The OnePlus 9, OnePlus 9 Pro, OnePlus 9R and OnePlus Watch are set to be unveiled today, and this is our live blog for the OnePlus launch, where we’re talking you through every moment of the March 23 event and bringing you details of the company’s next-gen devices as they’re unveiled.
That said, you’d be forgiven for thinking these products had already been announced; OnePlus has been teasing the upcoming devices, particularly the OnePlus 9 Pro, for weeks now, so we already know a lot about them.
That said, there are still some details we don’t know about the new OnePlus smartphones, including, crucially, price and release date. In particular we don’t know much about the OnePlus 9R and the OnePlus Watch.
The launch event is happening right now as it started at 7am PT / 10am EST / 2pm GMT (or March 24 at 1am for those in AEDT).
All times are in Eastern Standard Time (EST)
10:39 – It’s a 4,500mAh cell, and the phone features a 65 watt wired charging. There’s also fast wireless charging on the OnePlus 9 Pro that goes up to 50 watts. We’ve seen that before on the Xiaomi Mi 11, but that’s a big step up from most other flagship phones.
10:38 – Battery life now, and the company is claiming that the handset will last for a full day from a single charge. We know a little about the battery already, and we know the fast-charging options will be impressive.
10:36 – The Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 chipset is inside the OnePlus 9 Pro. That’s the most powerful Android chipset available right now, and we’ve seen it perform well in smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra or Asus ROG Phone 5.
We don’t yet know how much RAM will be available, or if the OnePlus 9 will be using the same chipset.
10:35 – It’s a QHD display, too. Did OnePlus announce the screen size? We’re not entirely sure they did, but we’ve previously seen the company will be using a 6.7-inch screen.
10:33 – The big upgrade here is a technology that company is calling Fluid Display 2.0. Essentially, this is an adaptive refresh rate that we’ve seen on other smartphones as well so this isn’t a OnePlus exclusive idea.
It means your smartphone can go from 120Hz to 1Hz, depending on what you’re using. If you’re reading an eBook, it may as well swap to 1Hz and save battery life. If you’re playing Call of Duty: Mobile, it’ll switch over to 120Hz so the image refreshes quicker.
10:32 – Apparently a phone screen was “just something to look at”. We’re not entirely sure what they are now, but we’re now going to starting hearing about the screen on the OnePlus 9 series.
10:29 – Morning Mist is that reflective white color, there’s Pine Green for the boldest shade and then there’s Stellar Black for the final color.
10:28 – Now it’s time for a ravey trailer of the OnePlus 9 Pro where we’re seeing the phone in three different colors. Those seem to be a white, black and a green color. This is similar to the shots we’ve seen before of the smartphone with the handset sporting a glass rear, an aluminium frame and a punch-hole camera in the top left of the phone’s screen.
10:26 – Everything announced so far is relating to the OnePlus 9 Pro, so we expect to hear more specifics on the OnePlus 9 as the event goes on. It’s genuinely quite remarkable that we’re only still on the camera after almost half an hour of this event.
10:24 – A Hasselblad Pro mode allows you to switch up the white balance and exposure, so if you want to dive into top-end camera features you’ll want to use that.
If you want to be able to just shoot photos straight out of your pocket without messing around in the settings, OnePlus seems to want to make this for you too.
We’re moving onto video now, and OnePlus has confirmed the 9 Pro can record in up to 8K at 30 frames per second. It can also shoot at 4K in 120fps so you’ll be able to record better slow-mo than most other smartphones.
10:23 – There are a lot of camera shots here for the OnePlus 9 series, so we’ve included a variety of the samples OnePlus is showing off on stage above. We can not confirm we’ll be able to take photos like this with the smartphone when it lands.
If you can, then hats off to you.
10:21 – There are too many specs for us to list here, but the 48MP main camera details are above. There are three other rear cameras on the OnePlus 9 Pro, including a 50MP wide camera.
10:18 – There’s little here we’ve yet to have confirmed by OnePlus. If you’re a big OnePlus fan, it’s likely you’ve seen a variety of these details provided by the company over the last few weeks.
There’s an orange shutter button on the camera this time, plus you can include a new watermark with the Hasselblad branding as well.
10:15 – Natural Color Calibration is the name of the big feature that’s coming from Hasselblad. Expect better color accuracy and better overall photo quality, if OnePlus’s claims are to confirmed.
