the scale of other factors such as resolution, brightness (although it doesn’t have high brightness mode), minimal color shifting across viewing angles, and great color accuracy in the Natural color mode.

Sadly, these plus points of the display help, but don’t eliminate, the want for a high refresh rate (at least 90Hz) display, which is increasingly starting to become a requirement in new phone launches.

Moto G 5G – Performance

The Moto G 5G is powered by Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 750G SoC. It has two newer ARM Cortex-A77 big cores that pair the six ARM Cortex-A55 little cores, an upgrade over the Snapdragon 730G and the Snapdragon 765G, which both have Cortex-A76 big cores. In terms of the GPU, you get an Adreno 619. Qualcomm’s GPU nomenclature means this is faster than the Adreno 618 of the Snapdragon 730G and the Adreno 619L of the Snapdragon 690, but it will fall short of the Adreno 620 in the Snapdragon 765G, not to mention flagship GPUs such as the Adreno 630 and above, found in the Snapdragon 800 series.

In terms of CPU performance, the Moto G 5G performs better than Snapdragon 730G as well as Snapdragon 765G devices, especially in single-threaded performance thanks to the 20% improvement in IPC that the Cortex-A77 brings over the Cortex-A76.

The GPU performance, on the other hand, is par for the course, but it’s not particularly impressive given Qualcomm’s reluctance to power its mid-range SoCs with more powerful GPUs. A POCO F1 from 2018 will have better GPU performance than the Moto G 5G, for example, and they were both launched at the same price. So at least in GPU performance, the market has yet to move forward.

The storage performance figures were a lot better. The phone has UFS 2.1 storage and was able to post some surprisingly high numbers, which means storage speed won’t be a bottleneck for system performance.

The real-world performance of the Moto G 5G is good. It doesn’t have a high refresh rate display, which means it won’t feel as fast and smooth as some competitors, despite having more performance to spare. The system UI was mostly free from perceptible frame drops. The RAM management was pretty good as well, and so were thermals, as they never became a cause for concern. In terms of unlocking speed, the Moto G 5G is one of the top performers as it doesn’t have to deal with a wonky implementation of an optical under-display fingerprint sensor.

Overall, the Moto G 5G’s performance is good for the price point. It excels in some aspects and underwhelms in others.

Moto G 5G – Camera

The Moto G 5G has a 48MP primary camera with the Samsung ISOCELL GM1 sensor. Ultra-wide photography duties are handled by an 8MP camera, while the tertiary camera is one of those filler 2MP macro cameras that don’t prove their worth on the specifications list. The phone can record 4K video at 30fps.

The specifications of all three cameras are not on par with expectations. The 48MP ISOCELL GM1 is a two-year-old sensor, and Motorola should have used the newer 64MP ISOCELL GW1 or the Sony IMX686. The macro camera should not have made its way into this phone. The number of cameras does not directly correspond to the image quality.

Here are some quick observations about the camera app and the image quality of the cameras:

• The camera app is fast to open and switches between modes quickly. Its design is different from conventional camera apps, but it works well.
• The 48MP primary camera takes average 12MP pixel binned photos. There is no option to take full-resolution photos, but that doesn’t matter in the end. Photos have adequate amounts of detail, but the exposure and dynamic range are notable issues as most photos are too underexposed. On the other hand, the noise reduction isn’t too aggressive, so fine detail retention is better than I expected.
• The 8MP ultra-wide-angle has a wide field-of-view, but its resulting photos have poor detail retention, as expected. It’s acceptable for the price point, though.
• Indoor photos have adequate detail but are severely affected by a low amount of contrast, underexposure, and poor color accuracy. The noise reduction is too strong here.
• Outdoor low-light photos are also underexposed, which means they don’t capture as much light as expected. However, detail levels are acceptable and luminance noise levels are low.
• The night vision mode is a big disappointment as it simply brightens up the photos while destroying all the detail. The oil painting effect here is strongly prevalent, to the point where it ruins image quality. This mode, therefore, should be avoided and used only as a last resort. Other competitors do much better here, even those that are cheaper than the Moto G 5G.
• There’s no 4K at 60fps video recording option, but the phone does have a 1080p at 60fps video recording option, albeit without EIS. 4K at 30fps and 1080p at 30fps videos have enabled EIS and have good image quality. The stabilization is also free from major issues.
• Overall, the Moto G 5G’s camera can be summed up in one word: disappointing. It does have a few strengths such as good detail levels in outdoor photos, but Motorola needs to seriously improve its image processing in indoor and outdoor low lighting environments. The night mode should be fundamentally overhauled as right now it’s effectively useless.

Moto G 5G – Battery Life and Charging

The Moto G 5G is powered by a 5,000mAh battery. The battery life is probably the strongest part of this phone. Thanks to the power-efficient 8nm Snapdragon 750G SoC, the lack of a high refresh rate display, and Motorola’s software optimizations, the Moto G 5G has excellent battery life.

In fact, the Moto G 5G’s battery life is only slightly less than that of the Galaxy M51, which has a substantially larger 7,000mAh battery. I was able to get as much as 11.5 hours of screen-on time with two days of unplugged time. This is effectively twice the battery life of the OnePlus 8 Pro, for example. The Galaxy M51 was able to give as much as 13-15 hours of screen-on time, so it’s better but not so much better as the numbers would have you believe.

There is no wireless charging on the Moto G 5G, as expected. The 20W fast wired charging is slower than competitors such as Samsung’s 25W USB Type-C PD 3.0 charging as well as Realme’s 65W DaRT charging. At least Motorola bundles a charger in the box, though.

Overall, the Moto G 5G’s battery life is excellent, though it falls short of the Galaxy M51 and will also probably fall short of the POCO X3. The Mi 10i should have similar battery life, as its SoC + battery capacity combo is the same.

Odds and Ends

• I have not mentioned 5G support in this review so far. That’s because India doesn’t have any live 5G networks yet. The Moto G 5G’s 5G support is more for future-proofing. It supports the 3.5GHz 5G band, which is the one that will most likely be used by Indian 5G networks.
• The speaker quality of the Moto G 5G is par for the course. It’s neither outstanding nor poor.
• The vibration motor of the Moto G 5G is significantly better than that of the Galaxy M51, but it still won’t compare to vibration motors found in flagship phones, as expected.

Conclusion

On the one hand, the Moto G 5G attempts to go back to the basics. To a certain extent, it succeeds. The design and build quality are acceptable. The display performs well on the basis of traditional parameters such as brightness, viewing angles, and color accuracy. The CPU and system performance are good. The battery life is excellent. The presence of stock Android 10 with no added bloatware and no ads is a relief after seeing the bloatware infestation of custom user interfaces such as MIUI and One UI. The phone should receive an Android 11 update as well, but that will also probably be its last update. The camera takes relatively good photos in daylight.

However, the phone does have quite a few weaknesses as well. The lack of a glass back and gradient color options will disappoint those interested in flashy smartphone design. The lack of AMOLED is a turn-off for many users. The lack of a high refresh rate display is even more troubling as even cheaper phones now feature the technology. The GPU performance won’t compete with even 2018 smartphone flagships. The image quality of the camera indoors is poor, and the Night Vision mode requires a complete overhaul as it destroys detail. The battery life is excellent, but it’s not a USP in this price segment as phones like the POCO X3, Xiaomi Mi 10i, and the Samsung Galaxy M51 have equally good or even better battery life. Finally, Motorola’s software update record is worse than Samsung and Xiaomi. You can expect the Android 11 update to arrive at an uncertain time in the future, and nothing beyond that.

The phone’s list of competitors includes the Xiaomi Mi 10i, POCO X3, Realme 7 Pro, Samsung Galaxy M51, OnePlus Nord, Realme X3, and others. The Mi 10i is probably the closest competitor and comparing its specifications side-by-side, it does seem as if it is the better phone. It’s expected to have better camera performance as well, thanks to a 108MP primary camera and Xiaomi’s better night mode.

The Moto G 5G was launched for ₹20,999 in India. At that price, the phone offers a good value proposition, but others are clearly better in certain respects. The Galaxy M51 has a better display, the Mi 10i probably has a better camera, and the OnePlus Nord has more feature-rich software. The Moto G 5G, however, has its own strengths, and it is the right choice for the subset of users interested in a mid-range 5G phone without the bloatware of custom user interfaces.

The Moto G 5G is available in the U.S. as well under the Motorola One G 5G Ace moniker. It’s a lot more expensive in that market, though, coming in at $399.99, which still makes it one of the most affordable 5G phones in the U.S.

Moto G 5G Forums

The post Moto G 5G Review: A 5G Phone Goes Back to the Basics appeared first on xda-developers.

The launch of new Galaxy devices is always an exciting time for display tech enthusiasts. With Samsung Display still leading the industry’s progress in mobile screens, the new Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra showcases the bleeding edge in mobile display technology and give us hints on what to expect from displays on phones released in the near future.

The latest panels aren’t always the best panels, however. While the technology may be improving, companies need to make sure that they keep their calibration quality in check. Sometimes technological improvements have introduced new problems: For example, high refresh rate panels introduced color shifting when the phone switched refresh rates, and software solutions had to be created to solve this problem. New emitter material and driver adjustments may also impact image quality. While the Galaxy S21 Ultra shows off Samsung’s newer OLED technology, let’s see if it also manages to improve its image quality.

The Snapdragon Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra unit in this review was personally bought. Samsung did not compensate for this review in any way.

Now with less glare!

What’s changed?

When compared to the Galaxy Note20 Ultra, Samsung hasn’t mentioned any huge changes. On paper, the panels seem extremely similar: Both are large QHD panels with support for up to 120 Hz refresh rates, and both advertise a next-generation LTPO panel with VRR (variable refresh rate) support. In terms of brightness, both also boast a peak of 1,500 nits. However, one major difference with the new Galaxy S21 Ultra is that it finally allows its 120 Hz refresh rate at the display’s native QHD resolution — previous Galaxy flagships were stuck with the FHD (1080p) render resolution if they wanted to use the 120 Hz high refresh rate mode. Unfortunately, I don’t have a Galaxy Note20 Ultra to investigate other potential differences, but Andrei from Anandtech found the panel in the Galaxy S21 Ultra to be even more power-efficient than the one in the Note20 Ultra.

“Variable” refresh rate

While the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra is advertised to have a “true” variable refresh rate solution, it still actually switches between discrete refresh rate modes. However, with the LTPO “VRR” panels of the Galaxy S21 Ultra and the Note20 Ultra, there are more refresh rate modes within the display driver than those that are exposed to the Android OS. Andrei from Anandtech also covers the display driver mechanism that is responsible for the panel’s finer-tuned refresh rate switching.

Color profiles

The Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra (along with most other Android devices) maintains the same screen color mode configurations as its past two generations, with its Vivid and Natural profile. The Vivid mode was set as default on my Snapdragon unit.

The Natural profile is the phone’s color-accurate profile, and it targets the sRGB color space with color management up to the Display P3 color space. The white point of the profile targets D65/6500 K (with my measurements reading about ~6300 K), and its tone mapping targets a standard gamma of 2.20.

The Vivid profile is a color-boosted profile, which increases the saturation of colors on the screen. The profile’s target color space is about 36% larger than sRGB and is similar to Display P3 but with altered blues. Reds are boosted by about 24% and tinted towards orange; Greens are boosted by about 35% and tinted towards cyan; blues are boosted by about 18% and tinted heavily towards cyan. The resulting colors are oversaturated and slightly skewed in hue, but many users may prefer this for its punchiness. The white point is a little colder, targeting approximately 6700 K in its default setting. For this profile, an option is provided to adjust the color temperature of the profile. Individual RGB-channel adjustments (polynomial color corrections) are also provided under Advanced settings. The profile’s tone mapping also targets a standard gamma of 2.20, but it diverges to a higher value at higher brightness since the profile does not normalize display luminance in response to content APL.

Brightness

Peak luminance vs content APL

New Samsung Galaxy flagships typically come with new peak brightness records for mobile OLEDs. However, with the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, we’re seeing brightness figures that are similar to the Note20 Ultra. That is, we’re seeing about 900 nits at full-screen white (100% APL), down to 1,500 nits at a tiny 1% APL. Most light-themed apps sit at about 75-85% APL, at which the Galaxy S21 Ultra can output about 1,000 nits. Needless to say, these are still extremely impressive brightness figures. Note that the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra (and most other Android devices) can only reach this peak brightness in high ambient lighting, such as under sunlight. Otherwise, the peak brightness for the manual brightness range is only about 400 nits for full-screen white.

When at its peak, one caveat with the display brightness is that it sacrifices image contrast for maximum white luminance. The Galaxy S21 Ultra’s peak brightness varies significantly with content APL; the phone can pump more current to bright regions of the display when the rest of the display isn’t emitting much light. While this has the advantage of letting small bright regions stand out more, it can completely mess with the rendering of color tones, making details in images harder to see. For this reason, some OLEDs disable this brightness-boosting (or brightness-reducing, whichever way you want to look at it) mechanism by limiting the current to the panel and normalizing the brightness to that of full-screen white’s (max power draw), regardless of content APL. This behavior is now implemented into the Natural (or similar) profile of most phones now for improved color tone accuracy. However, some phones, such as the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, continue to allow the brightness to vary at peak brightness, likely for the spec sheet — I’ve found that displays that control the brightness response to APL at peak brightness to be overall more legible under sunlight. The OnePlus 8 Pro, which normalizes its peak brightness (to only about ~720 nits) and then boosts its midtones, is still among the best phone displays I’ve seen for sunlight viewing; the Google Pixel 5 performs similarly.

At its lowest brightness setting, I noticed that I was getting two separate readings. If Adaptive Brightness was disabled, the display could get as dim as 1.6 nits for full-screen white, which is excellent — most other OLEDs only go down to about 1.8–2.0 nits. However, when Adaptive Brightness is enabled and the brightness slider is set to its minimum, the Galaxy S21 Ultra’s display could get as low as 1.2 nits for full-screen white, which is impressive. Most other displays cannot get this dim without the help of some sort of dark filter overlayed in software. The Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra also does this without significant detriment to picture quality. Kudos to Samsung here.

Power consumption

Compared to the two-year-old Galaxy S10, we see that the Galaxy S21 Ultra is remarkably more power-efficient in regards to luminous efficacy. At the Galaxy S10’s peak full-screen brightness, which is about 750 nits, the Galaxy S21 Ultra consumes almost a whole watt less than the S10 — about 25% less power — even when the Galaxy S21 Ultra has a ~20% larger screen area. When the Galaxy S10’s power figures are scaled up to match the screen area of the Galaxy S21 Ultra’s, the difference is even more staggering; in this scenario, the Galaxy S21 Ultra then consumes about 37% less power and can output about 1,000 nits for the same power as the scaled S10’s peak 750-nits brightness.

Contrast and Tone Mapping

Measured at 40% APL (~27% Target ADL)

As previously discussed, the Natural profile of the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra normalized the display brightness response to content APL. This is a crucial step in producing a tight transfer function (tone map) calibration; without it, image contrast will vary depending on the average brightness of the content, which can be observed in our contrast and tone map charts for the Vivid profile below. The Natural profile produces excellent tonal accuracy towards the standard 2.20 power gamma for its manual brightness range, thanks to the brightness normalization. But at its peak brightness, when high brightness mode is activated, Samsung disables the brightness normalization so that the panel can output the brightest whites that it can. This has the drawback of impacting tonal accuracy, and our measurements show that, at peak brightness, the Galaxy S21 Ultra renders color tones far darker than intended and details in images can become lost.

At low brightness, the Natural profile maintains its tracking of the 2.20 gamma power. Although this seems accurate on paper, it’s not typically desirable at low brightness levels. The differences between the darkest shades of colors become really small at these brightness levels, causing a loss of detail and “black crush” even for a display that perfectly tracks a gamma power of 2.20. Thus, the display calibrators should instead use a lower, brighter gamma power for the first several tone steps for improved display legibility at low brightness. Phones such as the Google Pixel 5 and Apple’s iPhones are good examples of displays with excellent shadow legibility at low brightness due to their tone mapping behavior.

Measured at 40% APL (~27% Target ADL)

The Vivid profile does not employ brightness normalization, so its image contrast varies with the display brightness and the content APL. It properly tracks a 2.20 gamma power for low-to-medium brightness levels but begins to noticeably track higher above about 400 nits. This only really becomes an issue at peak brightness (high brightness mode), but I wish Samsung would just keep it static to maintain its image contrast across its brightness range. For Vivid mode, Samsung could track a static 2.40 gamma power instead so that it has increased contrast across the board, instead of only at high brightness levels.

Gradient banding for the Natural profile

Gradient banding has always been a complaint of mine for Samsung devices. Even with the brand-new Galaxy S21 Ultra, bit-depth quantization continues to be subtlety present for the display in the Natural profile. Even for 10-bit content, whose sole existence in the display world is to address quantization artifacts, the Galaxy S21 Ultra still exhibits some banding. The main offender seems to be a strip in the midtones that is tinted red at medium to high brightness levels. It’s not as big an issue as it was in the S10 display, but it’s still there when it hasn’t been a complaint of mine for any other major OEM in recent times.

White Balance and Grayscale Color Precision

Grayscale plots for Natural profile, 120 Hz

The grayscale color spread on the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra is decently tight and well-controlled in the Natural profile. There is a gap that my plots are missing which can be seen from the red strip in my gradient banding photos in the previous section, but in general, there’s no jarring tint going on with the display. I’m happy to see that Samsung has improved in this regard: The last Galaxy display that I reviewed, the Note10, did not perform too well in its grayscale color precision. However, as with all Samsung Galaxy displays that I’ve reviewed, they are calibrated slightly too warm in their Natural mode, and our Galaxy S21 Ultra measured at about 6300 K in its grayscale and white point.

Grayscale plots for Vivid profile, 120 Hz

The Vivid profile’s grayscale color spread is a little tighter, which can be expected from a color profile with less gamut compression. There is also less color banding in this profile, and the white point and grayscale measures at about 6700 K by default.

Refresh rate color difference

From my observations after spending time with the display, I have not noticed alterations to the image quality when the display changed refresh rate modes when in use. This is not to say there aren’t any differences between the refresh rate modes. There are subtle color calibration differences between the 60 Hz and 120 Hz display modes, but it seems that the OS is smart enough not to switch when the difference may be noticeable. By tracking the current refresh rate of the Android OS, I found that the Galaxy S21 Ultra does not switch modes under a certain system brightness and ambient brightness. This is only for the refresh rate modes that are exposed to Android; the driver-level refresh rate modes exhibited no visible color shifting to my eye, however, it’s hard to properly assess this without knowing when the display is actually changing its driver refresh rate since it isn’t apparent to the OS.

Color Accuracy

sRGB color accuracy plots for Natural profile

Samsung’s Galaxy S21 Ultra generally shows excellent sRGB color accuracy in its Natural Profile for its manual brightness range (ΔE_TP = 2.7). As a rule of thumb, ΔE_TP values under 3.0 can be considered reference-quality. However, although the profile’s average color errors are very low, there are a couple of high color errors at mid-to-high display brightnesses that are noteworthy. Between 60%-80% PQ brightness, high-saturation reds in sRGB take on a slightly orange tint (ΔE_TP ≈ 10), and the gamut is expanded towards orange in this region while red-to-pinks are somewhat constrained. At the same brightness range, a region of medium-high blues are skewed in hue towards purple, which is odd given the rest of the blues appear fine.

At maximum brightness, we see a trend of oversaturation across the gamut. This is actually desirable behavior since it offsets some of the screen gamut compression from high ambient lighting when the display is at its peak brightness. Most of the colors retain the same hue, which is excellent. But just like in its manual brightness range, reds are heavily skewed towards orange (although since oranges seem to be okay, this means that skin tones aren’t likely to be noticeably distorted).

Low brightness color calibration is excellent and better than on most other mobile displays that I’ve seen. Most phones show a compressed gamut at low brightness, which isn’t the case for the Galaxy S21 Ultra. However, the Galaxy S21 Ultra still has an issue with shadow legibility at low brightness.

Display P3 color accuracy plots for Natural profile

The Natural profile’s Display P3 color calibration seems to be slightly more accurate than its sRGB color calibration. Within the Galaxy S21 Ultra’s manual brightness range, the profile yields an average color error ΔE_TP of 2.4 for Display P3, which is excellent. The Display P3 calibration does not have the issues with reds that are present in the sRGB calibration, but the error in medium- to high-saturation blues is still there. This should provide good future-proofing when Display P3 content inevitably becomes more common within the Android ecosystem.

HDR Playback

Measured at 20% APL

~400 nit frame-average light level  (HDR10 1000) / ~900 nit frame-average light level  (HDR10 4000))

HDR content (in the form of HDR10 and Dolby Vision) is becoming more and more prolific every day. There are now plenty of HDR titles on every streaming platform, and we’re only now seeing the tip of the iceberg. Samsung’s cameras also allow for HDR10+ video recording, which can be played back right on the Galaxy S21 Ultra, and with that, content creators should expect a degree of accuracy from their playback device. There’s still a ton of untapped potential in our current standards, and I expect many future improvements and revisions, such as a standardized form of Dolby Vision IQ. For our HDR review, we’ll be looking at the current de-facto HDR10 standard playback using the ST. 2084 (aka Perceptual Quantizer, or PQ) absolute transfer function. HDR playback in the Natural and Vivid profiles on the Galaxy S21 Ultra is identical.

In terms of peak brightness, the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra advertises 1,500 nits peak, which is plenty for HDR10-1000 (HDR10 at 1,000-nits peak) content. From my measurements, I found that the Galaxy S21 Ultra can hit 1,480 nits at a 20% window size (which is also the typical APL for HDR), so Samsung’s claims of 1,500 nits for HDR is genuine. It’s also actually quite modest: At 10% APL, the Galaxy S21 Ultra can hit 1,580 nits, and at 1% APL, it managed to output 1,680 nits. These figures aren’t quite viable yet for HDR content mastered at 4,000 nits, but it’s respectable progress nonetheless, and it allows headroom for proper 1,000-nit highlights at higher APLs.

Our contrast chart shows how the Galaxy S21 Ultra reproduces the standard PQ curve when playing back HDR10 content. We can see that the Galaxy S21 Ultra renders HDR10 content much brighter than standard when the display is at max brightness (which is the brightness setting that HDR10 content is supposed to be played back at). However, I suspect that Samsung may just not be following convention, and perhaps manually adjusting the display brightness to 1,000 nits peak would result in an accurate HDR10-1000 PQ curve.  Note that the display’s rendering of the PQ curve depends on the peak luminance metadata of the HDR10 content (1000 nits or 4000 nits peak); consumer displays cannot currently hit 4,000 nits (and some cannot hit 1,000 nits), so the display gently rolls off towards its peak brightness instead. The Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra is the first Android phone I’ve tested that actually changes its tone mapping depending on the metadata of HDR content, which is excellent to see (previous generations may have as well, but I did not test this) — it’s just a shame to see that it doesn’t seem to follow the PQ curve properly. Furthermore, I found that the first 10% of the curve gradually became brighter the longer the Galaxy S21 Ultra displayed HDR content; the spike at the bottom of the chart shows this behavior at one instance when the display rendered the tones about 0.3 nits brighter than intended, which is a huge difference in shadows.

In grayscale color precision, the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra performs mediocrely for HDR playback. Its shadows are tinted towards magenta, and the color temperature of the rest of the grayscale points are much warmer than standard, with highlights tinting towards yellow. The standard distance σ of 4.7 is remarkably high, surpassing the value for a non-critical noticeable difference (ΔE_TP > 3.0) for the collection of grayscale points.

The Galaxy S21 Ultra also sees issues in color accuracy for HDR content. Our color accuracy chart shows the Galaxy S21 Ultra oversaturating all colors within the P3-BT.2100 gamut, and the white point tint towards yellow is also visible. This oversaturation goes hand-in-hand with the overly-bright rendering of the PQ curve.

Overall, the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra provides an extremely vibrant HDR viewing experience — one that is brighter and more colorful than standard. It may not provide the most true-to-cinema experience, but an upside to the brightness and color surplus is that it can improve your HDR viewing experience in brighter conditions, and not limit it to just dark rooms.

Final Remarks on the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra’s Display

The Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra is truly a state-of-the-art panel that addresses many of the previous shortcomings of high refresh rate OLEDs on smartphones. In terms of calibration, the Galaxy S21 Ultra maintains the color accuracy that is expected from a phone of its caliber. However, I’d like to see finer tuning of shadow details at its lower brightness settings, which I’m seeing other Androids now paying more attention to. On the other end, I’d also like to see Samsung improve its tonal tuning at max brightness instead of just trying to compete for the highest figure of nits possible. My Snapdragon Galaxy S21 Ultra unit also showed excellent panel uniformity at low brightness and very little grayscale color tinting, which is the opposite of my experience with my previous Note10, which was terrible in both regards. And finally, I actually now find the state of the curve to be bearable: Even with bright content, the curve yielded little-to-no noticeable distortion at the edges when looking at the display head-on — I wouldn’t mind this curve on a daily driver.

The post Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra Display Review: A technical (rather than visual) step forward appeared first on xda-developers.

The smartphone market is incredibly saturated. After thriving in the smartphone business, companies traditionally branch out into other consumer product categories — smart TVs being one of them — and that’s exactly the trajectory that Xiaomi has followed. In India, Xiaomi has been selling smart TVs since early 2018, and in less than three years, it has become the leader in the smart TV market thanks to the appealing prices of their products. After achieving stardom with a diverse set of LED smart TVs, Xiaomi has taken a leap forward by launching its first TV in India with a QLED display. The 55-inch 4K QLED TV from Xiaomi is priced at only ₹54,999, making it one of the most attractively priced QLED TVs in India.

The Mi QLED TV appears to have a striking display due to the advantages of a QLED over an LED. Xiaomi also makes big claims about the optimizations the team has done to the Mi QLED TV’s video and sound quality. Overall, it looks like a very attractive package, but we wanted to put this all to the test in our review.

Mi QLED TV 4K 55 Specifications

Build and Design

The Xiaomi Mi QLED TV 4K 55 looks very premium when you view it from the front. With thin sand-blasted aluminum bezels surrounding the display panel, the TV’s front side looks strikingly similar to the Mi TV 5 Pro launched in China back in November of 2019. However, Xiaomi does clarify that this model has been crafted exclusively for India, and the “Designed by Xiaomi” etching along the right edge — instead of the engraving on the Mi TV 5 series — affirms that.

The Mi QLED TV’s frame is comprised of different strips that meet at the edges instead of a single continuous strip wrapping the top, left, and right edges of the TV. At these intersections, the metal strips do not perfectly align and leave some gaps, deducting from the TV’s overall premium image. While there is practically no bezel on the three sides, there are nearly 1cm thick and black-colored bands under the front glass along the periphery of the display. These bands are not active parts of the display and blend in with the panel when the TV is not being used.

While there are virtually no bezels on the Mi QLED TV, there is a thin chin along the bottom edge. This chin is also made of the same metal and has a “MI” logo embossed in the center.

The back of the Mi QLED TV is made of plastic and comes across as starkly different from the front materials. The upper half of the back is straight and has an angled design, while the lower half of the back is thicker and features the input/output ports and the logic board. The back has vents above this area to dissipate the heat. The lower back is also made of plastic but is lined with a Kevlar-like pattern. Coincidentally, we saw the use of a more convincing faux Kevlar on the OnePlus Q1 QLED TV from 2019.

The Mi QLED TV comes with solid metal legs with rubber cushions underneath, unlike the Mi LED TVs that feature legs made of plastic. The solid feet allow the TV to stay anchored and not sway too much when it is touched. The legs are 105cm apart, so you will have to ensure you have a large enough tabletop before buying the TV. If not, you can also mount the TV on a wall using Xiaomi’s standard wall bracket for its 55-inch TVs — or you can get a third-party wall mount like the DazzelOn TV wall mount that also comes with horizontal tilt options.

Although the Mi QLED TV weighs only 14.2kg (which includes its metal feet), I would recommend against handling it all by yourself because of the TV’s width. A typical 55-inch TV or screen with a 16:9 aspect ratio has an approximately 64% larger display area than a 43-inch model. So, it would be best to take someone’s help, or you might end up dumping ₹54,999 into the garbage.

Display

As its name suggests, the Mi QLED TV 4K 55″ has a 55-inch QLED display panel with a 4K resolution. A QLED (or Quantum-dot Light-Emitting Diodes) panel is a variety of an LED-backlit LCD. It features a layer of Quantum dots or nanoparticles that produce different colors based on the applied electricity. This extra layer allows a QLED panel to deliver more accurate colors than a regular LED-backlit LCD panel.

A still from Togo by Disney

Additionally, the Mi QLED TV utilizes a VA-type (Vertical Alignment) LCD panel. The name comes from the “vertical alignment” of liquid crystals in an LCD concerning the glass substrate. VA panels have deeper blacks than IPS and TN panels, and therefore have better contrast (or, a higher contrast ratio). If you are interested in learning why VA panels have better contrast than IPS displays, here’s a good explainer video that answers that: “What is VA (Vertical Alignment) Technology?”

While VA panels do have better contrast, they end up having inferior viewing angles when compared to IPS panels. Therefore, TVs with VA panels are not ideal for small rooms accommodating a lot of viewers.

A still from Netflix’s Our Planet

The viewing angle limitations of a VA panel also apply to this TV, and you will find the colors washed out if you are sitting at a sharp angle to it.

As I mentioned before, QLED is a type of LCD which means it still uses a backlight to display black colors across the screen, unlike an OLED display. Because a QLED display uses a backlight, blacks on the TV do not appear as pitch black but rather as dark grays. This phenomenon becomes more apparent in dim lighting or in completely dark rooms. The image below was captured in a dark room, and the areas of the screen behind the teacup should be black but appear to be gray. Take a look:

The lighting up of black portions is a property of QLED displays, and there is only so much that Xiaomi or any other brand can do to rectify it. However, the company has done a decent job at ensuring good uniformity of the backlight intensity. The below image on the left shows the backlight uniformity at 20% brightness on a dark gray hue. The middle appears very slightly brighter than the edges, but overall, the intensity is much more uniform than standard LED TVs. Simultaneously, the Mi QLED TV does not support local dimming due to the display’s nature, and the below image on the right confirms that.

The Mi QLED TV comes with support for HDR10+ and Dolby Vision to work with supported content to enhance the color output. You can find video content that supports Dolby Vision on Netflix (only with the Ultra HD plan), Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+ Hotstar, among other OTT apps in India. Compared to HDR10 or HDR10+, Dolby Vision produced richer colors with 12-bit color support and aimed to make higher peak brightness. Furthermore, the tone mapping is done dynamically, i.e., frame-by-frame, rather than for the entire video in HDR10, and that improves the HDR quality. (Notably, the color output on the Mi QLED TV is limited to 10-bit only.)

The TV also supports MEMC (Motion Estimation, Motion Compensation) powered by Xiaomi’s Reality Flow engine. As expected, the technology can increase the frame rate of content by interpolating frames. This means that a movie recorded at 24fps, a TV sitcom at 25fps, or an animated series at 30fps can be boosted to 60fps by the Mi QLED TV to emulate smoother playback. This may not be attractive to all, but Xiaomi does give you the option to choose how aggressively its Reality Flow engine will smoothen content.

Xiaomi has also added a wide range of options to customize the color, contrast, saturation, color temperature, HDR, etc., on the Mi QLED TV. If you prefer, you can also fine-tune the hue, brightness, and saturation of each of the red, green, and blue (RGB) as well as cyan, magenta, and cyan (CMY) colors. Furthermore, the TV lets you choose between different color gamuts, including sRGB, Adobe RGB, DCI-P3, etc.

In addition to these adequate controls, the Mi QLED TV also comes with local contrast, adaptive luma control, and dynamic brightness. These features adjust the brightness and the contrast of the display according to the content. Notably, local contrast is not related to local dimming, which — as I’ve discussed above — is not supported by the TV. Dynamic brightness is especially useful when viewing Dolby Vision content as it adjusts the brightness of the TV corresponding to the dynamic HDR data. However, it can be distracting for some users if they desire a consistent picture quality.

Overall, the Mi QLED TV gets fairly bright without any significant compromise in terms of the colors. Even when the TV is kept in a brightly-lit room, the viewing experience remains unfettered unless there is a direct beam of light directed at the display.

Audio

The Xiaomi Mi QLED TV, as we learned above, offers excellent display quality for the price, but entertainment remains incomplete without excellent sound output. The TV comes with six downward-facing speakers in total, and the tally includes four full-range drivers accompanied by two tweeters to enhance sounds in the high-frequency range.

Xiaomi claims these full-range speakers support audio frequencies in the range of 50Hz-20kHz instead of the relatively scant range of 100Hz-14kHz for similarly priced TVs. In layman’s terms, the Mi QLED TV is expected to render a richer sound profile than most of its competition. To add to this, the speaker cavity for all speakers combined measures 1 liter. According to Xiaomi, that is more than three times than we usually find in other TVs in this price bracket. The larger speaker cavities allow the sound waves to resonate more and produce a much louder and richer audio output.

For the most part, dialogues are clear irrespective of the volume. However, when the background score is too prominent, it can overpower the dialogue. This leads you into the unavoidable paradox where you have to increase the volume to hear something clearly, and that inadvertently makes the background score more overwhelming. This can be bothering for some users, especially if they expect a more neutral sound experience right out-of-the-box. What’s even more jarring is that this effect amplifies while using the Movie sound preset.

Thankfully, if you know your way around, you can fix this to some extent by switching to a different sound preset. The Mi QLED TV features pre-built audio modes such as Standard, Movie, News, and Game. You can also adjust the audio output to your preference by choosing the Custom audio mode and reducing the gain on the 5-band sound equalizer in the audio settings.

User Experience

The Mi QLED TV runs the full Android TV experience based on Android 10. Despite having Android 10, the Mi QLED TV features the standard Android TV interface and does not come with the new Google TV interface. However, you get the latest version of PatchWall, which is Xiaomi’s proprietary content discovery and recommendations platform. PatchWall 3.0 comes with visual and functional improvements over the previous version.

With PatchWall, you can track the progress of movies and TV shows you are watching across all the installed OTT apps on the Mi QLED TV. You can also jump to the next few episodes of the last TV show you watched on the TV and find new suggestions.

Based on what you’ve already watched, PatchWall recommends new content. Besides that, you also get recommendations for content curated by Xiaomi — which potentially includes ads and live TV shows and news. Notably, PatchWall initially recommends content to you in a host of Indic languages, but you can choose your preferred languages for these suggestions.

The content suggestions are segmented into Movies, TV Shows, Live TV, Sports, Kids, Music, and Discover.

You can also scroll down on the Home Page and access curated playlists based on the content’s quality. Some of these playlists include content in Dolby Vision, HDR10+, 4K, etc. However, the suggestions are limited to India-focused apps like Disney+ Hotstar, Zee5, Sony LIV, and may exclude others, especially Netflix and Prime Video.

If you play a recommendation from any video app that isn’t already installed on the Mi QLED TV, you will see a vague notification saying, “To continue, agree to <app name>’s privacy policy.” If you click on Agree, the app will be installed automatically without any further notice. What is even more irksome is that this app does not appear in the app drawer or the Play Store. Thankfully, you can find any unwanted apps using the TV Manager, Xiaomi’s custom cleaner app for the TV, and delete them.

In addition to browsing content by type, language, video quality, etc., you can also discover new content sorted by artists in PatchWall. You can also head over to the Discover section to find other trending content, including tutorials, fitness and spirituality videos, podcasts, etc.

Performance

The Mi QLED TV is powered by a quad-core MediaTek MT9611 processor that uses four ARM Cortex A55 cores clocked at 1.5GHz. According to Xiaomi, the chipset has been specially tuned for the requirements of this TV. In addition, the Mi QLED TV features 2GB of RAM. In my experience, the Mi QLED TV shows no signs of lag while starting up or while switching apps.

The Mi QLED TV also comes prebuilt with a TV Manager app that is comprised of options such as Junk Cleaner, Memory boost, Uninstall apps, Install via USB, and Limit data usage. As the names suggest, these features, respectively, clean up junk files, clear up RAM, uninstall apps that you don’t need, install new apps from a USB storage, and lastly, limit consumption of content if you are on a metered internet connection. It also comes with a data saver option that is said to consume only one-third of the data if you are using the internet from your smartphone via a Wi-Fi hotspot instead of an actual Wi-Fi connection. This feature has been designed especially for Indian users.

You can also connect a USB or Bluetooth gamepad to the TV and enjoy games such as Asphalt 8, Beach Buggy Racing, Hungry Shark, etc. I tried using the Mi Remote Controller app on the Xiaomi Mi 10T Pro but faced significant input lag. However, if you want to entertain yourself with some more engaging gaming, the Mi QLED TV can be a great companion for your gaming console.

Gaming on the Mi QLED TV

The Mi QLED TV has excellent video and audio capabilities if you consider its price. That might urge users to try it out for gaming connected to a PC or a console. I tried to find out how it works with the Xbox Series S, and the experience was very satisfying. First, the Mi QLED TV supports 4K gaming at up to 60Hz (60fps). Suppose your console supports rendering higher frame rates — like our Xbox Series S unit did at 1440p resolution, the TV will still display it at 60fps. Furthermore, the TV also supports 10-bit color along with HDR10 and Dolby Vision while playing games.

I played a host of games, including Forza Horizon, FIFA 21, NFS Heat, Goat Simulator, etc. without running into any significant issues. As I also mentioned previously, the audio and video hold a strong case in favor of the Mi QLED TV. The only thing worth noting is that the MEMC feature interferes with the frame rendering and might lead to an impression of stuttering. In reality, that is because the MEMC feature cannot accurately predict frames to insert during a game.

The TV does support Dolby Vision on gaming consoles thanks to HDMI 2.1 support. But as I mentioned above, it cannot surpass the 60Hz (or 60fps) refresh rate and thus might disappoint hardcore gamers. The TV also lacks support for VRR (variable refresh rate), thus the display refresh rate will not change dynamically with the frame rendering rate. If you overlook these limitations, the Mi QLED TV offers a reasonably enjoyable gaming experience on consoles or other connected gaming equipment.

Remote Controller

While Xiaomi does a great job at optimizing the display and the audio quality of the Mi QLED TV, the remote controller has been spared from a similar treatment. The standard Xiaomi Mi TV remote is also sold with all other TVs and streaming devices like the Mi Box 4K. The remote has a functional design with sharp edges and curved faces on the front and the back. It communicates with the TV using Bluetooth and uses two AAA batteries for power.

