The OnePlus 9RT is the latest and most likely the last smartphone we’ll see in the company’s 9 series, and if you’re not excited about it, we don’t blame you. The ‘T’ refreshes of OnePlus phones often yield small improvements in design and performance. The OnePlus 7T (Review) is an exception, but 9RT is exactly that. As I marked in first impressions of the phone, the updates are mainly related to the design, the SoC and the main rear camera. For the current owner of a OnePlus 9R, it’s not a huge upgrade but if you have an older OnePlus phone and are waiting for the right time to make the switch, should you consider getting the 9RT? Let’s find out together.
OnePlus 9RT price in India
The OnePlus 9RT is priced between 9R and 9. It starts at Rs. 42,999 in India for 8GB RAM and 128GB storage and Rs. 46,999 for 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, which is the variant I’m testing today. Even if you don’t need 12GB of RAM, you might want to consider this variant as it has twice the storage as the base variant and doesn’t have a microSD card slot.
The OnePlus 9RT comes in two colors, Stealth Hacker Black and the flashier Nano Silver. As always, there are a lot of cashback offers at launch, depending on where you buy the phone, so you should be able to get a commensurate discount.
OnePlus 9RT Design
We covered the new design in our first impressions of the OnePlus 9RT, and after using the phone for about a week, I believe the Hacker Black edition is the one to go for. The matte, sandstone-like finish to the glass back looks nice and smooth to the touch. It will recognize the superficial marks if you run over it with your fingernail, but they can be easily erased. The redesigned camera module looks good and harmonizes with the overall aesthetic of the phone. I think this is one of the best looking OnePlus phones since 8 Pro (Review).
The OnePlus 9RT feels good in the hand despite its rather heavy weight of 198.5g. The rounded edges of the aluminum frame make it comfortable in the hand. It has a relatively large 6.62-inch AMOLED display with 120Hz refresh rate and full-HD+ resolution, similar to the OnePlus 9R and OnePlus 9″ (Review), but it still misses the LTPO-style control panel 9 Pro (Review) use. It’s a very good display, though, and it has Corning Gorilla Glass 5 for scratch resistance, just like the back. A slight shift in color (blue tint) is visible on a white background when viewing off-axis displays, but for most use cases you’ll hardly notice it.
OnePlus 9RT looks good from any angle, especially in this Hacker black finish
OnePlus has not succumbed to the trend of falling accessories. The 9RT comes with a carrying case, a USB cable, and a 65W charger in the box, along with other things like stickers.
OnePlus 9RT Software and Specifications
The second big change lies in the performance of the phone. The OnePlus 9RT uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 SoC which puts it on a par with the OnePlus 9. The really good news though is that it’s the only phone in the 9 series to support up to eight 5G bands, making it more than suitable in future. OnePlus also says it has come with three Wi-Fi antennas, instead of the usual two, for better stability when gaming. There’s also a new, larger vapor chamber cooling system that promises better heat dissipation. OnePlus has even tweaked the 9RT display’s touch response, which can be boosted to 600Hz (from 300Hz) in certain games.
The 9RT still misses the IP rating and wireless charging, which is a bit disappointing. Samsung offers these premium features with its FE series of phones and is breaking it down late at a hefty price tag, especially for the older Galaxy S20 FE 5G, which is still very relevant.
My OnePlus 9RT unit comes with OxygenOS 11.3, still based on Android 11. The next version, based on Android 12, is in development and will arrive as an OTA update, but no word on when that point. Until then, you can expect a very similar experience from the 9RT as on any recent OnePlus smartphone. Clean interface with very little bloatware. You get Google’s SMS app as well as an inbuilt dialer app that supports call recording. There are also lots of customizations for accent colors, fonts, and backgrounds.
OnePlus 9RT has good processing power thanks to Snapdragon 888 SoC
OnePlus 9RT’s performance and battery life
As a daily driver, the OnePlus 9RT was very reliable throughout the review period and delivered the famous OnePlus experience – solid body and speedy software. The in-display fingerprint sensor authenticates is lightning fast, and navigating the phone’s menus is quick too. Switching between apps was also seamless, and I never felt strained with this phone, no matter what I did.
Media playback is very good, with standard video as well as HDR being displayed well. Streaming apps like Netflix can detect the display’s HDR capabilities. The stereo speakers sound good, and the Dolby Atmos setting lets you choose from a variety of audio profiles. Games also run very well thanks to the powerful SoC. Fortnite is fun to play and looks good with the enhanced graphics quality. The same goes for Call of Duty: Mobile. In general, the touch response of the screen is very good when playing games, especially with multiplayer games. The OnePlus 9RT also handles heat very well, and the back of the phone is only mildly warm even after prolonged gaming sessions.
