The OnePlus 7 Pro has been released and gone on sale here in India and worldwide. This device is unlike any OnePlus device I have seen in the past and is an earnest attempt by OnePlus to deliver a true flagship. The phone looks and feels like a true flagship. I spent considerable time with the phone and here is my review of what is arguably the phone of the year.
The OnePlus 7 Pro delivers the best overall premium user experience through a combination of hardware and software. The OnePlus 7 Pro is loaded with the most powerful technology that you can get on a flagship today. The OnePlus team has tweaked and optimized every nook and cranny of the OnePlus 7 Pro to the point that it exceeded even my usually very high expectations for a high-end flagship phone and I must say that it provides the purest and most natural experience possible. Let us get to the key specifications and features first
- Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 855 /Up to 12 GB of RAM
- UFS 3.0
- 6.67 inch, QHD+ Fluid AMOLED
- 90 Hz refresh rate, 516 ppi
- Night Mode 2.0
- 48 MP Triple Camera with Ultra Wide Angle Lens and 3x Optical Zoom /Warp Charge 30
- 4,000 mAh Battery
- Dual Stereo Speakers, Dolby Atmos® /Haptic Vibration
- 10-layer Liquid Cooling System
Just reading through the specifications gives you a fair idea that we are dealing with a fully loaded flagship device that makes absolutely no compromises on anything. Whether it is the processor that is the top of the line or the huge amount of RAM coupled with UFS 3.0 storage, the phone is really pushing the boundaries on high performance and speed.
Let us now talk about the design of the phone. Attention to detail is reflected in the OnePlus 7 Pro from the comfortable grip and smooth curvature of its rear cover to its classic colors and refined design. The company says that its graceful curves were achieved through extensive testing, with incremental changes made each time to reach perfection, even if this meant creating entirely new prototypes each time. The result is a very stunning and extremely comfortable powerhouse enveloped in sturdy Gorilla® Glass 5.
The usual alert slider and power button are on the right of the screen and the volume rocker is on the left. The top houses the pop-up camera. The bottom has the speaker grill that has been positioned on the right side to avoid getting muffled when the phone is held in hand. The USB type-C socket and the SIM tray are housed in the bottom. The rear side has the triple camera setup followed by the LED flash right in the center. Rear glass has a matte finish and despite that, it is a bit slippery. The back cover is a must for this one.
The OnePlus 7 Pro unit that I got for review came in Nebula Blue, a color that was partly inspired by the endless possibilities and mystery of space. Nebula Blue features multiple layers of glass, absorbing light before a layer of anti-glare material reflects back its natural lustre with depth and vibrance. The phone definitely turns heads when you pull it out and make calls in a public setting. Neat Design and premium build all over. Full marks there.
The bright, accurate and highly responsive OnePlus 7 Pro display provides a truly immersive experience whether you are running graphically intensive games, or watching movies in ultra high resolutions. In my initial experience, the display is vivid, immersive and has excellent sunlight visibility. Yes, there is no notch.
With a refresh rate sitting at 90 Hz, a much smoother animation unfolds with each swipe of your finger. Whether you’re browsing the web or scrolling through social media, the OnePlus 7 Pro provides extraordinary visual fluidity – an unparalleled feeling of smoothness in this class of devices. It was great fun watching videos and gaming with this one. Also, once I gt used to the 90 Hz refresh rate, it was very difficult to go to any other normal display. The experience was buttery smooth and very fluid. I am totally impressed with this display and this is a definite plus that puts the phone above all other flagship devices today in terms of pure immersive display experience.
QHD+ offers a more detailed display and a better viewing experience. The Fluid AMOLED display of the OnePlus 7 Pro is made up of 4.49 million individual pixels, which work in unison to create our most premium display experience yet. With a pixel density of 516 ppi, the OnePlus 7 Pro provides a crisper visual experience that feels more true to life. My initial reaction to the display is that my mind is blown at the clarity and crispness.
There is a thoughtful upgrade to NightMode. Night Mode 2.0 for the Fluid AMOLED display filters out short-wave blue rays that affect your vision, allowing you to use the OnePlus 7 Pro even more comfortably at night. In addition, OnePlus have also managed to lower the lowest brightness setting down further to just 0.27 nits, providing better comfort for your eyes and protecting them even in complete darkness. This is a nice feature to have if you work a lot of late nights and use your phone to get work done.
For the end user, the display is smooth, large enough for media consumption and the pop-up camera has eliminated the notch completely. This gives a brilliant overall experience. The sunlight legibility is good and the auto brightness setting ensures smooth transitions for you from indoors to outdoors without loss of readability on the screen.