As you can see in the image below, it features a circular directional pad, with the power and Google Assistant buttons above it. Some more buttons exist below the D-pad, and the row immediately below it has a button with a “Mi” logo that launches PatchWall on the left. You can also long-press this button to launch quick settings without having to exit an app. The button in the center is for “back.” Meanwhile, the one at the extreme right is the Home button, and while it is set to bring up the Android TV home by default, you can also choose to set PatchWall as the default home. You also get dedicated hotkeys for Netflix and Amazon Prime Video and volume controls below that.

The remote, although utile, does not feel ergonomic. The sharp edges make it uncomfortable to hold, and because all of the buttons lie in the top half, you often need to slide it within your palm. The slot for batteries lies in the lower half, making it heavier than the top part. As a result, the remote’s weight feels off-center, and that is a potential peeve for many users.

It’s high time Xiaomi redesigns their remote and adopts a design similar to what we see in the updated OnePlus TV remote or the standard Realme TV remote. In addition to the off-putting design, the Mi TV remote lacks dual connectivity (Bluetooth + infrared) and does not come with batteries in the box.

Connectivity and I/O

In terms of connectivity, the Mi QLED TV is abundant with modern input and output features. All the ports are present on the backside of the  TV, split in an L-shaped layout. The ports available on the TV include:

• 3 x HDMI 2.1 ports
• 2 x USB 2.0 ports
• 1 x optical audio out (Toslink) port
• 1 x antenna port for cable TV
• 1 x Ethernet port
• 1 x 3.5mm headphone jack
• RCA audio-video jack

Out of the ports listed above, the vital ones, including HDMI and USB ports, are placed on the side and are easily accessible. The ports facing downward are less likely to be used than those on the side. As for the HDMI 2.1 ports, all of them support Enhanced Audio Return Channel (eARC).

For wireless connectivity, the Mi QLED TV supports Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (2×2 MIMO) Wi-Fi across dual bands. As a result, streaming in 4K becomes a lag-free experience on the Mi QLED TV if you have a decently fast Wi-Fi connection. The TV also comes with Bluetooth 5.0 for lower latency with audio devices and other controllers and a wider operating range. It also supports infrared so you can control it using an IR blaster on any Xiaomi device.

Conclusion

Xiaomi has been associated with affordability and great value for money for a very long time. It is now edging out of the segment of strictly affordable products without losing its essence of value-for-money, and the Mi QLED TV 4K 55-inch conforms to this philosophy. Xiaomi is not the only brand selling QLED TVs in this price range, but it benefits from its brand image and the trustworthiness brought by its extensive after-sales network, which is something that other brands like Vu or TCL have failed to achieve in India.

With the Mi QLED TV, Xiaomi primarily endorses its talent to make all forms of technology accessible to the masses. This economization comes with some compromises in quality — you can find better QLED TVs if you are willing to shell out more money. However, if you are in the market for a good TV that consistently impresses without having to stretch your budget, then the Mi QLED TV makes absolute sense.

The Xiaomi Mi QLED TV is available only in India for a price of ₹54,999. You can buy it at Xiaomi’s official online store, i.e., mi.com, at Flipkart, or at offline Mi Home stores. At Flipkart, you can also avail of a discount of ₹1,500 using an Axis Bank credit card.

The post Xiaomi Mi QLED TV 4K 55″ Review: A premium Android TV experience at a compelling price appeared first on xda-developers.

The ZenBook Flip S by ASUS launched late last year as one of the most premium consumer laptop offerings from the company. Featuring a 4K OLED panel, the 2-in-1 laptop seeks to compete with the likes of the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 as well as the HP Spectre x360. In fact, the ZenBook Flip S seems to look a lot like HP’s Spectre series what with its dark finish complemented by shiny accents around the edges. It’s also one of the first laptops to come with Intel’s new 11th-gen Tiger Lake processors with Iris Xe graphics, is Intel EVO certified, and has features like Instant Wake, fast charging, Wi-Fi 6, and Thunderbolt 4 connectivity, all in a slim ultra-light form factor.

Here is a deep look at the ASUS ZenBook Flip S to see if ASUS has managed to earn our recommendation in the premium 2-in-1 laptop category.

ASUS ZenBook Flip S (UX371): Specifications

ASUS is offering the laptop in a single configuration (at least in India), which also means that you can’t really upgrade it on your own apart from the SSD. Here’s how the ZenBook Flip S looks like on paper:

About this review: Thanks to Intel India for sending us the ASUS ZenBook Flips S for review. This review has been written after about 20 days of regular use. Neither ASUS nor Intel had any inputs into the contents of this review.

Design and Build

The first thing you notice about the ASUS ZenBook Flip S is how compact this machine is. Weighing just 1.2kgs and coming in at a thickness of about 14mm, the laptop is easy to carry around especially if you are traveling. ASUS also offers a free carrying pouch in the box, which keeps the laptop safe when you throw it in a backpack.

I’ve already mentioned how the ZenBook Flip S looks similar to the HP Spectre x360 with its ‘Jade Black’ finish paired with shiny copper accents that extend to the ASUS logo on the lid. Speaking of which, the lid on the ZenBook Flip S features the company’s distinct spun-metal finish with concentric circles. It is a 2-in-1 laptop, and while I am not a huge fan, you do get the option of using it as a tablet or prop it up in tent mode while watching movies or videos. The dual-hinge system is perfectly solid, although I did feel the lid wobble a bit while using it in my lap. The laptop also comes with the Ergo-Lift design seen on a variety of ASUS machines, and this slightly raises the keyboard deck at an angle when you open the lid. This also helps the laptop have better access to fresh air from the bottom, and according to ASUS, brings up the keyboard at a better position.

I wasn’t pleased with the company’s decision of placing the power button on the right side either. Sure, it might be more convenient to reach when using the PC in tablet mode, but the mushy key offers almost zero feedback, which led me to press it multiple times before the notebook finally powered up. In fact, this should be a note to all laptop manufacturers: Unless you are making a detachable 2-in-1, just place the power button above the keyboard, right where it should be!

I wanted to get access to the internals, but the bottom cover does not come with a standard set of screws—instead, you get Torx or star screws.  I was able to remove some of them, but more than half of the screws were bolstered tightly.

Overall, I really appreciate the ergonomics on the ASUS ZenBook Flip S. It feels very handy, lightweight, and despite not having a proper aluminum finish, very sturdy. The laptop definitely gives off a premium vibe and is one of the most portable 13-inch 2-in-1 laptops competing with the likes of the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 9310. It does have a few quirks here and there, which may or may not hamper your experience.

Display

The highlight feature of the ASUS ZenBook Flip S is its vivid 13.3-inch OLED touchscreen display. We all know that OLED panels are generally superior compared to IPS or TN panels when it comes to color reproduction, contrast, and even power consumption, and that is exactly what we get here. The display looks punchy and bright with rich colors and a wide dynamic range. The panel comes with a 4K UHD (3840 x 2160) resolution which makes it pretty sharp and yes, while that is a lot of pixels on a small screen, with a bit of tinkering with scaling settings on Windows, the experience was pretty flawless.

The panel is Vesa DisplayHDR 500-certified which means you can enjoy great HDR content, covers over 100% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, features Delta-E < 2 color accuracy, and to top it off, is Pantone validated. This makes the ZenBook Flip S perfect for someone who is looking for accurate colors while editing pictures and videos. ASUS also claims a peak brightness of 500-nits, and it sure felt bright enough, even under direct sunlight, although the glossy finish means you get more reflections compared to a matte finish. With the TÜV Rheinland-certified eye care, the built-in blue-light filter helps in reducing stress on your eyes.

The bezels around the display aren’t what one would call slim, but ASUS claims an 80% screen-to-body ratio which isn’t all that bad. Hopefully, the next iteration of this laptop will offer a wider 16:10 aspect ratio as seen on the variety of laptops that were announced at CES 2021. Right above the display is a 720p webcam with IR to offer Windows Hello authentication. While the quality of the camera itself is just about average, the face recognition system is pretty solid and surprisingly fast. The display also offers support for an active stylus with 4096-pressure points which means you can jot down notes or show your artistic side.

ASUS has crammed in a lot of display tech into the ZenBook Flip S, and it shows. Whether you are watching a movie or just working on your presentations, the color levels and the contrast are right up there.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The ZenBook Flip S’s keyboard is spread edge-to-edge across the deck, though during the first few days of use, I found it to be a little cramped as the keys are small and not very well spaced out. The keys themselves are comfortable, though, offering 1.35mm of travel, and once you get used to the layout, you should be able to type faster and more accurately. There is an extra row of keys at the end to fit in the Home, Page-Up, Page-Down, and End keys, and for those who need a number-pad, ASUS has added one to the touchpad. With NumberPad 2.0, you can just tap on the top right corner of the touchpad for a couple of seconds to enable a backlit number-pad. Additionally, swiping right from the top left corner fires up the Calculator app. I personally found these features to be useless, although this could be neat for someone who deals with inputting a lot of numbers.

Coming to the touchpad on the ZenBook Flip S, it is very responsive, and the glass finish brings a smooth experience. All Windows gestures work flawlessly, and I hardly had any complaints with them. Of course, you do need to be careful about those corners as you are bound to accidentally enable the virtual Numpad, especially while resting your fingers on the touchpad.

Performance

One of the first laptops to rock the latest Intel Tiger Lake chipset, the ASUS ZenBook Flip S features the quad-core Core i7-1165G7 processor with Iris Xe integrated graphics. The base clock on the CPU is rated at 2.8GHz, and it can go up to 4.7GHz on a single-core and up to 4.1GHz on all four cores simultaneously. There is 16GB of LPDDR4X RAM and a speedy 1TB M.2 NVMe PCIe 3.0 SSD which makes for a solid package. The new 11th-gen CPU is based on the 10nm architecture, and while it should theoretically offer a bump in performance, the overall power rating is limited specifically on the ZenBook Flip S. Essentially what that means is, if you compare this laptop with another running on the same Intel Core i7-1165G7 processor, you will not get similar results due to the lower TDP (thermal design power). The ZenBook Flips S performs great when it comes to single-core tasks but falls behind in multi-core and graphics-intensive tasks, which was evident during my testing.

In 3DMark, the CPU would go up to the rated clock speeds and try to maintain over 3GHz, but after a period of time, it just throttles down to between 1.5GHz to 2Ghz. Similarly, in PCMark 10, the CPU had a hard time sustaining higher clock speeds. Cramming a lot of power into a laptop requires a lot of cooling, but that is not easy to do in an ultra-portable form factor. The CPU went on to hit peak temperatures of 95°C when under stress, thereby leading to throttling.

Of course, you don’t need to worry about throttling and high-temperatures unless you are stressing the ZenBook Flip S all the time. ASUS lets you switch between three performance modes by going to the MyASUS app that is preloaded on the machine. Along with that, the app includes a bunch of useful tools such as ones to tune the display profiles, battery profiles, warranty and service information, hardware diagnostics, error checking, and more. It also features a unique AI-based noise cancellation system for the microphone in case you make a lot of video calls.

On the plus side, the M.2 SSD lives up to the claims. The ZenBook Flip S that was sent to me included a Western Digital NVMe drive that was able to hit peak read speeds of over 3,100MBps and peak write speeds of about 3,000MBps in my testing. While this isn’t as fast as a PCIe Gen4 SSD, this is probably the best that you can get at the moment since we have yet to see laptops with faster SSDs.

Unless you are a power-user, the ASUS ZenBook Flip S is a quite capable machine. I had no issues opening over 20 tabs in Google Chrome, editing photos in Adobe Photoshop, and listening to music all at the same time. Other notable performance parameters including wireless connectivity were pretty much as expected, and I hardly faced any issues with Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. The bottom-firing speakers are good, and while they aren’t very loud, they do offer a little bit of bass which was nice to hear.

Battery Life

The ASUS ZenBook Flip S packs a 67Whr battery unit, and ASUS claims up to 15-hours of battery life while playing 1080p videos. To test these claims, I ran a 1080p video in a loop only to get eight hours of battery at about 40% brightness. The number fell further as I got close to six hours worth of juice while using the notebook at a stretch which included a bit of writing, about 10 odd tabs open in Chrome, and a mix of music and video streaming.  You may be able to squeeze in a couple of more hours if you lower the screen resolution to 1080p, but make sure you carry the charging adapter if you want to use this laptop all day. Speaking of which, the laptop comes with a 65W adapter which is fairly small and has a USB Type-C connector. You can also use almost any third-party USB-PD charger with similar charging specifications.

Verdict

If you are looking for a 2-in-1 laptop with a thin chassis and premium looks, then the ASUS ZenBook Flip S will not disappoint. It is lighter than most 13-inch 2-in-1 laptops, despite being quite sturdy, and to top it all off, you get one of the best looking OLED displays in its class, suitable for most users. I would only recommend this laptop if you don’t really have the need for high-end performance. It isn’t the perfect machine as it does come with its own set of issues such as the lack of a headphone jack, which in my opinion is a big miss, apart from the above-average battery life. You do, however, get the latest 11th-gen Intel Core i7-1165G7 which should serve you well for a multitude of tasks, although you can’t really rely on this machine for hardcore workloads like video editing or gaming.

The ASUS ZenBook Flip S is more of a premium machine that you can show off and at the same time carry around with ease. It currently sells at ₹1,49,990 in India and $1,449 in the US. At that price, you should also consider other options in the market such as the Dell XPS 13 9310 2-in-1.

The post ASUS ZenBook Flip S (UX371) Review: A lightweight 2-in-1 laptop that’s all about visuals appeared first on xda-developers.

Xiaomi’s Mi 10i is the latest addition to the company’s portfolio in India. Despite its endorsement as a product made especially for India, the Mi 10i mirrors Xiaomi’s Mi 10T Lite in terms of the design and specifications — save for the new 108MP camera — and also resembles Xiaomi’s Redmi Note 9 Pro 5G. If you can overlook that, the Xiaomi Mi 10i is among the most economical 5G phones that you can buy in India as the country prepares for the era of 5G.

For several years, Xiaomi has had a clear distinction between “Mi” and “Redmi” branded devices. Mi depicts Xiaomi as a premium brand while Redmi earns acclaim for its devices’ incredible value for money. However, these boundaries have blurred in the last few years, with Redmi spinning off as an independent entity and vying to associate with a more premium identity. Smartphones like the Redmi K40 series attest to this pursuit. Despite existing supposedly independently, Redmi continues to share resources with the Mi brand. As a result of this intermingling, an assortment of identical devices are named differently to suit different markets.

Since most end-users only need the most value out of their money spent, Xiaomi’s confusing naming scheme should be the least of their concerns. However, besides the garbled naming, rebadged products often misalign with a brand’s identity. With the Mi 10i, Xiaomi makes some visible compromises that detract from the premium identity of Mi products and make it more fitting for the Redmi Note persona. One exception is the 108MP camera, which might make up for the tradeoffs. If the Mi 10i looks like an interesting option to you, you might want to know about these caveats before taking the plunge.

Before we go into the details, here are the specifications of the Xiaomi Mi 10i:

Xiaomi Mi 10i Specifications

About this review: Xiaomi India loaned us an 8GB+128GB variant of the Mi 10i for review. This review is after almost two months of use. Xiaomi had no input on the content of this review.

Xiaomi Mi 10i Forums

Design

The Xiaomi Mi 10i should look familiar to those already using Xiaomi, Redmi, or POCO devices. It follows the companies’ usual glass sandwich design with a curved glass back and a flat display. Both — the front and the back of the Mi 10i — are protected by Gorilla Glass 5. Although the frame on the sides is made of plastic, its metallic finish with glossy champers gives it a metallic appearance.

There is a circular camera bump on the back that holds a quad camera setup. The camera bump is reminiscent of the POCO X3 and — to some extent — the Redmi K30 Pro (rebadged as POCO F2 Pro), but it is more compact on the Mi 10i than those devices. The 108MP camera does make the camera bump noticeably thick, and you will need a case to prevent the camera glass from scuffing from sitting on flat surfaces.

The most exciting element of the Mi 10i’s design is its color, especially the Pacific Sunrise variant. We have the same variant for review, and it features a combination of two contrasting colors fusing into each other with a subtle gradient. As the name suggests, this color combo can remind you of captivating natural occurrences, such as sunrise or sunset across a sea or ocean.

While a marine sunset is a vision that Xiaomi has for this design, I am reminded of ice cream covered with jelly by these dynamic colors. It is safe to say that the design is open to interpretation and should inspire you — at least once — to ruminate the source of its inspiration.

When sunlight falls on this back, it diffuses and scatters like a spotlight, and that helps bring attention to the smartphone. Meanwhile, the frosted glass back prevents this diffused light from getting reflected off the surface. Under the Mi logo on the back, there is a noticeable badge for 5G, clearly defining this as a device that is ready for 5G connectivity even though the spectrum for the network is not yet available to the users in India.

The Mi 10i is a massive device to hold and use, especially owing to the large display, which we will discuss in the following section. In comparison to the POCO X3, however, the phone actually feels much more convenient to hold. It is slimmer (9mm), and there are no sharp edges. The curved back makes the Mi 10i easy to hold despite its breadth, and you can also use a case to improve your grip further. Weighing at 215 grams, the Mi 10i is not a light phone, but the weight is distributed very well, and you do not feel that the mass is concentrated in any one area.

The following features are placed along with the side frame:

• a side-mounted fingerprint scanner and a volume rocker on the right side,
• a 3.5mm headphone jack, a USB Type-C port, primary microphone, and a loudspeaker at the bottom,
• a slot for SIM and microSD cards on the left, and
• a secondary noise-canceling microphone and an IR blaster on the top.

While one speaker is placed at the bottom of the smartphone, another is nestled in the earpiece, giving the Mi 10i a stereo audio setup.

Overall, the design of Mi 10i feels both — familiar and refreshingly new — at the same time, thanks to the conventional layout alongside the enticing Pacific Sunrise color. The other aspect of this design is the large display that we discuss in the next section.

Display

The Mi 10i is equipped with a 6.67-inch LCD with a hole-punch along the center of the top edge. While Mi 10i is a rebadged device, the display has also appeared on a host of other Redmi and POCO devices in the past. These devices include the Redmi Note 9 Pro (rebadged as the Redmi Note 9S for Europe), Redmi Note 9 Pro Max, POCO X2, and POCO X3.

The display on the Mi 10i is nearly identical to what we found during our Redmi Note 9 Pro review last year. The only differentiating factor is that while the latter features a 60Hz refresh rate, the Mi 10i’s display supports up to 120Hz refresh rate. The smartphone also inherits dynamic refresh rate switching from the Mi 10T Pro. This means the refresh rate of the display changes actively in sync with the frame rate of the content running on it. This synchronization between the frame rate and the display refresh rate helps minimize frame tearing.

While the Mi 10i does not match up the frame rates and the refresh rate for every unitary step, Xiaomi has defined six different refresh rate values to cover most of the different types of content we commonly encounter. These defined values include 30Hz, 48Hz, 50Hz, 60Hz, 90Hz, and 120Hz. Unlike Samsung’s adaptive refresh rate that changes according to the app, Xiaomi’s adaptive refresh rate changes in real-time with the changes in whatever is being played on the display.

We encountered a bug on the Mi 10i, limiting the smartphone’s display to a 50Hz refresh rate if the screen is not touched for longer than a minute. The active refresh rate value was checked in realtime using the Power Monitor tool in MIUI developer options. This may impact your viewing experience and defeat the purpose of the adaptive refresh rate synchronization feature. Furthermore, the bug also limited the phone’s performance in synthetic benchmarks like PCMark, addressed in this review later. The active refresh rate sync resumes the moment you touch the display. This bug was reported to Xiaomi India, but we have yet to receive an update from them on this.

While the Mi 10i matches up to Mi 10T Pro when it comes to the active refresh rate switching, but it is leagues behind the Mi 10T Pro in terms of display quality. In fact, its Redmi Note persona seeps through the Mi branding.

The display is decently bright but shies away from performing incredibly. For outdoor usability, the Mi 10i comes with “Sunlight Display 3.0,” but despite that, you might have to struggle with obstructive reflectivity, especially in strong sunlight. Compared side-by-side, the POCO X3’s display appears slightly brighter, and that is something we also noted in our Redmi Note 9 Pro review.

In terms of colors, the Mi 10i’s display feels like any rudimentary IPS display. Xiaomi claims support for 84% of the NTSC color gamut. Even on the “Saturated” color mode, this display appears underwhelming and lacks that punchy color profile we witness on a host of other phones we see in this price range. Needless to say, many phones in this price bracket actually come with an AMOLED display. Anyone buying the smartphone for a good multimedia experience is bound to be easily swayed by an AMOLED display, even if that translates to some letdown in terms of performance. What makes it even more disappointing is the fact that the Redmi K20 (rebadged as Xiaomi Mi 9T) was launched with a much better display in India less than two years ago at a lower price.

If you look at the Mi 10i in isolation, the display may not stand out as exceptional. But, it is adequate for daily usage without any benchmark or expectations. If you are buying the Mi 10i solely for gaming or performance and do not expect a great value out of the screen, you should be delighted with its high refresh rate capabilities. Paired with the Snapdragon 750G chipset that powers the Mi 10i, you should be able to enjoy smooth and lag-free gaming for titles that don’t need a lot of processing power.

In comparison, the Redmi Note 10 Pro/Pro Max launched comes with a brighter 120Hz AMOLED display — a first for the Redmi Note series. Read more about this display in our Redmi Note 10 Pro review.

Talking about the processing power, the chipset that powers the Mi 10i is positioned as an intermediate between the Snapdragon 732G and the Snapdragon 765G. The next section discusses the smartphone’s performance and the various aspects we have noted during the review.

Performance

Xiaomi projects the Mi 10i as a serious performing mid-range, and so, there are expectations for reliable performance. The smartphone is powered by the recently launched 5G-enabled mid-range mobile platform from Qualcomm, i.e., Snapdragon 750G, which was announced in September last year. The Snapdragon 750G, as you would expect from its naming, is pivoted between the Snapdragon 732G and the Snapdragon 765G. The Xiaomi Mi 10i is not the first smartphone to be powered by the chipset, but its twin sibling — the Mi 10T Lite — was.

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 750G is an 8nm SoC with eight cores arranged in a big.LITTLE architecture. It is equipped with two Qualcomm Kryo 570 performance cores based on ARM’s Cortex-A77 design and clocked at 2.2GHz. For power-efficiency, the Snapdragon 750G comes with six efficiency cores based on ARM’s Cortex-A55 CPU cores with a clock speed of 1.8GHz. It is worth noting that the Snapdragon 765G and the newer Snapdragon 768G still embrace the older Cortex-A76 design and should, in theory, lag behind the Snapdragon 750G. However, the two notably superior chipsets feature a 7nm design, which may give them some leeway. The updated design of the performance core can lead to a notable lead in single-core performance, and we will put that to the test using synthetic benchmarks on the Xiaomi Mi 10i.

When it comes to graphics, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 750G features the Adreno 619 GPU. Once again, the Adreno 619, which is limited to the Snapdragon 750G, is, by the fortune of its naming, destined to sit between the Adreno 618 on the Snapdragon 730/730G, 720G, and 732G, and the Adreno 620 on the Snapdragon 765G and 768G. As per Qualcomm, the GPU is designed to bring a 10% boost in graphics performance over the Adreno 618. Notably, the Adreno 620 on the Snapdragon 765G/768G is touted to bring a 20% increment over the Adreno 618, i.e., twice as much as the Adreno 619.

While we will be testing the graphics capabilities of the Mi 1oi using synthetic benchmarks, it is good to know that the chipset supports some of Qualcomm’s Elite Gaming features such as Game Color Plus, Adreno Updateable GPU Drivers, and Adreno HDR Fast Blend. The ability to update GPU drivers shall allow OEMs to make the most out of the GPU’s hardware, even a few years after its release.

For 5G connectivity, the Snapdragon 750G employs the Qualcomm Snapdragon X52 modem, which is also available on the Snapdragon 765G and 768G. The Snapdragon X52 modem by Qualcomm supports mmWave and sub-6GHz frequencies over SA and NSA networks.

We ran some standard synthetic benchmarks along with XDA’s in-house custom benchmarks to quantify the performance of the Xiaomi Mi 10i. We have also included the POCO X3 powered by Snapdragon 732G, OnePlus Nord powered by Snapdragon 765G, and Samsung Galaxy F62 running Exynos 9825 for comparison with either similarly powered or similarly priced smartphones.

Synthetic Benchmarks

Geekbench

The newer Kryo 570 performance cores based on ARM’s Cortex-A77 on the Snapdragon 750G help Mi 10i sideline not only the POCO X3 with Snapdragon 732G but also the OnePlus Nord with Snapdragon 765G. The same pattern can be seen on both single-core and multi-core tests of the CPU-centric GeekBench 5 benchmark. Interestingly, despite the same chipset, Mi 10i scores lower than the Moto G 5G (aka Moto One 5G Ace) on both the test, indicating a slightly better user experience on the latter.

Meanwhile, the Samsung Galaxy F62’s Exynos 9825 — which is a 7nm chipset with two high-performance cores at 2.7Ghz, two Cortex-A75 based cores at 2.4GHz, and four Cortex-A55 based cores — outperforms the Mi 10i in single-core tests by a huge gap, but the margin decreases substantially in terms of the multi-core scores.

Geekbench 5 (Free, Google Play) →

3DMark

In the GPU-centric 3DMark, we see the expected GPU performance. Mi 10i with Adreno 619 lies in the middle of POCO X3 with Adreno 618 and OnePlus Nord with Adreno 620 GPUs. Unsurprisingly, Samsung Galaxy F62 with a Mali G76 GPU outshines others by more than two-times the points scored by OnePlus Nord in certain tests.

3DMark - The Gamer's Benchmark (Free, Google Play) →

GFXBench

In the multivariate GPU-centric benchmark, GFXBench, we see a similar performance trend in the initial test. Notably, there is a tiny margin in the scores earned by Mi 10i and the POCO X3. In contrast, the OnePlus Nord performs consistently better. It is surprising to see the POCO X3 consistently score equally or outperform the Mi 10i and the only viable explanation for this is GPU throttling on the Mi 10i. Talking of throttling — despite the initial sprint, Galaxy F62 falls flat and performs only as well as the OnePlus Nord.

GFXBench Benchmark (Free, Google Play) →

AndroBench

When it comes to benchmarking storage transfer speeds, the Mi 10i is in the same ballpark as the OnePlus Nord and Moto G 5G in sequential read and write speeds. It is worth noting that Xiaomi Mi 10i comes with UFS 2.2 flash storage while the other two devices still feature the older UFS 2.1 storage. The UFS 2.2 standard brings an additional feature called Write Booster to increase the write speeds compared to UFS 2.1. However, we do not see that translate to any actual increase in the write speeds.

The Galaxy F62 once again takes the lead due to its UFS 3.0 storage with much higher sequential read and write speeds.

Androbench (Storage Benchmark) (Free, Google Play) →

PCMark Work 2.o

When it comes to PCMark’s Work 2.0 — a benchmark that emulates real-life tasks such as text or media editing, web browsing, writing, and data manipulation, the Mi 10i underperforms. Even though older mid-rangers such as the POCO X2 score almost as high as 9,800 points in this benchmark, Xiaomi Mi 10i is limited to less than 7,500 points. One possible explanation for this curtailed performance is the refresh rate bug we mentioned above. While some of the tests in the Work 2.0 benchmark include videos rendering at 60fps, the bug limits this output at the display to just 50fps, resulting in lower performance in the benchmark than what the smartphone is capable of.

PCMark for Android Benchmark (Free, Google Play) →

CPU Throttling Test

While we saw the possibility of a potentially throttled GPU performance while looking at the GFXBench scores above, we also ran a benchmark specifically to test the CPU’s throttling. For this, we used the CPU Throttling Test app in which threads written in C are constantly repeated for a set time period. The impact of this continuous load is quantifying by comparing the average and the minimum performance per second.

We ran the test in three different scenarios for 30 minutes each. The device was set aside and allowed to cool down between each of these tests. In the first scenario, we ran the benchmark in standard conditions. After about 15 minutes, there was a visible drop in the performance, and it finally translated to 85% throttling compared to its peak performance.

In the next scenario, we whitelisted the CPU Throttling app in MIUI’s Game Turbo app to see if throttling reduces when Xiaomi’s gaming mode governs the performance. The feature does not have a noticeable improvement to the peak performance, but the throttling is reduced. Using Game Turbo on Mi 10i, the performance is throttled to 91% of the peak performance.

Lastly, we ran the same test for 30 more iterations while charging the smartphone but without Game Turbo. Since charging adds heat to the system, it contributes to the device’s decision to throttle performance. When the phone is charged to around 90% of the battery capacity, the Mi 10i is throttled to 71% of the peak performance.

Apart from the major decline in performance while charging the phone, the throttling values in the first two scenarios are pretty much in line with what we expect from other smartphones in this category.

CPU Throttling Test (Free, Google Play) →

XDA’s Custom Benchmarks

In addition to the standard benchmark tests, we tested the performance of the Xiaomi Mi 10i using a couple of XDA’s in-house benchmark tests. Unlike the synthetic benchmarks, these are developed to test any device’s performance in real-life scenarios such as scrolling and app launching. The first of these tests is used to determine how well the Mi 10i can sustain an optimal frame rate output for the 120Hz display.

Custom Jank Test

The XDA UI Stutter and Jank test is a modified version of JankBench, an open-source benchmark by Google. This benchmark includes various tests to determine the smartphone’s performance by replicating actions we commonly use or come across in most applications.

These tasks include scrolling through a ListView with text, scrolling through a ListView with images, scrolling through a grid view with a shadow effect, scrolling through a low-hitrate text render view, scrolling through a high-hitrate text render view, inputting and editing text with the keyboard, repeating overdraws with cards, and uploading bitmaps.

The time taken per frame by the smartphone is noted, and the same is plotted in the form of vertical bars against reference values, which are indicated by colored lines. These values correspond to the ideal time taken by the system to draw and present frames in line with a specific refresh rate. For example, a 60Hz refresh rate implies that a system draws and presents 60 frames onto the display every second. This means that each frame takes 16.67 milliseconds (ms) to render. Similarly, a system should take 11.11ms to render frames on a 90Hz display and 8.33ms on a 120Hz.

Any frame that breaches the horizontal line is considered a stutter with respect to that particular refresh rate value. Since the Mi 10i supports a maximum of 120Hz, that is the value we aim to test for the device.

We recorded the following observations while running the jank tests on Xiaomi Mi 10i:

• Mi 10i visibly struggles on the ListView text scrolling tests, with nearly 19% of the frames missing this mark. Besides, 4% of the frame miss the 90Hz mark too.
• On the ListView image scrolling test, the Mi 10i performs relatively better, with about only 5% of the frames missing the 120Hz mark and nearly 2% missing the 90Hz mark.
• About 11% and 18% of frames miss the 120Hz mark on the Low hit rate and High hit rate render tests, respectively. For 90Hz, the percentages of missed frames are 6% and 11% for the Low hit rate and High hit rate tests, respectively.
• On the text input and editing test, almost 15% of frames miss the 120Hz mark and about 9% miss the 90Hz mark. Also, almost 7%  of the frame cannot match up to time requirements for a jank-free output on a 60Hz refresh rate.
• In terms of GPU overdraw, nearly 94% of the frames fail to render at a rate corresponding to 120Hz. Fortunately, only 0.53% fail to make it to the 90Hz mark.
• Lastly, in terms of the Bitmap Upload test, 99% of the frames miss not only the 120Hz mark but also the 90Hz mark. What is even more concerning is that 96% of the frames also miss the 60Hz mark.

While Xiaomi touts a smooth and lag-free scrolling on the Mi 10i, our tests show otherwise. The smartphone struggles to keep up to the 120Hz refresh rate requirements in text and image scrolling tests. On top of that, the poor performance in the overdraw test shows that consistently smooth rendering on the 120Hz display requires a more powerful GPU and the Mi 10i lacks that. Xiaomi might as well limit the display to 90Hz, and you will not notice any major difference. Lastly, the dismal performance in the bitmap upload test indicates the phone’s tendency to show a jittery performance while presenting sizeable UI elements.

In day-to-day usage, you can easily spot stutters in the usage, and if you really care for the 120Hz refresh rate, you would find this irksome. This makes us question Xiaomi’s decision to opt for a 120Hz display in the first place instead of going for a 60Hz AMOLED display.

In the next test, we test the Mi 10i’s capabilities when it comes to app launching.

Custom App Launching Speed Test

This custom benchmark is created by XDA’s Editor-in-Chief, Mishaal Rahman, and Senior Contributor, Mario Serrafero. It involves scripts that utilize Android’s ActivityManager shell interface to launch different apps and measure the time take for each cold start (i.e., when the apps are not running in the background). For this test, we take 12 popular apps and measure the startup time.

These 12 apps include Google Chrome, Discord, Facebook, Gmail, Google Maps, Google Messages, Google Photos, Google Play Store, Slack, Twitter, WhatsApp, and YouTube. We run two variations of the tests wherein the apps are launched and terminated one by one for 15 iterations and then repeat the same for 30 iteration. The total time per app for serval iterations is displayed at the bottom of the bar, whereas the number above the bar indicates the median.

The median time to launch all apps is relatively less in the cycle with 15 iterations than the one with 30 iterations. This behavior is expected as the phone tends to heat up over a period of sustained usage, thereby leading to throttling, as we saw above. However, there are some exceptions, and these exceptions are Google Maps, Messages, and WhatsApp. These three apps take more time during the first run with 15 iterations than with 30 iterations.

The Mi 10i takes almost four-fold the time taken to launch apps as compared to the Mi 10T Pro. Surprisingly, the time is much less than what we noticed while running the same tests during our OnePlus Nord review.

Gaming on Xiaomi Mi 10i

When it comes to gaming, the Mi 10i can run competitive titles such as PUBG Mobile and COD Mobile on moderate settings. While it supports a maximum of 40fps gameplay on PUBG Mobile with Smooth graphics settings, you can crank the frame rate on COD Mobile to up to 60fps. Meanwhile, Genshin Impact’s gameplay is choppy with visible stuttering due to its high graphics requirements.

Camera

The Xiaomi Mi 10i features a 108MP primary camera, and it is one of the smartphone’s primary highlights. For this 108MP camera, the Mi 10i employs a 108MP Samsung ISOCELL HM2, which comes after the ISOCELL HMX and HM1 sensors. As compared to the ISOCELL HM1 sensor that we find on the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra and the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra (camera review), the HM2 sensor is 15% smaller. It measures 1/1.52″ with a pixel size of 0.7μm.

Even though the smaller ISOCELL HM2 sensor theoretically means that the camera will capture less light than the ISOCLESS HMX and HM1 sensors, Samsung claims that ISOCELL Plus and Smart ISO technologies improve light retention on the sensor. It is worth noting that even though the ISOCELL HM2 is named in succession to the previous sensors, it is meant for mid-range devices like the Mi 10i. For flagships, Samsung has announced the ISOCELL HM3 sensor that is as big as the HMX and HM1 sensors but features the improved light retention features of the HM2 sensor. The ISOCELL HM3 sensor is what we see on the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra.

Primary Camera

Coming back to the Xiaomi Mi 10i, the 108MP camera captures images in 12MP natively by utilizing 9-in-1 pixel binning. The resulting 12MP images have pixels measuring 2.1μm. Here are some of the sample images we took using the primary camera at 12MP and default settings:

Images are rich in details and present colors quite similar to what we see with our naked eyes. The camera sometimes takes more than a couple of seconds to focus — and seldom stops focusing at all. But other than those issues, the quality of the images is very impressive for the price.

12MP vs. 108MP

By principle, pixel binning allows the camera to capture more light and details. This implies that the Mi 10i is bound to capture less light in the 108MP mode than the primary 12MP mode. However, since 108MP are much bigger, they should allow you to capture more details, and the difference can be seen when you zoom into the images.

To see how well the Mi 10i captures these details with and without pixel binning, we have the following images taken at 12MP and 108MP:

Not only does the Mi 10i take much longer to capture 108MP images, they often turn out blurry or out-of-focus. Unlike what we have seen on other phones with a 108MP camera, this Xiaomi smartphone fails to utilize the feature to its full capacity.

8MP Ultrawide-angle Camera

In addition to the primary 108MP camera, the Mi 10i also features an 8MP ultrawide-angle camera. This camera has fixed focus and captures a 120° wide field of view. This 8MP sensor is paired with an f/2.2 aperture lens. Here are some images comparing the standard, i.e., the wide-angle and the ultrawide-angle cameras on the Mi 10i:

As we see with most other smartphones, the ultrawide angle camera captures lesser light than the primary camera. Other than that, the color tones are relatively drab and lackluster. Not just that, the ultrawide angle camera also captures fewer details than the primary camera, and the images are mostly only suitable for social media.

Night Mode

The Mi 10i also features a Night mode, just like most of the other devices running MIUI. Here are a few shots comparing its camera performance during the night with and without the Night mode.

As expected, the longer exposure settings in the Night Mode fill the canvas with more light. Most of the time, more light also corresponds to more details, but you might have issues with sometimes focusing, especially when the images are taken without a tripod.

In addition to the primary camera, the Night Mode also works with the ultrawide angle camera and can add a great amount of exposure to the images.

While the camera on the Mi 10i should inspire you to keep going, a reliable battery is what makes it possible. So, in the next section, we discuss the battery on the smartphone.

Battery

The Mi 10i features a 4820mAh battery that easily allows the phone to sail through a day’s use. On moderate usage — that includes some casual gaming and mostly web browsing, the Mi 10i lasted for over 24 hours with about 7 hours of screen-on-time. During this period, the refresh rate was set to 120Hz and the brightness to auto.

The usage varies per user, and that cannot be used as the basis for an empirical value. So, we ran the PCMark Battery test. During this test, the PCMark Work benchmark is run repeatedly, starting at 80% battery and ending at 20%. During this time, the display’s brightness is set to a constant value of 200lux. The Mi 10i lasted nearly 12 hours during this test.

When it comes to charging, the Mi 10i supports Xiaomi’s Turbo Charging technology with a 33W power output. A compatible 33W charger is also included within the box. Along with the fast charging support, Mi 10i features what Xiaomi calls “Dual Split Charging.” The battery is split into two cells that are charged simultaneously. This allows the phone to charge faster and heat up less than usual during the process.

