The OnePlus 9 series is another more intriguing phone lineup up available in the market today. OnePlus rolled out smartphones equipped with Hasselblad imaging system so the public is curious about the results. Several reviews, teardown videos, and durability tests have been done already but we know more can still be explored. The OnePlus 9’s launch isn’t exactly perfect though. The OnePlus 9 Pro 8GBRAM with 128GB storage has been delayed. There were also reports of overheating issues while the Camera app is on. The problem has since been fixed with an OTA update.
OnePlus 9 Series pre-orders quickly sold out on first day. We know OnePlus will sell a lot of units mainly because of the cameras. But as with most flagship phones, the features work best with a powerful sensor.
For the OnePlus 9 Pro, it comes with a Sony IMX789 and Sony IMX766 sensors. The Hasselblad Camera for mobile found on the OnePlus 9 Pro is possible with the Sony IMX789 sensor. The sensor was actually customized. It took two years to be completed and made ready for a more powerful imaging system.
This sensor is big. OnePlus shares how it utilized the processor for it to work with a Hasselblad system. OnePlus worked with Sony for the IMX789 sensor customization. It shows balance between lens characteristics and sensor size. The results are high quality photos and videos all the time.
The Sony IMX789 sensor measures 1/1.35″ and comes with with 52MP and a Quad Bayer design. It features pixel binning allowing the pixel size to reach up to 2.24 μm. It offers a 16:11 aspect ratio but 4:3 ratio when taking photo. The 16:9 is for shooting 4K 120 FPS videos.
Balancing different aspect ratios is not exactly new. The Panasonic Lumix LX100 and Nokia 808 Pureview used the same sensor redundancy design. Other sensor features include a 2×2 On-Chip Lens solution, laser focus, 12-bit RAW output, lower RN (Read Noise), higher FWC (Full Well Capacity), 4K 120 FPS recording, and DOL-HDR (Digital Overlap High Dynamic Range) technology for capturing shorter and longer exposures. The results usually show no artifacts.
Enabled by default is the DOL-HDR on the OnePlus 9 Pro. All these and more work best with a software that does the job. OnePlus and Hasselblad teamed up to fine-tune the Sony IMX789 sensor. It focuses mainly on color science, thanks to the Natural Color Calibration.
Expect more optimizations will be released as part of future OTAs for the OnePlus 9 series. They are meant to bring improvements on HDR performance, auto balance, and noise reduction among others.