OnePlus 7 Pro Review

OnePlus is one of those smartphone brands that have built their own existence on the basis of a single foundation. Back when the brands used to charge hefty prices for their premium smartphones, OnePlus jumped into the scene offering insanely fast devices for a fraction of the price.

It’s been five years now and the Chinese smartphone maker is back with its next iteration of flagship devices dubbed OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 7 Pro. We specifically are going to talk about the one having the ‘Pro’ moniker.

The premium smartphone space is getting more and more aggressive with Samsung launching its own Galaxy S10+, Google with its Pixel lineup and Huawei trying to capture the market. With OnePlus 7 Pro, the smartphone maker decided to jump out of its comfort zone and has blown the war-horn on the real players.

Let’s find out how well OnePlus 7 Pro does in this comprehensive review of ours.

Before we jump right into the unboxing of the device, let’s have a look at the pricing of OnePlus 7 Pro. The smartphone comes in two different storage variant – 6GB+128GB and 8GB+256GB memory options. Speaking of colors, the phone is available in Mirror Grey, Almond, and Nebula Blue.

The base variant of the phone is up for grabs for INR 48,999 while the top-end variant is priced at INR 52,999. OnePlus 7 Pro is available for purchase exclusively via Amazon India. At the time of writing this review, there is an instant discount of INR 2,000 on SBI Credit and Debit cards on Amazon.

As expected, OnePlus 7 Pro comes packed in a premium white box with the company’s logo branding on top in red accent. Opening the box, you’ll be greeted by transparent back case, SIM ejector tool, and some booklets. You’ll then see the phone itself and underneath it, there is Warp 30W charger and USB Type-C charging cable. Sadly, there are no bundled earphones. 

Here is a quick overview of what you’ll be getting inside the box: 

– OnePlus 7 Pro

– 30W Warp charging adapter

– USB Type-C cable

– SIM ejector tool

– Silicone-based transparent back case

Before we jump into our comprehensive review, let’s have a quick glance at the key specifications of OnePlus 7 Pro. 

– Display: 6.67-inch Fluid AMOLED, 90Hz, HDR 10+

– CPU & GPU: Snapdragon 855, Adreno 640

– Rear Camera: 48MP+16MP+8MP

– Selfie Camera: 16MP motorized pop-up mechanism

– Battery: 4000mAh capacity with 30W Warp charge

– Security: In-display fingerprint sensor

Right from the beginning, OnePlus is known for its premium design and the build quality of its devices. Like its predecessors, OnePlus 7 Pro comes with a metal-and-glass sandwich but this time the brand has taken things up a little bit.

The brand has borrowed some design elements from Samsung’s latest flagship Galaxy S10 lineup. You’ll notice both the front and the back panel curves towards the edges giving it a seamless design. 

The Nebula Blue finish is literally breathtaking with precision and finer paint job done by the brand. Personally, this is our favorite OnePlus device in terms of design and build. Thanks to the curvature at the back, the device is very comfortable to hold even though the display is pretty huge.

The multi-layer coating, anti-glare material, and matte finish make this the best looking OnePlus smartphone to date. 

The front of the device consists of a bezel-less screen with no notch, punch-hole or any cutouts, whatsoever. The display is stretched to the entire front of the device offering complete and true bezel-less experience. OnePlus was able to achieve this with the help of a motorized pop-up camera like the one we saw on recent Oppo and Vivo devices.

One thing, which might bother you about the pop-up camera mechanism is its durability. Well, as per OnePlus, the pop-up mechanism is good for 3,00,000 times of use, which seems pretty solid. We find no issue with the pop-up mechanism and in fact, it does feel durable. The only issue would be the dust particles which can be stuck on the gaps, cleaning that would be a challenging task. 

The SIM card tray is placed at the bottom for some reasons and is accompanied by a USB Type-C port and a speaker grill. The alert slider is now moved to the right side. Sadly, there is no 3.5-mm headphone jack which might be a deal-breaker for many.

Also, OnePlus was not generous enough to provide a USB Type-C to 3.5-mm headphone jack adapter. Adding to the list, there is no official IP rating as well as wireless charging support, which could have been provided pertaining to its glass back.

OnePlus 7 Pro comes with a massive 6.67-inch Super AMOLED display having a resolution of 1440×3120 pixels, 19.5:9 aspect ratio, and 516 ppi density. The display comes with curved edges and as mentioned earlier, true bezel-less experience. For an added protection, there is a Corning Gorilla Glass 6 on top. For those who’re unaware, OnePlus 7 Pro uses Samsung’s latest OLED panel. 

This is the first time that OnePlus has gone for a Quad HD+ display which is capable of up to 90Hz refresh rate. The display feels very fluid and extra smooth as expected. The 90Hz refresh rate is something which other flagship makers are not offering at all. No doubt, these bells, and whistles will consume battery more than ever. Fortunately, you can change the refresh rate from settings. 

The display is HDR 10+ compliant meaning multimedia experience and consuming content on this phone is going to be a delightful experience. In conclusion, there are no issues with OnePlus 7 Pro’s display at all. In fact, there is no other phone that can provide such immersive experience in this price range.

In terms of performance, OnePlus 7 Pro runs on the latest and Qualcomm’s flagship Snapdragon 855 chipset coupled with up to 8GB of RAM and up to 256GB of onboard memory. Now, OnePlus has used the latest standard of storage i.e. UFS 3.0 which is currently the fastest option available right now.