Using the charger, the Xiaomi Mi 10i takes nearly an hour to charge fully. The battery charges from 10% battery to 50% in about 15 minutes and reaches 90% in around 40 minutes. This charging technology is not as astonishingly rapid as the 65W fast charging technology we witness on a wide range of OPPO and especially, Realme phones in this price segment. But, just a few minutes of charging can also ensure several hours of usage.

Lastly, we use another benchmark called DontKillMyApp that determines how aggressively your phone kills apps running in the background. The app tests for aggressive app-killing measures by running the same activity every ten seconds for up to eight hours. It also puts silent alarms every 8 minutes. The results indicate the percentage of the commands that were successfully executed. The following image shows the result for the Xiaomi Mi 10i, and as you can see, the phone should spare your favorite apps.

Overall, the battery on the Mi 10i does a good job, and the fast charging is a bonus. You can also extend the battery life by switching to the 60Hz mode, but that seems like an unlikely choice for most users.

Conclusion

Even though Xiaomi claims that it has built the Mi 10i especially for India, we know it is not a new phone. In an era where pre-launch leaks determine the response that a phone will get after it goes on sale, the Mi 10i clearly lies at a disadvantage. But if you are not among those swayed by the leaks, the Mi 10i offers exciting highlights such as 5G connectivity and a 108MP camera on a strict budget. The Mi 10i’s head-turning color combination should also help you gain your friends’ and peers’ attention.

Meanwhile, the display on the smartphone is not something exciting and could sway entertainment enthusiasts away. Instead, Xiaomi’s choices for the display indicate that the smartphone is aimed at users who demand good performance from a phone, and the Mi 10i can offer that. It is clearly not a gaming phone, nor does it offer the best performance for its price, but it can endure moderate workloads sustained for long periods of time.

Xiaomi Mi 10i Forums

Once again, it is not the performance but the 108MP camera that will drive buyers towards the Mi 10i, which starts at ₹20,999 for the 6GB + 64GB variant. At present, we have no means to test 5G connectivity in India, but support for both — mmWave and sub-6GHz — 5G networks should have decent applications. Overall, the Xiaomi Mi 10i can be a good choice for your needs if you have no expectations of a premium experience from a smartphone.

The post Xiaomi Mi 10i Review: Stunning 108MP camera to patch the Redmi Note persona appeared first on xda-developers.

In the world of consumer tech, new cutting-edge hardware always begins life on premium phones with premium features and premium pricing, only to be commoditized later and become affordable for the masses. In most industries, that lifespan of exclusivity can last years, but in the fast-moving, cutthroat smartphone space — especially the Chinese one — it is often a year or less. That’s what’s happening with the 108MP camera and 120Hz displays — two features that just a year ago were headline-grabbing selling points of a $1,400 Samsung premium flagship, but are now available in a sub-$300 device such as Xiaomi’s new Redmi Note 10 Pro.

I’ve been using the global version of the Redmi Note 10 Pro for over a week, and this is my full review.

Note: Chinese phone brands have a habit of using confusing names and it appears to be the case with the Redmi Note 10 Pro. I have the global version meant for the European market, which appears to be different from the Indian version with the same name. The same phone is, however, making its way to India but under the Redmi Note 10 Pro Max branding. Our unit was loaned to us by Xiaomi, but they did not have any inputs in this review.

Redmi Note 10 Pro Specifications

Redmi Note 10 Pro: Design

The Redmi Note 10 Pro, in my opinion, is a big improvement over the Redmi Note 9 Pro in terms of looks. Gone is the odd camera bump that protruded out of the back abruptly. In its place is a rectangular-but-with-rounded-corners camera module that carries the same design aesthetic as the Xiaomi Mi 11 and Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra’s module. The silver-coated ring around the 108MP sensor gives it an extra flourish.

The back of the phone is glass, but not Corning Gorilla Glass like its front panel. It attracts fingerprints slightly, but the subtle hues of the “Onyx Gray” color look appealing to my eyes. There are two other colors in this model that are flashier: “Glacier Blue” and “Gradient Bronze,” which, according to official product renders, look light blue and orange.

Around the front, the Redmi Note 10 Pro sports a 1080 x 2400 resolution, 120Hz refresh rate AMOLED display with relatively-thin (for its price bracket) bezels. Despite the AMOLED panel, the device does not have an under-display fingerprint scanner. Instead, there is a side-mounted fingerprint scanner on the right that doubles as a power button. Unlike most side-mounted scanners I’ve tested, this one doesn’t indent into the frame, instead, it sits almost flush with the phone’s plastic chassis. Redmi dubs this the “Arc side fingerprint sensor,” a term I won’t be using again. It’s a fingerprint scanner/power button combo that works well — not much more needs to be said.

The Redmi Note 10 Pro’s fingerprint sensor sits on the right side of the device and doubles as a power button.

Since I’m a privileged reviewer spoiled by the latest flagship phones (eg. Xiaomi Mi 11, Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra), I can’t say that the Redmi Note 10 Pro’s AMOLED screen impressed me at first sight. In fact, due to the presence of a side-mounted fingerprint scanner and a glossy screen protector (that came pre-installed) which dulled colors, I thought the Redmi Note 10 Pro had an LCD panel at first. Only after I pulled off the screen protector and switched the UI over to dark mode did I notice that this was indeed an OLED screen. It’s not the punchiest panel when placed side-by-side with a Xiaomi Mi 11, but then again, that’s not a fair comparison, is it?

The Redmi Note 10 Pro gets bright enough for outdoor use under the sun, and the 120Hz refresh rate brings noticeably fluid animations.

Inside, the Redmi Note 10 Pro is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 732G. I have the middle-child variant with 6GB RAM and 128GB of internal storage, though the other two variants offer 6GB + 64GB and 8GB + 128GB.

Redmi Note 10 Pro: Cameras

The Redmi Note 10 Pro’s camera system is headlined by a 108MP Samsung ISOCELL HM2 sensor, flanked by an 8MP ultra-wide lens, 5MP macro sensor, and 2MP depth sensor.

The main 108MP HM2 sensor, contrary to branding, is inferior to the HM1 sensor used in Xiaomi’s Mi 11 (and Mi 10 Pro) because it has a smaller 1/1.52″ sensor. But it still captures vibrant, sharp images thanks to the 9-in-1 pixel binning (which results in 12MP shots). Dynamic range is usually on point too thanks to Redmi’s image processing smarts. It’s worth noting the Xiaomi Mi 10i also uses the same sensor and my colleague Tushar was happy with its camera performance.

Because of the large-ish image sensor, there’s an aesthetically-pleasing natural bokeh effect when I take close shots of an object.

In moderate to low light situations, the Redmi Note 10 Pro does a respectable job of pulling in light. In fact, unless the scene is very dark, I find night mode unnecessary. Below are two shots, one with night mode and one without. The only improvement I see in the night mode shot is the Chinese text in the green neon sign is more properly exposed.

(The photo samples have a wider-than-usual aspect ratio because I had set the camera to take photos in 9:16 format and forgot to switch it back to the default 3:4 aspect ratio).

Video performance with the main camera is good at this price range. The phone is able to capture footage up to 4K/30fps, but I find stabilization suffers in this setting. Instead, I shoot at 1080p/30fps, and footage comes out quite smooth during the day; at night, micro-jitters are a problem, but I can’t complain much for a device at this price point. Audio recording sounds above-average, as is the camera’s ability to adapt dynamic range to shifting light source.

Moving past standard photos and videos, the Redmi Note 10 Pro also brings over some of the camera software tricks previously introduced in Xiaomi devices. I find these very fun to play with, particularly the “Clone” feature, which allows the user to take photos or videos with multiple clones of the same person.

There are probably third-party apps that can do this, but that Xiaomi/Redmi has built the feature directly into the camera app and made it simple to use (you just have to hold the camera still for a few seconds and tap the shutter a few times) just adds to the overall camera experience.

Another feature that’s been around since 2019, but I didn’t learn of its existence until testing the Redmi Note 10 Pro, is “AI skyscaping.” This feature applies a filter to the sky in photos to change the weather so to speak, and it also changes how light is handled by the objects in the image. Some of the results — usually when turning a sky blue — can look quite realistic.

Overall, I’m very happy with the Redmi Note 10 Pro’s main camera. It’s easy and fun to use and shots are usually Instagram-ready.

The other rear-pointing cameras don’t fare as well, however. The 8MP ultra-wide lens is decent if there’s enough lighting, but at night, it tends to be very soft on details. In addition, for some reason, night mode is not available to use with this lens. Note the difference in image quality between the main camera and the ultra-wide camera in the below sample — the ultra-wide shot blows out the lamp and the textures of the green leaves and cement tiles on the ground are lost.

Switching to the ultra-wide-angle camera from the main camera also results in noticeable lag every time that can last up to a half-second. The macro and depth sensors both technically work, but I am not sure the resulting shots aren’t anything the main camera with some software tricks can’t pull off. For example, the so-called macro shot below can’t even focus that close to a subject.

As is usual with Chinese entry-level phones, it’s best to look at these devices as having a dual-camera system instead of a real “quad-camera” array. The selfie camera, on the other hand, is quite good, capturing sharp photos with accurate exposure even against harsh lighting.

Redmi Note 10 Pro performance

Because I’m testing a pre-release model, Redmi has apparently blocked benchmark apps, as I could not run Geekbench 5 (it’d crash before finishing the test); 3DMark, or GFXBench (it couldn’t connect to servers). But I did manage to run AndroBench — which tests storage transfer speeds — successfully, and the UFS 2.2 flash storage here gave back middling results.

However, in real-world usage, I didn’t notice any problems with the Redmi Note 10 Pro other than the noticeable lag when switching to the ultra-wide-angle camera. Throughout my week of testing, I used the phone to send hundreds of WhatsApp/Slack messages, watched dozens of YouTube videos, and played the game Infinity Ops and did not encounter any issues. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 732G with 6GB of RAM is fine for these use cases. I suspect performance is quite similar to the Xiaomi Mi 10i, which we reviewed here. 

The Redmi Note 10 Pro’s large, flat screen along with above-average stereo speakers make the device comfortable to hold and use as a gaming or Netflix phone.

Battery life, as expected from a Redmi device, is really good. Even with the 120Hz display, I finished entire 14-hour days with over 35% of battery life left. Keep in mind I’m a very heavy user and live in a dense city with a lot of cell towers that drain battery faster (I consistently get shorter battery life than what American reviewers report). So for most people, this is probably a one-and-half-day phone easily. For me, not quite. But even then, it serves me through the day.

Redmi Note 10 Pro: Software

My Redmi Note 10 Pro unit runs MIUI 12.0.1 global out of the box. I’ve been a fan of MIUI since version 10 and little has changed here: I like the colorful, whimsical software touch, and the addition of an app tray further makes the software enjoyable to use. Animations, as I mentioned earlier, are fluid and responsive.

However, there are some gripes that keep MIUI from being my favorite Android skin. One-hand mode can only be triggered when using on-screen software buttons, which means there is no one-hand mode for people using gesture swipe navigation. This is a major oversight that Xiaomi/Redmi still hasn’t fixed.

MIUI’s settings panel still has some unusually complicated listings. For example, every time I get a new phone I change the idle time period before the screen auto turns off to two minutes (the out-of-the-box default is usually just 30 seconds, which makes taking product shots a pain). In virtually every other Android phone, this setting is listed under “Display.” In MIUI, it’s listed under “Always-on display and lock screen,” which is a separate section from “Display.”

Redmi Note 10 Pro: Conclusion

I usually roll my eyes at smartphone brand slogans — “Never Settle” comes to mind — but Xiaomi’s slogan “Bringing innovation for everyone” is one I can’t scoff at because the company’s products do indeed bring what was previously cutting-edge tech to the masses.

At prices of $279 (for the 6GB + 64GB version), $299 (6GB + 128GB) and $329 (8GB + 128GB), the Redmi Note 10 Pro is making a 108MP camera sensor and 120Hz OLED screen affordable to those even on a tight budget. Of course, for someone who uses flagship phones, the lack of any zoom cameras or the laggy ultra-wide angle lens is hard to stomach, but for those who are upgrading to the Redmi Note 10 Pro from another similarly priced phone released a couple of years ago, this device will feel like a big jump.

The Redmi Note 10 Pro that I am talking about also makes an appearance in India as the Redmi Note 10 Pro Max. In the Indian market, this phone achieves a whole lot under ₹20,000 (~$275), reminding us of the high value-for-money quotient that its predecessors like the Redmi Note 3 and Redmi Note 7 Pro brought along. As it stands right now for that particular market, the phone props up as a de facto choice, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it remains sold out for its first few sales. India’s market sees cutthroat competition, and there’s bound to be an answer from competitors in the coming weeks and months. But until then, the Redmi Note 10 Pro Max is a great choice in the mid-range. The brand has managed to build immense goodwill under the “Redmi Note” branding, and with a high value-for-money quotient, it looks like they have another winner in their hands.

The post Redmi Note 10 Pro Review: Bringing a 120Hz display and 108MP camera to the masses appeared first on xda-developers.

I’m sure you’ve heard the saying: “The best camera is the one you have with you.” I would argue the same is true for gaming, which is partly why the Nintendo Switch is so popular. Even though your typical gaming smartphone won’t have access to the huge library of AAA games that are available on the Switch, it’s far more convenient to play on because you’ll always have it with you. Plus, we’ve reached a point where gaming phones have become so powerful and so long-lasting, and publishers are finally taking mobile more seriously, that there’s actually great value in picking up a gaming phone. And there’s no better gaming phone than the new ASUS ROG Phone 5, which rights some of the wrongs of the previous-gen ROG Phone 3.

Yes, you read that right: There’s no ROG Phone 4. ASUS has jumped from the ROG Phone 3 to the ROG Phone 5 because of a common superstition with the number “4” in East Asian countries. So if you were expecting to see two generations’ worth of upgrades, you’ll be disappointed. Within less than a year, though, ASUS has made so many improvements and trimmed so much fat in their formula that I can’t see any reason why you’d choose another gaming phone (if you can afford it, that is.) I’ve had the ASUS ROG Phone 5 (well, the limited edition “Ultimate” model) for nearly two weeks now, so here’s an in-depth review of its gaming chops.

About this review: I received the ROG Phone 5 Ultimate from ASUS on February 25, 2021. ASUS did not have any inputs regarding the content of this review.

Navigate this article:

• Design: What does the ASUS ROG Phone 5 look like?
• Ergonomics: How does the ROG Phone 5 feel in the hand?
• Display: How well the ASUS ROG Phone 5 show content?
• ROG Vision: What does the second display do?
• Audio: How good are the speakers on the ASUS ROG Phone 5?
• Gaming: What makes the ROG Phone 5 a good gaming phone?
  • Features
  • Accessories
  • Performance & Battery Life
  • Charging
• Conclusion

Design: What does the ASUS ROG Phone 5 look like?

“Gaming” hardware isn’t typically known for its…subtlety, and ASUS’s ROG products are not immune to flaunting their gamer aesthetic. But with each new ROG Phone model, ASUS has continued to tone down how gamer-y each phone looks, resulting in the relatively sleek and subdued look of the ROG Phone 3. However, ASUS may have gone a bit too far with the ROG Phone 3, creating a phone that looks boring. Fortunately, the company has corrected its course as the ROG Phone 5 doesn’t look like a boring black rectangular slab. The new model comes in four different designs that are all sleek yet still have that gamer aesthetic.

While each ROG Phone 5 model proudly displays the ROG logo on the back, that’s where the similarities end. Like on every ROG Phone before it, the ROG logo on the regular model is illuminated by RGB lights, but it’s now contained within a slick dot-matrix just like on the ROG Zephyrus G14 laptop. If you opt for the higher-tier ROG Phone 5 Pro or ROG Phone 5 Ultimate, though, the dot-matrix is replaced with an actual display called ROG Vision. According to ASUS, this tiny display has a PMOLED (Passive Matrix OLED) panel, the kind of panel you’d find in a wearable. Since it’s an actual display, it isn’t limited to showing just one graphic (ie. the ROG logo), though obviously, it’s too tiny to be used for anything other than that. I love the ROG Vision not because it’s practical (it’s not) but because it lets you add a bit of personal flair to your gaming smartphone. I’ll talk more about the ROG Vision in the “Display” section down below.

When I compared the ROG Phone 5 to the ROG Phone 3 earlier and said that the ROG 3 is essentially a boring black rectangular slab, what I really meant was that the ROG 5 is still a rectangular slab, just not a boring black rectangular slab. Well, it can be a black rectangular slab if you buy the regular model in Phantom Black, but ASUS finally offers another color option that makes the phone stand out a bit more: white. You can pick up the regular ROG Phone 5 in Storm White or if you’re lucky, the ROG Phone 5 Ultimate in Matte White. Sadly, the ROG Phone 5 Pro is only available in a Glossy Black color to match its “black space opera aesthetics.”

I’m lucky enough to have the chance to review the ROG Phone 5 Ultimate, and it’s one of the best-looking white-colored phones I’ve ever used. The matte finish makes it feel great in the hand and keeps my fingers from slipping while holding the phone. There are no visible smudges or fingerprints from when my fingers slide across the back while gaming. Except for a small blue line underneath the camera, the blue power button, and the blue SIM card tray (which has a cute “GLHF!” [Good Luck Have Fun!] text etched into it), the rest of the ROG Phone 5 Ultimate fits the monochrome design that ASUS was going for. Even the ROG Vision display on the Ultimate is monochrome—that technically makes it a step down from the color display on the ROG 5 Pro, but it’s a minor change that goes to show how committed ASUS is to this aesthetic.

Not every tweak to the design is as obvious as the choice of color or logo illumination on the rear. There are a couple of subtle yet visible and totally invisible changes, such as the addition of two AirTrigger touch sensors on the back (Pro and Ultimate only) and a layer of Corning’s latest Gorilla Glass Victus on the front. Gorilla Glass Victus is said to be twice as scratch-resistant as Gorilla Glass 6 and can protect the display from drops of up to 2 meters in height, though I’m not willing to risk damaging the phone to test these claims. According to ASUS, the front-facing speakers of the ROG Phone 5 are actually bigger and more symmetrical than on the ROG Phone 3, but I can’t really tell them apart visually.

What I can tell quite clearly are the big changes to the ports. First of all, ASUS has brought the 3.5mm headphone jack back! It’s located on the bottom right just like on the original ROG Phone and ROG Phone II. ASUS says they removed the jack on the ROG Phone 3 because they didn’t want to compromise on the battery or backward compatibility with accessories. Since the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 chip has an integrated Snapdragon X60 5G modem, ASUS now had enough PCB space to accommodate the 3.5mm jack. When ASUS ditched the jack in the ROG Phone 3, we heard some skepticism about the company’s intentions, with some saying it was a ploy to sell wireless audio accessories. Fortunately, that isn’t the case (though they do probably still want you to buy their wireless audio products), and the headphone jack has become one of the key selling points of the ROG Phone 5. But the audio chops are something we’ll talk about in a later section.

The other big port change is on the left side. If you’re unfamiliar, each ROG Phone typically has two full USB-C ports (one on the bottom and one on the side) that can handle charging and data. ASUS included a USB-C port on the side to let you charge your phone while holding it in landscape orientation so that the charging cable won’t get in your way. The inclusion of this port also lets you connect to more accessories, including the ones that ASUS specially designed. Every ROG Phone since the original has the two aforementioned ports, but they also have a tertiary USB-C port on the side that is only used for data transfer. The ROG Phone 5 is the first in the lineup to get rid of that tertiary data port.

Like before, the top port on the side is a full USB-C port, and it handles charging, data transfer, and video output. However, below that are 5 pogo pins rather than a full-sized Type-C port. That third Type-C port only assisted in data transfer when special accessories were connected. Since the ROG Phone 5 gets rid of that port, it isn’t compatible with the TwinView Dock, and ASUS has no plans to make new ones. I’m not too disappointed by this news, though, since we struggled to justify its existence given its poor compatibility with games and high price. (The Mobile Desktop Dock is also no longer compatible, but I haven’t formed an opinion on it since I haven’t had a chance to use it.) ASUS has made a new AeroActive Cooler that’s compatible with the ROG Phone 5, though, and it’s aptly called the AeroActive Cooler 5.

The benefit of switching to pogo pins is that you no longer have to worry about damaging the phone by accidentally plugging in a Type-C cable into the wrong port. The downside is that connecting the AeroActive Cooler is now more finicky since you don’t have the stability of the connection between the Type-C connector and port to rely on when trying to snap the top over the other edge of the phone. This is a minor nitpick, though, and one that’ll go away with time as you get used to popping the AeroActive Cooler 5 on and off.

The last thing I’ll mention about the design is the included case. As always, ASUS has bundled a hard plastic case that leaves enough room on the sides for the AeroActive Cooler to fit. It’s called the Aero case, and it’s transparent if you buy the ROG Phone 5 in white or it’s textured black if you buy the ROG 5 in black.

Ergonomics: How does the ROG Phone 5 feel in the hand?

Since you’ll need to hold the phone to play games, it’s important to consider its ergonomics. Unfortunately, the ASUS ROG Phone 5 is a fairly heavy smartphone, weighing in at 238g or 8.39oz. That means the ROG Phone 5 can be quite uncomfortable to hold in one hand for long periods of time.

Fortunately, it’s much easier to handle with two hands, which is basically required if you’re trying to game while holding the phone horizontally. ASUS built the ROG Phone 5 to be used in landscape, so they made all of the ultrasonic AirTriggers easy to reach when held this way. In landscape use, the side port makes it easy to charge the battery while gaming. On the other hand, the 3.5mm headphone jack on the bottom will get covered up by your hands, but ASUS designed the AeroActive Cooler 5 to have a 3.5mm audio jack of its own so you’ll still have the option to use wired headphones. ASUS has also put three Wi-Fi antennas into the ROG Phone 5 so at least one antenna won’t be blocked by your hands. The same is true of the four microphones placed throughout the body. And the front-facing camera has also been placed so it’s out of the way of where your thumb typically extends, though that depends on where games put their buttons.

While the weight is pretty manageable when the phone is held horizontally with two hands, the thickness is just something you’ll have to get used to. At 10.29mm or 0.36in, the ASUS ROG Phone 5 is a chunky gaming phone. Given its large display, many internal components, and huge battery, the thickness makes sense.

Display: How well the ASUS ROG Phone 5 show content?

The ASUS ROG Phone 5 may not have the best smartphone display on the market for watching TV shows or movies, but it may very well have the display components best suited for gaming. For the best gaming experience, you’ll want a display that’s big, high-resolution, color-accurate, bright, comfortable, and refreshes quickly. The ROG Phone 5 meets all these criteria with its 6.78-inch AMOLED display, Full HD+ (2448×1080) resolution, ΔE<1 color accuracy, wide 111% DCI-P3 color gamut coverage, 800 nits of outdoor-readable brightness, support for DC Dimming and night mode, and 144Hz refresh rate. ASUS has chosen a Samsung-made E4 AMOLED panel for the ROG Phone 5, so you can expect that the display will be high-quality.

Good calibration is just as important as panel quality, and for that ASUS worked closely with display processing company Pixelworks to incorporate the company’s i6 processor and calibrate the display. The partnership with Pixelworks also brings features such as AI scene detection for real-time SDR-to-HDR upmapping; AI adaptive display for brightness, tone, and contrast; dark noise suppression to reduce background noise in low-light scenes; flesh/skin tone management; and smooth brightness level adjustments.

In my experience, colors appear accurate, the display gets sufficiently bright, and text renders crisp in typical lighting conditions. The display also gets very dim and doesn’t hurt my eyes at night or in low-lighting situations. I haven’t noticed any black crush, blue shift, purple smearing, or other issues commonly seen in poor-quality OLED panels or improperly calibrated displays. These are all things you would expect from a premium flagship smartphone that costs as much as the ROG Phone 5 does, though.

What distinguishes the ROG Phone 5 from most non-gaming phones on the market is its reduced latency. There’s an incredibly low 24.3ms latency between when you tap your finger on the display and a tap is registered by Android (touch latency). This is especially important for gaming as it ensures your taps are recognized as quickly as possible, and this is made possible by the incredibly fast 300Hz touch sampling rate and end-to-end optimization of the touch data pipeline. Slide gestures are also incredibly fast to register on the ROG Phone 5, with a latency as low as 18ms.

Equally as important as low latency is the viewing area. The ROG Phone 5’s big, tall display is uninterrupted, meaning there’s no notch or hole-punch cutout to find on this phone. The selfie camera is located in the top bezel, and its diameter is 27% smaller than on the ROG Phone 3. The bezels themselves are also small — 25% smaller than on the ROG Phone 3 — so you get a larger viewing area without making the phone any more taller than it needs to be (it’s already pretty tall).

Underneath the display is an optical under-display fingerprint scanner. These types of scanners have been around for years now, and there’s not really anything new I can say about it. It’s fast when it works, but you may have some trouble unlocking your phone when there isn’t a lot of ambient light. To make it easier to unlock, you may want to register the same fingerprint twice.

Once you do unlock the phone, the ROG Phone 5 is as fluid as you’d expect thanks to its Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 chipset and 144Hz refresh rate display. ASUS may not be ready to bring us the 160Hz refresh rate mode they’ve been working on, but such a small increase to the refresh rate would be unnoticeable to most users anyway. I personally can’t tell the difference between 120Hz and 144Hz on the ROG Phone 5, but I can tell the difference between 60 and 90 and 120Hz. I also don’t really notice a difference in calibration whenever the refresh rate changes, which means each display mode has likely been properly calibrated.

Regardless of what you set the refresh rate at, you’ll have a buttery smooth experience in most applications. In fact, I haven’t noticed many frame drops or micro stutters while using the ROG Phone 5 as my daily driver for the past nearly two weeks, and the results from JankBench basically confirm what I’m seeing. In the two albums embedded below, the top row shows the results from the ASUS ROG Phone 5, while the bottom row shows the same results from the ROG Phone 3.

The results mostly show that the ROG Phone 5 has less UI stutter/jank compared to the ROG Phone 3 in typical tasks you’ll see in apps, though there is one regression in the text input test. Both phones are running different OS versions (Android 11 on the ROG Phone 5 and Android 10 on the ROG Phone 3), so that could have factored into these results.

If I were to nitpick, one of the areas that I hope to see an improvement in is resolution. Every ROG Phone has more than enough battery to power a Quad HD resolution display, and the last two Snapdragon chipsets have been capable of pushing Quad HD resolution at high refresh rates like 120Hz. Another area I’d like to see an improvement in is refresh rate switching. Some premium flagships coming out later this year with OLED panels will feature lower-power LTPO backplanes and true variable refresh rates. Samsung was the first to make this happen with the Note 20 Ultra, and they’ve also replicated this on the Galaxy S21 Ultra. If ASUS can make this happen in a future ROG Phone, then the gaming experience will be even better than it is right now.

Lastly, I wanted to mention a small bug I’ve encountered since I got the device. On every boot, the device is unresponsive for about 10 seconds after the lockscreen first appears. I’m not sure why this happens, but it’s happened on every boot for me. It’s not a huge deal since it doesn’t last very long and I don’t reboot that often, but I’ve notified ASUS of this bug and will report back if it gets fixed in a future software update.

ROG Vision: What does the second display do?

Exclusive to the ROG Phone 5 Pro and ROG Phone 5 Ultimate is ROG Vision, a small PMOLED display used to show custom graphics. On the ROG Phone 5 Pro, ROG Vision can show color, while on the ROG Phone 5 Ultimate, it’s a monochrome display to match the phone’s aesthetic. You can enable ROG Vision in the Armoury Crate app by going to the “Console” tab. Here, you have the option to change the graphic/animation that plays when you connect an external accessory (like the AeruoActive Cooler), turn on X-Mode, plug in the phone to charge, launch a game (that you’ve added to Armoury Crate), or receive an incoming call.

Each scenario has a couple of premade graphics/animations you can choose from, but you can create your own custom ROG Vision for any scenario by simply tapping the “+” button. You can add an image effect, text effect, or signature to your custom ROG Vision graphic. I made a simple “XDA” text effect that fades in and out every few seconds just to test it out. You can even share and import ROG Vision graphics stored in the “Download” folder.

I’ve kept ROG Vision on for most of the time that I’ve had the phone and haven’t noticed many issues with it. However, I have occasionally encountered a bug where the ROG Vision refuses to start up, forcing me to reboot to get it working. Once I’ve rebooted, though, it usually doesn’t act up unless I reboot again. I’ve informed ASUS of this bug and will see if it gets fixed in a future software update.

You probably won’t see ROG Vision that often unless you like to leave your phone face down on the table or you frequently dock your phone, but it’s a nice piece of visual flair that adds a bit of personality to your device. It was totally unnecessary for ASUS to add this in, but I’m glad they did it anyway. It’s clear that the ROG Phone is a passion project aimed at mobile and gaming enthusiasts and features like ROG Vision show that ASUS is unapologetic about it. If you’re asking yourself “why?”, then you’re asking the wrong question. You should instead ask yourself, “why not?”

Audio: How good are the speakers on the ASUS ROG Phone 5?

With the return of the 3.5mm headphone jack comes an upgraded audio system, which ASUS calls GameFX. ASUS has equipped the ROG Phone 5 with hi-res audio output powered by “an ESS SABRE ES9280AC Pro DAC with HyperStream II Quad DAC technology and a built-in Class G ESS Sabre Headphone amplifier,” the latter of which “automatically detects load impedance between 8 to 1000Ω.” ASUS says the ROG Phone 5 can deliver “best-in-class signal-to-noise of 130 dB” and an “unprecedented Dynamic Range of up to 122dB” thanks to a “patented Time Domain Jitter Eliminator.” In addition, the ROG Phone 5 is Hi-Res Audio certified so it can playback 24-bit/96kHz or 24-bit/192kHz audio files, and it supports high-quality Bluetooth audio codecs such as aptX HD, aptX-Adaptive, LDAC, and AAC.

If all of that sounds like music to your ears, then we’re in agreement: the ROG Phone 5 can output really great-sounding audio. I’ve been using a pair of wired earphones that ASUS sent me (the new ROG Cetra II Core) along with the corrected frequency response profile that’s available in the AudioWizard app. I’ve been listening to music using the ROG Phone 5 + ROG Cetra II Core instead of my PC + Sony WH-1000XM3, though admittedly I don’t have the best audio equipment nor is the WH-1000XM3 in the top-end of audio gear. Still, I would wager that this combination will exceed the expectations of your casual listener who doesn’t need active noise cancellation (for that, you’ll need the pricier ROG Cetra).

ASUS once again worked with the Swedish audio firm Dirac to tune the dual front-facing stereo speakers. Both 7-magnet 12×16 linear speakers have a dedicated CS35L45 mono amp by Cirrus Logic. This means that, compared to the ROG Phone 3, the ROG Phone 5 offers a 35% larger combined speaker volume and 21% more power. ASUS and Dirac have tweaked the speakers to reduce crosstalk, enhance the bass, widen the soundstage, correct the impulse response, and boost commonly heard sounds from games. The ROG Phone 5 is also the first phone with Dirac’s new mixed-phase speaker co-optimization tech which means both speakers work together to produce an acoustical response.

The Dirac partnership has certainly paid off for ASUS, as the ROG Phone 5 produces the best-sounding audio from its speakers on any smartphone I’ve used so far, beating last year’s ROG Phone 3 which featured similar technology. Audio is loud, crisp, and free of any distortion. The AudioWizard app provides an easy-to-use interface for changing the audio profile and tuning the 10-band equalizer in case you prefer more or less bass.

Gaming: What makes the ROG Phone 5 a good gaming phone?

Features

Part of what makes the ROG Phone so good for gaming is all the software features that it offers. At the beginning of this review, I said that the best gaming console is the one you have with you. Thanks to AirTriggers, ultrasonic sensors placed on the frame that can detect taps and swipes, you can play many mobile games without ever needing to pull out a controller. In shooters, for example, you can map one ultrasonic shoulder button to aim and the other to fire, freeing up the rest of your fingers for movement and other actions.

That’s a very basic use of AirTriggers on the ROG Phone 5. You can get much, much more creative with all the options, though. In fact, the base ROG Phone 5 can map up to 14 specific touch points on the screen at the same time. You’ll have to individually map a bunch of taps, slides, swipes, and motion gestures to make this happen, but once you get a setup you’re comfortable with, most games will require far fewer screen touches.

But it doesn’t end with just 14 touch points. If you attach the AeroActive Cooler 5, you get two more physical buttons. If you have the ROG Phone 5 Pro or ROG Phone 5 Ultimate, you get two extra capacitive sensors on the back. In total, that makes for 18 possible touch points that you can map on the screen simultaneously — a crazy amount of inputs considering you aren’t clicking a single physical button.

ASUS once again partnered with Sentons to bring the ultrasonic touch sensors to life, but this time they’ve upgraded the sensors by adding more of them (7 –> 9) and positioning them closer to the edge. If you have smaller hands, this will hopefully mean you won’t have as many failed taps or swipes.

All of the ROG Phone 5’s many gaming features, including AirTriggers, can be accessed from within the Armoury Crate app. Armoury Crate is your one-stop-shop for all your gaming settings, and it also acts as a game launcher. It’s important that you don’t ignore adding apps to your Game Library since otherwise, you won’t be able to slide open the Game Genie interface from within a game.

Within Armoury Crate, you can tweak the performance mode and other settings on a per-game basis. ASUS even offers some “hardcore” tuning options which expose many of the same parameters that custom kernels on our forums let you tune. Be careful tuning these options, though, because your phone could overheat if you raise the thermal throttle limits and bump up the CPU and GPU frequencies. Personally, I recommend just toggling X-Mode when you play a demanding game. X-Mode is a performance profile made by ASUS that boosts the performance of the ROG Phone 5 while keeping in mind its thermal constraints. If you need to squeeze out even more performance over a longer period of time, then you should attach the AeroActive Cooler and then toggle X-Mode. Doing so will enable X-Mode+, a performance profile that pushes the ROG Phone 5 to its limits but safely does so because it’s being actively cooled by a fan.

I don’t mess with many of the settings in Armoury Crate, but there are loads of other options you can play around with. You can block certain areas from being touched; customize the level of anti-aliasing, anisotropic filtering, and texture filtering; cap the frame rate; auto-switch to 4G to save battery life or stay in the game; prevent network switching to reduce disconnects; create custom macros for repetitive tasks in games; and control the fan speed of the AeroActive Cooler. As I mentioned before, Armoury Crate is where you control ROG Vision (on the ROG 5 Pro and Ultimate), and it’s also where you customize the ROG logo on the standard ROG 5.

On the other hand, I frequently slide open the Game Genie overlay while I’m in a game. From Game Genie, you can quickly change the brightness, take a screenshot, start a screen recording or record a short clip, toggle notifications, change the refresh rate, block navigation buttons, block phone calls, free up background resources, show real-time performance statistics in an overlay, launch a messaging app in a floating window, toggle bypass charging, and more.

One of the new additions to Game Genie in the ROG Phone 5 is Haptic audio, which produces vibrations on the phone that correspond to something happening in-game. It only works with a handful of games and requires that you enable it in Developer Options. I tried it with one of the supported games, Call of Duty Mobile, and observed that the phone starts vibrating near the on-screen trigger button for every bullet that fires from the gun. It’s a neat gimmick but one that I’m not sure I’ll use very often because I would much rather play with the ROG Kunai 3 gamepad attached.

There’s frankly an overwhelming number of options in GameGenie. I’ve only listed a few of the ones I’ve tried at least once, but there are several others that you might find useful, such as a toggle to invert the colors to make it sometimes easier to see enemies. There’s also an “eSports mode” that basically toggles a bunch of these settings all at once, but it’s only useful if you plan to play a mobile game competitively and need to quickly block unwanted distractions and disable potentially disallowed features.

Accessories

The AeroActive Cooler returns with the ROG Phone 5 in a version that’s compatible with the new pogo pin connector on the side. ASUS says they redesigned the accessory with a more powerful fan that pushes air to the centrally located CPU of the ROG Phone 5, resulting in up to 10° C lower CPU temperatures and up to 15° C lower surface temperatures. When the fan is running, you can definitely hear it, and in my testing, it seems to do the job just fine. The AeroActive Cooler 5 also has a kickstand to prop up your phone with or without the ROG Kunai 3 attached. And as I talked about before, the AeroActive Cooler 5 has two physical buttons that can be mapped to touch inputs using the software’s keymapping feature.

ASUS hasn’t made a new version of its ROG Kunai gamepad this year, but that’s because there’s little to improve over last year’s ROG Kunai 3. You will need a new case provided by ASUS if you want to attach the not-Joy-Cons to the ROG Phone 5, though. ASUS bundles the Kunai 3 with an ROG 5-compatible case, so you won’t have to purchase them separately.

If you’re looking for a full review of the Kunai 3, look for a future article from me on the various ROG accessories. Without getting into too many details, I can tell you right now that the ROG Kunai 3 is one of the best smartphone accessories you can get. It’s admittedly a bit expensive at $149, but if you have the cash to spare and the desire to play loads of games on your ROG Phone 5, then it’s worth the money. Like any other controller, you can use it to play any game on your phone, including native Android games, games from the cloud, games streamed from your PC, or even games from other consoles using emulators. While traditional controllers force you to use a clip to hold the phone and controller, the ROG Kunai 3 turns the ROG Phone 3 or ROG Phone 5 into something resembling a Nintendo Switch. ASUS does sell its own clip called the ROG Clip, but even it struggles to hold up the hefty ROG Phone. There are also various “universal” telescopic gaming controllers like the Razer Kishi, most of which are incompatible with the ROG Phone due to its off-center USB-C port or massive width. Basically, if you want a controller that works well with the ROG Phone 5, your best option is the ROG Kunai 3.

I’ve had the ROG Kunai 3 for a few months now, and in that time, I’ve played games like Genshin Impact and PUBG Mobile for hours. Neither game natively supports controllers, but they can be forced to accept inputs from the ROG Kunai 3 thanks to ASUS’s keymapping software. (Third-party apps like Mantis Gamepad offer similar functionality but can be hit-or-miss.) The ROG Phone 5 + Kunai 3 also makes playing games that do work with controllers, like Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated, a joy. I still get a kick out of how Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated plays better on this setup than it does on my Nintendo Switch.

