OnePlus 9

Both the OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro use the Snapdragon 888 processor with the Adreno 660 GPU, with either 128 or 256 GB of non-expandable UFS 3.0 storage. Both have 8 GB or 12 GB of RAM. Both have stereo speakers with active noise cancellation and no audio jack, akin to that of the previous generation OnePlus 8/8Pro and OnePlus 8T.[5]

The OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro have similar designs to that of the previous generation OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro, with Gorilla Glass 5 on the front and back, and a “hole punch” style camera the upper left-hand corner. The 9's screen is flat with a plastic frame, while the 9 Pro's screen is curved with an aluminum frame. Only the 9 Pro has an official IP Code (IP68); the regular OnePlus 9 is claimed by OnePlus to have water resistance, but has no official IP certification.[6] The OnePlus 9 is available in three colors: Winter Mist, Arctic Sky, and Astral Black. The OnePlus 9 Pro is available in three different colors: Morning Mist, Pine Green, and Stellar Black.[7][8] All colors ship with a glossy, Gorilla Glass back unlike the previous generation which had matte back options.

Both the OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro have an AMOLED HDR10+ screen with a 120 Hz refresh rate, with the 9 Pro featuring an adaptive refresh rate (adaptive meaning the refresh rate is adjusted based on task). The OnePlus 9 has a 6.55 inch FHD+ display and a pixel density of 402 ppi, while the 9 Pro has a 6.7 inch QHD+ display and a pixel density of 525 ppi. The 9 Pro has 10-bit color depth which allows it to display up to 10 billion colors, like its predecessor.[9][7][8]

Both have an in-display optical fingerprint scanner and facial recognition as biometric options. The fingerprint sensor has been lowered more towards the bottom of the display from the ones in the OnePlus 8 series.[10]

The OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro both feature upgraded camera systems from their previous generations. The main upgrade is in the optics, which were co-developed with Hasselblad, specifically in the ultra-wide camera. Both phones now feature the same wide and ultra-wide cameras, which are a 23 mm, 48 MP, f/1.8 wide and a 14 mm, 50 MP, f/2.2 ultra-wide. The wide sensor is a 1/1.43" Sony IMX789 and the ultra-wide sensor is a 1/1.56" Sony IMX766.

The 9 Pro features an additional 77 mm, 8 MP, f/2.44 telephoto camera which uses the same sensor from the previous generation OnePlus 8 Pro.[7][8]

Both phones feature a 4500 mAh lithium polymer battery. This is an increase from the regular OnePlus 8, and a slight decrease for the 8 Pro. Both feature 65 W fast charging with the included USB-C power brick. The regular OnePlus 9 now features 15 W fast wireless charging, whereas with the previous series it was only included with the 8 Pro. The 9 Pro now features 50 W fast wireless charging with the purchase of a OnePlus-branded wireless charger. This is an increase from 30 W fast wireless charging in the previous generation.[7][8]

Both phones ship with OxygenOS 11, based on Android 11.[7][8]

An investigation by AnandTech on July 6, 2021, revealed that the OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro throttled the performance of popular apps by limiting them to the processor's slower cores. As a result, benchmarks in apps such as Google Chrome performed up to 85% slower than competing phones that use the same Snapdragon 888 processor, such as the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra and Asus Zenfone 8.[11][12] News website Android Authority then performed their own tests, and found that both devices perform approximately 74% worse in Chrome benchmarks than its predecessor, the OnePlus 8. When running the same benchmark in the Microsoft Edge web browser, which is not throttled, the 9 Pro outperformed the OnePlus 8's Chrome result by about 7%.[12]

The next day, OnePlus admitted in a statement to multiple news outlets that it was throttling the performance of as many as 300 popular apps, claiming the decision was made after complaints from users about battery life and overheating issues with the devices.[13][14]

Multiple outlets criticised OnePlus for introducing the throttling feature without informing device owners.[15][16][17] The day after the AnandTech report, performance benchmarking app Geekbench removed the OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro from its website, calling it "benchmark manipulation".[17][18]