OnePlus FTW

<p>At this point OnePlus is the brand I would look to first when a newer Android phone is needed. When my Nexus 6P became almost unusable a couple of years ago, I started looking for a replacement. I had just about decided to go with a Huawei phone when the big Sinophobia attack struck, and rather than commit to a phone that was destined to become an orphan, I finally settled on a a phone from a smaller Chinese company, the OnePlus 7 Pro. The camera did not immediately impress in every situation, but the weakness I saw was far less than the awfulness being asserted by almost every early review. The satisfactory photos I took with it greatly outnumber the completely unsatisfactory ones, and after a learning curve and some image-by-image forethought the photos I began taking with the 7 Pro were among the best photos I have ever managed to get with a phone camera. Grab shooters could be disappointed, but shooters who were patient and took pains to force capture of the image they wanted should have found that phone to their liking.</p><p><br></p><p>The promised improvements in the 8/8 Pro got me to retire the 7 Pro and get the new version, which is just about perfect in every regard. Ease of use of some photography features has improved, with particular praise going to the supermacro setting for closeups and the dim-light feature for nighttime and poorly illuminated scenes. OnePlus seems to me the equal of any highly praised phone that offers an "available darkness" setting — and superior to many of them. Longer telephoto shots are a little weak compared to other phones, but in my view not bad enough to carp about.</p><p><br></p><p>I don't doubt there are other Android phones whose users are so satisfied with them that they will feel no need to look at OnePlus when the time comes to replace their current device. But if there are users who think their current flagship isn't giving them what they really want, I would encourage them to add OnePlus to the "maybe" list when they start evaluating alternatives. </p><p><br></p><p>(Edited to fix some choppy sentences.)</p>