OnePlus 9 Pro could have the best phone display ever — here's why

OnePlus 9 Pro leak
(Image credit: Ishan Agarwal)

The OnePlus 9 Pro has already gone through its first round of testing, and the results are incredibly promising. The phone is set to offer “top-of-the-line” brightness and color accuracy, while also keeping power consumption down with a refresh rate that can scale all the way down to 1Hz. 

That’s according to testing by DisplayMate Labs (via PCMag) who managed to get some time with the OnePlus 9 Pro ahead of its March 23 launch event.

OnePlus’s hope is that the OnePlus 9 Pro will be known for its dynamic refresh rate. With the display capable of shifting between 120Hz and 1Hz when needed, it will ensure the phone will have optimal battery life. Because why run something at 120Hz when it doesn’t need to?

But that’s far from what DisplayMate Labs says makes the OnePlus 9’s display so great. Speaking to PCMag, lab head Ray Soneria said the phone has an “impressive, excellent, top-tier, world-class smartphone display with close to textbook-perfect calibration accuracy and performance, that is visually indistinguishable from perfect.”

The OnePlus 9 Pro has what’s called “Fluid Display 2.0.” It’s a Samsung OLED panel which OnePlus has optimized and fine-tuned to suit its needs. It’s going to be 6.7-inches in size, with a QHD resolution.

OnePlus has also added in Low-Temperature Polycrystalline Oxide (LTPO) technology in the display. It's what helps to enabled the dymanic refresh rate, while also minimizing the issue of power leakage you get in other OLED displays. The company promises that this new screen will use 50% less power, without compromising the smoothness of the 120Hz refresh rate.

OnePlus 9 Pro display: What else to expect

One of the issues OnePlus has had in recent years is visibility in bright light. The phones themselves have been offering brighter displays, but it still can't match some of its rivals. The OnePlus 9 Pro has a hidden feature to get round this, and the auto-brightness setting can activate a special “high brightness” mode for when there’s a lot of ambient light.

In addition to color accuracy that’s “visually distinguishable from perfect,” the OnePlus 9 Pro is also set to come with white point color shift at a 30-degree angle. That is similar to the OnePlus 8 Pro, but better than the Samsung Galaxy S20 and iPhone 12 Max. Screen reflectance is also set at 4.4%, which is the the best you could hope for without a scratch-prone anti-reflective coating.

Color gamut in the “vivid” display mode also displays at 139% of sRGB, which is up from the 126% on the OnePlus 8 Pro. That’s also higher than the 135% on the Galaxy S20 Ultra, but lower than the 143% on the iPhone 12 Pro

There’s also a 360Hz touch sampling rate, for gaming, which OnePlus promises means up to six times faster syncing. Plus the OnePlus 9 pro features all the usual display features like a blue-light reduction mode, HDR10+ with a wide color gamut, automatic color temperature adjustment and the ability to work with polarized sunglasses.

The OnePlus 9 launch event is set to take place on March 23, when OnePlus will no doubt have plenty more to say on the OnePlus 9 Pro and its display abilities.

Tom Pritchard
UK Phones Editor

Tom is the Tom's Guide's UK Phones Editor, tackling the latest smartphone news and vocally expressing his opinions about upcoming features or changes. It's long way from his days as editor of Gizmodo UK, when pretty much everything was on the table. He’s usually found trying to squeeze another giant Lego set onto the shelf, draining very large cups of coffee, or complaining about how terrible his Smart TV is.