Update 07/06/2019
OnePlus released a new update Oxygen OS v9.5.7 after we finished this review, fixing the touch issues and bringing new camera improvements. We will be testing it out over the next few days and will update this review based on the results.
TLDR;
OnePlus 7 Pro is the best Android smartphone you can buy right now, with an excellent display and not so great camera. Period.
Whenever the term ‘flagship smartphone’ is brought up in a room, I’m pretty sure OnePlus has always been a part of that discussion. OnePlus has marketed itself as a ‘flagship killer’ brand since the beginning and it continues to do but this time they are playing it big. OnePlus launched its #OnePlus7Series with two offerings, OnePlus 7 Pro competition in the upper space with a stellar design and display and another one, OnePlus 7 keeping up with the price race as a more value for money alternative. I’ve been using the OnePlus 7 Pro Nebula Blue top variant with 12GB memory and 256GB storage for the last 14 days and following is my experience during its review.
Design and build
OnePlus has kept the design as of the key areas for improvement since its inception and they have come out with better results every year. Any design change is a slow and gradual process which needs public acceptance and feedback leading to better products year after year. OnePlus 3/3T had an elegant design pattern which leads way for 5/5T. Last year with 6/6T OnePlus brought a new set of materials which has its impact on 7/7Pro.
The first thing that comes to notice when you take out the smartphone out of its box is its size and weight. It’s legit very heavy and huge. This has been talked about a lot in first impressions and reviews of the device by a lot of bloggers around the globe but I’ll say you get used to it. The sheer big size is adaptable if you find a way to make most of the real estate available upfront. The display is amazing, the best on any smartphone right now.
The front is basically just the display with no notch, no camera cut-outs or earpiece making its way from the display. Just 6.67-inch of pure screen available for media consumption. This time OnePlus has gone with a Samsung made curved optic AMOLED display on their flagship with a 90Hz refresh rate display and 3120×1440 pixels resolution. I don’t know how to add more weight to my words but this is the biggest USP of the smartphone. It is actually big of a deal.
The OnePlus 7 Pro is heavy and thick and is prone to falls. Trust me it will be dropped at some point in its lifetime. But thanks, to the sturdy build it should be able to hold up a few.
The earpiece is still right there on the top which doubles as a stereo speaker accompanied by the one at the bottom. The buttons which are used for power and volume control are tactile and clicky which is good. The good old alert slider is still present and one of my favorite physical switch of all times.
The bottom has also housed a nano-sim card tray along with a primary microphone and a USB Type-C port. The top has a pop-out front-facing camera with the secondary microphone.
The back has three camera sensors aligned one below the other in the center ending with a LED flash and the OnePlus logo in the middle. If you remember the purple gradient we had for the 6T, Nebula Blue is exactly like that and is my favorite color from the bunch.
The build quality is extremely good as they say ‘High-end Craftsmanship’. It is sturdy and yes, quite heavy. Overall great design bundled with strength with an all-screen curved display on the front.
OnePlus 7 Pro Specifications
As always with every new iteration each year we get better hardware specifications. Packing in top of the line, the OnePlus 7 Pro runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 mobile platform with a memory option of 6GB, 8GB, and whopping 12GB along with storage up to 256GB. Have a look at the spec sheet below.
