The Downgrade Test (Premium)

Different people approach tech hardware and software reviews differently, and we all have different respective levels of experience on which to fall back. But despite having reviewed software for over 25 years and PCs and other hardware devices for over 20 years, I still struggle sometimes to arrive at a complete understanding of the products. I would like what I write to be useful to others.

This explains why some of these reviews take so long, in part: I really do stress over that. But there’s a side issue with any review that relates to one’s personal needs. That is, I review products for readers. But I also evaluate them for myself. And in doing both, I often find comparing a product against some of the competition that I’ve also used.

Sometimes, I even look at much older, well-worn products that have stood the test of time to some degree.

For example, I recently picked up my 8-year-old Nokia Lumia 1020, which I remember fondly for its stunning rear camera and for pushing me off standalone digital cameras. It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of yesteryear, but the Lumia 1020, for all its photographic wonder, is impractical today. And not just because of the underlying platform: That camera was slower than molasses when it was new, let alone now. More importantly, the 1020 camera was long ago surpassed by more modern camera systems with multiple lenses and advanced computational photography capabilities. Some may disagree with that, but it’s perhaps a bit too easy to confuse familiarity and nostalgia for “better.”

Comparing a new handset—like the OnePlus 9 and 9 Plus that I’m currently reviewing—to an ancient classic may be interesting on some level, and I’m sure at least some of you have seen YouTube videos like that. But comparing new handsets to their contemporaries—premium handsets from companies like Apple and Samsung—obviously makes a lot more sense. And that is what we more typically see from such reviews today, either explicitly or just in the sense that any assessment of a tech product would be—as it should be—colored by our previous experiences with other similar products.

That’s great, and it’s relevant. But I feel like there’s another kind of test that is equally valid, and this occurs to me in those rare moments when I review a product that I find myself liking enough to consider using full-time, replacing whatever solution I was already using. That’s when a review gets personal, when my mind narrows from its focus on the greater user base to what kinds of problems it might solve for me. Is this a product I enjoy so much that I would disrupt what I’m doing to make a change?

The test I’m referring to is what I call the downgrade test. The idea here is that in order to make a switch, the new thing must be obviously better than the old thing. And the way to really understand that is to pick up the old thing again, use it, and see whether you miss the new thing. It sounds simple enough, I know. But doing this isn’t just obvious, it’s critical.

Consider two of the devices I just purchased: Bose QuietComfort Earbuds and an Apple iPad Air. With the Bose, I’m evaluating whether these new earbuds can meet or surpass the performance and utility of two separate predecessors, the wired Bose QuietComfort 20 Acoustic Noise Cancelling headphones I previously used on flights and the Samsung Galaxy Buds+ I use at the gym. With the iPad Air, I’m comparing it to my 4th-generation iPad, which has become unreliable. In both cases, the change hasn’t been exactly seismic, or life-changing, though to be fair I will need to test the Bose earbuds on a plane before I’m sure where that really lands. But in neither case would I be happy going back to the previous products. Both have already passed the downgrade test.

But the OnePlus 9 Pro is, well, complicated.

On the one hand, I review several smartphones each year, usually, and I’m certainly looking forward to seeing what Google and Apple, in particular, will release later in 2021. But on the other hand, I’m also selfishly looking for a phone that is less of a compromise than the Google Pixel 4a 5G I’d been using since November. There are things I love about the Pixel—the consistent quality of its camera system, the clean software image, and so on—and things I’m not as happy about, like the lack of a telephoto lens and the middling performance provided by its mid-level hardware components.

But there are also things that have surprised me.

For example. I kind of went kicking and screaming in the Pixel 4a 5G after Google didn’t release any true XL-class Pixel hardware in 2020; the Pixel 4a 5G is as close as we ever got to a Pixel 4a XL. But after using this smaller handset for over three months, I’ve come to love its small size, even though I have to bump up the text to read it well with my middle-aged eyes. The OnePlus 9 Pro, by comparison, isn’t just bigger, it feels awkwardly big and heavy by comparison, and even now after almost two weeks of use, I’m not sure I like its size and heft.

I also came to really enjoy the two-day battery life provided by the Pixel. Over time, I made a point of just charging it every other day, and while a recent short trip to Washington D.C. proved that the battery life would be halved with heavy usage, I’m mostly working from home, even when I can travel. The OnePlus 9 Pro, meanwhile, needs to be charged every single day, like most other smartphones. This is somewhat—OK, mostly—overcome by the fact that the OnePlus 9 Pro’s crazy 65-watt charger can add a 50 percent charge in about 15 minutes and fully charge from 1 percent to 100 percent battery in under 30 minutes. But it’s something I’ve noticed, for sure.

There are so many things that I love about OnePlus, not just the OnePlus 9 Series, but most of the handsets that it’s released over the years. OnePlus has always delivered flagship quality build construction and performance (and then some) at lower prices. It has always pushed harder than other handset makers when it comes to creating a software image that is both clean and highly optimized. There’s just something special about OnePlus handsets, in that they feel faster, much like Apple’s new M1-based Macs just feel faster, even when in many cases they’re not actually faster. This perception matters.

But there’s also always been one thing that consistently disappointed me with previous OnePlus handsets, the camera system. OnePlus has generally delivered respectable main and ultra-wide/wide camera lenses, but its computational photography capabilities have been consistently beaten by Apple, Google, Huawei, Samsung, and possibly others. It’s made some weird camera lens choices, too, like the useless monochrome lens it keeps adding to its phones. It’s just never nailed the photography experience.

Until now. Mostly.

The OnePlus 9 Pro is exactly what I’d hoped it would be from a photography perspective. That is, it’s unreasonable to think that OnePlus would suddenly jump to the front of the pack and deliver the best camera experience in the market. But what I had hoped was that OnePlus could pull an Apple and suddenly leap into the top tier. Be part of the conversation. And remove the camera system as a reason to not buy a OnePlus handset.

With the OnePlus 9 Series—and the OnePlus 9 Pro, in particular—OnePlus has done just that. I’m not yet sure where OnePlus fares when compared to the best that Apple, Google, Huawei, and Samsung offer today, though I have of course got some ideas. But I do know that they are now in that mix, in the running, and in the top five. And that they beat the others in some ways while falling short in others (like telephoto).

There are two important takeaways here.

First, that the OnePlus 9 Pro absolutely passes the downgrade test from a camera perspective (and probably overall), in part because of the reliably good shots that I’m getting, something I most certainly did not experience with this handset’s predecessors. And second, that this is only going to get better with subsequent OnePlus models: With the OnePlus 9 Series, the Hasselblad partnership is mostly about software and color tuning, but we should see actual hardware co-developed (or at least co-selected) with Hasselblad in future handsets too. And I suspect that is when OnePlus will begin inching even further up the charts.

That day will be interesting. But for now, I like where the OnePlus 9 Series landed, even with that goofy monochrome lens and the lackluster optical zoom/telephoto experience on the OnePlus 9 Pro. After all, some telephoto is better than no telephoto (as with the Pixel 4a 5G) and with the rest of the camera experience being just about as good as what I get with the Pixel, I feel good about making this switch permanent.

You know, until the next smartphone review comes along.