I’ve also played hours of games streamed from my PC using Moonlight (some from Steam like Valkyria Chronicles and some from Yuzu like Link’s Awakening) when I want to just sit down on the couch and relax. When I don’t feel like playing on my phone, I detach the controllers and put them back into the charging grip to use as a Bluetooth gamepad for my NVIDIA SHIELD TV or my Surface Pro X. The Kunai 3 is an incredibly versatile controller, so it doesn’t have to be dead weight when it isn’t attached to your phone.

When I lost power last month during the Big Texas Freeze, the ROG Phone 3 + ROG Kunai 3 provided me hours of entertainment (I didn’t have the ROG Phone 5 at the time). For anyone that travels a lot or commutes a lot for work, the ROG Phone 5/3 + ROG Kunai 3 could be a nice alternative to a Nintendo Switch. For me, it’s provided a nice change of pace from the usual way I play games and has gotten me back into retro console emulation.

Performance & Battery Life

The ASUS ROG Phone 5 features the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 across the board. The Snapdragon 888 features an octa-core CPU configuration with 1 ARM Cortex-X1 core clocked at up to 2.84GHz, 3 ARM Cortex-A78 cores clocked at up to 2.4GHz, and 4 ARM Cortex-A55 cores clocked at up to 1.8GHz. The GPU is Qualcomm’s Adreno 660. The chipset also has an integrated 5G modem, though the ASUS ROG Phone 5 only supports sub-6GHz 5G networks. It does support Wi-Fi 6E if the frequencies have been approved in your market and you have compatible networking equipment. You can read our previous coverage if you’re interested in learning more about the chipset that powers this phone.

Because of the launch timing, the ROG Phone 5 doesn’t feature the higher-clocked “Plus” variant of the Snapdragon 888 because Qualcomm hasn’t announced one yet. The chipset upgrade promises up to 25% increased CPU performance and up to 35% faster graphics rendering compared to the Snapdragon 865. To squeeze the maximum performance out of the Snapdragon 888, ASUS has designed the ROG Phone 5 for optimal thermal performance. The company says the phone’s PCB layout has the CPU in the center, away from where your hands typically reside. Internal cooling consists of a vapor chamber, several graphite sheets, and a large aluminum midframe to dissipate heat.

On top of all that, the ROG Phone 5 features up to 512GB of fast, UFS 3.1 internal storage and up to 18GB of LPDDR5 RAM. SK Hynix broke the news the other day about its new DRAM module for mobile devices, but it seems that the company has only supplied limited quantities of its module so far, all of which have ended up in the limited edition ROG Phone 5 Ultimate. Do you need 18GB of RAM? Honestly, no, and even ASUS admits as much. However, that doesn’t mean it’s totally a waste. If you run multiple profiles on your device, love to keep switch between many different apps frequently, love to hoard tabs in Google Chrome, create and extend multiple virtual displays to an external monitor, and like to play multiple games to kill time, then maybe you’ll make use of the full 18GB of RAM. I doubt it, though. I’ve never even come close to using all that RAM on my ROG Phone 5 Ultimate.

I have pushed this device’s performance to the limit, though. I tested the phone’s sustained CPU performance using the CPU Throttling Test app, and unsurprisingly, the use of the AeroActive Cooler helps the phone sustain its peak CPU performance for longer periods. On the left, you can see the result without the fan or X-Mode, and on the right, you can see the result with the fan and X-Mode+.

If you don’t plan to do anything CPU or GPU-intensive for long periods of time, then there’s little point in putting on the AeroActive cooler and activating X-Mode+. As you can see in the first row of screenshots below, the GFXBench result on the left without the cooler + X-Mode nearly matches the result on the right with them. On the other hand, the use of the AeroActive Cooler + X-Mode makes a dramatic difference when it comes to sustained graphics performance. The second row of screenshots below shows the sustained performance without (left) and with (right) the use of the AeroActive Cooler and X-Mode. Because GFXBench’s tests are incredibly performance-intensive, the estimated battery runtime falls sharply when the phone doesn’t throttle. However, most real-world games don’t push the ROG Phone 5 to its limits, so the actual battery life in games will be much, much better, as you’ll see below.

For example, here are four ~30 minute runs from two very demanding games, Genshin Impact and Spongebob Squarepants Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated. I ran each game through the same levels/quests/scenarios, once without the AeroActive Cooler and X-Mode and once with. As you can see, the AeroActive Cooler and X-Mode make a dramatic improvement in overall and sustained performance in Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated, while in Genshin Impact, the cooler + X-Mode combo simply smoothens out the experience. Keep in mind that I played both games at their respective highest possible graphical settings, which usually result in a nearly unplayable or unenjoyable experience on the vast majority of phones, including most flagships. Regardless, the ROG Phone 5 handled both games like a champ and even boasts estimated playtime of ~6 hours when it comes to Genshin Impact and ~8 hours when it comes to Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated. This is with the display brightness set to 100%!

Note: because of a bug in the game testing software we use, our run of Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated with the AeroActive Cooler + X-Mode had to be done with the phone hooked up to a PC for data collection. As a result, we were unable to calculate an estimated playtime for that particular run.

For less demanding games like Call of Duty Mobile, you can play them with or without X-Mode, but I still recommend you use the AeroActive Cooler to reduce CPU and GPU temperatures and thus keep the phone running longer. In CODM, the ROG Phone 5 runs it at a basically flawless 60fps at all times, except for all the areas where the fps is capped at 30 such as during the match overview and lobby. To give you a better sense of how the phone actually performs in-game, I made a version of the chart without the 30fps-capped data (right) so you can compare it to the original data (left).

If you’re interested in emulating games on your ROG Phone 5, then you’ll have no trouble playing any number of N64, PS1, GameCube, Wii, or 3DS games. In fact, the ROG Phone 5 (and most other flagships, honestly) can handle GameCube/Wii and 3DS emulation so well these days that I decided to increase the internal resolution just to see if I could make the phone choke. At 3X resolution in Dolphin Emulator and 2X resolution in Citra, the ROG Phone 5 starts to struggle to maintain the target frame rate, but both Super Mario Sunshine and Super Mario 3D Land are still very much playable despite the demanding resolution increase. Plus, they look fantastic with the resolution bumped up.

For good measure, I also ran our in-house app launch speed test on the ROG Phone 5. As expected, the phone has absolutely no trouble quickly launching the most popular apps from a cold start. The JankBench results prove the phone has little to no UI stutter, and the app launch speed test results show that the phone also handles opening up apps with little waiting time. Not that you’ll be staring at splash screens all that often, anyway, if you opt for the ROG Phone 5 Ultimate and its absurd 18GB of RAM.

There are a few dozen games that support 144fps gameplay on the ROG Phone 3 (and presumably the ROG 5), but I haven’t had a chance to test them yet. If I notice anything interesting with them, I’ll be sure to follow-up.

Charging

To keep up with its competitors, ASUS has equipped the ROG Phone 5 with a new split-cell battery design and faster charging. The ROG Phone 5 has two 3000mAh batteries internally rather than a single 6000mAh cell, and it supports 65W of charging using the included 65W HyperCharge adapter. The adapter is quite bulky as it doesn’t use GaN, so it’ll take up quite a bit of space in your bag if you take it with you while traveling. Fortunately, the ROG Phone 5 supports Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 5/PD 3.0 + PPS from 3.3V-21V and 3.0A so you aren’t forced to use the 65W HyperCharge adapter.

In order to introduce faster charging without sacrificing battery longevity, ASUS says it’s using MMT (Middle Middle Tab) battery technology, which means the battery is charged from the middle instead of from the ends. This, according to ASUS, lowers the impedance and thus prevents the temperature from rising as quickly. In addition, the improved cooling system allows for a higher wattage to be sustained over a longer period, resulting in up to 7° C lower battery temperature versus the previous 30W HyperCharge in the ROG Phone 3.

We collected some of the charging data over a full cycle and made the following charts to show how fast the new 65W HyperCharge can charge the ROG Phone 5 and how hot the battery gets:

Overall, I would say these results line up with ASUS’s claims. If you’re not satisfied, you can open up the PowerMaster app in Settings and set up a charging limit, schedule the charging, or slow down the charging speed.

Conclusion: The ASUS ROG Phone 5 is the best gaming phone

ASUS faces competition from newcomers like Lenovo and existing brands like Red Magic and Black Shark, yet they’ve still managed to pump out the best gaming smartphone year-on-year. While the ROG Phone 5 may not be the most affordable gaming smartphone you can pick up this year, there’s little doubt it’ll be the best one you can get. Every component and software feature of the ROG Phone 5 was designed for gaming, and there are even bells and whistles like the ROG Vision that you won’t find on any other smartphone. The accessories are all top of their class, too. The ROG Kunai 3 remains unmatched in its versatility, and the AeroActive Cooler 5 trounces the similar coolers you can pick up from other gaming brands what with its extra ports, buttons, and integrated kickstand.

Besides price, I can’t think of one area where the ROG Phone 5 falls behind other gaming phones. Every issue that I noticed with the ROG Phone 3 — the lack of a headphone jack and high surface temperature just to name a few — has been fixed with the ROG Phone 5. Everything except one: long-term software support. Don’t buy a ROG Phone 5 expecting to get an update to Android 14—you’ll be lucky to get Android 13. If gaming on-the-go is your number one priority and you don’t mind waiting for an update (or taking the plunge and installing a custom ROM from our forums), then you shouldn’t be dissuaded from picking one of these up. Just be aware that you’ll have to shell out a nice sum to get one, and you may have to wait to pick up the pricier variants. The regular ROG Phone 5, for example, is available this month at a starting price of €799, while the ROG Phone 5 Pro goes on sale in April for €1199 and the ROG Phone 5 Ultimate goes on sale in May for €1299.

ASUS ROG Phone 5 Forums

The ROG Phone 5 is more than just a gaming phone, of course. I’ve used it for more than just gaming these past ~2 weeks. I’ll be posting some of my thoughts on the camera and the software in the coming days. Spoiler alert: not much has changed from the ROG Phone 3 on these fronts, so you can read what I wrote in my review of that phone.

The post The ASUS ROG Phone 5 has everything you could ever want in a Gaming Phone appeared first on xda-developers.

As recently as a couple of years ago, you could spot the difference in a new flagship phone at first glance. The screen bezels may have shrunken drastically. Or maybe the number of cameras doubled from last year’s phone. That’s not the case anymore over the past couple of years, as smartphone brands have become so great at making great smartphones that, at least for the slab form factor, there isn’t much more room to improve. After all, how much more fluid can animations get beyond 120Hz? Bezels can’t possibly go any slimmer. All the basic apps we need run fine on a Snapdragon 855, let alone the Snapdragon 888.

In the past, anyone could grab a Galaxy S10/Huawei P20 Pro/OnePlus 7 Pro and immediately see where they have improved over the Galaxy S9/Huawei P10/OnePlus 6, but you can’t quite do that with 2021 slab phones. The improvements are more subtle, and arguably more niche — like, say, improving dynamic range in the ultra-wide lens, or add faster wireless charging and adaptive refresh rate.

This is the case with the OPPO Find X3 Pro that just launched. Casual smartphone users would have a hard time finding improvements over last year’s Find X2 Pro — in fact, there is one area in which the Find X3 Pro takes a clear step back — but for those who care about every aspect of a smartphone, those who want a refined product, the Find X3 Pro is one of the most balanced and polished and well-rounded slab smartphone yet.

OPPO Find X3 Pro: Specifications

OPPO Find X3 Pro XDA Forums

OPPO Find X3 Pro: Design and Internals

The OPPO Find X3 Pro is yet another Android slab flagship, so most readers should know what to expect: the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon SoC; sleek, curvy glass-and-aluminum sandwich design; almost non-existent bezels around the curved OLED screen; multi-camera system around the back and a selfie camera nestled inside a hole-punch cut-out on the screen.

Here’s where the Find X3 Pro deviates: the glass back panel is one single sheet of glass that covers the camera module too. The camera bump, instead of protruding abruptly like on many phones, is eased into the back the phone with curves.

I must admit, when renders of the Find X3 Pro first leaked, I thought this camera bump design looked ugly. But in person, it looks much more elegant and fluid. The camera module’s curves reflects light in various directions and shades, resembling the look of the liquid metal T-1000 in the film Terminator 2: Judgement Day.

OPPO claims it takes over 40 hours to produce this sheet of glass, which requires over 100 steps to  create the curvature from over 2,000 points. I’ve been a journalist long enough to know marketing claims should be taken with a grain of salt, but I can confirm the phone is very comfortable to hold. Its 193g weight and 8.26mm thickness make it a more comfortable device to hold than the heavier, bulkier Galaxy S21 Ultra.

Last year’s Find X2 Pro faced some flack for not including wireless charging. The Find X3 Pro corrects this. The phone’s 4,500 mAh battery can be topped up wirelessly, at up to 30W speeds if using OPPO’s own wireless charger. It can also top up super fast via OPPO’s 65W charging brick, which is included in the box. The Find X3 Pro is also rated IP68 water and dust resistance too.

OPPO Find X3 Pro: 10-bit color, 120Hz display

The Find X3 Pro is the first device to make use of OPPO’s “Full-path Color Management System,” which supports an end-to-end 10-bit color solution. This means the Find X3 Pro can shoot, store, and display photos in 10-bit colors, which offers up to a billion possible colors compared to 8-bit photos’ 16.7 million possible colors.

Enthusiasts who care about color accuracy should find plenty to like, and XDA’s own display expert Dylan Raga has an in-depth analysis of the phone’s display coming soon. But for me, I’m not sure I can see a big difference between a 10-bit photo and an 8-bit one. But Dylan is much more qualified at analyzing display panels than I am, so be sure to read his review.

This isn’t to say the display doesn’t impress me, however. The Find X3 Pro’s screen is still a 6.7-inch, 120Hz OLED with QHD+ (3,216 x 1,440) resolution. To my eyes, this screen is nearly flawless, and as immersive and brilliant as the panels seen in the S21 Ultra or Xiaomi Mi 11. Like those other two screens, the Find X3 Pro’s panel is also LTPO and refreshes at variable rates. Its maximum 1,300 nits of brightness doesn’t get as high as the Galaxy S21 Ultra’s 1,500 nits, however.

OPPO Find X3 Pro: Ultra-wide angle camera

The Find X3 Pro’s main camera is very good, but so are the main cameras of every top flagship I’ve tested in the past year. Instead, it’s the other peripheral cameras that stand out from the pack, so let’s talk about these cameras first.

Let’s start with the ultra-wide camera. It’s a 50MP Sony IMX 766 sensor — the exact same as the main camera, in fact. It’s the most pixel-dense ultra-wide-angle camera on a smartphone yet, and it can shoot in 10-bit.

As someone who enjoys casual landscape and city photography, I love that the Find X3 Pro’s ultra-wide shooter uses the same sensor as the main camera, because this means ultra-wide-angle photos look closer to images captured by the main camera. There’s consistency in color science, image sharpness, and dynamic range between shots with the main or ultra-wide cameras. And because the sensor has so many pixels, the resulting shots are more detailed and sharper than typical ultra-wide cameras of other phones.

In fact, if I zoom into an ultra-wide shot, it looks close enough to the same shot captured by the main camera.

Ultra-wide cropped in (left); main camera (right).

Even in darker scenes, where the ultra-wide lens tends to suffer, the Find X3 Pro’s ultra-wide holds up reasonably well.

Zooming in again.

Ultra-wide (left), main camera (right).

In the above set, once I zoom into the ultra-wide shot I can see a drop in image quality compared to the main camera: the texture of the grass is not as noticeable, there’s more noise, the image is softer all around. But this drop-off is small compared to the other phones’ ultra-wide cameras. Check out the exact same side-by-side collage, but with the iPhone 12 Pro’s main and ultra-wide cameras. The drop-off in image quality is quite significant.

iPhone 12 Pro ultra-wide (left), main camera (right).

If I pit the Find X3 Pro’s ultra-wide-angle camera against the Galaxy S21 Ultra and iPhone 12 Pro, the Find X3 Pro’s ultra-wide shot is sharper in every scenario. In the below set, you can still read the titles of the book on the shelf clearly in the Find X3 Pro’s shot. The other two, not so much.

Find X3 Pro (left), iPhone 12 Pro (middle), S21 Ultra (right).

The ultra-wide camera also captures clean and stable videos even in a low-light environment. Of course, quality isn’t as high as videos from the main camera, but this video is very impressive for an ultra-wide.

Here are more ultra-wide photo samples. I have tested enough phones to say confidently this is the best ultra-wide angle camera on the market right now.

OPPO Find X3 Pro: Micro-lens camera

The second camera that stands out: the micro-lens. This is essentially a macro lens, on steroids. You can bring the camera up really close to an object and see an extreme level of detail that the human eye can’t see. Here are a series of regular shots of an object, followed by an up-close shot by the micro-lens.

OPPO even built a ring light around the 3MP micro-lens to help with lighting, because when you’re pressing a phone directly against a surface to shoot, it blocks out much of the outside light source.

OPPO Find X3 Pro: Main camera, Zoom lens, Video performance, Selfies

As mentioned earlier, the Find X3 Pro’s main camera is very good — it captures sharp, vibrant photos with excellent dynamic range — but it doesn’t blow away the competition the way the ultra-wide and micro-lens do. This is more a testament to how far smartphone cameras have come: every flagship phone has a good camera. Even the computational photography lead Google once had with the Pixel series has all but evaporated.

The 1/1.56″ image sensor is smaller than the sensors used by Samsung and Huawei for their flagship phones, so the Find X3 Pro isn’t able to pull in quite as much light in extremely dark scenarios like the Galaxy S21 Ultra or Mate 40 Pro, but turning on night mode fixes the problem.

Portraits/bokeh shots have aesthetically-pleasing creamy bokeh and accurate edge detection.

At the beginning of this piece I mentioned, there’s one area in which the Find X3 Pro is a clear step back from the Find X2 Pro and its zoom camera. The Find X3 Pro only has a 13MP conventional telephoto zoom lens which can produce 5x hybrid zoom and maxes out at 20x digital zoom. This feels pedestrian compared to just about every other high-end flagship on the market. This is particularly surprising considering OPPO was one of the pioneers (along with Huawei) of the Periscope zoom lens technology that has proven to be the superior solution to producing sharper zoom images. Last year’s Find X2 Pro used a 5x optical Periscope zoom camera, so the Find X3 Pro’s zoom shots are a step back.

I inquired with an OPPO engineer on the decision to leave behind the Periscope camera, and they said their research showed most consumers rarely needed to zoom past 3x or 5x, so a long zoom camera is not a necessity. That statement does have some truth to it, but if I’m comparing this phone against other big dogs in the Android space, it loses in zoom shots.

In a vacuum, the Find X3 Pro’s 5x and 10x zoom shots are still decent, but once they’re compared against a shot by a Periscope camera, then its flaws become apparent.

Here’s the Find X3 Pro’s 10x zoom shot compared to a 10x shot captured by the Huawei Mate X2’s Periscope zoom lens.

10x zoom shots side-by-side against Huawei Mate X2.

The Find X3 Pro’s main camera can “only” shoot video up to 4k/60 instead of the 8k/30 seen in Samsung and Xiaomi’s recent flagships, but it doesn’t bother me much. I find little to no use with 8k video recording right now. I find the 4k/30 to be the best setting for the Find X3 Pro — videos appear stable, balanced, and full of punchy colors.

There’s also a Pro video shooting mode that offers granular controls, including the ability to switch between lenses and adjust focus, shutter speed, and white balance manually, even in the middle of recording a video. It’s a feature that LG phones have offered for a few years, but the Find X3 Pro’s camera hardware is significantly superior to any LG camera hardware over the past few years.

The Find X3 Pro’s selfie camera is a bit hit and miss. For the most part, shots appear well-detailed and natural (without overly skin smoothening), but if I’m shooting against heavy backlight, selfies can turn out very inconsistent (see the first two selfies in the set below — they were taken back to back). In general, I think Samsung, Google, or Apple’s phones are smarter at finding balance no matter the lighting condition.

Despite the relatively weak zoom camera and inconsistent selfie camera, I’m still very impressed with the Find X3 Pro’s camera system overall. I love that the ultra-wide camera can capture photos and videos that are very close in sharpness and details compared to the main camera. And the micro-lens is something I haven’t seen from any other phone before.

OPPO Find X3 Pro Performance: Real-world use, Benchmarks, Battery life

With a Snapdragon 888 and 12GB of RAM, the OPPO Find X3 Pro doesn’t disappoint in performance. I’m not much of a benchmark guy, but the Find X3 Pro’s results in Geekbench, 3D Mark, PC Mark all returned top scores.

In real-life usage, I pushed the phone quite heavily. I run the phone at its maximum settings too, at 120Hz refresh rate and WQHD+ resolution, and I’d have Slack open in a floating window at all times, while I jump between Twitter, Instagram, Camera, and Gmail, all while streaming Spotify, and the phone never missed a beat. Animations look great at 120Hz too, but I’ll get to that in the next section.

Battery life, as expected, is not amazing. Since I run the phone at maximum settings and I’m a heavy user, I get just about 4.5 hours of screen-on time on average, and about 12 hours of real-world use with the phone before I completely drain the battery.

The good news is charging via the included 65W brick is crazy fast. Earlier today I plugged in a Find X3 Pro at 13% battery, went to take a quick eight-minute shower, and by the time I got out the battery was at 44%.

OPPO Find X3 Pro: Software

For years, I declared OnePlus’ OxygenOS as my favorite version of Android, even more than Google’s official version that runs on the Pixel phones. I like OxygenOS so much because it has a clean and minimum appearance like stock Android, but it’s also full of small customizations like shortcut gestures to launch apps quicker. OPPO’s ColorOS has been catching up to OxygenOS in the last couple of years, and now with ColorOS version 11.2 in the Find X3 Pro, I’m ready to rank it ahead of OxygenOS as my favorite Android skin of them all.

A big reason for this is because OPPO has basically adapted all of OxygenOS’s awesome shortcuts and customization, like the ability to draw a shape on an off-screen to turn on the camera or flashlight, long-press a fingerprint scanner to directly jump into an app as soon as the phone unlocks, or swipe down with three fingers to grab screenshots.

In fact, ColorOS has one-upped OxygenOS because it offers a one-hand mode, and the ability to open apps in a floating window.

And with 10-bit color being the main selling point of this year’s phone, OPPO has even built a color perception test into the software, which requires the user to select a series of colors based on what they see. Once the results are in, OPPO will adapt colors to that user’s color perception.

Conclusion: Other than the Zoom shots, I have no real complaints

There’s a saying in western culture: “when you do things right, people won’t notice you’ve done anything at all.” I feel like this applies to the state of slab smartphones. We, consumers and reviewers, have become so spoiled by slab smartphones checking every box and nailing all the basics that we sometimes dismiss slab phones as boring.

I am guilty of this. The original Find X, with that quirky design, was a jaw-dropper of a device that was unlike other phones on the market. I remember being so excited for it, I was refreshing my shipping tracking every hour for two days anticipating its delivery. I didn’t feel this way with the Find X3 Pro, because on paper it looked like the six other smartphones I already own.

But you know what? The original Find X was not a practical device to use. That same design that blew everyone away eventually became a hassle, because the phone didn’t have a fingerprint scanner and relied on a pop-up camera to unlock via face scan.

OPPO Find X3 Pro XDA Forums

The Find X3 Pro, by comparison, is a far more practical device. It has a great display, processor and software; a really strong main camera, arguably the best ultra-wide camera, and unique micro-lens that can do things no other phone can do. It’s got fast charging, wireless charging, stereo speakers, great haptics, IP water resistance rating, and feels comfortable in the hand. Other than the lack of a powerful zoom lens, I have no complaints about this phone.

At is usually the case with OPPO phones, pricing varies wildly all over the market. In the UK it’s priced at £1,099 ($1,500), while the price in Ireland is a more reasonable €1149 ($1,375). I’m certain the price will be lower in Asia. In my opinion, $1,500 for the Find X3 Pro is a tough sell, since the Galaxy S21 Ultra costs less. If you can find the Find X3 Pro for $1,375 or lower, then it is a reasonable price for a very polished flagship. However, the Xiaomi Mi 11 is almost objectively a better value.

The post The OPPO Find X3 Pro has the best ultra wide camera I’ve used on a phone appeared first on xda-developers.

Piggybacking off of last year’s feats of “industry-leading color accuracy”, OPPO continues to set its sights even further. With its new full-path color management system, the OPPO Find X3 Pro furthers OPPO’s aim to improve image fidelity from camera to gallery. The Find X3 Pro also adds a new LTPO adaptive refresh rate panel, which will help save extra battery life for the high-resolution, high refresh rate panel.

In his review of the OPPO Find X3 Pro, XDA’s Ben Sin described the screen as “nearly flawless” and as “immersive and brilliant as the panels [he’s] seen in the [Samsung Galaxy] S21 Ultra or Xiaomi Mi 11.” Featuring a large 6.7-inch 3216 x 1440 resolution AMOLED panel, the OPPO Find X3 Pro packs premium display tech and commands an equally premium price. In this review, I’ll be taking a quantitative approach to analyzing the display of OPPO’s latest flagship.

OPPO Find X3 Pro Forums

The OPPO Find X3 Pro unit used for this review was loaned to us by OPPO. However, OPPO did not provide any input or compensation for this review.

Software display features

Subpixel layout for Find X3 Pro, ~20% fill factor

The OPPO Find X3 Pro comes with what OPPO calls its O1 Ultra Vision Engine, which consists of a “Video image sharpener” and a “Video color enhancer”. The features are self-explanatory from their titles. I did not personally test their efficacy in this review, but something to note is that they both claim to increase battery usage and cannot both be enabled at the same time.

The display is also capable of automatic white balance via the Nature tone display feature, which works similarly to Apple’s True Tone feature. Unfortunately, this feature cannot work in tandem with the screen color temperature adjustment, so if you prefer a cooler or warmer white point than what the automatic white balance sets it to, you’re out of luck.

OPPO collaborated with a company called Pixelworks, which specializes in video and image processing, for these features. We have a separate article that covers the capabilities of Pixelworks’ other software and processors. Pixelworks is also responsible for the factory display color calibration of the Find X3 Pro.

Compared to last year’s flagship, the OPPO Find X3 pro is actually missing some features. Namely, it’s missing the video motion interpolation feature (MEMC) and the DC dimming feature. The reason for the lack of MEMC this year is due to the omission of the Pixelworks X5 chip, which the Find X2 Pro used last year to implement some of its display features.

Moving on, another display feature in the OPPO Find X3 Pro is the automatic Reduce contrast option within the Dark mode settings. This feature further dims the display brightness when the system brightness is low and when in dark mode, bringing down the white level from 2.1 nits to 0.9 nits. It’s incredibly useful when using the phone near bedtime, and it’s become my favorite display feature of the phone.

Color vision enhancement is an accessibility feature that corrects colors for those that have color hue deficiencies. It allows you to first take a color vision test to check if you do indeed have a deficiency, and besides the feature, the test itself is pretty fun to take.

Color vision test

Lastly, the full-path color management system is OPPO’s solution to accurately rendering both sRGB and Display P3 content within the Vivid profile. This system is paired with the OPPO Find X3 Pro’s capability of capturing photos in the wider Display P3 color space. It seems to overhaul Android’s own color management system, and from my findings, it’s kind of just the opposite of Android’s solution. Instead of letting Android switch between color spaces for sRGB and Display P3 content, OPPO’s solution keeps the display in the Display P3 color space and lets the Gallery app decode images to sRGB or Display P3.

Color profiles

The OPPO Find X3 Pro comes with four distinct color profiles, each of which changes the color characteristics of the screen.

The Vivid profile is the phone’s default color profile, and it’s characterized by increased color saturation, a bluish-white point, and slightly higher contrast than standard. More specifically, the profile stretches colors out to the Display P3 color space (except for in the stock Gallery app), with a white point measuring about 7000 K and a target gamma power of about 2.30 (compared to the standard of 2.20). OPPO foregoes Android’s native color management system for its own “full-path color management system”, which I’ve found to only be functional within the stock OPPO Gallery app. As per the “full-path color management system” in this profile, photos viewed within the stock Gallery app will be rendered in the sRGB color space by default for color-accurate photo viewing, while P3-tagged photos (such as those taken by the OPPO Find X3 Pro’s camera) will be displayed in the profile’s native P3 color space.

The Gentle profile is a factory-calibrated color profile that targets the sRGB color space, which is the default color space of the Internet and the original color space of most content. The profile targets a gamma power of 2.20 (not the original sRGB transfer function), and the white point of the profile is meant to target the industry-standard D65 illuminant, which corresponds to a color temperature of 6504 K. However, I’ve measured a value closer to about 6200 K for the Gentle profile, which is slightly warmer. At the time of publication, this profile currently does not support Android’s color management, but OPPO tells us that they plan to add color management as part of a system update at the end of March.

The Cinematic profile is another factory-calibrated color profile similar to the Gentle profile, but it instead targets the Display P3 color space. This profile is not accurate just because it is calibrated to a color space; it will still stretch out sRGB colors out to P3, and it is only accurate when viewing properly-encoded P3 content. It is the most niche out of all the profiles, and it should only be used when color accuracy is the highest priority for viewing actual P3 content — or if you just like the look of the color mode.

The Brilliant profile is the most saturated color profile available to the OPPO Find X3 Pro. The profile shares a similarly-bluish white point as the Vivid profile, as well as targeting Display P3 for its red and green color primaries. Moreover, it has further-increased saturation in blues, and the profile can get slightly brighter by increasing the lightness of colors depending on the average pixel level (APL) of the content.

All profiles also provide the option of adjusting the color temperature of the white point, but only when the Nature tone display feature isn’t active since it automatically adjusts the white point to the ambient lighting. Ideally, the two options should work together, with the color temperature slider acting as a bias for the automatic white balance feature. However, there are no devices that I know of with this capability.

Brightness

Peak luminance vs content APL

The peak brightness of the OPPO Find X3 Pro is excellent, typically reaching about 750-800 nits in its high brightness mode. Like most other Androids, this brightness can only be reached when the phone detects a lot of light from its ambient light sensor, such as when it’s brought outside on a sunny day.

Since the OPPO Find X3 Pro uses an OLED panel, the brightness of the pixels change depending on the average pixel level (APL) of the content that is currently being displayed. For fullscreen white, which is where OLEDs consume the most power, the OPPO Find X3 Pro is able to output about 740 nits. When the phone is in its default Vivid profile, the phone moderately varies its brightness of white with APL, and at a median-50% APL, the Vivid profile can output up to 800 nits, which is a touch lighter. The Gentle and Cinematic profiles control their brightness variance, and they have almost no change in luminance with content APL.

These brightness values are about identical to last year’s Find X2 Pro, and while they’re not as bright as Samsung’s latest flagships, these are still respectable figures in 2021.

On the low end, the Find X3 Pro’s dimmest brightness setting yields a white level of about 2.1 nits, which isn’t quite as dim as some other OLEDs that can get down to about 1.7 or 1.8 nits. However, the OPPO Find X3 Pro has a setting called “Reduce contrast in low light conditions” in its Dark mode display settings, and this allows the white level to go down to about 0.9 nits, which is excellent for nighttime viewing. This feature is especially useful since it’ll only activate during dark mode and when the display brightness is low enough.

Contrast and Tone Mapping

Measured at 40% APL (~27% Target ADL)

The default Vivid profile is measured to be decently accurate to the standard 2.20 gamma power, although it does render shadows and midtones just slightly darker throughout its luminance range (except for at minimum brightness). This results in the appearance of slightly higher contrast for the Vivid profile, which complements its vibrant nature. Most other phones also have increased contrast in their respective Vivid profile, but only because they allow the profile to vary its luminance with APL in that profile, resulting in increased contrast but only at higher brightness settings. What makes the OPPO Find X3 Pro somewhat different is that it seems consistent with its increased contrast, even at lower brightness settings. This makes it seem that the profile’s increased contrast is targeted instead of just being a consequence of an OLED characteristic, which is good. In general, a consistency in relative perceived contrast throughout a display’s luminance range is desirable, and it shows proficient calibration control and thoughtfulness.

Measured at 40% APL (~27% Target ADL)

For the phone’s calibrated color modes (Gentle and Cinematic), OPPO demonstrates excellent tonal control. The profiles track the standard 2.20 gamma power nice and tightly throughout its entire luminance range, resulting in both accurate and consistent display contrast, which not many displays are capable of.

At minimum brightness, both profiles have a slight lift in shadows and midtones so that dark details don’t appear completely crushed. This is good attention to detail, but I personally find that a little more lift is needed for a more comfortable viewing experience in low light. The OPPO Find X3 Pro is capable of rendering 1/255 gray, even at minimum brightness, but unless your eyes are dark-adapted, dark tones can still appear crushed.

When the Find X3 Pro is out in the sunlight at max brightness, targeting a lower gamma power instead of the profile’s nominal target would help improve the legibility of the display in those brighter conditions. When viewing photos in high brightness mode, there is indeed some dynamic tone mapping present that boosts shadows and midtones, but it only seems to activate within OPPO’s stock Gallery app. Last year’s Find X2 Pro did this for the entire Gentle profile, so not seeing it in the Find X3 Pro was a bit of a surprise. The legibility of the Vivid profile on the new phone is an improvement, however, since its gamma was actually too high at high brightness on last year’s model.

White Balance and Grayscale Color Precision

Grayscale plots for Vivid profile, 120 Hz

In the phone’s default color profile, a slight green tint can be observed for dark gray color tones at lower brightness levels (below ~25% system brightness). It’s not drastically noticeable, but those that are sensitive to color tints may be bothered by it, especially within dark mode interfaces. Besides that, the white point does appear to be consistent throughout different brightness settings for this profile. However, the average color temperature of the white point (~7000 K) does slightly differ from the average color temperature of the entire grayscale (~6700 K).

Grayscale plots for Gentle & Cinematic profile, 120 Hz

Conversely, the Gentle and Cinematic color profiles are calibrated with outstanding control in their grayscale. I found and measured no observable shifts in color tint for the profiles, even at low brightness. Gradients are exceptionally smooth and free of any banding or tinting. My only complaint is that the white point for the profile is calibrated too warm, measuring consistently about 6200 K. A color temperature adjustment slider is available to use, but I haven’t measured if it could potentially impact the precision of the calibration.

Color Accuracy

Although OPPO employs its “full-path color management system” in its Vivid profile, anyone prioritizing color accuracy should instead utilize the discrete Gentle and Cinematic color modes for sRGB and Display P3 content respectively. Thus, I will not be including sRGB and Display P3 for the Vivid profile, and only for the calibrated Gentle and Cinematic profiles.

sRGB color accuracy plots for Gentle profile

sRGB color accuracy for the Gentle profile is overall excellent. There’s some slight oversaturation at max brightness, which is desirable behavior to counteract some glare. Colors are somewhat undersaturated near minimum brightness, but it’s not a huge issue. At around 25% system brightness, colors seem to appear warmer than usual, resulting in the highest average color error within the display’s brightness range.

Display P3 color accuracy plots for Cinematic profile

Display P3 color accuracy is even better. The undersaturation at minimum brightness is not as prevalent, and the rest of the brightness range is just more accurate in general. This is really good.

Overall, the Gentle and Cinematic profiles provide respectable levels of both color and tonal accuracy. Non-critical color and design work can be performed with higher levels of confidence with the OPPO Find X3 Pro than most other phones and non-professional monitors, although the slightly warmer white point needs to be kept in mind.

HDR10 Playback

Measured at 20% APL ≈ 200 nit frame-average light level  (HDR10 1000)

For HDR10 content, you will want to have “Bright HDR video mode” activated under the display settings for improved highlights. Without it, the peak brightness of the OPPO Find X3 Pro will be limited to below 500 nits, which isn’t bright enough to deliver a compelling range of specular highlights.

Before we get into any other observations or measurements, I found that there was a huge difference when watching HDR content within the stock Gallery app compared to in other apps. This is because the stock Gallery app appears to be doing its own HDR tone mapping instead of just switching to the phone’s HDR color mode, which is what every other app will do to play HDR content. This is not inherently a bad thing, but one issue with it is that the peak brightness of HDR content is limited to 500 nits inside the stock Gallery app (even with “Bright HDR video mode” enabled) unless the Find X3 Pro is in high brightness mode, which only occurs in really bright conditions where HDR content isn’t meant to be viewed in. Thus, my measurements will be based on the phone’s HDR color mode, which will reflect how most consumers will be watching HDR content on their phone.

On one more note, the stock Gallery app does go further with dynamic tone mapping by straying from the PQ curve to lighten color tones in brighter ambient conditions.

The whole point of High Dynamic Range content is in the contrast. The OPPO Find X3 Pro renders HDR10 content with a lift in darker tones so that they appear lighter. This reduces the contrast of HDR content, especially in darker scenes. On the other hand, the midtones and highlights look great, and the measured brightness for 75% PQ of about 750 nits (expecting 1,000 nits) is acceptable for content that is mastered for 1,000 nits. The Find X3 Pro can actually get up to about 900 nits at 100% intensity, but like many other Android phones, it lacks roll-off tone mapping towards the content’s maximum brightness (which is listed in the content’s metadata). This leaves the extra ~150 nits of brightness inaccessible when watching content mastered for 1,000 nits, which includes most HDR content.

In terms of grayscale, the precision of the color of white (or gray) is nice and consistent for HDR content. The color temperature remains close to the D65 standard, averaging about 6430 K with no noticeable shifts in color tint, independent of lightness.

Color accuracy for HDR10 is fine on the OPPO Find X3 Pro, although it slightly misses the full P3 gamut with reds, and there’s a slight undersaturation in greens.

Final Remarks on the OPPO Find X3 Pro

On paper, the display on the OPPO Find X3 Pro may not seem like much of an upgrade over last year’s. However, in absolute terms, it is an upgrade, and overall it’s an excellent display that fixes many of the issues of last year’s model. The new LTPO panel provides an adaptive refresh rate solution that saves more battery, and it prevents color tint differences when the panel switches between refresh rates. The peak brightness remains the same, but its change in tone map behavior allows the Vivid profile to remain more legible than the X2 Pro when viewed outside. Additionally, at low brightness, the OPPO Find X3 Pro looks cleaner with less tint and little-to-no black crush (whereas the Find X2 Pro was a bit messy in both), and the “Reduce contrast” option is also one of the best usability options of this phone for nighttime viewing. Both color and tonal accuracy has improved across the board, lending a more consistent and faithful picture, including within the Vivid profile. And thanks to the new “full-path color management system”, you can now see a more accurate depiction of photos in the stock Gallery and Camera apps within the Vivid color profile.

