OnePlus unveiled the high-end 9 and 9 Pro yesterday, and today outside of the spotlight, the company has quietly unveiled an ingeniously specced, less-expensive model: the OnePlus 9R. It is not as cheap as Infix or Tecno phones that are popular this side of the Sahara but it’s targeted for the same emerging markets.
CEO Pete Lau confirmed last week that the OnePlus 9R was on the way and would launch in India. It starts a whopping UGX 2 m $550 (retail price before taxes). For some markets, this is a very attractive price given the fact that the likes of the Samsung Galaxy s21 Ultra can cost north of $999. It also has one useful camera feature here that the higher endOnePlus 9 doesn’t have: optical image stabilization.
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Unlike the higher-end series, the OnePlus 9R doesn’t include the Hasselblad branding on its cameras. The 9 and 9 Pro offer newer hardware with features like bigger pixels and a higher-res ultrawide, so you do miss out on some nice upgrades, but the Hasselblad-developed color tuning is nothing special. You do, however, get a stabilized 48-megapixel main camera, which helps reduce blur from camera shake in lower lighting conditions. It’s unfortunately missing from the 9, though it is included on the $969 OnePlus 9 Pro.
Other cameras on the OnePlus 9R include a 16-megapixel ultrawide, a 5-megapixel macro, and a 2-megapixel monochrome sensor. This system is borrowed from the OnePlus 8T, which is wholly capable of good image quality, even though it’s macro and monochrome cameras aren’t very useful.
When it comes to the hardware, the OnePlus 9R spots a 6.55-inch 1080p OLED display with a fast 120Hz refresh rate — same as the OnePlus 9 — and a Snapdragon 870 processor with either 8GB or 12GB of RAM. It’s not quite as powerful as the top-notch 888 processor on the 9 and 9 Pro, but it should be more than adequate to keep day-to-day tasks running quickly and smoothly. The 9R is equipped with a 4,500mAh battery with 65W fast wired charging, a handy OnePlus signature feature that delivers a full charge in just under 40 minutes. Wireless charging, however, isn’t offered. Oh, and there’s 5G support, of course.