10:14 – We’re now hearing from a variety of Hasselblad experts before we get any specs revealed. We want to hear what you’ll be getting on the phone, OnePlus.
10:12 – A big sign of OnePlus’s renewed focus on the camera is the fact the event is starting with this. Often, we find cameras come later in a phone launch so it’s quite remarkable that we’re hearing about this before the screen or the design of the phone.
10:09 – There’s more to come from this Hasselblad relationship, according to Lau. It’s mostly to do with color calibration for the OnePlus 9, but now the company has confirmed there’s more to come in future iterations of its phones.
10:07 – “A better camera” is what Lau says users have been asking for, and as we know from the company’s teasers it is making a big step to improve its camera equipment on this series of phones.
Oh, and Lau just confirmed the OnePlus 9 name. We’ve known that for a while, but that’s the first time the company has said it on stage today.
10:07 – You can tick off “it has been a hard year” on your bingo cards. Within 30 seconds of OnePlus CEO Pete Lau taking to the stage, we’ve heard about how it has been a challenging year for the company.
10:06 – It’s Hasselblad time – the space theme around this event may surprise some people, but it’s to tie in with the company’s new Hasselblad partnership. That famed camera brand was instrumental in the photography equipment used in the moon landing, so it makes sense to push those elements at this launch.
10:05 – This is a bold way to open your much anticipated phone launch. There are a lot of people tuning in that are clamoring for more detail about upcoming products, but the company is focusing on its history for the first five minutes.
10:02 – What those interviews failed to mention was the driving factor behind OnePlus at the start was its lower price. That’s no longer the case, but this word of a OnePlus 9R may see a cheaper flagship from the company.
Plus, the company has its OnePlus Nord series now too so it isn’t as much about affordability for its flagships but the company doesn’t want to cut out those who don’t have the money for a top-end flagship.
10:00 – Here we go – we’re kicking off with a variety of interviews from people around the world of how much these OnePlus fans enjoy OnePlus devices. Any predictions for how many of these people will be buying a OnePlus 9?
09:55 – Five minutes to go – we’re particularly hoping for some sort of big surprise as the OnePlus 9 launch. We’ve heard so much about these phones, we want to have something that impresses us and we didn’t see coming.
09:30 – We have half an hour to go until the event starts, and we’ll hear everything about the big launch. Want to watch along? Check out the live stream in the tweet below.
.@ByTomBedford and I will be live for on @techradar at 2pm for the #OnePlus9Series launch event! Set those reminders and come hang out https://t.co/ETy5Bt9Weq pic.twitter.com/FgxqXbIkt2March 23, 2021
08:30 – Could a global release date for the OnePlus Band be on the horizon? There’s every chance we’ll hear about that at today’s launch, and we’ve got a full review of the company’s first wearable for you to read through if they do announce that its fitness tracker is launching outside of India.
07:25 – Thinking of following along with the launch as it happens later today? We’re planning on hosting a watch along party where you’ll be able to hear from two TechRadar writers as the event happens.
You can find the video for that just below:
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06:20 – So, what is OnePlus set to unveil later today? We’ve had a variety of devices directly confirmed by the company, and we’ve got some thoughts on some rumored products as well.
- OnePlus 9 – This is the next flagship phone from OnePlus, but we’ve not heard a huge amount on what to expect.
- OnePlus 9 Pro – This is the smartphone we know the most about, and it’ll be sporting some top-end specs.
- OnePlus 9R – A cheaper variant of the OnePlus 9, and it’s thought this will be an exclusive device for those in India.
- OnePlus Watch – A new smartwatch from the company, and we know it won’t include Wear OS software.
- OnePlus Band – This is a fitness tracker that’s currently exclusive to India, so we may hear a release date for the rest of the world.
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05:15 – Welcome to 2021’s next big phone launch. It’s almost time for us to hear about the OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 9 Pro, plus a variety of other products including the OnePlus Watch and OnePlus 9R.
There should be lots to hear about at today’s launch, but we already know a lot of the key details about the company’s next flagship Android phones, as OnePlus has been drip-feeding us info for weeks.
If you want to learn everything we know about the OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 9 Pro so far, check out our hub on both phones as, it includes a lot of confirmed information. And if you want to get the complete picture, check back here at the launch event start time, and we’ll talk you through what’s happening, as it happens.