The post OPPO Find X3 Pro Display Review: Solid Quality All Around appeared first on xda-developers.

The Xiaomi Mi 11 launched globally at the start of February, following a China-only launch in December. Being the first Snapdragon 888-powered device to hit the market, it seemed imperfect given a litany of thermal issues and battery complaints from reviewers globally, even if the rest of the device held up very well. I’ve had my own to play with for the past couple of weeks, and I will be echoing pretty much everything that our senior editor Ben Sin said – this device is premium.

About this review: I received the Xiaomi Mi 11 in Horizon Blue from Xiaomi US on March 4, 2021, for review. Xiaomi had no input in the contents of this review.

Xiaomi Mi 11 Specifications

Xiaomi Mi 11: Design

The Xiaomi Mi 11 packs many premium features, but the best aspect is probably its display. Coming in at 6.81-inches, the QHD+ high-refresh-rate 120Hz display is pretty big for a smartphone, but the curved edges make it easier to hold in one hand. From a usability standpoint, I’m not a fan of curved edges, but they look premium, and Xiaomi gets extra style points as a result. What’s interesting about this particular panel is that it’s curved on all 4 sides. If you’ve seen renders of the Mi 11, you’ll have noticed that each of the 4 corners look uneven from the rest of the frame. While that is technically true, it’s basically completely unnoticeable when the device is actually seen in person. I had actually forgotten about it for about an hour before remembering this particular criticism that I had of the device from looking at renders before receiving it, so I’m confident that this won’t be an issue for most. If you detest curved edges, though, then this was probably never going to be the device for you anyway. Finally, the camera cut-out is a little bit further to the right than I’m used to, but it’s not a big deal, and it’s something that I got used to fairly quickly.

I have one complaint with the display, and I’m surprised to say that it actually relates to the brightness. The display can get up to 1500 nits, according to Xiaomi, but with manual brightness, it gets nowhere near that. While I don’t have the tools to test the brightness level down to the nit, it doesn’t get as bright as I had hoped with manual brightness on, and I wish that I could manually pump the brightness up when I want it. It’s still perfectly visible in pretty much all situations, but I don’t mind cranking the brightness up to full when I’m at home. The built-in “sunlight mode” is enabled by default whenever the device is in direct view of light, which pushes up the brightness, but there’s no way of entering sunlight mode without being in direct view of a bright light source.

I feel that the touch screen’s sensitivity needs some tuning. When scrolling with my phone on the desk, it can misinterpret my finger as tapping the display. The edge touch rejection can likely do with a bit of tuning too. When holding the device in one hand and trying to swipe back, I have found that I can’t reach my thumb high enough most of the time to swipe back outside of the touch rejection zone. This is not a one-handed device, but you probably knew that with any device that comes in at such a large display size anyway. The 480Hz touch sampling rate is great, though I feel that such a high touch response is more of a marketing gimmick than anything else. Smartphones already had pretty quick touch response, and I can’t imagine that the Mi 11’s touch response actually makes a real-world difference. It’s quick to respond to touch input, but I can’t think of any flagships that aren’t.

The rest of the Xiaomi Mi 11 packs a pair of dual speakers – one on the top, one on the bottom, along with a USB-C port on the bottom and an IR Blaster on the top. The volume rocker and the power button are on the right-hand side of the glass chassis, situated on the metal trim sandwiched between the Gorilla Glass Victus on the front and Gorilla Glass 5 on the back. The glass on the back is frosted glass, meaning that it isn’t too much of a fingerprint magnet, and nor is it all that slippery.

The “squircle” camera design on the top left is a unique aspect of this smartphone’s design, housing the powerful tri-camera system. This triple-camera array has multiple layers, with the huge 108MP primary sensor raised slightly above the 13MP ultrawide, which itself is raised slightly above the 5MP macro camera. There’s no headphone jack in the Mi 11, though the company does pack a USB-C to 3.5mm adapter in the box, something that I haven’t seen arrive with a smartphone in a while. Finally, you get a pre-applied screen protector and a clear case in the box.

Xiaomi Mi 11 Software: MIUI 12

First and foremost, the Xiaomi Mi 11 comes with MIUI 12, not MIUI 12.5. I don’t know why that is, but I haven’t heard from Xiaomi at all about an update, even though the Chinese variant of this smartphone launched with MIUI 12.5 in tow. I would imagine that the update will arrive at some point in the near future, but I found it strange that it was supposed to come with it and didn’t.

Aside from that, MIUI 12 is as controversial as ever, and it’s generally a pretty big deterrent to many when it comes to purchasing a Xiaomi smartphone. I’m usually a big fan of it, but I understand that it’s a relatively large departure from stock Android and, as a result, is rather polarising. Having said all of that, I’ve found that MIUI 12 on the Xiaomi Mi 11 is definitely in need of some tweaks. Plagued with bugs and weird decisions, the Mi 11 took me a few days to get it into a condition where I felt that I could actually properly use it without running into yet another infuriating issue. From the very beginning, I immediately noticed that the Mi 11 defaults to 60Hz – why, Xiaomi? It has a big beefy QHD 120Hz display, yet for some reason, it defaults to 60Hz. Furthermore, there’s no 90Hz mode, though enabling the “display refresh rate” option in developer settings shows that it can drop to 90Hz in the multi-tasking menu. Offering 90Hz to users would be a nice middle-ground for battery life versus display frame rate, and I don’t really know why Xiaomi doesn’t. There is also some pre-installed bloatware, though that can be uninstalled. To put it pretty bluntly: if you didn’t like MIUI a few months ago, you wouldn’t like it now. If you liked MIUI before, then you’re probably going to like it a whole lot more on the Mi 11.

I’m going to start with some of the bad before I get into all of the things that I really love about MIUI.

Bugs, bugs, bugs

Facebook Messenger and background applications

I’m sad to say there have been plenty of bugs and other issues. For context: I use Facebook Messenger a lot. With the Android 11 update, Facebook Messenger’s chat heads were replaced by native-to-Android Bubbles, which I used on the Google Pixel 5 and the OPPO Find X2 Pro. However, on the Xiaomi Mi 11, they were completely broken. They would spawn in the middle of the screen (not on the right or left), and when I opened the keyboard inside of a conversation, it was impossible to close the keyboard without turning off and on the screen. Sometimes when I turned the screen back on, my keyboard would still be superimposed over the lock screen, with the only solution being to reboot my device. What’s more, disabling Bubbles for Facebook Messenger did not stop Bubbles from appearing. This is why I think it’s a MIUI 12 issue, as I’ve never had this problem on any other device, and disabling Bubbles for the entire application didn’t work, despite that being a system-level change. In the end, I needed to use an adb command to switch off Bubbles system-wide to prevent them from appearing.

adb shell settings put global notification_bubbles 0

Along the same lines of trying to reply to messages on the Xiaomi Mi 11, the quick reply menu from the notifications is slightly bugged with my messaging apps. In Facebook Messenger, the “like” and “reply” buttons don’t disappear when you tap reply, and this is again only an issue that I have faced on the Mi 11. This may be somehow a Facebook Messenger problem, but I’ve never run into this on any other device.

Finally, MIUI 12’s background app killing makes a return here too. Not only did I find that Facebook Messenger was getting killed off in the background, but also Wavelet. Wavelet is an equalizer that I use with my Sony WH-1000XM3 headphones, but it could not detect when I listened to music. These apps malfunctioned because of MIUI’s battery saver option, which is enabled for each app by default. You can go to an individual app’s settings to disable it if it’s causing difficulties, which I did, and I no longer have problems with either app. From what I can gather, MIUI battery saver attempts to identify which apps you use most (or which apps are important to run in the background) and allow those to still run in the background. Others may only check periodically in the background for notifications, and others may not, at all. For what it’s worth, every other application that I rely on notifications for works fine, so I don’t really mind this too much given how quick of a fix it is. Xiaomi scores pretty highly on DontKillMyApp, which is not that surprising.

AOSP’s blue light filter just won’t turn off… again

When I used the Redmi Note 9T, I found that AOSP’s night mode blue light filter wouldn’t turn off. This was because of settings that were likely in my Google account, pulled in when I set up my new device, and there’s no way of turning this off without adb. You guessed it: that problem is on the Xiaomi Mi 11 too. In case anyone else runs into a similar issue on their unit, it’s quite easy to fix. You need to run two commands after enabling “USB debugging” and “USB debugging (security settings)” in developer options.

adb shell settings put secure night_display_activated 0

adb shell settings put secure night_display_auto_mode 0

Once I ran both of those commands, the problem went away, and MIUI’s blue light filter (dubbed “reading mode”) works fine now. I don’t understand why these values were not reset when I restored my backup, considering that you cannot enable or disable these through normal means. Note that Aamir also faced the same issues on his Realme 7 Pro and Realme X7 Pro, so these are related to how the AOSP values are handled by the skins. It’s not a MIUI-specific issue, but it is an issue on MIUI (and other skins), if that makes sense.

Super wallpapers keep turning off

MIUI has a trio of “super wallpapers” that can be enabled. These are basically live wallpapers consistent in a theme across the always-on display, the lock screen, and the launcher. I was using the “Earth” super wallpaper, but I found that my wallpaper was resetting back to what it was before every day or so. I don’t know why it keeps changing, but it’s impossible to leave it on longer than a day without it reverting to the stock system wallpaper. I imagine it’s something in relation to the super wallpaper process getting killed, but I don’t know what exactly is happening.

Dark mode color bugs

Dark mode on the Xiaomi Mi 11 enables a dark mode for each and every individual app so that apps that don’t have their own built-in dark mode can still fit the rest of the system theme. While a useful feature, it often breaks apps that either can’t use a dark mode or even already have one enabled. It entirely breaks Snapchat so that text isn’t visible, and a lot of my apps end up looking ugly too. It’s useful for apps that don’t have their own dark mode, but I’d much rather enable dark mode for individual apps, rather than having all apps use MIUI’s dark mode by default.

What I like about MIUI 12

MIUI is still packed full of genuinely useful features, which is why I like using it even despite the issues mentioned above. For starters, the MIUI control center (heavily iOS inspired, by the way) is an actually useful menu that I’ve enabled by choice. If enabled, your quick toggles will be moved from the notification menu to the control center, which can be accessed by swiping down on the right side of the notifications bar. Swiping down on the left will bring down your normal notifications. The control enter also has smart home integration so that you can control your smart home devices without needing to open their app. Both the Xiaomi Home and Google Home apps are supported, and any devices on your network that are linked to either app will appear here.

As well, MIUI’s animations are clean and polished. They’re some of my favorite animations of any Android variant, and they add to the overall feeling of speed that you get with a 120Hz display and the latest and greatest flagship chipset. MIUI’s haptics are already amazing too, so I can’t wait to see what the future of MIUI will bring. While MIUI had a bad reputation a few years ago, I find that it now looks good and performs well. The MIUI launcher has an app drawer and no longer dumps everything onto your home screen if you don’t want it to. You can also customize it a fair bit, so I have mine looking a little bit like the Google Pixel launcher. There is even the Google Discovery feed to the left, too. Maybe a bit of a controversial opinion: I like the multi-tasking menu a lot.

Xiaomi Mi 11 Camera Quality

Photos

Generally speaking, I greatly enjoy Xiaomi cameras. I find that they have good quality and that the company’s camera processing can compete and hang with the best in most cases. Obviously, there are edge cases, but by and large, I’ve never felt as if the camera I was using was at a significant disadvantage to other flagships when I used my Xiaomi Mi 9 or my POCO F2 Pro. Having said that, given the marketing hype around the 108MP camera and the Mi 11’s “movie magic,” I found myself rather disappointed at times with the camera quality. It’s not that it’s bad; it’s that it feels like a downgrade from other devices that I have used in the last year.

As well, the camera actually defaults to the “fill” camera mode, which makes photos take on the same aspect ratio as your display. The photo resolution is also greatly reduced, and so I changed the aspect ratio to 4:3 instead. Both the primary sensor and the selfie camera bin down by a factor of 4, creating 27MP and 5MP images respectively. There also is no periscope camera or telephoto camera. The 108MP camera is good for zooming, but it’s not as powerful as a good optical zoom. The leaked Xiaomi Mi 11 Pro and Ultra devices apparently have telephoto cameras, so if this is a big deal to you, then it might be worth waiting to see in what way they may come to fruition.

The Xiaomi Mi 11 has a really interesting feature called AI Sky Replacement, which allows you to replace the sky in a photo with one of many different Xiaomi-made presets. In the below gallery, the first image is the original, and the rest are the same photo with the sky replaced. Some of them admittedly look tacky, but it’s a neat feature to play around with that can yield some really good results in the right conditions. It’s not perfect, and if you look around the edges of the bare tree you can see that it hasn’t perfectly applied the sky replacement around its edges. Still, at a passing glance, I think some of these photos are quite convincing. There are a couple of video options too.

Overall, the sky replacement feature is cool, but also if I’m honest, kind of strange. I’m not too sure what the point of its inclusion was (especially the ability to create replaced sky videos out of an image like the one above) but I guess it’s nice to see innovation using AI anyway.

Videos – Movie Magic

“Movie Magic” is the Xiaomi Mi 11’s tagline, and that’s thanks to the filming features that the Xiaomi Mi 11 has. Not only can you film in 4K 60FPS or 8K 30FPS, but there are 5 specialized “movie effects” that you can apply when taking video, too.

• Magic zoom
• Slow shutter
• Time freeze
• Night time lapse
• Parallel world

These features are inspired by real movie filming techniques, and you can check out Parallel World below. They’re also quite gimmicky, but given that smartphone photography and film-making are becoming more and more common, I can see them being used for artistic purposes.

Normal videos

The Xiaomi Mi 11 can shoot in 8K 30FPS and 4K 60 FPS. If you enable super steady pro mode, you can record in 1080p 30FPS with absolutely crazy levels of stabilization.

Xiaomi Mi 11: Performance

The Xiaomi Mi 11 is one of the first smartphones to launch with the latest and greatest Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 system-on-chip. The Snapdragon 888 features an octa-core CPU configuration with 1x ARM Cortex-X1 core clocked at up to 2.84GHz, 3x ARM Cortex-A78 cores clocked at up to 2.4GHz, and 4x ARM Cortex-A55 cores clocked at up to 1.8GHz. The GPU is Qualcomm’s Adreno 660. The chipset also has an integrated 5G modem. It supports Wi-Fi 6E if the frequencies have been approved in your market and you have compatible networking equipment. You can read our previous coverage if you’re interested in learning more about the chipset that powers this phone. The chipset upgrade promises up to 25% increased CPU performance and up to 35% faster graphics rendering compared to the Snapdragon 865. Overall, some pretty big improvements.

On top of those specs, the Mi 11 also offers up to 256GB of UFS 3.1 internal storage and up to 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM. I attempted to push the Mi 11 to its absolute limit, primarily just to see what would happen. I first tested the phone’s sustained performance with the CPU Throttling Test app, and I wasn’t all too surprised about the results.

If you’re not pushing your phone to its limit and hitting high temperatures, then you’ll nearly always have 100% speed when you need it. The problem comes when the phone gets too hot, where you can see that the CPU clock drops down quite far. There are no active cooling options that you can opt for here unlike the ASUS ROG Phone 5, so it’s good to be mindful that the Mi 11 can certainly heat up if you push it far enough. I generally find the best way to push a smartphone to its limit is via emulation, so I tried out both Citra for Android and Dolphin Emulator.

Citra for Android – Pokemon X

3DS emulation on Android smartphones is a relatively new phenomenon, with improvements coming practically every day in the official Citra for Android emulator. I was able to play Pokemon X at a reasonable framerate on 1x internal resolution, though it occasionally stuttered and dropped frames. It’s still more or less playable though if you don’t mind lag on occasion.

Citra for Android – Animal Crossing: New Leaf

The official Animal Crossing Android game isn’t the most memorable experience, so why not take New Leaf with you instead? It’s perfectly playable with only a few minor slowdowns.

Dolphin Emulator – The Simpsons: Hit & Run

The Simpson: Hit & Run is an old favorite of mine, and it runs near flawlessly on the Mi 11 with 3x internal resolution. There are definitely some slowdowns, but it’s a huge improvement even over the Snapdragon 865 last year. It’s extremely close to perfect emulation, and in its current state, it’s still completely playable.

Dolphin Emulator – The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker

The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker is likely one of the best Gamecube games of all time, and at 3x internal resolution, I was surprised at just how well it ran. I played the game for 15 minutes with no slowdowns whatsoever. I even entered the Forest of Fairies, an incredibly computationally expensive area, and it handled it without a hitch. This, for me, was actually the most impressive test of the Mi 11 and the Snapdragon 888. Being able to play Wind Waker on the go is amazing.

Xiaomi Mi 11: Battery Life and Charging

Battery life

The Xiaomi Mi 11’s thermals and battery life have been much debated, with most reviewers finding the battery life sub-par in their testing. I wouldn’t go so far as to say the Xiaomi Mi 11 has poor battery life, but it’s definitely not as good as I’m used to. The screenshots below show 5 different days of usage using the Mi 11 as a daily driver, and you can see that there is a wide range of screen on times.

If I’m honest, I would be slightly worried that given the national lockdown currently taking place in Ireland, all of these are from extended home-usage. Generally, using a smartphone in one place (often on Wi-Fi) will drain the battery a lot less, but these battery results are already nothing to get too impressed about. The battery life has been temperamental at best.

Because of lockdown, I’ve not really been able to take this device out properly, nor have I ever really experienced poor signal strength on it just yet. I use my phone quite heavily, but my usage is no different from my OPPO Find X2 Pro or Google Pixel 5. I generally expect better from Xiaomi, which is why the battery life has left me feeling somewhat disappointed here. It’s not the best, it’s certainly not the worst, but I definitely expected more for a flagship. I also ran PCMark’s battery life test with full brightness and mobile data on, and the results weren’t as bad as I had feared they may be. They’re still a far cry away from some of the better smartphones, though. Interestingly, the Mi 11 barely heated up throughout this test, remaining mostly cool to the touch.

The Xiaomi Mi 11 has caught a lot of flack for its thermal issues, particularly when completing intensive tasks. While I haven’t really run into this too much, I did on two occasions: one, when screen recording and emulating The Simpsons: Hit & Run, and secondly and oddly when uploading a YouTube video. Both times the device was hot to the touch. I ran a CPU stress test to get an idea of the thermal throttling on the Xiaomi Mi 11, which you can see in the performance section up above, and it’s not actually that out of line with what you’d expect from a flagship.

Charging

The Xiaomi Mi 11 ships with a 55W charger in the box. That’s right, it’s 2021 now folks, and I need to specify that you will be getting a charger with your €649 purchase. That charger can get your phone from 0% to 100% in approximately 50 minutes. From my testing, I was able to get to about 40% in 10 minutes from 0%. It’s crazy fast, and the Xiaomi Mi 11 also supports Qualcomm QuickCharge 4+ and USB-PD.

Even better, there’s support for up to 50W wireless charging if you use Xiaomi’s proprietary wireless charger. I didn’t get one of those, but I still have my 20W wireless charger from the Xiaomi Mi 9… and that does charge the Mi 11 at 20W. It’s not the fastest, but it’s still considerably faster than most Qi-compatible smartphones.

Miscellaneous Features

Speaker (audio and call quality)

Harmon Kardon tunes the Xiaomi Mi 11 dual speakers, and they sound genuinely impressive. I was surprised to find myself using my phone’s speakers a lot more, generally when I was too lazy to connect to my speaker. Are they a replacement for a dedicated Bluetooth speaker? Probably not. Are they the best speakers I’ve heard on a smartphone to date? Almost certainly. They’re loud and don’t really distort, and there is bass present in the audio, though it’s not extremely powerful. To put it simply: they’re really good speakers for a smartphone, but they’re still smartphone speakers.

The top speaker is a good bit quieter than the bottom-firing speaker, a typical imbalance that we usually see in smartphones. The top-firing speaker also technically has two outputs – the four holes at the top do output some sound, but there is an actual earpiece wedged between the metal and the display as well, where the majority of sound comes out of. For phone calls, it’s loud, and the person on the other end has no difficulty in hearing me.

Signal strength

Signal strength is a feature that’s rather hard to test at the moment. Generally, in my bedroom, I had trouble getting better than an H+ connection on the Google Pixel 5, but on the Xiaomi Mi 11, I’m nearly always on LTE. The same goes for in and around my town – often on the Google Pixel 5 my signal would swap between H+ and LTE, but now I’m nearly always on LTE instead.

The Xiaomi Mi 11 offers excellent bang for the buck

The Xiaomi Mi 11 is a beautiful-looking smartphone with a lot of power hidden behind a relatively lower price-tag when compared to the opposition. A fantastic chipset with a very good primary sensor and super-fast charging puts the Xiaomi Mi 11 in an excellent position. Is it likely going to hold the title of the best smartphone of 2021? Obviously it’s too early to say (and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise), but I’d lean towards no. It’s an amazing device, but its camera system for sure has been out-classed by competitors, and the litany of frustrating software issues means that a lot of other OEMs have Xiaomi beat here if you’re particularly sensitive to those. The speakers are a wonderful selling point as well, and for a starting price of €649, you can’t really go wrong with the latest and greatest Qualcomm chipset.

The post The Xiaomi Mi 11 is an excellent bang-for-buck option, and here’s why appeared first on xda-developers.

Since its inception as a smartphone brand, OnePlus has struggled to address the dichotomy between its motto — “Never Settle” — and the actual hardware it puts out. In a sense, if you went with OnePlus, you had to settle in some aspect, usually the display or the camera (but never the performance). Last year though, OnePlus phones finally jumped up a tier into premium flagship territory with the introduction of a top-tier display. This year, OnePlus is cementing its status as a premium smartphone brand with its new OnePlus 9 Pro.

OnePlus finally took the wraps off the OnePlus 9, the OnePlus 9 Pro, and the OnePlus 9R today following weeks of teasers. The OnePlus 9 Pro is the hero device of the trio, and it sports ultra-premium hardware (and an ultra-premium price tag to boot). Featuring a large 6.7-inch AMOLED display that runs at Quad HD+ resolution and refreshes at up to 120Hz, the OnePlus 9 Pro is every bit as premium as last year’s OnePlus 8 Pro when it comes to the display. While there are many notable display and charging improvements over last year’s model, the biggest change has happened to the camera setup. In a multi-year partnership inked with Swedish camera firm Hasselblad, OnePlus promises its new OnePlus 9 series features the company’s biggest camera upgrade yet.

Marketing and reality are rarely one and the same in this industry, but even if OnePlus’ partnerships with Hasselblad for the camera and Pixelworks for the display end up being marketing fluff, it’s hard to argue with the results. With the OnePlus 9 Pro, OnePlus doesn’t just deliver on its “Never Settle” motto but also goes beyond that by making one of the best phones available right now.

About this review: I received the OnePlus 9 Pro in Morning Mist with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage from OnePlus USA. I have used the phone for about 2 weeks. OnePlus did not screen this review or provide any input into its contents.

OnePlus 9 Pro Forums

Navigate this review

1. Design: The OnePlus 9 Pro in Morning Mist
2. Camera: Does the OnePlus x Hasselblad partnership matter?
   1. Picture Quality
   2. Video Quality
3. Display: How enjoyable is it to watch content on the OnePlus 9 Pro?
   1. Panel Quality
   2. Display Features
4. Performance: How fast is the OnePlus 9 Pro?
   1. Real-world Performance
   2. Gaming Performance
5. Battery & Charging: How long does the OnePlus 9 Pro last?
   1. Battery Life
   2. Charging Speeds
6. Software: OxygenOS 11 based on Android 11
   1. User Interface
   2. Features
   3. Development and Modding Proposition
7. Accessories: Bumper Case, Warp Charge 50 Wireless Charger
   1. Karbon Bumper Case
   2. 50W Wireless Charger
8. Miscellaneous: Audio, Vibration, Connectivity & More
9. Conclusion: Should you buy the OnePlus 9 Pro?

Design: The OnePlus 9 Pro in Morning Mist

When the average person looks at a smartphone, it’s hard for them to differentiate between rectangular slabs of glass and metal. The OnePlus 9 Pro is exactly that — a rectangular slab of glass (on the front and back) and metal (on the frame). But even so, OnePlus phones can be distinguished from other phones, even ones from its parent company OPPO.

OnePlus says it strives to create a “burdenless design” in all its products, which the company’s CEO Pete Lau describes as an approach to minimalism, “efficiency”, thinness, and fluidity. Certainly, the bezels, display curvature, and hole-punch cutout are all minimal in size; the phone’s width keeps it well within the palm of my hand; and the phone is speedy as can be thanks to packing a flagship-tier Snapdragon chip, but these are all aspects we’ve come to expect from premium flagship phones. So what about the OnePlus 9 Pro’s design that puts it in that category?

First, let’s talk about the front of the device. The OnePlus 9 Pro’s large, 6.7-inch AMOLED display covers nearly the entirety of the front. The bezels are so small that there’s only room for a single speaker at the top but not the bottom (which is instead located on the actual bottom of the device). The display itself is only interrupted by a tiny hole-punch cutout on the left for the single front-facing camera. The display curves ever-so-slightly around the left and right edges, in contrast to the dramatically curved edges of the OnePlus 8 Pro. I’m glad that OnePlus pulled back on the curvature of the display with this generation. I find the more the curve approaches 90°, the more impractical the phone becomes to use because of light reflections and accidental touches. Some may disagree as so-called “waterfall” displays look more futuristic (and thus are perceived as more premium), but I think there’s a good reason why most OEMs that experimented with “waterfall” displays have reduced the curvature with subsequent models.

Next, the back of the phone is clean-looking, only marred by OnePlus’s minimalist logo etched in black in the center and an understandably large camera bump in the top left. OnePlus has once again selected colors, materials, and finishes that make the device look great in renders and photos but are a mixed bag when it comes to usability. I have the OnePlus 9 Pro in the Morning Mist edition, and while I love the sleek gray color that transitions from silver to black, I’m not a fan of the glossy mirror finish that makes the phone a smudgy fingerprint magnet. If you have the choice, I would recommend grabbing the OnePlus 9 Pro in Pine Green with its double-layer matte finish.

Regardless, the OnePlus 9 Pro looks and feels great when held in my hand. The aluminum frame feels more premium than a plastic frame, and the phone’s dimensions (163.2 x 73.65 x 8.65 mm) and weight (197g) make it so the device never feels unwieldy. I can easily hold the phone in one hand, though my thumbs aren’t monstrously large enough to reach the top of the screen. Flip the phone over to landscape mode and you shouldn’t have any trouble reaching any part of the screen with both thumbs in play. Plus, the phone’s minimal curves and thin mid-frame make it easy to grip, which should prove to be a boon for anyone looking to game on the OnePlus 9 Pro. My previous two phones were the ASUS ROG Phone 5 and ASUS ZenFone 7 Pro, both of which are behemoths when it comes to weight and thickness, so I appreciate scaling down to a phone that’s under 9mm in thickness and under 200g in weight.

When you lay it down on a table, the OnePlus 9 Pro surprisingly doesn’t wobble as much as I thought it would given how large the camera bump is. The back is mostly flat though, which helps with the phone’s stability on a table. Buttons are easily pressable on the sides and are all contained within the 2.2mm aluminum frame. Unlike OnePlus’ budget phones, the OnePlus 9 Pro retains the Alert Slider on the right side, which can be switched between three positions to silence all alerts, set alerts to vibrate the phone, or enable sound for all alerts.

On the bottom, you’ll find the secondary speaker to complete the phone’s dual stereo speaker setup, and you’ll also find a USB Type-C port for fast charging, data, and video output. You can tell that video output is an afterthought for OnePlus since OxygenOS 11 on the OnePlus 9 Pro still doesn’t feature a proper desktop mode interface, so all you’ll get when plugging the phone into a monitor is a mirrored version of whatever’s on the screen (unless you go out of your way to customize it.) The SIM card tray only holds one nanoSIM card in North American models but can likely hold two in European or Indian models. There’s still no headphone jack to be found here, so you’ll have to purchase an adapter or use a Bluetooth audio accessory to listen to music privately.

Lastly, a note about durability. The OnePlus 9 Pro is mostly made of glass so it’s expected to be more fragile than phones made of plastic. No surprise then that OnePlus slapped a layer of Corning’s Gorilla Glass on the front and back, though it’s not using Corning’s strongest Gorilla Glass Victus. The OnePlus 9 Pro can also withstand light splashes and dunks of water, which OnePlus certified by paying to have the device rated IP68 for dust and water resistance. You’ll have to check to make sure that water damage is actually covered by warranty, though. I can’t put my OnePlus 9 Pro review unit through a drop or water test, but I’m sure a few YouTubers will put these claims to the test.

Camera: Does the OnePlus x Hasselblad partnership matter?

OnePlus isn’t the first phone maker to partner with a camera company. There’s also ZEISS’s partnership with the lenses on the Vivo X60 series, Sony Xperia 1 II, and multiple Nokia-branded phones from HMD Global. Huawei, though, has partnered with Leica on smartphone optics all the way dating back to the P9 from 2016. The exact nature of these partnerships differs from company to company, but one thing that’s certain is that they’re major marketing opportunities for the smartphone brand. The fact that many smartphone cameras still struggle to produce clear and color accurate photos in all lighting conditions leads people to believe these partnerships are purely marketing.

Even if that’s true in this case — and OnePlus adamantly denies this — does it really matter if the phone takes excellent photos and the price doesn’t go up that much? If it worked out for Huawei and seems to be working out for Vivo, then why not OnePlus? OnePlus phones have a reputation for providing a middling camera experience, so clearly something needed to change. According to OnePlus, they plan to invest over $150 million over the next three years to refine their phones’ mobile imaging capabilities. They’re working with Hasselblad to calibrate the image sensors, tune the color science, and add a new pro mode with lots of custom options. Eventually, we’re told the partnership will evolve into custom hardware including custom lenses. We’re not at the point yet where OnePlus is using custom Hasselblad lenses, but the OnePlus 9 Pro does feature a new color solution applied to all image sensors called Natural Color Calibration with Hasselblad and a Hasselblad Pro Camera mode.

In addition, OnePlus is also debuting Sony’s new 1/1.43″ IMX789 image sensor for the main camera. It’s a 48MP image sensor with Sony’s 2×2 on-chip lens solution, supports 12-bit raw capture, and is paired with an optical image stabilizer module to stabilize user-induced motion. The secondary camera features Sony’s recent 1/1.56″ IMX766 image sensor that’s also found in the OPPO Find X3 Pro, which we praised for producing superb wide-angle shots. The IMX766 is paired with a freeform lens for distortion-free (down to 1%) ultra wide-angle photos and macro photography as close as 4cm from the subject.

The third camera is an 8MP telephoto camera that offers 3.3X optical zoom and is stabilized with OIS. The zoom setup on OnePlus phones hasn’t seen many improvements since the OnePlus 7 Pro, but the native optical zoom plus super resolution techniques combine to produce sharp photos under 5X zoom. Then there’s a 2MP monochrome lens that is only useful for improving black and white photos. This was probably added so OnePlus could say the OnePlus 9 Pro has a “quad camera” setup if I’m being honest. Last but not least, selfies are captured by the phone’s 16MP Sony IMX461 and its fixed-focus lens. These three cameras are serviceable but nothing to write home about, which is why they’re less prominent in OnePlus’s marketing.

With the Hasselblad x OnePlus partnership explained and the camera specs detailed, here’s a look at a bunch of photos and videos taken by a OnePlus 9 Pro.

Picture Quality

Due to size constraints, all the images in this review have been resized and compressed. If you’re interested in viewing the sample photos in original quality, then check out this Google Photos album I put together.

OnePlus 9 Pro Original Quality Camera Samples

Generally, the main camera on the OnePlus 9 Pro will capture a ton of light but sacrifices some detail. Binned 12MP photos seem overly sharpened but not oversaturated, unlike previous generations. Outdoor and indoor photos in good lighting also generally show good contrast and dynamic range, but even with such a large image sensor, OnePlus still caps the minimum ISO at 100.

Indoor and outdoor photos taken by the main camera on the OnePlus 9 Pro

OnePlus’ image processing has tended to favor high contrast and saturated colors, with red color tones standing out more than other colors. However, colors seem fairly balanced in images taken by the main camera from a quick glance through the photos I’ve taken.

Previous OnePlus phones have had issues with switching between wildly disparate color profiles even when panning slightly in the same scene, but I have not experienced any such issues with the OnePlus 9 Pro. However, I do notice that sometimes shots from the ultra wide-angle camera come out a bit more saturated than shots from the main camera, and vice versa. This indicates that OnePlus still hasn’t nailed color consistency between the main and wide-angle cameras. Further, the white balance isn’t totally consistent between all the main/ultra wide-angle/telephoto, though the difference is not that observable at a glance.

Low-light shots are where the OnePlus 9 Pro’s main image sensor shines. Due to the sheer size of the sensor, the main camera can absorb a lot of light, even without using the dedicated night mode (called “Nightscape”). Image capture does take a second or two in dim lighting conditions, though. In especially low-light situations, Nightscape brightens the image significantly and brings out a ton of detail that’s not otherwise visible, albeit at the cost of smoothening the image a bit. Unfortunately, only the main camera fares well in low-lighting conditions, as images from the ultra wide-angle and especially the selfie camera came out soft and mushy.

Indoor and outdoor low-light photos taken by the main camera on the OnePlus 9 Pro

In good lighting, the front-facing camera maintains decent hair and facial detail without overly smoothening/beautifying my face. My skin tone generally came out looking natural as well. However, the OnePlus 9 Pro sometimes failed to properly expose for my face when trying to capture a sun-backlit selfie. In dim lighting conditions, the OnePlus 9 Pro aggressively exposes for any visible faces but, as a result, tends to sacrifice facial detail. Portrait mode for selfie photos has been hit or miss for me, with the algorithm failing a few times at capturing the contours of my ears (and thus blurring them out of the picture).

Selfie photos taken by the front-facing camera on the OnePlus 9 Pro

Portrait mode photos taken from the rear cameras fare better with edge detection due to the multi-lens setup. However, the bokeh effect is a bit soft in my opinion. I prefer an effect that mimics a much more shallow depth of field than OnePlus’ more conservative bokeh. There also seems to be a lot of skin smoothing being applied in post-processing in contrast to selfie photos.

As I previously mentioned, OnePlus has done a good job at generally matching the white balance between the ultra wide-angle and the main image sensor. I don’t notice a halo effect where there’s high contrast, and there’s also no visible distortion of objects or persons near the edges. Like with the main camera though, you lose a lot of detail when cropping into a pixel-binned 12MP photo. OnePlus makes up for this by overly sharpening everything, making images appear sharp at a glance.

Ultra wide-angle photos taken on the OnePlus 9 Pro.

The telephoto camera on the OnePlus 9 Pro only produces 8MP images that are okay for zooming in to read text on faraway objects (but not too far). I’m overall disappointed by the telephoto camera, as images are often grainy, have a different color profile than images from the other rear cameras, and are too low-resolution to make cropping in any further useless. If 3.3X optical zoom photos can’t capture objects or animals that are pleasing to look at, then I don’t expect much from zoom levels past 3.3X.

The fourth camera’s a gimmick, so I didn’t bother taking any black and white photos. I also haven’t tested the new tilt-shift mode, a software feature that makes scenes appear smaller than they actually are by simulating the miniature effect of a tilt-shift lens.

Overall, I would say my impressions of the camera on the OnePlus 9 Pro are mixed. While the phone does take great shots from the main and ultra wide-angle cameras (the latter only in good lighting), I’m disappointed by the middling telephoto and selfie cameras. I generally take way more telephoto shots than wide-angle shots, but I’m supposedly an outlier in that regard. The ultra wide-angle and the main camera are the subjects of intense marketing by OnePlus, so I’d expect those to be good — and they are, for the most part. OnePlus cameras in the past have struggled with color accuracy and white balance, but these are less of a concern with the OnePlus 9 Pro. I don’t know if we can attribute these improvements to OnePlus, Hasselblad, or both (the company will tell us it’s both). Regardless, they have made notable improvements, and I hope they continue to make improvements that result in better zoom shots and selfies.

Since I generally snap photos using auto mode on my smartphone, it’s likely that I could have taken better shots had I switched over to manual mode. If you’re comfortable with shooting in manual, then you can use the Hasselblad Pro Camera mode exclusive to the OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 9 Pro. You can change the ISO, focus, white balance, shutter speed, and more. You can also shoot in 12-bit raw which captures 64 times the color compared to capturing in 10-bit raw.

The OnePlus Camera app, in general, is incredibly well thought out. You can switch between camera modes by swiping directionally in the viewfinder. Instead of swiping over to a “more” section like in most camera apps, you can surface the full list of camera modes by simply swiping from anywhere near the shutter button towards the viewfinder. Changing the zoom level is also straightforward and simple, with a slider wheel appearing as soon as you hold your finger down on any of the three default zoom levels. The camera’s AI features (called “Smart Scene Recognition”) also don’t hijack your picture-taking as they sometimes do in other camera apps, with the only exception being the automatic switch to the wide-angle “super macro” mode; this switch happens appropriately most of the time but can be turned off in settings anyway. OnePlus has also borrowed and improved upon features found in Google’s Camera app, with features such as Quick Share to quickly share video recordings to social media apps and a long-press of the shutter button to do a quick capture with a dedicated lock button and zoom slider.

My only annoyance with the app is the long animation that plays when transitioning between camera lenses. I suspect this is done to mask the switching, but it feels longer than it should be.

Video Quality

Video recording on the OnePlus 9 Pro sees improvements with the introduction of DOL-HDR, or Digital Overlap HDR, to record subjects more clearly in backlit environments. Colors appear accurate and not overly saturated, while contrast also appears decent when recording in good lighting conditions. In low-lighting conditions, the main camera also performs incredibly well at capturing details, though the same can’t be said of the ultra wide-angle and telephoto cameras as scenes appear much darker from these lenses.

Switching between lenses seems to be improved on the OnePlus 9 Pro, as zooming in and out between the ultra wide-angle, main, and telephoto lenses look seamless during recording. Videos recorded at 4K60 are stabilized well and appear smooth during playback. The bitrate for 4K60 videos can exceed 80,000 kbps, while audio is recorded at a bitrate of 288 kbps. During recording, the microphones pick up voices loud and clear even in noisy and windy environments. The microphone that’s right next to the cameras is used to achieve audio zoom, which essentially means that the audio is amplified in the same direction that the camera zooms in on.