For GPU, the processor is paired with the powerful Adreno 640 that is capable of handling all the graphics demanding game. Continuing the long driven legacy, OnePlus 7 Pro is a performance beast and can handle every single task with ease, be it multitasking or heavy gaming. You’ll love the smooth and snappy experience on OnePlus 7 Pro. 

We tried playing Pubg Mobile on maximum settings for a couple of hours and the experience was pretty fantastic just like you would expect from flagship hardware. It is worth noting that the 90Hz display is not going to enhance your gaming performance since all the games are capped at 60Hz internally.

You’ll have to wait for games to support the 90fps, which we don’t think is going to happen anytime soon.

One thing in which OnePlus is unbeatable as of now is the software experience. OnePlus 7 Pro runs on the latest version of Android i.e. Android 9.0 Pie based on the OxygenOS 9.5.2 software. If you’re not aware, OxygenOS gives stock Android experience but with some extra sets of features, improvements, and customizations.  

The software is equipped with tons of features like Always-On display, Dark Theme, Reading Mode and Navigation Gestures. The two new additions to the software are the Zen Mode and Gaming Mode. As the name suggests, the Zen Mode will allow you to take a break from your phone for 20 minutes.

During this break, it will block your access to everything except some basic functions and applications. Coming to Game Mode, it will boost gaming performance by giving more resources to the games. Speaking of gaming experience, OnePlus 7 Pro comes with haptic vibration engine to give you an immersive experience while you’re playing games. 

With flagship hardware and OxygenOS, OnePlus 7 Pro gives the best user experience at this price. Frankly, OxygenOS is the only software that we personally like using.

OnePlus 7 Pro comes with a pop-up selfie camera which surprisingly works pretty well. It manages to click pictures with crisp colors and lots of details. I am very much satisfied with the front selfie camera of OnePlus 7 Pro in both daylight and lowlight conditions. 

Coming to the rear cameras, it consists of three sensors – 48MP primary sensor with f/1.6 aperture, an 8MP telephoto lens with f/2.4 aperture and a 16MP wide-angle lens with f/2.2 aperture. OnePlus has used the popular Sony IMX586 sensor for its 48MP lens. Honor View 20 is equipped with the very same sensor just so you know. On paper, the OnePlus 7 Pro looks very promising in the rear camera performance but sadly the same is not the case in reality. 

OnePlus 7 Pro’s primary 48MP camera shoots pictures in 12MP for the most part. To use the sensor up to its full capability, you would have to use the Pro mode which most of the average users are not comfortable with.

Even though the phone has AI in its cameras, I personally didn’t see any benefit of it. The primary 48MP camera clicks decent shots but it could have been much better in our opinion. 

Coming to the other two lenses, the telephoto sensor is capable of 3x optical zoom and comes with OIS. We tried using the optical zoom and well it works exceptionally well. We were able to click pictures from distance with enough clarity. The wide-angle lens, on the other hand, offers cooler temperature in the shots which can be good or bad depending on the user. 

The pictures taken in the low-light conditions turns out to be a little blurry and noisy. To tackle that, there is a nightscape feature which you can use. After enabling nightscape, the pictures come out to be bright, clear and with immense details. 

In conclusion, the rear camera performance of the device could have been a little better but it is still perfectly usable. The selfie camera, on the other hand, did an amazing job in both the daylight and lowlight conditions.

OnePlus 7 Pro is fueled by a massive 4000mAh battery with the support of 30W Warp charging technology. There is a major improvement in battery capacity with 300mAh solid increase over the predecessor.

It is worth noting that with battery capacity, it’s usage has also increased thanks to the large display, 90Hz refresh rate and Quad HD+ resolution. On the other hand, you can always tweak the refresh rate and resolution to improve battery life.  

Turning on the 990Hz display will definitely eat your battery and that too at a faster rate. We noticed major improvements in screen-on-time when the display was set to 60Hz refresh rate.

Coming to the Warp Charging tech, the OnePlus 7 Pro can go from zero to full in just 80 minutes which is literally insane. If you’re in a hurry, then the device can get around 50% bar in just 20 minutes. The charging technology has significantly improved with this new iteration of OnePlus device.

Like its predecessor, OnePlus 7 Pro also comes with an in-display fingerprint sensor but the performance has significantly improved. It is one of the fastest and accurate under display fingerprint sensor as of now. As an alternative, you also get a Face Unlock feature which works exceptionally fast even though the device uses a pop-up camera mechanism. Although, the Face Unlock might not be that accurate and safe in my opinion. 

The smartphone uses the stereo speaker system which by the way sounds very good. You’ll be able to hear audio from the primary speaker on the bottom and from the earpiece simultaneously. In addition, the device supports Dolby Atmos which enhances the overall audio experience from the speaker as well as the earphones.

The audio output of the OnePlus 7 Pro is perfectly fine but it was not able to beat the likes of Galaxy and iPhones. 

OnePlus 7 Pro comes with the latest version of Bluetooth v5.0 with support for  AAC, aptX, aptX LL, aptX HD, and LDAC. What this means is that you’ll be getting high-quality audio from the wireless products. There is no USB Type-C to 3.5-mm headphone jack converter inside the box which is a little disappointing.

Pros

– Fluid display experience

– Blazing fast performance

– OxygenOS software

– Warp charging technology

– Fastest in-display fingerprint sensor

– The best design so far

Cons

– Rear cameras could have been better

– No audio jack or dedicated card slot

– No USB Type-C to 3.5-mm headphone jack adapter

– No official IP rating as well as no wireless charging