Samsung Galaxy S9 versus OnePlus 6: Which is the better buy?
Amid much fanfare, Chinese smartphone maker OnePlus recently announced its first flagship for 2018, the OnePlus 6. Starting at Rs 34,999 and going all the way up to Rs 44,999, the smartphone is being aggressively marketed as more than just a flagship killer. And rightly so.
With a redesigned shell and internals to outrun most phones in the market, the new smartphone is as much a flagship killer as any other available in the market. Despite this, is it good enough to topple the current king of Android flagships, the Samsung Galaxy S9?
Let's find out.
About the design and display
In terms of design, both the phones offer pretty much a similar kind of deal. Though there are noticeable differences, there still remain stark similarities between the two.
The Galaxy S9 comes with the same design as seen on the Galaxy S8 devices last year. The phone uses curved glass on the front and back that melts into the S9's metal frame. As compared to the S8, the S9 sees a minor change in design at the back with the fingerprint scanner now moving to just below the camera sensor instead of being on its left. Samsung has also reduced the top and bottom bezel slightly to make the phone more edge to edge.
On the front, the device sports the same display that was found on last year's phone. Like the Galaxy S8, the Galaxy S9 has a 5.8-inch AMOLED display and an 18:9 aspect ratio.
Talking about the OnePlus 6, the device is a complete redesign from the previous year's phone. In a move that helps it become a more forward-looking phone than last year's, the OnePlus 6 sees glass being used as the primary material for the creation of its body. This also affords it the looks and curves of an ultra-premium device.
A stark departure from the previous generation OnePlus phones, the device comes with a new design scheme that brings with it an iPhone-style notch at the top with minimal bezel at the bottom, making it look very different from the OnePlus phones of the past.
With a 6.28-inch FHD+ AMOLED panel, the OnePlus 6 offers 90 per cent screen-to-body-ratio making it the biggest screen on a OnePlus phone yet, but without increasing the phone's footprint.
The phone is available in three colours, Mirror Black Midnight Black and Silk White. Though all three look absolutely premium, it's the latter two which elevate the phone to the truly premium bracket. The Midnight Black, with a sheet of textured glass, gives the phone a ceramic look, while the special Silk White variant with crushed pearls and an aluminum frame is a device that anyone would want to covet.
Overall, both the S9 and OnePlus 6 offer a really good deal in terms of design and display. However, the lower resolution panel on the latter means it loses out to the S9 on the spec sheet at least.
Specifications
Without a doubt, these are two of the fastest smartphones in the market right now and that shows on the spec sheet too.
Samsung's Galaxy S9 brings to the table the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 SoC - the Indian variant of the phone is powered by the Samsung Exynos 9810 SoC. The phone is available with 64GB/128GB and 256GB storage options with support for up to 400GB microSD cards.
All three storage variants come with 4GB RAM. There's also a 3,000mAh battery pack which keeps the lights going on.
The OnePlus 6 in comparison fares slightly better than the S9, as it comes powered by 2.7GHz Octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor paired with a minimum 6GB of RAM, which goes up to 8GB with the more expensive 128/256GB storage variants of the phone.
Though Samsung would tell you otherwise, the extra RAM is sure to help the OnePlus in synthetic benchmarks as well as make it more futureproof.
Cameras
The picture taking prowess of OnePlus devices has always been used as a stick to beat it with when compared to the Galaxy series, Pixels and iPhones. With the OnePlus 6, that doesn't change entirely but the phone definitely narrows the gulf between the two.
The inclusion of OIS to both – 16 Megapixel+20 Megapixel – sensors in the dual camera setup at the back, as well as the image sensors being enlarged 19 per cent from the ones used in the 5T, sees the OnePlus 6 shoot better low light photos with less noise.
The back camera now also records slow-motion videos at up to 480 fps, up to a minute in length. The 16-Megapixel camera on the front has also been announced to click portrait photos after a software update in the coming days.
The Samsung Galaxy S9, on the other hand, is a master at clicking pictures. The S9 gets an improved 12-Megapixel Dual-aperture camera that Samsung is touting to among the better cameras available in the market.
Samsung has also equipped the sensors with variable exposure that allows the camera sensor to switch between a very bright f/1.5 to a smaller f/2.4 depending on exposure conditions. The bright aperture lets in 28 percent more light than the S8’s f/1.7 lens and the f/2.4 aperture helps to prevent overexposure in bright scenes, such as a sunny outdoor day.
The S9’s camera also includes second-generation dual-pixel autofocus tech for faster and more reliable focusing, improved multi-frame noise reduction for a claimed 30 per cent better low-light performance, and the ability to record slow-motion video at up to 960 frames per second (at 720p resolution).
All of this resulting in better camera performance than the OnePlus 6, albeit not by much.
Which one should you buy?
The OnePlus 6 and the Samsung Galaxy S9 are two very closely matched devices. In terms of design and display, there are stark similarities there. However, there is no denying that the Galaxy S9, despite its smaller display, is the clear winner here as it crams in not only extra pixels per inch, but can also work at a higher resolution. There's also the curved Infinity Display that gives the phone an edge over the OnePlus 6.
It arguably has the better cameras between the two, while the rest of the specifications on the two devices are pretty much a match for each other. The OnePlus 6 has definitely benefited by the extra gigs of RAM but it's hard to imagine this helping the device anywhere apart from synthetic benchmarks.
So does this mean the OnePlus 6 gets beaten by the Galaxy S9? Not really.
The Galaxy S9, despite outshining the OnePlus 6 in many departments, does come at a premium. Priced upwards of Rs 50k, the phone is one of the more expensive ones in the market and when put next to the OnePlus 6, it looks overpriced, thus helping tilt the scales in the latter's favour.