The OnePlus 9 Pro can also record at 8K30 and 4K120, but the practical use cases of these modes are limited. Front-facing videos are limited to 1080p60, unfortunately, and aggressively expose visible faces in the frame, often blowing out the background. Front-facing videos captured at night likewise overly expose for faces, resulting in a loss of facial detail.

Nightscape videos are limited to 1080p but are recorded at 30fps and also appear jittery, so it’s only recommended you record this way when you’re pointing your phone in one direction. OnePlus says the OnePlus 9 Pro features “Nightscape Video 2.0”, but I’m not sure what’s been improved here.

Overall, I wouldn’t say that video recording is a highlight of the OnePlus 9 Pro, but it could be better. Once again, the ultra-wide-angle camera isn’t on par with the main camera in low-lighting conditions.

Display: How enjoyable is it to watch content on the OnePlus 9 Pro?

Although OnePlus doesn’t manufacture its own displays, its phones have generally been ahead of the curve when it comes to cutting-edge display technology. By sourcing its displays from Samsung, OnePlus is able to ship premium-quality AMOLED displays with high refresh rates and resolutions. The OnePlus 7 Pro, for example, was the first mainstream phone to feature a 90Hz refresh rate panel, while the OnePlus 8 Pro (and its OPPO-made counterpart) was the first to feature a Quad HD resolution display alongside a 120Hz refresh rate. While Samsung themselves have beaten OnePlus to the punch by shipping the first variable refresh rate OLED panel in a phone, OnePlus isn’t too far behind. With the OnePlus 9 Pro, OnePlus has launched its first-ever smartphone with a high-resolution variable refresh rate display, solidifying the device among the best of the best when it comes to smartphone displays.

What’s more, OnePlus has even overtaken its parent company OPPO when it comes to display hardware. The OnePlus 8 Pro and the OPPO Find X2 Pro were nearly identical when it came to the display hardware and features, but the OnePlus 9 Pro and the OPPO Find X3 Pro have diverged in their display feature set. Sure, the OPPO Find X3 Pro also features a large 6.7-inch Quad HD+ AMOLED display with an adaptive refresh rate, but OPPO’s flagship has regressed a bit when it comes to display features as it instead opts for Pixelworks’ software solutions — unlike its predecessor. On the other hand, the OnePlus 9 Pro has the Pixelworks X5 Pro chip and software solution, enabling features such as MEMC (Motion Estimation Motion Compensation) among others.

An extra display processing chip doesn’t mean the OnePlus 9 Pro will necessarily have the better display, though. In his review of the OPPO Find X3 Pro’s display, XDA’s Dylan Raga found little fault with OPPO’s flagship. On the other hand, Dylan’s review of the OnePlus 8 Pro was less than flattering due to the numerous quality control issues that he — and others — dealt with. Top-tier display hardware can be easily marred by subpar calibration and poor quality control, though fortunately, my review unit shows none of those problems.

Panel Quality

The OnePlus 9 Pro — at least, my particular unit — appears visually excellent in its default “Vivid” screen calibration mode. There’s also a “Natural” color mode that likely better targets the sRGB and P3 color gamuts, and there’s also an “Advanced” mode with options to choose the target gamut as well as adjust the color temperature and green/magenta balance. XDA’s Dylan Raga will likely take a closer look at these display modes in greater detail once he gets his hands on a unit, so I’ve only been approaching this review from a layman’s perspective.

During my two weeks with the OnePlus 9 Pro, I’ve immensely enjoyed watching videos and reading web content on it. The OnePlus 9 Pro has surpassed the OPPO Find X2 Pro and Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra as my favorite smartphone display in both quality and features, and I hope there are no quality control issues this time around so everyone else has the same experience that I have.

I’ve kept an eye out for the various display issues that users had with the OnePlus 8 Pro but can’t say I’ve noticed any of them. Like Dylan’s OPPO Find X3 Pro, my OnePlus 9 Pro review unit reproduces grays accurately with no color tinting in low brightness and ambient lighting conditions. Flesh tones also appear accurate, with no unnatural shift toward red or pink in the skin tones of various YouTubers I watch (eg. Mark Rober). There’s no discernible color shifting whenever the refresh rate switches adaptively. In low brightness settings and in darker backgrounds, there’s no black crush that results in unviewable black scenes (eg. Interstellar’s famous docking scene). Other issues typical of poor-quality OLED screens, such as banding, a rainbowing effect, or blue shift at angles, are not present on my unit. By default, the display’s white point looks to be a bit warmer than the cooler, more saturated AMOLED displays many people are used to.

OnePlus says the peak brightness of the 9 Pro can reach 1,300 nits (likely measured at 100% APL and with high brightness mode enabled). While using the phone outdoors, I’ve had absolutely no trouble reading the display even under direct sunlight here in Texas. HBM kicks in as expected when adaptive brightness is turned on, and it both boosts the maximum brightness and seemingly tweaks the gamma curve to improve the perceived contrast of the display. On the other end of the spectrum, the OnePlus 9 Pro gets dim enough to be very comfortable to read on at night (a bad habit I need to grow out of).

OnePlus says the OnePlus 9 Pro features Samsung’s E4 light-emitting material, which is partly why the OLED screen can get so bright without dramatically raising the power consumption. In addition, the company says the device features a native 10-bit color depth though there’s no end-to-end 10-bit color support like on OPPO’s flagship. The device also supports HDR10+ content in video streaming apps.

The OnePlus 9 Pro gets bright enough under the sun for you to see the icon for the optical under-display fingerprint scanner. When you place your finger on this icon, the pixels around the sensor are temporarily lit up to peak brightness in order to read your fingerprint. It’s fast and responsive, but the location is lower on the screen than I’d prefer.

The OnePlus 9 Pro runs at a maximum Quad HD+ resolution (3216 x 1440) at 525ppi. Text is super crisp and easy to read on the phone’s large 6.7-inch panel.

The OnePlus 8 Pro also had a big, bright, and high-resolution display, but the OnePlus 9 Pro is the first from OnePlus to feature “Fluid Display 2.0”, the company’s term for adaptive refresh rate. Using an LTPO, or low-temperature polycrystalline oxide, backplane designed for OLED panels, the OnePlus 9 Pro features a “Smart 120Hz” refresh rate, enabling it to go from 1-120Hz depending on the content. This differs from the “adaptive” refresh rates that most high-end phones with OLED panels use today, which simply switch between a handful of calibrated display modes. Instead, the refresh rate of the OLED panel can be dynamically adjusted just like typical LCDs seen in many computer monitors. This theoretically results in lower power consumption as the phone can idle at lower refresh rates for content that doesn’t update that often, such as text.

Android provides no way to detect the actual refresh rate of the panel, so we can’t easily test the effect of the adaptive refresh rate on the power consumption of the display. Still, the benefits of adaptive refresh rate are clear and the implementation seems to have little to no drawbacks as there’s no noticeable color shift when switching, which was one of the biggest issues with previous OLED panels switching between display modes.

Display Features

Featuring Pixelworks’ X5 Pro solution, the OnePlus 9 Pro includes multiple quality-of-life features to improve the visual experience. Perhaps my favorite display feature of the OnePlus 9 Pro is “comfort tone.” Using RGB ambient light sensors, the OnePlus 9 Pro can detect the color temperature of the surroundings and adjust the screen’s color temperature accordingly. It’s a lot like AmbientEQ on Google’s Pixel 4 and Nest Hub and Apple’s TrueTone for iPhones. In my experience, AmbientEQ on the Pixel 4 barely made a difference, but the effect is far more noticeable on the OnePlus 9 Pro. No matter the lighting condition, I’ve always felt that the OnePlus 9 Pro’s display has been easy on my eyes, and that’s thanks in large part to leaving “comfort tone” enabled.

My next favorite feature is MEMC, which OnePlus calls “motion graphics smoothing” in settings. This feature boosts the frame rate of video content in supported apps to make them appear smoother to the user. Videos that were encoded at 24 or 30fps, for example, can be boosted to 60fps (or 120fps if you enable “hyper motion smoothing” in OnePlus Laboratory settings, but I don’t recommend it). Only a handful of apps are supported, such as the built-in Gallery app, Amazon Prime Video, VLC, YouTube, and Netflix, but unlike on the OPPO Find X2 Pro, the MEMC effect is incredibly noticeable. I watch a lot of anime with motion interpolation enabled on my TV, and I think the effect works very well for animated content.

Watching the Goku vs Jiren fight from Dragon Ball Super is super enjoyable on the OnePlus 9 Pro with motion graphics smoothing.

It also generally works well for other content, though I’ve noticed a few artifacts from motion interpolating during very fast-moving scenes. Motion interpolating video content with real people in it can be jarring for some users, leading to what some viewers experience as the “soap opera effect.” Personally, I prefer leaving it on over watching videos judder during screen panning, but to each their own. At the start of every video, OxygenOS warns you that “motion graphics smoothing” is “starting”, so it’ll never be turned on without you knowing about it.

There are a handful of other interesting display features, including “Vibrant Color Effect Pro” which seemingly refers to SDR-to-HDR tone mapping. This feature will make videos appear as if they’re HDR even when they’re actually SDR, allowing you to view a lot of normal content with great color vibrancy. There’s also an “ultra-high video resolution” feature which is actually a sweet AI resolution upscaler, but sadly it only works in three apps: WeChat, Instagram, and Snapchat.

Lastly, all of the other OnePlus display features return on the OnePlus 9 Pro, including vision comfort to reduce the blue tint for better nighttime viewing, dark mode to ease eye strain at night, and reading mode to make for a more comfortable reading experience with a monochromatic or chromatic effect.

Performance: How fast is the OnePlus 9 Pro?

Powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888, the OnePlus 9 Pro is a true flagship performer. The Snapdragon 888 features an octa-core CPU comprised of a single ARM Cortex-X1 core clocked at up to 2.841GHz, three ARM Cortex-A78 cores clocked at up to 2.419GHz, and four ARM Cortex-A55 cores clocked at up to 1.804GHz. It also features Qualcomm’s most powerful mobile GPU, the Adreno 660, with an unknown core count and clock frequency. In benchmarks, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 promises 25% faster CPU performance and 35% faster graphics rendering performance compared to the Snapdragon 865 found in the OnePlus 8 and 8T. Lastly, the OnePlus 9 Pro paired the SoC with either 8 or 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 128 or 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage.

Real-world Performance

We’ve devised a series of benchmarks that test the real-world performance of Android phones. The first test is a real-world test of app launch speeds that launches twelve popular apps we use each day in succession for 30 iterations. These apps are all “cold” launched on the device, meaning the app isn’t cached in memory before it’s launched. Timing is stopped when the app’s main activity first begins to draw, so there’s no waiting on content to load from the network. Thus, this test can determine how quickly a device can load an app from storage into memory, with the caveat being that this test is sensitive to changes in the app and OS version.

On the OnePlus 9 Pro, we can see that the device takes over half a second on average to launch many popular apps like Discord and YouTube. On the other hand, apps like Chrome, Facebook, Messages, Photos, and WhatsApp load below or basically at 300ms. These results are generally faster than the app launch times posted by last year’s devices like the ASUS ZenFone 7 Pro, Google Pixel 5, and OnePlus Nord but slightly fall behind the phone’s contemporary, the mighty ROG Phone 5 Ultimate. The differences aren’t too dramatic though, also keeping in mind the fact that the phone has enough RAM to keep most of these apps open in memory or at least compressed as cached memory.

The next test we’ve created is a modified version of Google’s open-source JankBench benchmark. This benchmark simulates a handful of common tasks you’ll see in everyday apps, including scrolling through a ListView with text, scrolling through a ListView with images, scrolling through a low-hitrate text render view, scrolling through a high-hitrate text render view, inputting and editing text with the keyboard, repeating overdraws with cards, and uploading bitmaps. Our script records the draw time for each frame during the test, eventually plotting all the frames and their draw times in a plot along with several horizontal lines representing the target frame draw times for the four common display refresh rates (60Hz, 90Hz, 120Hz, and 144Hz.)

OnePlus 9 Pro results in Google’s JankBench benchmark

ASUS ROG Phone 5 results in Google’s JankBench benchmark

In 5 out of 7 tests, the OnePlus 9 Pro renders over 99% of frames faster than 8.33ms — which is the target frame draw time for the device’s 120Hz display. In the “Edit Text Input” test, though, the OnePlus 9 Pro experiences “jank”, or frames missing the target, for 10.9% of all frames rendered. This suggests there may be the occasional frame drop when inputting text on the keyboard. In my experience, though, I haven’t really noticed many janky drops when typing, and I’m pretty sensitive to that.

The other test that the OnePlus 9 Pro doesn’t excel in is the “Bitmap Upload Test”, with a whopping 62.9% of all frames missing the 120Hz target. That’s definitely disappointing to see, but in practice, my go-to “heavy” app with lots of images and videos — Twitter — doesn’t drop that many frames when I’m scrolling through my feed. I can definitely tell that there’s some jank when scrolling through Twitter and it’s not as smooth in day-to-day use as my ROG Phone 5 is. However, I’m more than happy with the real-world performance of the OnePlus 9 Pro, but it goes to show that there’s still room for improvement even among bleeding-edge smartphones.

Gaming Performance

As we’ve seen before with other Snapdragon 888 phones released this year, benchmarks aren’t the only marker of performance. Gaming phones like the ASUS ROG Phone 5 were designed to sustain maximum performance over time, but more mainstream phones like the OnePlus 9 Pro have to balance designing the phone for heat dissipation, battery life, and aesthetics. High performance is and always has been one of the key selling points of OnePlus phones, so OnePlus has opted to implement a cooling solution it calls “Cool Play.” According to the company, Cool Play is a five-layer cooling solution that is comprised of a vapor chamber soaking plate, graphite sheets, copper foil, thermal gel, and copper carbon.

In addition, the OnePlus 9 Pro supports a 240Hz touch sampling rate which means the display is polled 240 times per second for touch inputs. According to OnePlus, there’s also a feature called Hyper Touch that increases the syncing speed between the display and the processor by up to 6 times, making the syncing frequency 360Hz and reducing the latency in games by 25-30ms. Hyper Touch currently only supports PUBG Mobile, League of Legends: Wild Rift, Call of Duty Mobile, and Brawl Stars but will support more games in the future. I’m not a hardcore mobile gamer, so I don’t tap nearly fast enough for a feature like Hyper Touch to matter for me. If competitive mobile gaming is your thing, then you may find the increased touch responsiveness useful.

To test the gaming performance of the OnePlus 9 Pro, I played two 30 minute sessions of Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated and Genshin Impact. These are two of the most graphically demanding games available on Android, and both struggle to run at their max graphical settings unless you have a top-tier flagship.

In both games, the OnePlus 9 Pro manages to nearly hit a median 60fps, which is the target frame rate for both. However, in Spongebob, the frame rate frequently dips into the high 30s and low 40s when walking around the Goo Lagoon which shows many different actors on screen as well as in the Mermalair with its complex particle effects. As for Genshin Impact, the frame rate drops are less severe but are still present when panning over areas with many objects and actors (eg. Monstadt.) On average, Spongebob uses only 1GB of RAM while Genshin Impact uses only 2GB of RAM, leaving plenty of memory for keeping companion apps and browser tabs open. GPU usage nearly maxes out in both games, though, which I’m happy to see as it means there are actually mobile games that can push Adreno GPUs to their limits.

Using an infrared thermometer, I measured the surface temperature of the OnePlus 9 Pro after playing each game. I found that the device gets hottest near the cameras and the coolest at the other end. After 30 minutes of playing Genshin Impact, the device ranged from 37.4 °C to 42.3 °C. For Spongebob, the phone’s surface temperature ranged from 35.9 °C to 38.5 °C. These aren’t what I would call cool temperatures, but they’re not hot or uncomfortable to bear on the hands, either. For reference, the ambient temperature of the room was about 27.9 °C.

Overall, both games perform very well without heating up the phone too much. A dedicated gaming phone like the ROG Phone 5 can run both of these games nearly flawlessly for extended periods of time thanks to external cooling solutions, but the OnePlus 9 Pro should more than satisfy semi-hardcore gamers looking to play some of the best games on Android.

While the OnePlus 9 Pro isn’t considered a gaming phone, the OS does offer a few dedicated gaming features. One of the key gaming features is called “Pro Gaming Mode”, a rebranded version of Fnatic Mode after OnePlus recently ended its partnership with the eSports team. This mode blocks alerts and other distractions and cleans up background resources to allot the game as much CPU and GPU as needed.

A gaming toolbar is accessible from within any game added to the OnePlus Games app — simply swipe down from the top left or right corners to see the current time, battery temperature, and battery level as well as toggle a few settings such as Pro Gaming Mode, notifications, mis-touch prevention, screen recorder, or rewind recording. Mis-touch prevention blocks accidental swipes on notifications from happening, while rewind recording saves the last 30 seconds of gameplay as a short video. Lastly, the gaming toolbar also lets you launch select messaging apps like WhatsApp or Telegram as floating windows so you can respond to DMs without exiting the game.

Although I haven’t tested it, the OnePlus 9 Pro seems to sustain high-level CPU performance under heavy loads, suggesting it’ll handle most retro console emulation tasks with ease. Refer to my ROG Phone 5 review for a taste of what Snapdragon 888 devices are capable of emulating!

Battery & Charging: How long does the OnePlus 9 Pro last?

Battery Life

OnePlus phones have never had superb battery life in my experience, but I’m still somewhat disappointed by the battery life on the OnePlus 9 Pro. On average, I’ve gotten between four to six hours of screen on time depending on the kinds of activities I’ve done that day. On days of heavy gaming and camera use, I get close to four hours of screen on time. During an average day of web browsing (mostly Reddit and Twitter), messaging (on Google Chat, Telegram, Discord, and Slack), doing banking/checking stocks, and watching the occasional YouTube video, the device gives me about six hours of screen on time. PCMark’s Work 2.0 battery benchmark suggests the phone will last between five to seven hours at the maximum and minimum indoor brightness levels respectively, which more or less lines up with my experience.

If you’re going to be taking the OnePlus 9 Pro on a trip to take a ton of photos and videos, then make sure you bring a power bank!

I’m aware that running the phone at its native Quad HD+ resolution, enabling Smart 120Hz, and keeping a smartwatch connected at all times will reduce battery life, but I’m personally used to better battery life (5-7 hours SOT) from my smartphones. Keeping the device as thin and light as it is (compared to my previous phones) requires packing a lesser 4,500mAh battery (split into two 2,250mAh cells), so the battery life isn’t worse than I expected.

Knowing that doesn’t change the fact that there are other flagships on the market that’ll give you better battery life if you need a phone to last you through many hours of heavy gaming or binge-watching sessions. Though according to GFXBench’s Manhattan 3.1 battery lifetime benchmark, the OnePlus 9 Pro should last around 230 minutes, or 3 hours and 50 minutes, during intensive gaming sessions at peak indoor brightness levels (regardless of what resolution the device is set to — I tested it at Full HD and Quad HD). That’s more than enough time to get in one to two hours of your favorite game at more reasonable brightness levels each day, while still having enough juice for calls/texts/emails/messages.

If you can top up your phone’s battery for a few minutes using either of OnePlus’ proprietary chargers, though, you’ll have no problem keeping the phone alive for the rest of the day no matter what you do.

Charging Speeds

Last year’s OnePlus 8 Pro was the company’s first phone to feature wireless charging. At 30W speeds, the 8 Pro’s wireless charger was as fast as the company’s latest wired charging tech called Warp Charge 30T. With the OnePlus 8T, OnePlus adopted its parent company’s SuperVOOC 2.0 and introduced 65W fast wired charging tech called Warp Charge 65. However, the OnePlus 8T lacked wireless charging, making the faster wired charging feel more like a compromise than an upgrade. Now with the OnePlus 9 Pro, the company has managed to add its fastest wired and wireless charging tech into a single device.

With Warp Charge 65T, the OnePlus 9 Pro is said to charge from 1-100% in just 29 minutes. With Warp Charge 50 Wireless, the device is said to charge from 1-100% in just 43 minutes. The Warp Charge 65T charger can charge other devices at up to 45W speeds via USB-PD PPS, while the Warp Charge 50 Wireless can charge other devices at up to 15W if they support Qi-EPP. Since the Warp Charge 50 Wireless is sold separately, we’ll talk more about it below in the “Accessories” section.

According to OPPO, SuperVOOC 2.0 uses the divides the voltage between two circuits to allow for high-current direct charging. Warp Charge 65 on the OnePlus 8T works in a similar manner, though OnePlus says it has improved its charging software to further reduce internal resistance to charge at higher wattages for longer periods of time on the OnePlus 9 Pro.

In my testing, Warp Charge 65T charges the OnePlus 9 Pro fully slower than advertised (~41 minutes versus 29 minutes). I’m not sure why, as I disabled “optimized charging” in battery settings and also re-ran the test a second time. Warp Charge 65T is still ridiculously fast, and the temperature of the battery never seems to get above 40 °C. That suggests it’s safe for the longevity of the battery, though there’s debate about the effects of a high C rate regardless of the heat that’s generated near the battery.

OnePlus is confident in the safety of its charging tech, though. It says most of the charging circuitry is placed within the charging brick rather than the phone itself, a fact that they’ve touted since the original 20W Dash Charge was introduced several years back. While the company doesn’t offer a dedicated slow charging toggle for those still concerned about battery longevity, OxygenOS does have an “Optimized Charging” feature that stops charging at 80% of the battery’s capacity and only fills the rest of the battery a few minutes before your next alarm is scheduled to go off.

Lastly, if you have an accessory or another smartphone that supports Qi wireless charging, you can wirelessly charge it from your OnePlus 9 Pro. Simply go to Settings > Battery and enable Reverse Charge then place a device on the back of the 9 Pro. Reverse wireless charging other devices happens much more slowly than wirelessly charging the 9 Pro, and it also doesn’t work with some products that have smaller charging coils like Samsung’s Galaxy Watch or Galaxy Buds. Still, it’s a neat feature that could mean one less charging cable to carry on your next trip.

At least for now, the Warp Charge 65T charger is included in the box with the OnePlus 9 Pro. There’s no telling how long OnePlus will continue to do this, though, since both Apple and Samsung have stopped including chargers.

Software: OxygenOS 11 based on Android 11

User Interface

The OnePlus 9 Pro is a very tall device, though its height is in line with most flagships in the ultra-premium tier. To compensate for the phone’s height, OnePlus designed OxygenOS 11 to be easier to use with one-hand. When OnePlus first unveiled its one-handed UI changes for OxygenOS, many people criticized them for copying Samsung’s One UI and straying from “stock” Android. As it turns out, even Google seems to be taking this approach with Android 12, so OnePlus is a bit ahead of the curve considering how few Android skins have adopted a similar UI design. (OnePlus, however, scrapped its plans to make a dedicated one-handed mode, but fortunately, it’ll become a native feature of Android 12.)

Although the layout can’t be tweaked, OxygenOS 11 offers a number of options to customize the lock screen and ambient display, system colors, icons, fonts, and more. Most of these are accessible in Settings > Customization. My favorites are the Canvas AOD and Insight Clock, the latter of which shames me for using my phone too much each day.

Features

OnePlus has been a bit slow at adopting some software features, such as an Always on Display and a simple dark mode toggle, but generally, OxygenOS is the one Android skin that most “stock” Android fans say they can tolerate. Stock Android isn’t particularly known for its abundance of features, though, of which OxygenOS packs plenty. There are many different gesture control options, display features, and miscellaneous software features, such as Parallel Apps and App Locker. A lot of these features have been around in OxygenOS for years now, but they stick around because they’re simple and useful to many people. Some of my favorites include the auto turnoff hotspot feature, reading mode, contextual info on the ambient display, ability to hide the gestural navigation bar, face unlock, Quick Launch, and Quick Reply in Landscape.

One new software feature that OnePlus added in OxygenOS 11 for the OnePlus 9 Pro is Turbo Boost 3.0. It’s an improved version of the company’s process prioritization technology, which optimizes memory use based on the apps you frequently use. With Turbo Boost 3.0, OnePlus says you can keep more than 25% more apps open in the background than before. The company used memory compression and virtual RAM (vRAM) to allow apps to be more efficiently stored in memory. This is not a feature that can be readily tested, so I can’t say whether or not there are actual improvements from the previous generation. I can, however, say that I haven’t had any issues with memory management on my device.

One of my not-so-favorite features in OxygenOS 11 is “battery optimization”, which extends Android’s existing doze controls with a bunch of additional toggles that don’t tell you exactly how they’ll affect background services. What’s worse is that there’s no easy way to completely turn off all of these features, which is why OnePlus ranks so poorly on the DontKillMyApp website. I’ve had issues receiving timely notifications from Hangouts (now Chat), Discord, and Slack on OnePlus phones for years now, and it seems there’s no fix in sight. I don’t know what it’ll take for OnePlus and other Chinese OEMs to abandon their aggressive battery management features for global devices; I know why they do it for their domestic products but can’t fathom why the years of complaints from western reviewers haven’t gotten through to these companies yet.

On the other hand, I’m glad to see that OnePlus is continuing to embrace Google’s apps and features. The OnePlus 9 Pro, for example, supports Google’s Live Caption feature and ships with the Google Phone and Messages app in the U.S.

Development and Modding Proposition

There are many smartphone brands that are actively hostile to custom development, few that acknowledge but are indifferent to it, and even fewer that actively encourage it. OnePlus used to fall heavily into the last category, though they’re now somewhere between the second and third ones. OnePlus phones are still very easy to bootloader unlock, and they’re also generally easy to unbrick thanks to their MSM tools quickly finding their way onto the Internet. Their phones are still popular among the group of enthusiasts who are both willing and able to develop for it, making the custom ROM scenes for these phones more active than most. In general, it’s still not a bad idea to put “access to custom ROMs” into the purchase decision for a OnePlus device, and I don’t think that’ll change with the OnePlus 9 Pro.

However, there are a few issues with custom development on OnePlus devices that you should be aware of. First, updated kernel source code for OnePlus devices sometimes never gets pushed when there’s a new OxygenOS beta update, leaving custom kernel users in the lurch. Second, you shouldn’t buy a OnePlus device with the intent to use a Google Camera port as there are known issues with access to the auxiliary cameras and full resolution of the image sensors. Lastly, you should be aware of the general challenges that affect custom development these days, including the rise of hardware attestation for SafetyNet and the downgrading of Widevine DRM after unlocking the bootloader. In my opinion, these and other issues aren’t a result of OnePlus becoming actively hostile to the development community, but rather it’s a result of a change in priorities. Thankfully, though, they haven’t yet introduced any truly development-hostile practices, such as account verification for bootloader unlocking/unbricking.

Accessories: Bumper Case, Warp Charge 50 Wireless Charger

Karbon Bumper Case

OnePlus is perhaps the best in the business when it comes to making first-party smartphone cases. With the OnePlus 9 Pro, you’ll have the option to pick from a Karbon Bumper case, a Sandstone gray/black bumper, or a special droid-themed case. I’m personally a big fan of the sandstone-like texture of the Sandstone cases, but OnePlus only included the Karbon Bumper case with the media kit. It’s…fine, I guess. Mario Serrafero tells me he absolutely loves it, but I personally find that it gets smudgy after I handle it a bit. If you’re a fan of carbon fiber textures, then you’ll love this case. It even protects the cameras with a lip that protrudes near the camera bump, preventing the lenses from actually touching the table.

50W Wireless Charger

At 50W of power, Warp Charge 50 Wireless is the fastest wireless charging technology available on a OnePlus device, and the fastest you’ll get in a smartphone sold in North America. Unlike the Warp Charge 30 Wireless charger that was sold with the OnePlus 8 Pro, the new Warp Charge 50 Wireless charger is far more convenient to use. It features two charging coils so the OnePlus 9 Pro can be charged horizontally or vertically. It no longer has an integrated USB-C port, so you’re free to experiment with desk positions.

Just as before, the Warp Charge 50 Wireless charger has a built-in fan to cool the components as it quickly charges the phone. The fan is definitely audible when you’re in a quiet room or near the charger, but it doesn’t get loud enough to be annoying. At night, though, you’ll want to use the “Bedtime Charging” feature in OxygenOS’ battery settings to shut the fan off so the whirring doesn’t bother you while you’re trying to sleep.

Without Bedtime Mode enabled, the Warp Charge 50 Wireless charger charges my OnePlus 9 Pro fully in nearly ~67 minutes, which is noticeably slower than the advertised 43 minutes. Again, I disabled “Optimized Charging” and re-tested it, but I can’t find anything that explains why my data is so off. The only explanation I can think of is that Android’s battery percent gauge is way off and OnePlus is actually using the fuel-gauge IC to measure how fast its charging works, but in previous devices, my testing produced results that were much, much closer to OnePlus’ advertised speeds. Regardless, it’s fast, and its effect on the battery temperature is impressive considering how much heat must be generated by charging at 50W wireless speeds.

With Bedtime Mode enabled the OnePlus 9 Pro charges fully in about ~129 minutes through the Warp Charge 50 Wireless charger. That’s almost twice as long as without Bedtime Mode turned on, but that’s not an issue since that’s well below the length of time you’re putting into a night’s sleep. Interestingly, the battery temperature was actually lower without Bedtime Mode enabled, which could be due to the fan actively cooling the charger.

Miscellaneous: Audio, Vibration, Connectivity & More

Finally, I wanted to talk briefly about some of the remaining aspects of this device, including audio, haptics, and connectivity. The OnePlus 9 Pro has dual stereo speakers with Dolby’s Atmos software baked in. You can’t tune the audio much to your liking, though you can choose between three preset “scenario-based enhancements.” The audio quality is nothing to write home about, but it’s not terrible, either.

Haptics, on the other hand, are stellar. OnePlus phones have had great haptic engines since the OnePlus 7 Pro, and OnePlus continues to make improvements to haptic feedback every year. The OnePlus 9 Pro can produce incredibly fine and subtle vibrations that make typing feel great. I had a “wow!” moment when I felt the phone ever-so-slightly vibrate as I slid my finger across the brightness bar.

Connectivity is, as always, confusing. First of all, there’s no Wi-Fi 6E support, though we don’t know what chip OnePlus is using for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. At launch, both the 9 and the 9 Pro will only support 4G LTE on AT&T and Verizon, though I’m told that OnePlus is working on Verizon 5G support. In order to support T-Mobile’s mmWave network, you’ll need to purchase the phone through them and not OnePlus.

If you’re like me and only plan on using T-Mobile’s sub-6GHz and mid-band 5G network, though, then you’ll enjoy the speeds and broad support for T-Mobile’s network that the unlocked OnePlus 9 Pro offers. At home, I get over 200Mbps down and 100Mbps up, which is more than double my home Internet speeds. I also get both VoLTE and VoWiFi on T-Mobile without needing to wait for an update or changes in carrier configurations. As an American, it’s tempting to import phones from other brands like Xiaomi or OPPO, but then reality sets in and reminds me that I’ll only have a usable phone if I buy a device that properly supports American carriers, and that thankfully includes the OnePlus 9 Pro.

Conclusion: Should you buy the OnePlus 9 Pro?

Should you buy the OnePlus 9 Pro? It’s a tough but fair question to ask. As a phone reviewer, I don’t stick to a single phone for more than a couple of months, and even if I do, I always have at least two phones I switch between. If I were to buy a phone right now, I would want a phone that features hardware that can justify the price. At its base retail price, I do think the OnePlus 9 Pro earns its keep. Its camera, while still lacking in some areas, has improved where it matters. Its display is, in my opinion, the best you can find on an Android device. It’s more comfortable to hold and pocket than the other flagships I’ve recently used. Its performance is also top-tier, continuing OnePlus’ excellence in this field. Its charging speeds are the fastest you’ll find on any smartphone in North America. Plus, it’s also one of the few phones available in North America that’s easy to root and mod.

OnePlus 9 Pro Forums

On the other hand, ease of root access isn’t on the mind of the average user. The average person will want a phone that lasts at least 2 years if not longer. OnePlus promises the industry-standard two generations of OS updates and three years of security updates, but Google and more importantly Samsung offer an additional generation of OS updates. Samsung has solidified its superiority over OnePlus in terms of long-term software support by offering a fourth year of security updates for its phones. I still personally prefer OxygenOS as I find One UI to be a bit overwhelming and convoluted, but it’s evident that Samsung has put a lot of care into giving both regular and power users what they want. Maybe someday One UI will win me over.

I’m sure the average user will also want to get a great deal on the new device, and it’s hard to beat Samsung at offering discounts, bundles, and trade-ins. I have purchased several Samsung products at heavy discounts using various promotional offers, and I have yet to see comparable offers from OnePlus. However, T-Mobile themselves will likely offer some crazy deals on the OnePlus 9 Pro as they’re wont to do. If I were to pick between the Samsung Galaxy S21+ and OnePlus 9 Pro at both of their respective retail prices, I would pick the OnePlus 9 Pro. If I could save a few hundred bucks on one, though, the cheaper option would be a no-brainer.

In the end, I can’t offer a detailed verdict on whether you should or shouldn’t buy the OnePlus 9 Pro. It’s definitely the best phone that OnePlus has ever made and my current favorite phone of 2021, but there are too many variables in play (eg. regions, deals, user preferences, etc.) for me to make a conclusion that will satisfy everyone. I personally recommend the phone, for what it’s worth. Having written nearly 10k words explaining each and every aspect of the phone in painstaking detail, though, I hope you’ll be able to come to a satisfactory decision yourself.

The OnePlus 9 Pro is available worldwide starting April 2nd, but pre-orders will open up on Friday, March 26th. In the U.S., the phone starts at $969 for the 8+128GB and goes up to $1,069 for the 12+256GB model. Two colorways are available in North America: Morning Mist and Pine Green. The latter, however, is only available in the pricier 12+256GB configuration.

The post The OnePlus 9 Pro cements OnePlus as a Premium Smartphone Brand appeared first on xda-developers.

It’s been a few years since OnePlus deviated from its roots as a smartphone-only brand, but apart from a limited venture selling TVs in a handful of markets, the company is still primarily a smartphone and smartphone accessory brand. OnePlus’ latest accessory for smartphones is a wearable device called the OnePlus Watch. Launching this week, the OnePlus Watch is a smartwatch that costs less than half the Apple Watch Series 6 and Samsung Galaxy Watch 3, but as you’d expect, it isn’t as feature-rich. Still, the OnePlus Watch is a promising first attempt from the smartphone brand that should satisfy those looking for a wearable that’s a bit more premium than the typical fitness tracker.

About this review: I received the OnePlus Watch in Midnight Black from OnePlus USA for review and have used the smartwatch for 10 days. The watch was paired to the OnePlus 9 Pro for the duration of this review. OnePlus did not preview or provide any input regarding the content of this review.

Navigate this review

1. Design & Ergonomics: How does it feel to wear the OnePlus Watch?
2. Health & Fitness: Is the OnePlus Watch a good health and fitness tracker?
3. Software: Is the lack of Wear OS a big deal for the OnePlus Watch?
4. Battery Life & Charging: How long does the OnePlus Watch last?
5. Audio & Voice: How well does it handle voice calls?
6. Conclusion: Should you buy the OnePlus Watch?

Design & Ergonomics: How does it feel to wear the OnePlus Watch?

The OnePlus Watch comes in two variations: the “Classic” edition with a stainless steel case and a fluoroelastomer strap and a “Cobalt Limited Edition” with a cobalt alloy case and a vegan leather strap with a butterfly buckle. I received a “Classic” edition model in the Midnight Black color for review.

Unlike the OPPO Watch, the OnePlus Watch has a round shape and display, which means less room for additional sensors and the battery but results in a design that looks more like a traditional watch. The display isn’t end-to-end but the watch face bezels are black and thus seamlessly blend into the rest of the body. OnePlus says the watch has “2.5D curved glass,” but I barely notice any curvature whatsoever.

The OnePlus Watch comes in a single 46mm size so it may feel quite large on the wrist for some, but fortunately, it’s very lightweight and the fluoroelastomer strap is very comfortable. I’ve never once felt the urge to take the OnePlus Watch off to give my wrist some rest, despite wearing the watch for nearly 9 days straight. The only times I took the watch off were when I needed to shower (it’s IP68 rated but I never feel comfortable showering with any electronics on) and when I needed to charge the watch because its battery was nearly depleted.

The included 22mm watch strap fits me just fine, and I usually buckle the watch at about the 6th hole (there are 10). In case you need a shorter band, OnePlus says you can contact customer service and they’ll ship one to you.

On the right side, there are two buttons: a power button and a function button. Neither protrudes very far out of the body, but they’re fortunately still easy to press. The top button acts as a home button that returns you to the watch face, while the bottom button launches one of the apps installed on the watch (by default, the Workout app). The top button also opens the single column, vertically scrolling app tray when it’s pressed on the home screen, while the bottom button shows the power menu when it’s long-pressed on any screen.

When the watch is powered on but the screen is off, it can be woken up by pressing either of the two buttons. You can also turn on “raise to wake” under “Display and brightness” settings to turn the screen on by moving your wrist. Sadly, there’s currently no Always on Display feature at the moment, and the maximum length of time you can keep the screen on is 8 seconds. The display is generally bright enough for me to see what I need to see before it turns off on its own, but I would prefer to have the option for AOD. On the other hand, I prefer the watch stays off when I’m sleeping, so I’m glad OnePlus added the (aptly-named) “Do not disturb for bedtime” feature which turns off raise to wake during your set DND period.

Health & Fitness: Is the OnePlus Watch a good health and fitness tracker?

OnePlus built the OnePlus Watch to be a personal health and fitness companion, so it features a bevy of health monitoring sensors and fitness-related apps. The watch itself has an IP68 rating for dust and water resistance and can withstand 5ATM of pressure (ie. it’s water-resistant up to 50 meters in depth for 10 minutes). I haven’t taken the OnePlus Watch swimming, let alone to the shower, so I can’t speak for how durable it is underwater. It’s not a ruggedized watch with a thick casing, but it should be capable of surviving most exercise routines that the average person might do.

According to OnePlus, the OnePlus Watch supports 110+ workout types, but at the time of this review, only 14 were included in the Workout app. These included Running, Fat burn run, Outdoor cycling, Indoor cycling, Outdoor walk, Swimming, Elliptical trainer, Rowing machine, Badminton, Mountaineering, Cross-country, Cricket, Yoga, and Freestyle training. The watch is said to automatically detect jogging and running, but I couldn’t get it to suggest anything when I tried jogging for a bit. It could be that I wasn’t jogging long enough for it to trigger the detection, though.

