First 9 things to do with the OnePlus 9 or 9 Pro

The OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 9 Pro are two of the hottest telephones of early 2021, and so they each deserve a spot on our best Android phones checklist; that a lot is for sure. Both sport a glossy new design, new Snapdragon 888 chipsets, and far improved cameras, thanks to OnePlus’s partnership with digital camera titan Hasselblad.

There’s lots to find out about and discover with these new telephones. So as soon as you have positioned your order and your shiny (or matte) new machine arrives, listed below are the first things that it’s best to do with the OnePlus 9 or 9 Pro.

1. Get the look good

Even with the updating UI in OxygenOS 11, the software program on OnePlus’s latest telephones is fairly low-key, with minimal deviations from inventory or Pixel-flavored Android. Still, there are many built-in methods to costume up your new machine’s software program to match your tastes, and you do not even have to set up one among the best Android launchers to get began.

By merely long-pressing down on the house display screen, you possibly can name up the menu to change your wallpaper, add widgets, or alter the house settings — that is nothing new. What you will not be acquainted with, nevertheless, are the little OnePlus extras baked into these instruments. For instance, should you faucet on Wallpapers, you possibly can set your background and wallpaper to update automatically with the finest photographs from the total worldwide OnePlus neighborhood.

Alternatively, you possibly can convert one among your favourite portrait photographs of your youngsters or fur infants right into a cool stylized sketch with the new Canvas wallpaper characteristic. Don’t neglect about the Home settings instruments that permit you to change your app grid format, OnePlus icon pack, extra!

2. Customize the OnePlus Shelf

OnePlus solely began giving prospects the Google Feed with the Eight collection final yr, so for years, OnePlus trustworthy had been pressured to use the proprietary OnePlus Shelf on their -1 display screen to have fast entry to app shortcuts, see glanceable info like climate or reminders, or take notes about the place you parked your automobile. Now that the Google Feed is commonplace on the OnePlus 9 collection, you possibly can even have the better of each worlds by swiping down from wherever on your property display screen to entry the OnePlus Shelf.

Just as earlier than, you possibly can customise your OnePlus Shelf to solely see the info pertinent to you. By tapping on the settings icon in the high proper nook of the Shelf, you possibly can allow or disable Parking Location, Memos, Step counter, and a Toolbox for fast shortcut entry to your most vital apps. Heck, you possibly can even kind in a personalised greeting to your self like, “Jeramy is superior!” Tapping on the More part will permit you to do things like add in membership playing cards to your favourite shops or rapidly bounce into Zen Mode (extra on this later).

3. Hide or change the OnePlus Shelf

If you do not like the OnePlus Shelf in any respect, you possibly can reprogram the swipe-down gesture as a substitute to pull down your notification shade and settings menu. This is absolutely useful on such a big display screen as a result of it implies that you do not have to shimmy the telephone round in a single hand or use two fingers to attain that high a part of the display screen. Alternatively, you possibly can disable the gesture totally!

To make these adjustments, merely press down on the house display screen as we did earlier, faucet on Home settings, and faucet on Swipe down to entry. There you possibly can toggle between the Shelf or the Notifications & Quick Settings shade or disable the characteristic. Just do not forget to faucet the Save button to set your preferences!

4. Experiment with the new cameras

While the OnePlus 9 Pro has the higher digital camera setup, each telephones supply a lot improved shooters that put them amongst the best Android cameras in the present day. Part of this boils down to new digital camera modules and Sony sensors, and a part of it’s thanks to OnePlus’s new partnership with digital camera business titan Hasselblad.

The digital camera app obtained a pleasant little improve, too, with UI components borrowed straight from Hasselblad, together with an orange-colored shutter button and a enjoyable Till-Shift mode that acts like portrait mode on steroids. It permits you to maintain a sure portion of the body in focus and management the blur throughout it. While you are digging round in the digital camera app, do not forget to experiment with the new 8K mode!

In the digital camera settings, you possibly can determine if you need to allow the OnePlus + Hasselblad watermarks to exhibit your fancy new digital camera (you can even simply put watermarks for the title and time). You may toggle on/off things to allow you to body your photographs higher, like a grid, histogram, or horizontal reference line.