- Dimensions: 162.6×75.9×8.8 mm
- Weight: 206g
- Display: 6.67-inch (3120 x 1440 pixels) Quad HD+ 19.5:9 aspect ratio Fluid AMOLED display with 516PPI, 90Hz refresh rate, sRGB color gamut, DCI-P3 color gamut, HDR10, 3D Corning Gorilla Glass protection
- CPU: Octa-Core Snapdragon 855 7nm Mobile Platform (1 x 2.84GHz Kryo 485 + 3 x 2.42GHz Kryo 485 + 4x 1.80GHz Kryo 485)
- GPU: Adreno 640 GPU
- RAM and Storage: 6GB RAM with 128GB storage/ 8GB RAM with 256GB storage (UFS 3.0) storage
- Rear Cameras: 48MP rear camera with Dual LED Flash, 7P lens, f/1.6 aperture, 1/2.25″ Sony IMX586 sensor, 0.8μm pixel size, OIS, EIS, 8MP Telephoto lens with f/2.4 aperture, 1.0 μm pixel size, OIS, 3x zoom, 16MP 117° Ultra-wide lens with f/2.2 aperture
- Front Camera: 16MP front-facing camera with Sony IMX471 sensor, f/2.0 aperture, 1.0μm pixel size
- Battery: 4000mAh battery
- Charging: 5V – 6A Warp Charge 30 fast charging
- OS: Android 9.0 (Pie) with OxygenOS 9.5
- SIM: Dual SIM (nano + nano)
- Fingerprint sensor: In-display fingerprint sensor
- Connectivity: Dual 4G VoLTE, WiFi 802.11 ac (2.4GHz + 5GHz) 2×2 MIMO, Bluetooth 5, GPS (L1+L5 Dual Band) + GLONASS, USB Type-C
OnePlus revamped its fast charging tech called as the Warp charge 30 this time which makes it perform even better. It comes with a 4000 mAh battery which comes with Warp Charge 30 fast charging support at 5V – 6A and can charge the device up to 48% in just 20 minutes.
Performance
OnePlus 7 Pro is the fastest Android you can buy right now. Sporting a curved display for the first time on any OnePlus smartphone with a QHD+ aka 3120×1440 pixels resolution, the display comes with a 90Hz refresh rate. This is my favorite and actually the greatest thing to know about OnePlus 7 Pro. Everything on that big beautiful display looks so impressive. The color reproduction is calibrated just accurately, and the display is quite bright even outdoors. There is no visible ambient sensor on the front, as its all display but it is hidden somewhere beneath the display which is the reason the automatic brightness may not work at times. I had such experiences but it becomes annoying when you always have to correct it. Personally, curved edges bothered me a lot, I know some of you would be bothered with the same. I used to have all those random touches due to edge inputs which are not handled right now. Above this, there are ghost touches as well, which is being worked upon as per the next fix by OnePlus.
Due to a higher refresh rate, everything seems to be so fluid compared to a regular 60Hz display and it spoils you. You know you are not going to like it when its time to switch back. The fluidness is backed up by the powerful Snapdragon 855 mobile platform with ample memory for everything to cache within, it’s just amazing. Talking about the firsts, OnePlus 7 Pro also comes with UFS (Universal Flat Storage) 3.0 which is a storage standard designed for hardware like smartphone, cars, and VR is supposed to give twice the bandwidth of the current UFS 2.1. This literally gives a huge bump on read/write speeds and eventually making it feel faster.
Fingerprint sensor this time is a lot faster than what we had on the OnePlus 6T. OnePlus claims it now unlocks within 0.21 seconds if placed correctly. There’s face unlock as well, but every time a module popping out to unlock your phone seems a bit awkward and now that’s fingerprint sensor is faster, we are better off it.
We’ll talk about the camera hardware and its performance in a dedicated section right below.
With 4000mAh battery, OnePlus 7 Pro lasted me for about 4 hours screen-on-time on an average on a full charge. Blame the display now. Even though it misses out on wireless charging, the Warp 30 fast charging makes up for a quick refill. Absolutely love it. There is dynamic resolution switch to make apps and consume less battery but the dynamic refresh rate is yet to arrive. I believe one should live with it as it’s an amazing display and what’s the point if you are not using it?
Stereo speakers are pretty loud, and we tried the OnePlus Type-C wired bullet earphones which work great paired with its DAC. Also, the haptic feedback is vastly improved if compared with previous OnePlus models, really appreciated. If you wish you know its Gaming performance we have a gaming review on our YouTube channel linked here.