In any case, each of the workout types features a minimalist widget with a few pages to cycle through. For the outdoor walk, you can see the strength of the GPS signal, the current heart rate, the battery level, the current time, and set some goals before starting the workout. After starting the workout, you can see the distance you’ve walked, how long you’ve walked, how many calories you’ve burned, your current heart rate, and your pace. Swipe to the left and you can control music, either stored locally or playing from your phone. Swipe to the right and you can stop, pause/resume, or change the volume level. Lastly, you can press either of the physical buttons to pause the workout at any time.

If you leave your phone at home, the OnePlus Watch can still track your location with its built-in GPS. It won’t be as accurate as your phone’s GNSS setup, but in my experience, it did track my walks around the neighborhood at the street level. For those who go off the trail, though, I can’t say if the location tracking will be accurate enough for you.

The built-in pedometer generally seemed accurate to me. For example, when I manually counted out the remaining 112 steps to complete my 8000 steps for the day, the OnePlus Watch was off by just 3 steps. I’ve found that the watch’s step counter is a bit sensitive, though, as it’ll think that some wrist movements are actually steps. This doesn’t lead to wildly inaccurate step counts, but it does mean the count isn’t that precise.

As for the other sensors, they all seem pretty precise. Sleep tracking works as I’ve expected, with the OnePlus Watch accurately detecting when I fall asleep and when I actually wake up. It even continues to track my sleep when I wake up for a bit but then fall back asleep. The heart rate and blood oxygen monitoring apps gave me values that were pretty similar to a handheld pulse oximeter.

All of the health and fitness information that is collected can be viewed on the OnePlus Watch itself, but it’s better to download the OnePlus Health app. It’s clean, simple, and to the point. It has 3 tabs: Health, Fitness, and Manage. The Health tab has cards for your daily goal overview, your heart rate, your sleep data, your Sp02 data, your stress level, and your recent workout logs. The Fitness tab shows any recent outdoor runs or walks you’ve done along with a map of your path. You can also start a run or walk from the app, though it’ll use the sensors in your phone rather than your watch if you do so. The Manage tab is where you can change the watch face, choose which notifications to sync, update the firmware, change the health monitoring settings, upload music and contacts to your watch, and set fitness goals. Lastly, there’s an option to sync step, calories, heart rate, and sleep data to Google Fit in case you prefer checking and managing your data there.

OnePlus Health (Free, Google Play) →

The app is compatible with any Android smartphone running Android 6.0+ and with Google Play Services 11.7+. There’s no iOS device support, and there aren’t really any special features that are unlocked if you have a OnePlus phone. In one sense, that’s a good thing as users with other phones aren’t left out, but it’s also a bummer because there is a lot more that OnePlus could do to make the OnePlus Watch more integrated with OxygenOS (more on that below).

Software: Is the lack of Wear OS a big deal for the OnePlus Watch?

A few weeks before the announcement of the OnePlus Watch, the company confirmed the smartwatch won’t run Google’s Wear OS. According to Pete Lau, CEO of OnePlus, the company opted to use a custom OS instead of Wear OS in order to deliver better battery life. If you’re familiar with Wear OS, this claim makes sense; most Wear OS smartwatches struggle to last beyond 2 days — let alone a single — unless you disable a ton of features and turn the smartwatch into a “dumb” watch. Mobvoi’s TicWatch Pro 3, which is one of the longer-lasting Wear OS smartwatches out there, typically lasted me 2 days with all of the features enabled. In comparison, the OnePlus Watch can last anywhere from 1-2 weeks depending on how heavily you use it. The trade-off, though, is that the OnePlus Watch is bereft of applications.

Since the smartwatch and its OS are brand new and there’s no way for developers to port their apps to it, the OnePlus Watch is seriously lacking in high-quality applications. In fact, there are only 19 total applications available on the OnePlus Watch (not including the Settings app), including:

• Activities
• Workout
• Workout record
• Heart rate
• Blood oxygen
• Sleep
• Stress
• Breathing
• Phone
• Music
• Weather
• Alarm clock
• Stopwatch
• Timer
• Flashlight
• Barometer
• Compass
• TV connect
• Find phone

Most of these apps are pretty self-explanatory and do exactly what you’d expect. They’re all pretty basic, though, which is great for shaving off on setup time but means you might miss some nifty functionality. For example, the Phone app can only list up to 30 of the contacts that you pick, so you may be forced to actually pick up your phone to start a call. The weather app, meanwhile, doesn’t list the chance of precipitation or the UV index, so you may have to do a bit of extra prep work before heading out. While the media player does support local music playback through a connected Bluetooth headset, it forces you to manually transfer audio files encoded in .mp3 or .m4a. If your music listening is primarily cloud-based, then have fun getting the raw audio files you want to transfer.

When OnePlus decided to develop its own OS instead of using Google’s Wear OS, they had to have known the difficulties in overcoming the gap in apps. I think, as a compromise, that OnePlus should have made its first-party apps more polished, and I also think they should offer a couple of additional basic apps. For example, the OnePlus Watch is missing an audio recorder app, a calculator app, an agenda/calendar app, a notetaking app, and a camera shutter app. I find the lack of some of these apps puzzling since OnePlus already made a calculator, notes, and recorder app for OxygenOS. Surely they could find a way to at least create minified versions of these apps that sync with the smartphone versions?

One of the strengths of the Galaxy Watch is that it leverages Samsung’s extensive catalog of first-party apps so users don’t have to tie themselves to Google’s ecosystem. I don’t expect OnePlus to replicate apps like Google Assistant, Google Keep, Google Translate, Google Maps, or especially Google Pay (though oddly, the reviewer’s guide mentions that NFC is “supported for all variants” despite the fact that I can’t find a single use for it). If the entire purpose of a smartwatch is to reduce how often you take out your smartphone, then the OnePlus Watch is certainly less of a smartwatch than any Wear OS watch or Samsung Galaxy Watch. On the flip side, though, the incredible comfort and long-lasting battery life, as you’ll see in the next section, makes the OnePlus Watch feel more like a watch I want to keep on my wrist at all times.

Having come from a Wear OS watch, I don’t really have many positive things to say about the app situation on the OnePlus Watch. OnePlus did a decent job with the rest of the OS, though.

1. First of all, the OnePlus Watch is very fast, which is a nice change of pace from budget Wear OS watches. Pages zip in and out with little to no lag as my finger glides over the screen, and there is virtually no delay when launching any of the preinstalled apps.
2. Second, the UI is very clean and minimalist. Buttons are large and easy to press while text is easy to read. There is little clutter to be found in any of the apps. Few apps are paginated and can be scrolled up and down to reveal more details, but generally little is hidden from the user on the main page.
3. Lastly, the overall UX is very easy to use. Just like Wear OS, you swipe up from the bottom to show your notifications, swipe left from the right to show app tiles, swipe down from the top to show Quick Settings tiles, and long-press to change the watch face. While OnePlus offers over 50 watch faces (many of which look quite good), you can’t add a custom watch face. Overall, I like the UX except for two pain points.
   1. First, the OnePlus Watch lets you respond to notifications, but only with a handful of canned responses that many times aren’t appropriate to send. Since images in notifications aren’t sent over, you’ll be opening up your phone a lot just to see the random meme or image your friend or family member sent. Notification statuses are only synced one way, too, so dismissing a notification on your watch doesn’t dismiss it on your phone.
   2. My last complaint with the UX is the low-quality localization in a few places, which honestly surprised me since OnePlus generally does a good job at making its products feel “not Chinese.” For instance, when a timer ends, the text reads “timing ended.” When the battery is about to run out, you’ll see a message that says “battery power too low.” When you reach your daily step count, you’ll see “your step count is up to standard. Pls keep it up.” I expect this kind of localization effort from a no-name, Amazon-exclusive electronics brand but not from OnePlus. This isn’t a huge deal since it’s just text, of course, but small things like this can detract from the overall premium experience. Hopefully, these text elements will be changed in a future OTA update.

Speaking of future updates, OnePlus told us that they already have two software updates for the OnePlus Watch in the pipeline. The first update is scheduled for later this month and will include sleep tracking recording and an outdoor cycling workout function in the OnePlus Health app. The second OTA update is scheduled for the middle of May and will include optimizations to location tracking and the inclusion of the full 110 supported workout modes. While I was reviewing the device, I received one pre-release software update to version W301GB_B_33_0330, a 60.12MB update that added new watch faces and a UI revamp for the heart rate monitor. Here’s hoping that OnePlus continues to push out software updates because many of the complaints I have with the software are fixable.

(Note: The only app I haven’t been able to use during my review period is the TV connect app, but that’s because it only works with any of the various OnePlus TV sets sold in India.)

Battery Life & Charging: How long does the OnePlus Watch last?

While I wasn’t too impressed by the software on the OnePlus Watch, I was impressed by its battery life. Since I’ve only had it for about 10 days, I haven’t been able to put it through multiple cycles to see how fast I can kill it or how long I can make it last. Instead, I just kept in on myself and used it like normal.

In a typical 24-hour period, the battery drained about 9-10% for me with features like raise to wake, auto workout detection and pause, “smart” heart rate tracking, auto stress monitoring, sleep monitoring, and Sp02 monitoring during sleep all enabled. That battery drain figure also includes periodically seeing and responding to notifications, occasionally checking the time and weather, and occasionally manually checking my heart rate and blood oxygen level.

When I left my OnePlus 9 Pro at home and went out for a walk with GPS on and music streaming to my Jabra Elite 75t, the battery drained about 10-11% in an hour. According to the spec sheet, the OnePlus Watch can last for up to 25 hours of continuous GPS use, making location tracking and Bluetooth streaming two of the most power-hungry use cases. If you plan to do a lot of both, then don’t expect the battery life to last for more than a few days. For me, the battery lasted a total of about 9 days with 7 of those days falling under my “typical” scenario plus some light indoor exercising and 2 of those days falling under the heavier GPS + Bluetooth scenario. The OnePlus Watch should last most people for well over a week on a single charge.

In order to charge the OnePlus Watch, I used the included cable and a Warp Charge 30 adapter that was laying around, though you can use any standard 5V/1A adapter. OnePlus says you can get a “week of charge” in just 20 minutes, and in my testing, it took only 43 minutes to charge from 5% to 100%. Considering my typical use only drains the battery about 9-10% in a single day, I would say that Warp Charge on the OnePlus Watch lives up to the hype.

My only real gripe with the charging is that it isn’t wireless. To date, OnePlus still hasn’t made a single Qi wireless charging accessory. That’s an odd omission considering one of the highlight features of the OnePlus 8 Pro and OnePlus 9 Pro is reverse wireless charging, which means you can’t even use your OnePlus flagship to wirelessly charge your OnePlus earbuds or smartwatch.

Audio & Voice: How well does it handle voice calls?

There’s not much to talk about when it comes to audio quality and voice calls on a smartwatch, but fortunately for the OnePlus Watch, I don’t have anything bad to say. The speaker and vibration motor are loud and powerful enough for alarms to wake me up each morning. Incoming and outgoing audio during voice calls is clear and loud enough to hear when you hold the watch up against your ear.

Voice calls are simple to make and receive. You don’t have to fiddle with settings to get them to work, though I’ve only tried them when the watch was paired to the OnePlus 9 Pro, so your mileage may vary with other devices.

I did face some issues with making and receiving voice calls when I had my Google Fi SIM card inserted into my OnePlus 9 Pro, but those issues all went away when I switched back to my T-Mobile SIM. To be more specific, I was unable to actually answer phone calls from the watch as the action of accepting the call on the watch wasn’t syncing to the phone, causing the call to hang. Vice versa, when I tried placing a call from my watch, I frequently saw a “call failed” warning show up. Until I switched to my T-Mobile SIM which fixed these issues, I had to start a call from my phone and then switch the speaker output manually to the watch, which defeats the whole purpose of using the watch in the first place. This was by far the biggest software-related bug that I encountered, but it thankfully didn’t persist.

Conclusion: Should you buy the OnePlus Watch?

I get to try a lot of smartphones, but I always gravitate towards Google, ASUS, or OnePlus phones as my daily driver. While I’m not a big fan of Samsung’s Galaxy phones, the one thing I really envy about them is how tightly integrated the first-party accessories are. OnePlus is finally starting to build out its own ecosystem of products, but they’re sadly not that integrated with one another.

For what it is, I think the OnePlus Watch is a great first attempt from a company that has never made a smartwatch before. If you’re looking for a wearable that has a more premium design than a fitness tracker but is more affordable than the cream of the crop smartwatches, then the OnePlus Watch is a decent option. It’s pitted directly against the Amazfit GTR 2 and Mi Watch Revolve, two affordable smartwatches from more established wearable brands (Huami and Xiaomi respectively). It’s impressive that OnePlus’ first smartwatch out of the gate looks and feels as premium as it does, runs very smoothly, and lasts over a week on a single charge. However, it’s held back by running a custom OS that lacks support for third-party apps and is missing some useful first-party apps.

So is the OnePlus Watch buying? If you can get it at a discount or a bundle, then I wouldn’t hesitate to say yes. If not, then you should think about how you plan to use this product. If you think a smartwatch should be simple and easy to use, then maybe a Wear OS or Tizen OS smartwatch isn’t for you. If you think any of the issues or lack of features I mentioned will drive you nuts, though, then you may want to consider other options. Since I mostly work from home, I feel like I haven’t gotten the maximum use out of my Wear OS-powered TicWatch Pro 3, but I have used and enjoyed my time with the OnePlus Watch mostly because of how comfortable and long-lasting it is.

Right now, OnePlus is running a “OnePlus Watch Appreciation Credit” discount until midnight that knocks $20 off the price, making it $139 in the US. Otherwise, the OnePlus Watch will be available starting tomorrow for $159 in the US, $219 in Canada, €159 in Europe, and ₹16,999 in India.

The post OnePlus Watch Review: A Promising First Attempt at a Smartwatch appeared first on xda-developers.

The future of the smartphone is foldable. It’s not a matter of if, but when foldables are priced low enough to overtake traditional flagships in popularity. Ask any person who’s used a foldable phone, and they’ll tell you the same thing: They’re the future. Until this week, though, if you asked me about foldables, I could only relay what others on the XDA team have said about them. After spending a week with my first foldable phone, the Huawei Mate X2, I’m now fully onboard with foldable smartphones. Had my first time with a foldable been with one of the first-gen devices, I might have offered a less enthusiastic vision of the future. But I lucked out and got a chance to try Huawei’s China-exclusive Mate X2 for a week, and I’m now eager to get my hands on a foldable phone as a daily driver. They’re that good.

Huawei offered me the chance to review its ultra-premium flagship foldable a few weeks back, and I jumped at the opportunity to try out a foldable for the first time. However, I knew from the get-go that I wouldn’t be able to do a traditional review of the Mate X2 for XDA. First of all, the phone is only sold in China, where it starts at a whopping ¥17,999 (~$2,750). That’s both far too hard to get and too expensive for the vast majority of our readers, so there’s little point in us reviewing the device to offer a purchasing recommendation. Second, the Mate X2 doesn’t ship with Google apps or services, making it hard for the average user to download and use many apps. Lastly, the phone lacks full compatibility with most U.S. carriers, so I haven’t been able to exclusively use it as my daily driver. For these reasons, I’ve focused on the experience of using the Huawei Mate X2 as more of a foldable tablet rather than foldable phone, ie. as a strictly at-home media consumption device. Here are my thoughts after a week of use.

About this review: I received the Huawei Mate X2 in its 8GB RAM/256GB storage configuration from Huawei on Thursday, April 1st, 2021, and have used the device for approximately 1 week. Huawei did not preview or provide any input regarding the content of this review.

Huawei Mate X2 Forums

Navigate this review

1. Design: What makes the Huawei Mate X2 a good foldable?
2. Ergonomics: How easy is it to hold the Huawei Mate X2?
3. Audio Experience: How good are the speakers?
4. Visual Experience: How good is the display?
5. Performance: How fast is the Huawei Mate X2?
   1. Gaming Performance
   2. Real-world Performance
6. Camera
7. Battery Life & Charging
8. Software: What’s Android like on the Huawei Mate X2?
   1. EMUI 11 based on Android 10
   2. Lack of Google Mobile Services
9. Conclusion

Design: What makes the Huawei Mate X2 a good foldable?

The Huawei Mate X2 is Huawei’s third attempt at a foldable after the Mate X and Mate Xs. The Mate X2 wildly diverges from Huawei’s previous two foldables in terms of the overall design. Rather than having a single display that folds outward, the Mate X2 has a main display that folds inward and a secondary display on the outside that doesn’t fold. If that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s similar to the design of the last two Samsung Galaxy Z Fold devices.

Some would argue that this shift in design proves that Samsung had it right from the beginning, but I would argue it doesn’t matter who did it first but rather who does it better. Since I haven’t used the Galaxy Z Fold 2, I can’t actually compare it to the Huawei Mate X2 to tell you which foldable has a better design overall. What I can tell you, though, is that Huawei has nailed basically every aspect of the hardware. They’ve proven their engineering is at least as good as if not better than Samsung’s. In our best of 2020 article, we said that Samsung’s gen-two foldable made other foldables feel like first-gen products. I can now definitively say that that comment is outdated.

So what makes the Mate X2 a good foldable? It starts with the hinge. Huawei calls the new design “Teardrop” which describes how the screen curves to avoid showing a crease. It’s made of a zirconium-based liquid metal that Huawei says is twice as strong as on the Mate Xs. The hinge motion feels sturdy but doesn’t allow you to fix the phone at any angle. Instead, it snaps to either the fully unfolded or fully folded state whenever the hinge angle is nearly 0° or 90°. The snap really helps with fully folding and unfolding the device and relieves some of the pressure that the user may place on the device in trying to get it to fully fold or unfold.

When the two parts are closed, they’re held together magnetically. As a consequence, there’s some noticeable tension that needs to be overcome to pull the two halves apart. I find it very difficult to fold and unfold the Huawei Mate X2 with one hand, so I always use both hands.

After closing the Mate X2, we can start to appreciate the ingenuity behind its design. First of all, just as Huawei claims, there is virtually no gap between the two displays. Contrast that to Samsung’s foldable which has a gap of air between the two screens since they don’t perfectly stack on top of one another. Huawei’s solution to this problem is an asymmetrical wedge design. The Huawei Mate X2 is shaped like a wedge, meaning that one half is slightly thicker than the other half. This allows the two halves to stack on top of each other with no gap between them.

The thicker half houses the main internal components, including the Huawei Mate X2’s single, large 4,500mAh battery, quad-camera setup, SoC, buttons, and USB-C port. (Side-note: there’s also an IR blaster, which is a rarity these days, and a fingerprint scanner embedded in the power button that is super responsive.) The thinner half features the outer display, both speakers, and the hybrid nano-SIM card + NM card tray.

Ergonomics: How easy is it to hold the Huawei Mate X2?

Normally, I’m not a fan of phones with uneven weight distributions, but it definitely works in the Mate X2’s favor here. That’s because the sheer size of the device forces you to hold the phone with two hands when it’s unfolded. I find the phone most comfortable in the hand when both corners of the thicker half are centered on the palms of my hands. Oddly, holding it the opposite way also works for me, though I stopped doing it after a short time because it required me to grip the outer display (and I’m not a fan of glossy glass).

The incredible thinness of the device really helps with the ergonomics. Coming in at 4.4mm at its thinnest all the way to 8.2mm at its thickest when unfolded, the Mate X2 can easily rest in the palms of your hand. When it’s folded, though, it’s one of the thickest phones you’ll ever use, ranging from 13.6-14.7mm. Couple that with the 295g weight and the phone definitely needs two hands if you want to use it for extended periods.

There are a couple of downsides to the asymmetrical wedge design, though. Since I’m right-handed, I am able to use the Mate X2 when it’s unfolded and held upright, but lefties might find that difficult to do since the right half weighs more than the left half. The phone itself weighs a massive 295g anyway, so I don’t think one-handed use for long periods of time is really feasible without it getting uncomfortable to hold. Next, because of this design, the Huawei Mate X2 can’t be easily used when the phone is half-open on a table. The uneven weight distribution causes the hinge to force one half to snap to the other half or to the fully unfolded position. If you do get it half-open without it forcing shut or open, then you’ll notice the Mate X2 will simply wobble when used. That means you can’t effectively use the Mate X2 like a laptop to type on one half, and it also means you can’t play around with the angle to take a photo. I don’t see these as huge losses of functionality, but they are trade-offs that Huawei had to make and users should be aware of. Overall, though, the asymmetrical, wedge-like design is one of the highlights of the Huawei Mate X2.

Fortunately, the included case features a kickstand that allows you to prop the Huawei Mate X2 up on a table. The case nicely covers the back and is raised above the camera bump, making it easier to hold the Mate X2 without smudging the camera lenses. I also like that the case has a leather-like texture, which makes it much gripper and less fingerprint-prone than the incredibly glossy glass back. For me, the case is a must-have at all times, because the smudges I leave all over the back make the phone feel too slippery in my hands. I’m not prepared to drop a nearly ~$3,000 phone!

As expected of an ultra-premium, ~$3,000 phone, the Huawei Mate X2 features a metallic outer frame and hinge. Both the front and back are made of glass and are protected by an anti-scratch and shatter-resistant layer (presumably Gorilla Glass). The front also has a pre-applied screen protector. On the inside, the frame surrounding the foldable display is plastic. Speaking of which, the foldable OLED display itself is made of plastic rather than glass and does not have a layer of Ultra-Thin Glass (UTG) on top of it. Still, the display feels smooth — not quite as smooth as glass, but still smooth. When you slide your finger over the crease, you can definitely feel the slight indent. I would wager it won’t bother you unless you frequently perform sliding actions that traverse the center of the display. Since the crease is hardly visible, it definitely won’t bother you if you’re just browsing the web or watching a video.

Audio Experience: How good are the speakers?

Huawei equipped the Mate X2 with two speakers, both of which are centered on the thinner half of the device. They’re not quite balanced in terms of speaker output volume and don’t get that loud anyway, but the audio output sounds really good to me. Sound output is clear with minimal distortion. According to Huawei, the device features ultra-thin large amplitude speakers that deliver 180% more bass and 40% better high-frequency response performance compared to the Mate Xs.

The Huawei Mate X2 comes with a pair of USB Type-C earbuds

Because of the way the Mate X2 is designed, both speakers will be facing to the left and right when you hold the phone in its unfolded state in landscape orientation. Phones with great speaker hardware like the ROG Phone 5 feature forward-firing speakers in the bezels to get around the possibility of the user’s hands covering them up, but the Mate X2’s design naturally places the speakers away from the user’s hands. Of course, that all goes away when you hold the phone when it’s fully folded, as you’ll easily cover it up.

The Mate X2 doesn’t have a 3.5mm headphone jack, but Huawei does include a pair of basic USB-C earbuds in the box. I haven’t used them yet, but you’re probably better off using any higher-end wired or wireless audio accessory. It’s nice that Huawei included a pair so it doesn’t look like they cheaped out on the in-box accessories, but if you’re shelling out nearly three grand on a phone anyway, you probably already own or can afford to own much better audio hardware.

Visual Experience: How good is the display?

On the outside, the Huawei Mate X2’s 6.45-inch outer display has an OLED panel at 2700×1160 resolution for a pixel density of 456ppi and aspect ratio of 21:9. That’s tall, but not quite as narrow as the Galaxy Z Fold 2’s 25:9 outer display. It’s a pretty standard high-quality OLED panel marred only by a large hole-punch cutout on the top left. Speaking of which, the main display doesn’t have any cutouts, notches, or under-display cameras. In fact, there’s no front-facing camera at all around, under, or near the main display. That makes it really immersive but removes the ability to do video calls while the phone is unfolded.

On the inside, the Huawei Mate X2 has an 8-inch foldable OLED panel at 2480×2200 resolution for a pixel density of 413ppi. The display is sharp and easy to read, and the screen refreshes at 90Hz making for a smooth visual experience. (The outer display also refreshes at up to 90Hz, by the way). As previously mentioned, the display here is made of plastic but still feels very smooth and fluid. The crease isn’t visible when viewed head-on, so content won’t be marred by ugly bends in light. To reduce glare and reflections, Huawei applied a nano-optical layer. I haven’t used the phone outdoors yet, but I can tell it doesn’t get bright enough to be easily readable under direct sunlight.

Due to time and equipment restraints, we aren’t able to do a full display analysis of the Huawei Mate X2. Subjectively, both displays look very good. Huawei offers options to switch between a Normal, Vivid, and custom color mode. The Vivid profile has punchy, colder colors, while the Normal profile switches between sRGB and P3 depending on the content. I never really noticed any substantial differences in quality, brightness, or calibration between the two displays, which suggests Huawei did a good job to make the transition between the two seem seamless. I also didn’t notice any issues with the automatic refresh rate switching between 60 and 90Hz. Since both displays do not have LTPO backplanes and/or variable refresh rate implementations, they instead switch between discrete display modes. The transition is seamless and is controlled by the OS depending on the content, but only when the refresh rate mode is set to “Dynamic”. For simplicity, the Huawei Mate X2 synchronizes the brightness, display modes, and refresh rate of both displays.

One feature we weren’t able to test is HDR, but without Google Play Services and Widevine L1 support, we weren’t able to play back either HD or HDR content on YouTube or Netflix.

Having discussed the overall display quality and features, I think it’s next worth talking about the experience of using the larger, main display. First of all, the transition of content between the outer and main displays is seamless — there are no redraws whatsoever. Second, the extra vertical space offered by the main display is a huge boon to gaming and reading. For games with lots of on-screen buttons like Genshin Impact, things feel a lot less cramped. For reading manga, an entire page can comfortably fit on screen without needing to pan and zoom. Videos, though, have a fixed aspect ratio and thus don’t benefit much from the added screen real estate. The only exception comes from watching videos with subtitles, as the subtitles can be shifted below the video rather than layered on top.

Many apps treat the unfolded state like a tablet, giving you dual panel layouts. However, the default display density is too large to really take advantage of this, so you’ll need to adjust the settings if you want to actually see more on screen. Basically, the Huawei Mate X2 is a smartphone in the pocket and a tablet in the hand. It’s exactly the kind of experience you’d expect from a phone with a display that gets bigger when it unfolds. It’s not hard to understand why it’s useful, but you don’t really appreciate the benefits until you try it yourself.

Performance: How fast is the Huawei Mate X2?

Powering the Huawei Mate X2 is HiSilicon’s Kirin 9000 chip. It’s Huawei’s latest — and seemingly final — ARM-based SoC, and it features notable improvements over the previous-generation Kirin 990. The Kirin 9000 is based on TSMC’s 5nm process node technology and is comprised of an octa-core CPU with 1x ARM Cortex-A77 core clocked at up to 3.13GHz, 3x ARM Cortex-A77 clocked at up to 2.54GHz, and 4x ARM Cortex-A55 cores clocked at up to 2.05GHz. For graphics processing, the Kirin 9000 features an integrated 24-core ARM Mali-G78 GPU. For connectivity, the Kirin 9000 features Huawei’s integrated Balong 5G modem with support for sub-6GHz and millimeter frequencies on both NSA and SA networks.

It’s unclear how many Kirin 9000 chips were produced before the U.S. government blocked chipmakers from supplying to Huawei, but a limited supply of the chip would likely result in a limited supply of the phones that are powered by them, which includes the Mate X2. In any case, we couldn’t pass on the opportunity to test the Kirin 9000’s performance in one area where Kirin chips have traditionally lagged behind Qualcomm Snapdragon chips: gaming.

Gaming Performance

Compared to Huawei’s last-gen Kirin 990 which featured a 16-core Mali-G76 GPU, the new 24-core Mali-G78 GPU in the Kirin 9000 should perform much better in graphically-intensive games. While Qualcomm is rather opaque about the Snapdragon 888‘s GPU IP, we know that Samsung’s Exynos 2100 features a 14-core Mali-G78 GPU. Potential thermal throttling issues notwithstanding, we thus expect the new Kirin 9000 in the Huawei Mate X2 to perform very well in highly demanding Android games. To test that, we installed Genshin Impact and played through a 30-minute session with all graphical settings set to their maximum and the Mate X2’s performance mode turned off.

As you can see, Genshin Impact ran flawlessly on my Huawei Mate X2 review unit. In fact, the game ran even better than it did on the ASUS ROG Phone 5, a phone dedicated to gaming. I didn’t encounter any thermal throttling issues, and the phone didn’t become uncomfortably hot after a 30-minute session. (For reference, my 30-minute GI tests always consist of starting from a brand new account and playing until a little bit after the Winds of the Past quest. I do this for consistency and to ensure that gameplay always consists of a good mix of indoor and outdoor movement, battles, and cutscenes.)

Although I don’t have any data collected for the other games I played due to time constraints, I can reveal that the Huawei Mate X2 performs nearly flawlessly in other Android games like Call of Duty Mobile and League of Legends: Wild Rift, both, of course, at their maximum settings.

Even more exciting is the fact that the Mate X2 performed exceptionally well in retro console emulation. If you’ve ever dabbled in emulation on Android before, then you’ll know that non-Snapdragon chips tend to fare worse overall in emulators mainly due to driver incompatibility issues. Using the Citra-MMJ fork of the popular Nintendo 3DS emulator, I was able to run Super Mario 3D Land at a nearly constant 60fps for 30 minutes at 3X internal resolution (1200×720) after building up a shader cache. Using the latest official build of the popular Dolphin Emulator for the Nintendo GameCube/Wii, I was able to run Super Mario Sunshine at a constant 30fps for over 30 minutes at 2X internal resolution (1280×1056). I tried running Super Mario Sunshine at 3X internal resolution (1920×1584), but even with the better performing Vulkan graphics backend, the game performed unacceptably for me (hovering around 20-23fps in Bianco Hills). While the ROG Phone 5 with its Snapdragon 888 does have the slight edge here, it, too, struggles to maintain 30fps in Super Mario Sunshine with 3X internal resolution. Nevertheless, Nintendo 3DS and GameCube games look fantastic at or above 2X internal resolution, so I’m happy to say the Huawei Mate X2 with its Kirin 9000 performs like a champ in retro console emulation.

Real-world Performance

Gaming isn’t all the Huawei Mate X2 excels at. Huawei tends to do a good job at optimizing its devices to run Android as quickly as possible. During my week-long use of the Mate X2, I’ve encountered very few, if any, frame drops or stutters while using image and video-heavy social media apps like Twitter or Facebook. Switching to and from apps like Discord, Reddit is Fun, Telegram, and Slack happens very quickly. The phone’s 8GB of RAM is ample for keeping apps in memory, though as you can see above, you may run into app redraws if you run memory-hogging games like Genshin Impact.

I’m glad that Huawei equipped both screens with a 90Hz refresh rate, but I wish they would have gone with a faster 120Hz refresh rate. For me, there’s still a noticeable difference between 90Hz and 120Hz, but after that, the visual differences are imperceptible to me. Having used plenty of phones with refresh rates at or above 120Hz, the Huawei Mate X2 feels less fluid even though it actually isn’t. If you’re coming to a phone with a 60 or 90Hz refresh rate, though, you’ll likely feel differently than me.

I haven’t noticed any storage bottlenecks when using the phone, though I haven’t tried to benchmark the speed. Huawei uses a custom filesystem to eke out more performance for loading system apps. The company also continues to roll out SIM card trays with a slot for a NM (Nano-Memory) card, which few vendors make.

Camera

I would expect the Mate X2 to perform really well given the phone’s excellent camera hardware. It has a 50MP main RYYB sensor, a 16MP ultra wide-angle sensor, a 12MP telephoto sensor for 3X optical zoom, and an 8MP telephoto sensor for an incredible 10X optical zoom. That Huawei managed to pack in a 10X optical zoom lens while keeping the phone thin when unfolded is a testament to the stellar engineering that went into this device. The Kirin 9000 in the Huawei Mate X2 features a new NPU with two big cores and a new ISP with improved HDR processing for stills and videos, so real-time image and video processing should be improved from the P40 Pro+ which also featured an impressive 10X optical zoom camera.

Unfortunately, due to poor weather conditions (I’ve been blessed with dark, gloomy, and cloudy weather this past week), I haven’t been able to use the Mate X2 for a proper camera test. I did manage to take a couple of camera samples that you can see in this Google Photos album, though. One of the highlights of the camera is the fact that you can use the main rear cameras to take selfies by looking at the viewfinder on the external display. This results in much sharper selfies compared to shots from the front-facing camera embedded underneath the external display. Another highlight is the fact that Huawei’s cameras pull in a lot of light even in low-lighting conditions, and this can be further enhanced by using the camera app’s Night Mode. Night Mode works best when used with the main camera, but it is passable when used with the ultra wide-angle and 3X telephoto cameras.

Battery Life and Charging

As for battery life, I can’t offer any commentary or data. Since the phone lacks Google Play Services, I wasn’t able to use all the apps I typically use. Plus, nearly all the apps I use couldn’t send push notifications. Furthermore, I didn’t use the phone outside of my home because of network issues. Thus, I concluded there are too many different factors at play that would make any battery life judgments inaccurate.

As for charging, the Huawei Mate X2 supports Huawei’s 55W SuperCharge protocol but no wireless charging of any kind. The actual adapter that comes in the box is a 66W Super Charge brick, but the phone itself doesn’t charge at over 55W of power. The Mate X2 doesn’t have a dual-cell battery design, so having it charge any faster would likely put serious strain on the battery and reduce its longevity. From 0 to 100%, the Mate X2 takes about an hour to fully charge.

Software: What’s Android like on the Huawei Mate X2?

The software running on Huawei’s phones is in a bit of a weird state right now. While Huawei’s phones all currently do run Android, the OS version they’re running is the outdated Android 10 release. We’re coming up on Android 12 in a few months, but it looks like Huawei has no interest in further upgrading the Android OS version on its devices. Instead, Huawei is transitioning its phones to its in-house HarmonyOS software, though it’s unclear how different the current beta differs from Android. Regardless, the Huawei Mate X2 isn’t running HarmonyOS yet — the company told us it plans to release the software for the foldable sometime this month. Right now, the Huawei Mate X2 runs EMUI 11 based on Android 10, a software release we’ve covered extensively in the past. Apart from the underlying framework changes necessary for Android 10 to seamlessly transition content between the two displays, EMUI 11 on the Mate X2 isn’t that different from on the P40 Pro.

EMUI 11 based on Android 10

EMUI 11 on the Huawei Mate X2 features the same UI customization features, animations, improved multitasking capabilities, and multi-screen collaboration integrations as seen on the P40 and Mate 40. Huawei’s new “Mondrian” Always on Display style is present alongside other “Artistic” AOD options, and, of course, you can still create your own custom AOD. As I said previously, Huawei has done a good job at optimizing Android/EMUI on the Mate X2. Transition animations between activities feel fluid, and so do all of the fullscreen navigation gestures. EMUI 11’s “Smart Multi-Window” panel, coupled with the software’s expansions to Android’s split-screen/freeform multiwindows, made multitasking more palatable on the Huawei P40; with the Huawei Mate X2’s more generous screen size, multitasking is now a breeze.

For those of you who need to get more serious work done remotely, you can hook up your Huawei Mate X2 to an external display and enable the Easy Projection interface. Easy Projection is EMUI optimized for desktop mode, complete with a taskbar and support for multiple floating app windows. It can be enabled when connecting the Mate X2 to an external display either wired (via the Type-C port’s DisplayPort Alternate Mode) or wirelessly (via MiraCast). Huawei doesn’t allow you to toggle the Easy Projection interface without hooking the phone up to another display, though. I’m sure that some people would have preferred this interface to show when the phone is unfolded, but to be honest, I think it only really makes sense when the display is at least 10-inches in size.

There are a couple of other EMUI features I was unable to test on the Huawei Mate X2. First, I was unable to test Huawei’s AI voice assistant because it was forcing me to use the Chinese locale version of it. Next, I couldn’t test Huawei’s HiCar feature since I don’t own a compatible vehicle. I also couldn’t test Huawei’s AI Life app since I don’t own any products supported by their IoT ecosystem. Lastly, I was unable to test any of the multi-screen collaboration features because I don’t own a Huawei PC or TV. My colleague, Ben Sin, was able to test out Huawei Share, though, so I’ve embedded a tweet from him below in case you’re interested in seeing what that looks like.

This is how Huawei Mate X2 works when synced with a Huawei laptop via Huawei Share pic.twitter.com/7oxKV1nzeA

— ben (@bencsin) April 10, 2021

While I was digging through the Settings and looking over all the features I can and can’t test (and also uninstalling all the pre-installed Chinese app bloatware), I came to realize just how far Huawei’s app ecosystem has come. If you’re as entrenched as I am in Google’s ecosystem and the apps that rely on that, then it’s hard to get used to the Google app-less Mate X2. If you’re not as invested in Google services, though, then you’ll find that Huawei offers an alternative for just about everything. Huawei has its own apps for search, maps, dialer, messaging, web browser, video, music, wallet, video conferencing, books, digital wellbeing, smart home, calendar, clock, notepad, contacts, weather, calculator, files, audio recording, measurement, location tracking, IR remote control, compass, and more. Those are just the basics, though. Huawei also offers more sophisticated apps and services to compete with Google’s smarter offerings like Lens, Assistant, Live Caption, and more. Now, the quality of some of Huawei’s offerings may not be as good as Google’s; I personally prefer most of Google’s services over Huawei’s, but I’m impressed by how effectively Huawei has built a de-Googled version of Android.

Lack of Google Mobile Services

The biggest problem with EMUI 11 isn’t a lack of first-party apps, because Huawei’s got plenty of those. The biggest problem, of course, is the lack of Google Mobile Services. I can live without the Google Play Store since there are fully open-source versions of it like the Aurora Store, plenty of APK hosting sites, and Huawei’s own Petal Search service. (Huawei’s AppGallery, while constantly seeing improvements, is still not as convenient to use as Aurora Store is for me.) However, the lack of Google Play Services is a dealbreaker for me since very few apps I use daily have implemented Huawei’s HMS Core. Without Google Play Services, I don’t get push notifications in most apps, I can’t use Android Auto, I can’t use my Wear OS smartwatch, I can’t use Google Cast, and I can’t sync my KeePass database to my Google Drive account. Without Google’s Widevine L1 DRM certification, I can’t stream Netflix or Amazon Prime Video above 480p resolution. I can get around the hard blocks of YouTube and YouTube Music by using Vanced and Vanced Music (though I’m hesitant to sign into my Google account using modified apps), but I can’t get around most of the other issues unless I somehow get Googlefier working on EMUI 11. I really love the hardware on the Huawei Mate X2, so if this wasn’t a review unit, I would probably put more effort into hacking the Play Store and Play Services onto the device. I’m not sure that many other people reliant on Google services could say the same, though.