Battery life is also very good. The 4,500mAh battery lasted 20 hours and 16 minutes in our internal test, running HD video clips continuously until the phone shuts down. This is a much longer runtime than what the Oneplus 9R or even the 9 manages, which is a good sign. With normal use that includes a little bit of everything (gaming, calls, camera, social apps), I easily lasted a full day to even a day and a half on a single charge. Battery charging is also very fast. The included Warp Charge 65T charger is capable of fully charging the battery from zero to full in less than 30 minutes.
OnePlus 9RT may deliver top-level performance, but it misses out on certain premium features like IP rating and wireless charging
OnePlus 9RT Camera
OnePlus 9RT has an improved main camera compared to 9R. It uses a 50-megapixel Sony IMX766 sensor, which is also used as the ultra-wide camera in the 9 and 9 Pro. A distinctive feature of this sensor is DOL-HDR support, which is its hardware-grade ability to automatically record high dynamic range video if your subject is framed with glare. We also see this feature on the main camera of the OnePlus 9 Pro. Low-light image quality is also improved.
Even so, the rest of the sensors are similar to what you get on the 9R. It’s a 16-megapixel ultra-wide camera based on the Sony IMX481, a 2-megapixel macro camera, and a 16-megapixel selfie camera. The macro camera here has a lower resolution than the one on the 9R, and the selfie camera is the same one that OnePlus has used for generations, meaning it’s an average camera for stills with limited video recording capabilities (1080p video recording only).
The camera app on the 9RT has been directly upgraded from sister company Oppo’s ColorOS. You get an AI advanced scene toggle, dual-view video recording, and a Hi-Res mode that combines multiple frames captured by the main camera to give you a 108-megapixel photo.
OnePlus 9RT main camera sample (tap to see full size)
OnePlus 9RT ultra-wide camera sample (tap to see full size)
OnePlus 9RT Portrait mode camera sample (tap to see full size)
When shooting during the day, the main camera captures details quite well. Colors look a bit artificial if I turn on the AI button. Images taken with Portrait mode are slightly grainy or squishy because unwanted parts of the subject sometimes tend to be blurred. There is only digital zoom up to 10X, but the photos are still pretty good because the resolution is high enough to crop.
The ultra-wide camera offers a wider viewing angle, but the quality is significantly reduced. The macro camera takes decent photos in good light, but I wouldn’t bother with it in low light. The main camera took the best photos in low light even without Night Mode, but they tended to look heavily processed when I zoomed in. The ultra-wide camera takes very poor photos in such lighting conditions, and even with the AI enabled, it doesn’t automatically use Night mode. The selfie camera is capable of taking decent selfies during the day, but the face overall seems soft and skin tones aren’t the best.
OnePlus 9RT low-light main camera sample (tap to see full size)
OnePlus 9RT ultra-wide low-light camera sample (tap to see full size)
OnePlus 9RT selfie camera sample (tap to see full size)
OnePlus 9RT can record 4K 60fps video. Under favorable light, the video quality is good and the video is well stabilized. The DOL-HDR feature is useful when shooting backlit subjects because it maintains exposure on the subject very well, although the highlights in the background are a bit blown out. Video quality in low light is a bit disappointing, with some grain and judder when walking, as a side effect of the stabilization.
Identify
The OnePlus 9RT create another reliable power of the smartphone. It’s beautifully crafted and offers great performance along with great battery life. The main camera is a nice improvement over the 9R but the rest of them aren’t great, especially in low light. 9RT makes OnePlus 9R and even OnePlus 9″ obsolete. Unless the 9R drops in price, there’s no reason to consider that phone.
While the OnePlus 9RT offers better value than the OnePlus 9, it’s still a bit too expensive in my opinion. OnePlus launched this refresh in India a bit late and phones like Xiaomi 11T Pro 5G, Realme GT and Samsung Galaxy S20 FE 5G offers better value for money at this time. If you’re thinking of waiting for the OnePlus 10 series to arrive in India before you pull the trigger, it might be longer than we think. So far, OnePlus has only announced 10 Proso there’s no telling when the 9RT’s replacement will actually arrive.
The OnePlus 9RT is a solid flagship phone that needs a few thousand Rupees slightly reduced at its current asking price for it to be a good deal. If you can’t wait, Xiaomi, Realme and Samsung also have equally attractive offerings at better prices.