OnePlus continues to push the limits of protected, quick charging and is now one among the few premier smartphone makers nonetheless together with its chargers in the field alongside with its telephones. The 9 collection takes benefit of OnePlus’ newest wired charging tech, dubbed Warp Charge 65T, which might high up your telephone from 1-100% in underneath 30 minutes — spectacular!

The 9 collection additionally has some fairly spectacular wi-fi charging speeds. If you’ve gotten a 9 Pro, you may want to decide up OnePlus’ proprietary wi-fi charger that may high off the machine at super-fast 50W speeds. To do this, the customized charger has a collection of followers to maintain the warmth to a minimal. The followers generally is a bit noisy, so make sure to go into the battery settings and set your Bedtime Mode. This permits the charger to intelligently decelerate the speeds at evening once you’re asleep and do not want such a lift, and it has the added good thing about being a lot quieter.

The common 9 will not be overlooked of the wi-fi charging sport this time, as it may cost at an honest 15W. Even higher, there are many nice 15W wi-fi chargers accessible on our checklist of the best OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro wireless chargers, and you do not have to break the financial institution to get one (or two, or three!).

6. Customize buttons and gestures

Ever since system-level gesture navigation controls got here to Android, I at all times be certain to allow these on my telephones (if they don’t seem to be on by default). Of course, OnePlus provides you the choice to return to the older-style nav buttons, however OxygenOS provides you much more cool customizations which you could do with buttons and swipe gestures.

For instance, should you go into your system settings and faucet on Buttons & Gestures, you possibly can customise Quick Gestures for various finger motions or swipes (the sky’s the restrict!), you possibly can set completely different shortcuts for double-clicking the energy button, and you’ll even program completely different actions for what occurs once you press and maintain the energy button.

7. Always on and ambient show

One of the nice things about AMOLED expertise is that it allows power-sipping bonus options like an always-on show mode (AOD) to your lock display screen so you possibly can see things like the time, temperature, and notifications at a look, with out having to decide up your machine.

It’s super-easy to activate and customise the AOD in your OnePlus 9 or 9 Pro. Just bounce again into your system settings and faucet on Display. Then scroll down and faucet on Ambient Display. Once you toggle on Ambient Display mode, you possibly can select what things you need to see, once you need the AOD to be lively, and even set your individual show message (like “HANDS OFF MY PHONE”).

8. Tweak the display screen settings

As a middle-aged man with diminishing eyesight, I can attest to the worth that these little tweaks could make to one’s high quality of life when utilizing the OnePlus 9 telephones. Go again into your system settings, and faucet once more on Display. The very first thing you may need to do is toggle on the Adaptive Brightness and Comfort tone switches in order that the telephone’s display screen will alter to the ambient lighting round you. Eye saver and battery saver!

Tapping on Advanced will allow you to make changes to how vibrant and vivid the display screen is and alter the refresh fee to fit your choice and battery optimization objectives. Vision Comfort permits you to additional tweak the show settings, and you can even schedule Dark Mode to come on in the evenings should you like. Reading Mode is one thing that I really like to allow for long-form studying apps like Amazon Kindle and Feedly, because it helps to reduce eye pressure for me.

Finally, do not forget which you could fiddle with the Font Size and Display Scaling to make it simpler for you to learn messages and textual content. I’ve my font dimension fairly giant, and I’m not ashamed to admit it!

9. Put the telephone down

As nice as the 9 and 9 Pro are, do not spend your entire free time fussing round with them. OnePlus’s Zen Mode is a good instrument to pressure you to put the telephone down and rejoin the actual world every now and then. The simplest way to entry Zen Mode is thru the OnePlus Shelf that we talked about above, however you can even seek for it in your system settings.

The up to date Zen Mode options some stress-free sounds and scenes courtesy of the TIDE app. You can change between the completely different choices by swiping left or proper on the Zen Mode house display screen between Jellyfishes, Light-years, Country mornings, Sunrise, or my favourite, Meditation. And if the sounds are an excessive amount of for you, you possibly can simply faucet the little musical word icon at the high of the display screen to flip them off.

You may set each day reminders to take a break and obtain Zen Mode notifications. You may even customise simply what these reminders inform you. And like all good behavior, rewards matter, so you possibly can earn badges based mostly on how a lot and the way typically you are taking breaks.