Aurora Store made getting apps easy on the Mate X2

Since the Mate X2 is only sold in China, a country where all Google apps and services are banned, I can give this device a pass. There’s little doubt in my mind that had it not been for the U.S. trade sanctions, Huawei would be selling the Mate X2 outside of China with Google Mobile Services onboard. There’s no point in contemplating hypotheticals, though, so I can only offer my thoughts on the software that actually ships on the phone. EMUI 11 is a fine custom Android-based OS with lots of great customization options, unique multitasking features, smooth animations, and annoying app-killing behavior (as is the norm with Chinese flavors of Android), but it’s held back by a lack of Google services outside of China. If you don’t care about that, then all the more power to you — diversifying the apps and services you use is smart in the long run.

Conclusion: The Huawei Mate X2 is an exceptional foldable but too elusive and expensive

I’ve long been a fan of foldables — in theory. Many of my colleagues in the media have told me how their first time with a foldable was transformative for their views. My 1 week with the Mate X2 has indeed been a transformative experience. I can’t see the future of smartphone design going in any other direction. Whether the industry settles on an asymmetrical wedge design and inward folding display isn’t something I can predict, but I can say for certain that this is a winning design combo. The Huawei Mate X2 feels like a very polished product that’s only really held back by its lack of availability and absurdly high price.

In an alternate universe, Huawei wouldn’t be barred from shipping Google apps or making new HiSilicon chips. They would be selling the Huawei Mate X2 for a premium in Europe or even the U.S., possibly with enticing trade-in offers and accessory bundles. I would be sitting and waiting for the phone to drop in price before I buy one. Here in reality, though, there’s no chance I’ll be getting one. I’ll instead have to settle for Huawei’s 1-week teaser of what could have been, as if this is their way of telling me, “this is what you’re missing out on!”

Huawei Mate X2 Forums

The post The Huawei Mate X2 made me realize how much I was missing out on appeared first on xda-developers.

LineageOS was created in 2016 as a stock-like Android custom ROM, following the collapse of the corporate-backed CyanogenMod project. It has gone through several major updates since then, but LineageOS has continued to bring a stock-like Android (and optionally Google-free) experience to dozens of phones and tablets. The most recent release — LineageOS 18.1 — was finally released at the end of March, offering Android 11 to over 50 devices.

The 18.1 release brings far more than just an underlying Android OS update, though — as always, Lineage adds its own features on top of Google’s open-sourced Android code. There’s so much to explore in the new release, so we decided to give it the full review treatment.

Installing LineageOS 18.1

If you’ve ever installed a custom ROM on a phone or tablet, the process likely isn’t too different with LineageOS 18.1. The most important distinction between Lineage and other ROMs is that Lineage offers its own recovery software, instead of relying on third-party recovery systems like TWRP. While you should still be able to use TWRP with LineageOS 18.1, it’s recommended to stick with the project’s own recovery software (if that’s what the maintainer for your device recommends).

I used a Google Pixel 3a XL for trying out LineageOS 18.1, so the installation process was relatively simple. I unlocked the bootloader using ADB and Fastboot on my PC, then temporarily flashed Lineage Recovery with a single Fastboot command. Once you’re in the recovery software, you have to sideload the latest LineageOS build with ADB, which should install both the OS and the recovery partitions. After that, you can flash a Google apps or root package if you want, then reboot the device to the full system.

I did run into issues while installing MindTheGapps — the Gapps installer would say everything was successful, but when I booted into LineageOS, there would be no Google apps. Performing another factory reset, along with rebooting the recovery partition between installing Lineage and Gapps, eventually fixed the problem. I’m not sure if that is an issue with Lineage’s recovery software or the zip package, but either way, it took me a few tries to get Lineage working with the usual Google apps. Make sure you follow the steps exactly as written to reduce the chances of any issues happening.

Hello, Android 11

The initial setup process for LineageOS is very close to that of a Pixel phone if you installed a Gapps package. You sign into a Google account, choose your backup and sync options, set up Voice Match, and do a few other miscellaneous steps. If you go without Google apps and services, you’re mostly just asked for a name, time zone, and other basic information.

Past the setup screen, you’re greeted by Trebuchet, the default home screen launcher since the CyanogenMod days. It’s close in functionality to the Pixel Launcher, but there are a few added features. You can use icon packs, though unlike with OnePlus’ OxygenOS, the custom icons only show up on the home screen and app drawer (while OnePlus displays them across the whole system).

You can also hide apps from the launcher with a PIN or fingerprint, which also hides their widgets from the widget menu. Finally, there are extra options for icon labels and locking edits. Those of you with highly customized home screens will likely have to stick with other launchers, but Trebuchet has just about everything I personally want in a home screen.

The rest of LineageOS 18.1 doesn’t look and feel drastically different from a Pixel or Nokia phone running Android 11. Media controls appear in the Quick Settings panel, alerts are split into conversations (some of which can be displayed as floating bubbles) and other notifications, smart home devices (or Tasker tasks) can be managed from the power menu, and so on. If something is in stock Android 11, it’s most likely in LineageOS 18.1.

Even though LineageOS already had a few extra security/privacy features compared to stock Android, LineageOS 18.1 benefits from the many security-related overhauls that come with Android 11. Temporary permissions prevent apps from repeatedly acquiring location, microphone, and camera data. Apps also can’t obtain your location in the background. Finally, Android 11 marks the beginning of Google’s transition to Scoped Storage, the controversial API that limits which files on your device are accessible to third-party apps. While there are valid complaints over how Scoped Storage works, I’m personally still a fan — it doesn’t block access to any of the folders I commonly need to access, and there’s no reason for most of the apps on my phone to have unrestricted access to all my phone’s local files.

Of course, there is some functionality missing from LineageOS 18.1, even if you install a Google apps package. Custom ROMs don’t pass Google’s SafetyNet tests, so some applications will refuse to run, and others hide themselves from Play Store search results (like Netflix and Hulu). Installing root and Magisk can fix this, but bypassing SafetyNet is ultimately a cat-and-mouse game between Google and developers, and it will probably stop working at some point.

I was surprised that LineageOS on my Pixel 3a XL maintained Widevine L1 support, so as long as your favorite streaming service doesn’t require a SafetyNet check while it’s running, it should work fine on LineageOS 18.1. Once I installed Hulu from an APK (the Play Store listing is hidden from modified devices), movies and TV shows played at original quality. This might vary by device, but that’s my experience on the Pixel 3a XL.

LineageOS 18.1 System Features

LineageOS 18.1 maintains most of the non-stock features found in previous versions of LineageOS and CyanogenMod. The status bar can be heavily customized, with various clock/battery styles and an optional network traffic monitor. You can also change which side of the screen the clock is on, so you can relive the good old days when Android had the clock on the right side.

LineageOS 18.1 also has more options for your phone or tablet’s buttons than stock Android (and most OEM skins). If you stick to the default three-button navigation bar, you can set custom actions for holding down or double-tapping the Home button and long-pressing the Recents button. The power button can be set to turn the flashlight on or off (an incredibly helpful addition for my late-night dog walks), and the volume rocker can answer calls or control music playback.

System profiles have also made a return from previous versions of LineageOS and CyanogenMod. They function similarly to Bixby Routines on Samsung devices and Shortcuts on iPhones and iPads, allowing you to change some system settings after a trigger you define (e.g. connected to a certain Wi-Fi network or Bluetooth device) is activated. For example, you could have Ambient display turn itself off when you get home, or set media volume to 0% while you’re at work.

System profiles are great to have for simple automation, but the functionality is mostly limited to changing device settings. You can’t open apps automatically, nor can you use notifications and other common actions as triggers. Anyone looking to create more complex setups will be happier with Tasker.

LineageOS 18.1 System Apps

The Android operating system is open-source, but most of the applications that you need for a complete smartphone experience aren’t. Google stopped actively maintaining most of the apps in AOSP ages ago, replacing them on retail devices with Google-ified versions (e.g., Gboard, Gmail, etc.). This results in the LineageOS project having to update, or outright replace, many system applications that Google abandoned.

Depending on how you install LineageOS 18.1, you may not see some or all of these applications — many Google apps installers will uninstall or disable them, so you don’t get two clock apps or two email clients. Some unofficial builds also might not have them.

The LineageOS Browser remains my favorite of the app’s projects, partially because it’s well-designed and has just enough functionality for modern web browsing, and also because it displays tabs in the system Recents menu. This was an option in Chrome during the Lollipop days but was removed years ago. However, it doesn’t support many modern web app features, including push notifications and offline caching.

There’s also a Calculator app, which includes most of the functionality you’d see in a scientific calculator, with a history accessible by swiping down. The Clock and Contacts applications are almost identical to what you get on Pixel phones, and there’s an AudioFX utility for switching between audio profiles. Not much new here if you’ve used LineageOS in the past.

The Calendar application in LineageOS 18.1 is completely different than what you’d find on previous versions — instead of continuing to maintain the dated (heh) AOSP Calendar app, LineageOS has forked the open-source Etar Calendar (which itself is based on AOSP Calendar) and added a few changes. It displays any calendars synced to your device using Android’s built-in CalDAV provider, and generally looks and works great. Similarly, the open-source SeedVault app has been integrated into LineageOS, allowing you to back up your device’s settings and data without a Google account.

LineageOS 18.1 also has its own Gallery application, which is a bit spartan compared to Google Photos, but still supports albums and has a simple image editor. Photos can only be displayed in large grid tiles, and you can’t quickly jump to a certain month or year, so finding one specific image can be difficult. For files that aren’t necessarily photos, there’s a Files app, which just opens Android’s file picker.

Speaking of photos, there’s a Camera app included in LineageOS 18.1 that comes with a decent array of settings and toggles, though most of them require a few taps to reach. There are separate modes for photos, videos, panoramas, and QR codes, with a hamburger menu at the top for options. Photo quality seemed a bit worse on my Pixel 3a XL than the stock Google Camera application, which is par for the course with custom ROMs. Photo and video quality varies by device, but there are modded GCam apps available for most phones that should work on custom ROMs like LineageOS.

Photo samples from Pixel 3a XL on LineageOS 18.1

The default Messages app in LineageOS 18.1 is the same story as most of the other applications: there aren’t many features, but it’s functional and looks clean. You can easily manage group conversations, block specific numbers, and send attachments like images and contacts. There’s no RCS support in the Messages app because Google still hasn’t opened up RCS APIs to third-party clients — you’ll need Play Services and Google Messages installed for that. Fun times.

The phone dialer app in LineageOS 18.1 is more or less identical to Google Phone, though the design fits in more with early Material Theme than Google’s newer (and much whiter) design language. There’s also a basic voice recorder app with convenient notification controls, and the option to change sound quality. Nothing fancy, but it saves me from having to download a third-party recorder app that might have pop-up ads.

The last system application of note in LineageOS 18.1 is Music, which hasn’t changed much from LineageOS 17.1. You can sort locally-stored music by artist or album, create playlists, or just see a giant list of every song you have. One new feature is that the notification now has a seekbar, like many music and podcast players added when Android 10 was first released. I wish the controls in the playing screen were a little larger, but that’s really my only complaint.

There is one application missing from that list: an email client. LineageOS has decided to abandon its AOSP-based email app, with one developer calling it “old, insecure, and outdated.” Gmail has worked with third-party email clients for years, and there are a few open-source email app alternatives (like K-9 Mail), so this isn’t too much of a loss.

Conclusion

LineageOS has always had two main goals: keep older phones and tablets updated, and give you more control over your devices. LineageOS 18.1 ultimately succeeds at both, as it offered official builds for over 50 phones and tablets right out of the gate (with more on the way), while keeping most of the classic LineageOS and CyanogenMod features from previous releases. Even phones as old as the LG G2 and Samsung Galaxy S4 (both from 2013) can run the same operating system as a new $1,000 phone released in 2021, thanks to the hard work from LineageOS and its device maintainers.

LineageOS 18.1 continues to carry another important mantle: maintaining open Android. Google has abandoned many core applications in AOSP, so the Lineage team has stepped in to fill the gaps. The web browser, gallery, music player, and other applications help to create a complete smartphone experience without proprietary software or multiple trips to the F-Droid app store. Of course, this isn’t an issue if you want to install Google Play Services, but it matters to the folks trying to de-Google their phones.

With how much of a complete package LineageOS is, and the fact that it’s still available for free to download and install, it’s hard for me to complain about anything. You still need a PC and some basic terminal knowledge to install it, and there are occasional quirks with apps blocking modified devices, but that’s about it.

If you’re interested in trying out LineageOS, head over to the official website for downloads and installation guides. Throw the project a few bucks on PayPal or Patreon too, if you can — servers aren’t free.

The post LineageOS 18.1 Review: Android 11, coming to an old phone near you appeared first on xda-developers.

Gaming laptops are going through a transformative phase. Many laptop makers have started using AMD parts over Intel because the new Ryzen 5000 mobile series offers great performance. Intel is now playing catch up but has managed to come up with only a handful of quad-core processors for thin and light gaming laptops under its new Tiger Lake H-Series.

Meanwhile, NVIDIA brought its new GeForce RTX 30 series of GPUs to laptops earlier this year, but with a bit of a twist. Depending on the power configurations set by the laptop manufacturers, these new GPUs can provide variable levels of performance. But unlike the last generation where this drop in power was denoted by attaching a ‘Max-Q’ at the end of the GPU name, NVIDIA now requires laptop makers to specify the kind of power consumers can expect, causing some confusion. Given all of these factors as well as the global chipset shortage, consumers should be careful about spending their money on a new gaming laptop this year.

For those in the market for a new gaming laptop though, one product that just came out is the ASUS TUF Dash F15. It is one of the first gaming laptops announced this year with Intel’s new 11th-gen Tiger Lake H-Series which, in my opinion, makes it one of the most anticipated gaming laptops of 2021. The reason for that is because it uplifts ASUS’s TUF brand into a whole new category. It aims to be a powerful slim and lightweight 15-inch gaming laptop, and honestly, ASUS has done a fine job here. With up to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 graphics card and a 240Hz refresh rate display, the TUF Dash F15 sounds like a fine choice for gamers. But is it actually worth it?

ASUS TUF Dash F15: Specifications

About this review: ASUS India sent us the ASUS TUF Dash F15 for review. This review has been written after about 15 days of regular use and no third party has any input into the contents of this article.

ASUS TUF Dash F15: Design

The ASUS TUF Dash F15 is offered in either Eclipse Grey or Moonlight White, and as you can see, ASUS sent us the latter. It has a striking design, and I absolutely love how ASUS is pushing itself to bring a unique experience to customers. Sure, a white laptop means that it will get dirty real quick, but honestly, I didn’t have to do anything beyond just a few wipes from a cloth to keep the TUF Dash F15 clean. ASUS says the paint will last longer, so you shouldn’t worry about the color getting dull over time. Also, this is specifically for the white color variant, which means you can always go for the darker grey version, which is also a bit cheaper in price.

The overall build of the TUF Dash F15 is solid and looks very premium, just like the ROG Zephyrus series. In fact, ASUS has implemented some of the design choices that we have seen on older Zephyrus laptops. First of all, the TUF Dash F15 doesn’t have a webcam just like the Zephyrus G14 series and the new G15 announced earlier this year. Some would argue that gaming laptops don’t really need a webcam and that smartphones are way better at video calling, but with the surge of work-from-home over the last year, this feels like a missed opportunity.

The laptop does come with an array-style microphone system, and ASUS also markets two-way AI noise cancelation as one of the top features on the TUF Dash F15. However, one of the best potential uses of this microphone system would be for video calls, but that isn’t possible out of the box since there’s no webcam. I don’t know where to assign blame, but every design choice has to be for a reason, so I have to chalk this one up to being a poor decision.

The new ASUS TUF Dash F15 is more or less a refined version of the TUF A15 from last year. It is slimmer and lighter and, at the same time, has a very sturdy chassis with clean lines. The branding sees some changes with the new TUF logo on the top corner of the lid and the brand name across the lid on the opposite side. I’ll give it some extra points for its ruggedness as it meets military-grade MIL-STD standards, ensuring that the chassis can take minor bumps. I also noticed some nice rubber padding on the inside of the lid for protection and some extra feet at the bottom so that there is enough room for the internal fans to pull in air.

The exhaust vents are on the back and sides, and you can feel the hot air coming out of them, especially on the sides since you need to use a mouse while gaming. The vents take some of the space on the left and right sides, hence the I/O ports have been moved further down. The charging port on the TUF Dash F15 is on the left edge, along with an RJ45 Ethernet port, an HDMI port, a USB Type-A port, a USB-C port, and a 3.5mm headphone and mic combo jack. On the other side, you get two more USB Type-A ports.

With the help of a pry tool, you can get access to the internals after removing all the screws at the bottom. Underneath, the ASUS TUF Dash F15 offers two M.2 SSD slots, so there is room for adding more storage to the laptop. The laptop makes use of dual-channel memory with 8GB soldered onto the board itself, but a secondary SODIMM slot can be used to upgrade the memory on the TUF Dash F15. Similarly, the Wi-Fi module can also be upgraded or replaced rather easily. Below, you can see the five heat pipes along with the two fans that take care of the thermals and the 76Whr battery that powers the ASUS TUF Dash F15.

Complementing the look of the laptop is the unique mint-green colored LED lighting under the keyboard. The addition of RGB would have been nice, but I have no real complaints here as I love the color when it shines through the transparent WASD keys. The keys themselves feel good in terms of feedback, and I was able to quickly get used to typing on the ASUS TUF Dash F15 since the keys are well spaced out. For some reason, ASUS no longer offers a Print Screen key anywhere on its laptops, which was mildly annoying to me as I have a habit of using it. However, there is a shortcut for the built-in Windows snipping tool that pretty much offers the same functionality. The keyboard deck itself is quite spacious and sturdy with four dedicated keys up top that include volume controls, mic mute/unmute, and a shortcut for ASUS’s Armory Crate software. The trackpad is just fine and very smooth to use with support for most of your common gestures. The green color makes an appearance here as well with subtle accents.

ASUS TUF Dash F15: Display

ASUS clearly had eSports in mind while choosing the panel to use in the TUF Dash F15. The laptop offers a 240Hz refresh rate along with Adaptive Sync and 3ms response time. It also offers good color and contrast performance with 100% coverage of sRGB alongside Pantone validation. The panel has a matte anti-glare coating on top, and since it uses an IPS panel, you can expect those wide viewing angles. Brightness could have been better, but it felt adequate to me when using the laptop indoors, especially while gaming or streaming content on Netflix. ASUS offers a lower 144Hz refresh rate model, but that comprises the overall color quality.

I liked how ASUS trimmed the side and top bezels on the TUF Dash F15. They aren’t super slim like the ones we see on premium ultrabooks, but the small bezels do make them less distracting. The gray rubber padding all around the display is also appreciated as it ensures that the keys don’t leave marks on the display panel.

My only concern with the display is that most of the games that I tested didn’t go beyond 144fps, making the 240Hz panel sort of overkill. The number sounds impressive on paper, and while some games like CS: GO will actually push these frame rates, I think ASUS could have cut some costs here. I would have preferred a single 144Hz refresh rate panel option without compromising the color calibration goodness.

ASUS TUF Dash F15: Performance

As previously mentioned, the ASUS TUF Dash F15 is powered by an 11th-gen Intel Tiger-Lake H35 series processor, the Core i7-11370H, that comes with four cores, eight threads, boost clock speeds of up to 4.8GHz, and Iris Xe integrated graphics. The chip is based on a similar architecture as the Core i7-1185G7 or the Core i7-1165G7 that we’ve seen on a variety of ultrabooks, but you get faster clock speeds and a higher TDP (Thermal Design Power) rating of 35W. It is paired with 16GB of DDR4 RAM at 3200MHz speeds, while NVIDIA’s new GeForce RTX 3070 GPU takes care of your gaming needs. You need to pay attention to the fact that ASUS is offering a low-powered 80+5W variant of the RTX 3070 to keep a check on the temperatures inside the slim chassis of the laptop. This is where things get interesting.

Customers need to understand that while the ASUS TUF Dash F15 is s full-fledged RTX 3070 gaming laptop capable of handling most AAA gaming titles, it is not going to be as performant as some of the other RTX 3070 gaming laptops out there. For instance, the new Gigabyte AORUS 15P also comes with an RTX 3070 mobile GPU, but the company has configured it with 130W of power. Essentially this means that it can outperform the TUF Dash F15 by 15-20% when it comes to graphics performance. The fine line here is that ASUS has a machine that is 0.2kg lighter and slimmer by 7.1mm. It doesn’t sound like a huge trade-off, but at the end of the day, it is up to consumers to decide whether they want the full potential of the RTX 3070 or have a gaming laptop that is easier to handle and carry around.

Armory Crate software

As for the performance experience, it didn’t stutter at any given instance and managed to handle my workloads effortlessly. I was able to open over 20 Chrome tabs, stream music via Spotify, and have a bunch of apps running in the background including Slack, Discord, Steam, etc. Even basic photo editing on Adobe Photoshop was a breeze. The CPU shows signs of struggle when you throw high-res videos at it for rendering or other processor-intensive tasks. This was also evident in the Cinebench benchmark tests where the Core i7-11370H scored only a few points above the Core i7-1185G7 and way behind the Core i7-10875H from last year that I tested on the Lenovo Legion 7i. The laptop comes with three performance presets — Silent, Performance, and Turbo — that you can set manually by heading to the Armory Crate software or by hitting the Fn+F5 key. I did most of my testing while setting the mode to Turbo, where it cranks up the power and fan speeds. For comparison sakes, I also did all of the benchmark tests using the Performance and Turbo modes.

Gaming performance is middling. The new RTX 3070 is based on NVIDIA’s Ampere architecture and offers support for next-gen Ray tracing for excellent visuals and DLSS tech to give a boost to the overall resolution and performance. While you should be able to get around 90-100fps in most gaming titles cranked up to the maximum settings, some eSports titles like Apex Legends and PUBG played well above 130fps. AAA titles with Ray tracing take the GPU to its limits, so don’t expect Cyberpunk 2077 to run at anything beyond 40-50fps at ultra settings.

By using a fairly less power-hungry CPU and reducing the overall power draw on the GPU, ASUS manages to keep the thermals in check on the TUF Dash F15. I recorded an average of 76°C on the CPU and about 70°C on the GPU while gaming, which is impressive and pretty much under control. Under stress, the CPU went to a maximum of 95°C and the GPU stayed fairly under control at 76°C. In storage tests with the 1TB NVMe SSD, read speeds go up to 3,506MBps and write speeds of 2,736MBps on the CrystalDisk benchmark.

Battery Life & Charging

The battery on the ASUS TUF Dash F15 is rated at 76Whr, which ASUS claims offers up to 16.6 hours of video playback. I am not sure what the conditions were for the company’s testing, but I ran a YouTube video on loop at 1080p resolution with the brightness set around the 50% mark. I got about 7 hours of battery life which honestly isn’t all that bad considering how slim and lightweight the laptop is. It is also worth noting that once you unplug the laptop from the charger, the Armory Crate software switches to the “Silent” mode automatically, thereby switching to the Intel onboard graphics, lowering the processor clock speeds, and dropping the screen refresh rate to 60Hz for extended battery life. Thus, your mileage may vary when it comes to battery life, as it depends on what mode you have enabled in Armory Crate.

The TUF Dash F15’s charging brick is rated at 200W and is fairly slim to carry around. The laptop can also be charged via the USB-C/Thunderbolt 4 port that supports up to 100W speeds, which is a great option to have if you don’t want to carry around the standard barrel charger with you. I was able to charge the laptop using a standard 65W USB-PD charger from Aukey. Of course, you will need the supplied charger if you want to crank up the gaming performance and make full use of the RTX 3070 graphics card.

Conclusion: Is the ASUS TUF Dash F15 worth buying?

The ASUS TUF Dash F15 isn’t the best gaming notebook, but it gets a pass if you are looking for a laptop that offers a good balance between performance and portability. It’s easy to carry around, looks neat, and with up to 7-8 hours of battery life, it should be a great companion for when you want to work from that new coffee shop you always wanted to visit.

You will have to make compromises though. For instance, the lack of a built-in webcam means you can’t do video calls without an external webcam or a smartphone, and the thermal design means it won’t be as fast as other similarly specced laptops. If you are looking for something that can squeeze out the full potential of the new RTX 30-series GPUs from NVIDIA, look elsewhere. The 4-core processor and low-wattage GPU are not going to impress gamers who want high-end performance. The only saving grace might be that this laptop isn’t very expensive, which is important to note at a time when getting your hands on a new piece of gaming hardware is either next to impossible or comes at a terrible cost

You can get the ASUS TUF Dash F15 with the NVIDIA RTX 3070 GPU for ₹1,41,000 in India or about $1,500 in the US. The RTX 3060 model that comes with a 144Hz refresh rate display is currently not available in India, but if you are in the US, you can get it for $1,150.

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Unsurprisingly, the Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 has Intel Tiger Lake, also known as 11th-generation, and AMD Ryzen 4000, although consumers have an option of either one in either model. Intel’s Tiger Lake chips now come with Iris Xe integrated graphics, a marked improvement on Iris Plus Graphics, which was already a solid improvement over the previous generation. As far as AMD goes, Ryzen 4000 is built on a 7nm process now and brings its own performance improvements. For this review, I’ve been using the Intel model.

Navigate this review

• Specifications overview
• Design, build quality, and Ice Blue color
• Display and audio: What’s the Surface Laptop 4 like for streaming media?
• Keyboard and touchpad: How does the Surface Laptop 4 handle input?
• Performance and battery life: Can the Surface Laptop 4 handle real work?
• Conclusion: Is the Surface Laptop 4 worth buying?

Microsoft Surface Laptop 4: Specifications

About this review: Microsoft loaned me the Ice Blue 13.5-inch Surface Laptop 4 with 16GB RAM, 512GB of storage, and Intel’s Core i7-1185G7, but they did not preview or exercise any control over this review.

The 13.5-inch Surface Laptop 4 actually starts at $999.99, and that will get you an AMD Ryzen 5 4680U Surface Edition CPU, along with 8GB RAM and a 256GB SSD. In fact, aside from a separate $1,199.99 SKU that gets you 16GB RAM, that’s all you can get in the 13.5-inch model with AMD. The rest comes with Intel. It’s also worth noting that the AMD-powered models only come in the Platinum color.

The rest of the models — aside from the top-end model that has a Core i7-1185G7, 32GB RAM, and a 1TB SSD for $2,299.99 and comes in Matte Black — come in all four colors: Platinum, Ice Blue, Sandstone, and Matte Black. If you go the Platinum or Ice Blue route, you’ll get Alcantara fabric on the keyboard, while Sandstone and Matte Black are straight-up aluminum.

For the 15-inch Surface Laptop 4, it’s just aluminum, and your options are only Platinum and Matte Black. For that model, the only AMD processor offered is the Ryzen 7 4980U Surface Edition, and that comes in the $1,299.99 base model with 8GB RAM and 256GB of storage, along with a $1,499.99 model with 8GB RAM and 512GB of storage and a $1,699.99 model with 16GB RAM and 512GB of storage. The rest use an Intel Core i7-1185G7, and once again, the top-end model comes with 32GB RAM and 1TB of storage.

As far as other spec differences between the two Surface Laptop 4 models, there’s not much. The 15-inch version is bigger and heavier, naturally, and it has a 2,496×1,664 display, giving it the exact same 201ppi pixel density. Indeed, the battery isn’t even any bigger in the 15-inch version.

Design, Build Quality, and Ice Blue color

I was happy to open the package and see that Microsoft had sent me the Ice Blue model, as it’s the new color introduced with the Surface Laptop 4. It replaces Cobalt Blue in the Surface Laptop lineup, and that was the last of the original colors that were still being made, other than the Platinum color that exists across the Surface brand. Ice Blue comes with the Alcantara keyboard, something that was originally a staple of the Surface Laptop lineup.

Microsoft is definitely trending toward more subtle colors, unlike bold colors like Burgundy and Cobalt Blue. When I asked about this, I was told that that’s simply this year’s trend. The Redmond firm could decide to go all-in on bold colors again next year if it wants to. But for now, don’t expect the next Microsoft Surface Laptop in Poppy Red.

The shade of blue is so pale that you could probably mistake it for gray, and it’s a nice subtle touch. If gray laptops seem a bit dull, and they usually are, the blue tint adds just a tiny bit of flash to it. On top of that, there’s the mirrored Surface logo stamped in the lid. As usual, the branding is one of the sexiest parts of the laptop.

Other than the color, the look of the chassis of the Surface Laptop hasn’t changed much over time. With the Surface Laptop 3, the USB Type-C port was added, but that’s about it. However, some things have changed, although again, these changes were made in the last generation of the product.

For one thing, the weight distribution changed. If you put a Surface Laptop 2 and a Surface Laptop 4 next to each other, you’ll be able to feel how much easier it is to open the Surface Laptop 4 with one finger. The additional weight in the base makes it easier to use on your lap as well.

Another change is that you can open up the base and replace the storage now. Replaceable storage is something that we’re seeing across the Surface lineup now, and it’s for businesses. It’s not meant for you to get around Microsoft’s exorbitant prices for storage tiers. Instead, this is more about being able to destroy storage when you recycle the product, or to service it.

While you could replace or upgrade the storage yourself, Microsoft warns against this and says you should have an authorized repair center do it. That means that if you do it yourself, you’re probably voiding your warranty.

The port selection hasn’t changed. On the left side, there’s a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A and a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, both of which are good for data transfer speeds of up to 10Gbps. There’s also a 3.5mm audio jack on the Surface Laptop 4.

Sadly, there’s still no Thunderbolt. While Microsoft has rejected Thunderbolt throughout the life of Surface, its excuse this time is that there’s an AMD-powered variant of the Surface Laptop 4. Since Intel owns Thunderbolt, Microsoft doesn’t want to go the extra mile to add it to AMD-powered PCs. To be clear, it is possible.

Still, most OEMs simply put Thunderbolt in their Intel-powered configurations and not in the AMD-powered ones. It’s interesting because Microsoft has these reasons for not giving us modern technology like Thunderbolt, and they seem fine until you realize that its competitors solved these problems ages ago.

Another example of this is the Surface Connect port, Microsoft’s proprietary charging port that’s found on the right side of the Surface Laptop 4. Surface Connect is a magnetic charging port that’s USB 3.2 Gen 2, so it supports the same 10Gbps data transfer speeds. It also has the same limitations as the USB Type-C port, meaning you can’t connect dual 4K displays.

Again, this is something that other OEMs have solved. Sure, business customers want to keep the port so that they can use the same docks and peripherals they’ve always used. Still, companies like HP, Lenovo, Dell, and Acer all slowly moved their commercial lineups to USB Type-C entirely years ago.

Display and Audio: What’s the Surface Laptop 4 like for streaming media?

Microsoft’s Surface Laptop 4 comes with a 13.5-inch 2,256×1,504 display, giving it a 3:2 aspect ratio. Yes, that’s the same aspect ratio as every modern Surface. The pixel density is 201ppi, which is actually significantly lower than the Surface Book 3 (260ppi) and the Surface Pro 7 (267ppi). I don’t think it makes a difference though. There’s no noticeable pixelation, so the lower pixel density only results in longer battery life.

The colors are good too, although it’s not as vibrant as the OLED display that you’ll find on HP’s 13.5-inch 3:2 Spectre x360 14. Microsoft has always focused more on accurate colors than vibrant ones. It’s also fairly bright, enough to comfortably work outdoors. This is an issue that I’ve had with Surface PCs before because Microsoft really does love glossy displays. And if you combine glossy and dim, that makes it hard to use outside.

Interestingly, the clamshell laptop has both touch and pen support. While touch comes in handy from time to time, I’ve never found a practical use for a pen with a clamshell laptop like this in all of my years reviewing Surface Laptops. If you’re thinking a pen might be useful, get a convertible.

As you can see, the bezels on the Surface Laptop 4 aren’t particularly small. Honestly, if you were looking for narrow bezels, you’re probably not looking for a Microsoft Surface. That’s more in the Dell XPS territory.

The top bezel includes a webcam and an IR camera. Sadly, the Surface Laptop 4’s webcam offers just 720p resolution. The webcam resolution is one thing that hasn’t changed here, and it’s a shame. With so many people working remotely, a quality webcam is more important than ever. For reference, the Surface Pro 7, Surface Pro X, Surface Book 3, Surface Studio 2, and even the Surface Go have 1080p webcams. Microsoft has been using a 1080p webcam in the Surface Pro lineup since the Surface Pro 3 in 2014.

One thing that’s been improved in the Surface Laptop 4 is audio quality. This year, the new Surface Laptop has speakers that have been tuned with Dolby Atmos. These speakers are not only clear, but they’re fairly loud for listening to music or streaming video. They’re loud enough that it’s uncomfortable to listen to them at 100% volume, which is really all that I ask for. If you have to use anything at 100% under normal conditions, it’s not good enough. With the speakers on the Surface Laptop 4, a comfortable volume is around 50%.

Keyboard and Touchpad: How does the Surface Laptop 4 handle input?

The keyboard itself is something that hasn’t changed much since the original Surface Laptop debuted. The keys themselves still feel like they’re made of plastic (because they are), but it does seem like Microsoft has tinkered with the resistance a bit. It feels very comfortable, and it feels accurate. In my weeks of using the Surface Laptop 4, I clearly made fewer errors in typing than I normally would.

The keyboard is covered in Alcantara fabric, a stable of the Surface Laptop since it debuted. This is something that a lot of people hated. In fact, that’s why with the Laptop 3, Microsoft started offering models without it. I’ll tell you a bit of a secret though. I like the soft feel of the Alcantara on my palms. It’s a nice touch that makes the Surface Laptop 4 unique.

The only problem is, of course, that it’s harder to keep clean. It’s recommended that you use a damp, lint-free cloth with mild soap to keep it clean. For stains, it’s recommended that you clean it within 30 minutes.

If you don’t want to deal with that hassle, you’ve got options. On the 13.5-inch Surface Laptop 4, the Sandstone and Matte Black models have aluminum keyboards. For the 15-inch model, Platinum and Matte Black are aluminum. The only ones that come with Alcantara are the 13.5-inch Platinum and Ice Blue models.

Another thing of note about the keyboard is that this is where the power button is. This is different from almost any other Surface. The Surface Pro, Surface Book, and Surface Go all keep their power buttons on the side. That’s because those are tablets or can be used as such. The Surface Laptop series also doesn’t have a physical volume rocker. You’ll have to know all of this if you have to use the power and volume keys to boot into recovery because it does work the same way. You just have to use the keys on the keyboard.

It’s got a Microsoft Precision touchpad, meaning it’s fast and responsive. This isn’t really a concern anymore, as pretty much any modern laptop has a Precision touchpad. I’m more concerned with how Microsoft tends to make noisy touchpads. Seriously, if you’re trying to work in a super-quiet room, people will hear you click.

The good news is that it’s better than Microsoft’s tablets. Presumably, this is because the Surface Laptop 4 just had a more solid base. Microsoft just loves its clicking sounds.

Performance and Battery Life: Can the Surface Laptop 4 handle real work?

The Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 that I was sent includes an Intel Core i7-1185G7, 16GB RAM, and a 512GB SSD. While it’s pretty specced out, you could get it with 32GB RAM and 1TB of storage if you want. I just don’t know who looks for 32GB of RAM if they’re not also looking for a dedicated GPU.

In the 13.5-inch model, you’ve also got the option of an AMD Ryzen 5 4680U Surface Edition or an Intel Core i5-1135G7. The AMD processor is the one that’s used in the base model, but keep in mind that while Ryzen 4000 is good, it’s a last-gen product. Every other OEM is using Ryzen 5000 now. For a Core i5, the entry point is $1,299.99.

The Intel processors are from the Tiger Lake family. That means that they come with Iris Xe graphics. If you don’t know what Iris Xe graphics are, you’re in for a treat. With last year’s Ice Lake and the move to the 10nm process, Intel finally started taking its integrated graphics seriously with Iris Plus Graphics. Iris Plus was nearly twice as fast as its predecessor, and now Iris Xe is nearly twice as fast as that.

That means on a regular old ultrabook with integrated graphics, you can do things like play FHD games or edit photos. You can even do some light video editing. Of course, if you’re recording 4K 60fps video, you probably already know that you need dedicated graphics.

One other thing worth noting is that while both the Core i5 and Core i7 have the ‘G7’ suffix, the Iris Xe graphics in the Core i7 are a bit better. It has 96 execution units instead of 80.

As far as battery life goes, I got about eight hours of my regular usage from the Surface Laptop 4. That’s pretty much what I was expecting out of this machine, so there’s no surprise there. I put the screen at 33% brightness and the power slider at a notch above battery saver. Regular usage included working through the Edge browser, some photo editing in Photoshop, Skype, OneNote, Slack, and a handful of other productivity apps.

For benchmarks, I used PCMark 8, PCMark 10, Geekbench, and Cinebench.

As you can see, the Surface Laptop 4 is one of the most powerful products that the Redmond company is selling right now.

Conclusion: Is the Surface Laptop 4 worth buying?

Here’s the deal with the Surface Laptop 4. It’s an awesome laptop with fantastic build quality and great performance. The big deal-breaker is that it doesn’t have Thunderbolt 4. It’s tough to ignore the fact that this doesn’t come with an Intel Evo sticker, meaning that it doesn’t pass Intel’s tests for being a great ultrabook.

This is where you ask yourself if Thunderbolt matters to you. If it doesn’t, then it doesn’t matter. When you take Thunderbolt out of the equation, you’re left with a pretty great laptop. Also, I just wouldn’t be me if I didn’t complain just a little about the lack of a cellular option.

Like I said earlier, I’m quite smitten with the Alcantara fabric, but a lot of people hate it. That’s why there are aluminum options too. One thing that all options have in common is that they’re pretty, whether you’re buying the stealthy black color, the warm yet subtle Sandstone, or the classic Platinum.

Honestly, the rest of the boxes are checked. The Surface Laptop 4 has a great keyboard, a solid 3:2 display, a pretty design, and even removable storage. Starting at $999, the Surface Laptop 4 is worth buying as long as you don’t need Thunderbolt.

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