Oxygen OS has already received a couple of updates since I started using it. At the time of writing this review, our unit is running on Oxygen OS v9.5.4 based on Android 9 Pie. If we generally talk about the OnePlus’ version of Android, it is the best custom ROM out there.
With nifty utility additions and the right set of customizations, it feels almost perfect. There is a nice blue hue called Horizon Light that shoots up on the curved edges for notifications. Apart from this, there is a built-in screen recorder and a Zen mode which basically doesn’t allow you to use your smartphone for 20 minutes, except for receive calls, place emergency calls, and take photos.
Oxygen OS on the OnePlus 7 Pro feels a lot quicker than any flagship smartphone out there. Even though a few pesky bugs might crawl in but an app restart will help us move. Overall, the performance is spectacular.
Camera
OnePlus 7 Pro has three lenses stacked one below the other at the back covering an ultra-wide-angle, standard wide-angle, and telephoto perspective. The primary lens is a 48MP Sony IMX586 sensor with an f/1.6 aperture lens, then there is an 8MP telephoto camera with f/2.4 aperture and a 16MP wide-angle camera with a 117-degree Field-of-View and f/2.2 aperture.
The camera has been the weakest aspect of the OnePlus smartphones from the inception of the brand and this is a case here with their 7th iteration as well. Though it has been improved much when compared with the older models. Also, there have been camera improvements during our review period via OTA updates and it seems some of the complaints have already been resolved and the camera performance is slightly better in some conditions.
Adopting the mechanized slider pop-out implementation from Vivo NEX belonging to the same BBK family, OnePlus 7 Pro gets a 16MP Sony IMX471 selfie camera. The pop-out module is believed to survive 300,000 operations but I’m a bit skeptical with this. OnePlus has tried to handle blocking its frequent operations which can damage the motor by dropping out a notification. Also, if the phone drops when the module is popped out, the free fall mode will detect the motion and retracts it. Sweet, isn’t it?
As per the latest camera fixes, it can take good photos sometimes but its generally a hit or a miss. Exposure still struggles for this OnePlus as well, though it has the ability to capture much more details now. The ISO adjustment is way too cranky leading to noisy pictures at times. The camera’s white balance and HDR performance were improved in the recent update which is clearly visible as it earlier used to just have washed out results. The primary lens takes crisp landscapes with much details and Nightscape mode has also been improved. The telephoto lens could have some noise induced when looked closely and I’m not sure why OnePlus had to crop in so close for portraits.
There is a Pro mode where we can actually shoot 48MP pictures unlike the pixel-binning in auto-mode. There’s a GCam already out which at times can get better results. We already have posted a how-to guide on how to get the GCam installed on your OnePlus 7 Pro. I hope the work is still in progress and we can get more juice out of the triple lens setup.
ION Verdict: Should you buy the OnePlus 7 Pro?
OnePlus 7 Pro is an excellent device matched to compete for the flagship lineup. It has everything one expects to be in a flagship (a few here and there are acceptable). The display is phenomenal and trust me there’s no going back from a 90Hz refresh rate incredible experience once you get used to it. It’s true that OnePlus 7 Pro is the fastest smartphone on planet earth at the moment and backed by Oxygen OS you can be at peace of mind with security updates and fixes.
Saying that I too wished it had 3.5mm audio output jack, and if could be lighter and smaller. Again for the price, it totally kills it and yes it is the best smartphone you can buy at this price. The OnePlus 7 Pro comes in Nebula Blue, Mirror Gray, and Almond colors and is priced at ₹48999 for the 6GB RAM with 128GB storage variant, ₹52999 for the 8GB RAM with 256GB storage variant and ₹57999 for the 12GB RAM 256GB storage variant.
Pros
- 90Hz QHD+ AMOLED Display
- Faster in-screen fingerprint sensor
- Improved haptic feedback
Cons
- Bulky and Heavy
- Camera can be improved