Let us get to the cameras next, OnePlus has crafted a true full display for the OnePlus 7 Pro by utilizing a smart pop-up camera module. With an f/2.0 16 MP front facing camera, the OnePlus 7 Pro allows for crisper and clearer selfies and video calls. The pop-up camera’s elevator mechanism has been tested over 300,000 times. This means even if you were to use the camera 150 times a day, you’d still be able to use it for over five years. To better protect the camera, the OnePlus 7 Pro will automatically retract the camera module in a fraction of a second when it is in free fall, detected using its accelerometer and gyroscope. This minimizes the chance of damage due to drops. I tried drops a few times and this worked fine. The front camera also churns out decent selfies and the portrait mode is pretty decent. Overall, no complaints here at all.
The OnePlus 7 Pro comes with a powerful triple-lens setup, covering a wide range of focal lengths from 17 mm to 78 mm to meet your every need when it comes to taking pictures. With the help of the all new UltraShot system, the OnePlus 7 Pro will give you an exceptional photographic experience.
The main lens of the OnePlus 7 Pro features Sony’s IMX586, a 48-megapixel, ½ inch super-sized top-grade sensor, plus a custom-made 7-element plastic lens with an aperture of f/1.6 and pixel size up to1.6 µm. Complemented with OIS and EIS, the OnePlus 7 Pro is able to shoot the subtle but stunning details of life under any lighting conditions, giving you a rich and intricate picture every time.
For exquisite detail, sharper images, and better dynamic ranges and colors, OnePlus has effectively tried to rebuild the photography experience and created OnePlus UltraShot,their bespoke imaging algorithm. The UltraShot engine comes with two powerful features, HDR+ and Super Resolution. HDR+ controls the exposure value of each pixel and collects four times more data, which allows each frame of the picture to receive the HDR multi-frame synthesis treatment. Even when taking a picture of miniscule objects such as a strand of hair or a raindrop, the picture will be rendered with crisp quality with HDR+. Super Resolution is another new feature on the OnePlus 7 Pro, which extracts key information from multiple photos through a special algorithm and combines the characteristics of the subjects to enrich and layer the photo with detail, forming a super clear photo.
The 78 mm telephoto lens gets you close to the action without losing image clarity, bringing distant objects three times closer. Portrait mode is tuned to deliver depth and character in every picture, with the lens featuring an f/2.4 aperture and 1µm pixel size, stabilized by OIS.
When dealing with a wide field of view, the 117° Ultra Wide Angle Lens is the perfect companion. Whether you’re looking to show off a wide range of mountains or simply trying to squeeze all of your friends into the shot, the Ultra Wide Angle Lens has you covered. And with an aperture of f/2.2 and a 16-megapixel sensor, it captures the shot with plenty of light and detail too. All in all, it looks like OnePlus has gone to work and put in a lot of effort on the camera and imaging department of the OnePlus 7 Pro.
For the end user, all this technical jargon means that you have a strong camera system in your hands and the improved camera from OnePlus for the OnePlus 7 Pro delivers good pictures consistently. The dynamic range is good and the colors are properly rendered without any over-saturation or blow out. The portrait mode works very well and the nightshot algorithm also delivers sharper images during the night. Here are a few pictures I took with the phone. Detailed camera review is coming soon.
The OnePlus 7 Pro is powered by the Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 855 mobile platform. The 7 nm chipset features an octa-core Kryo CPU processor, with each core up to 2.84 GHz, is 45% faster and consumes 20% less power than the Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 845. The Adreno 640 offers a 20% improvement in performance over its predecessor and is 30% more power efficient. Performance should be a breeze with this one. I have been using the phone as my primary driver for a while and I am yet to experience any lag or stutter with the device.
More RAM means more processes all at once. Just like a highway with additional lanes, the extra RAM allows more applications and data to be transferred and processed. The OnePlus 7 Pro is more than capable of processing multiple open applications all at once without slowing down in performance. The review unit I got has 12 GB RAM and I have thrown as much parallel processing and heavy processes at the phone, the device just runs blazingly faster than any other phone I have used. Part of the reason for this is the combination of processor and memory. The other important part is Oxygen OS that is light and optimized to deliver while staying out of your face. Oxygen OS is the best and most minimal android UI that I have ever used. In summary, the phone is liked a super rocket and flies really fast. Fast as the flash I would say.
The OnePlus 7 Pro has come with breakthrough in the in-display fingerprint unlocking technology, thanks to a 3-element plastic lens and a larger sensor. Through the implementation of new algorithms, the speed and accuracy of unlocking have both been improved. OnePlus 7 Pro has a further reduced the unlock time, giving you a seamless user experience from the moment you pick up the phone.
The OnePlus 7 Pro is equipped with a stereo dual-speaker system with an enlarged power amplifier for better sound quality. OnePlus has worked closely with Dolby® to ensure that the users will always have the most satisfying audio experience, by fine-tuning both the left and right sound channels to allow the intricate sonic details to be heard. They’ve also moved the bottom speakers to the lower right corner of the OnePlus 7 Pro so to avoid them being covered by fingers when you use the phone in landscape.
The battery capacity of the OnePlus 7 Pro has been upped to 4,000 mAh. Coupled with the latest Warp Charge 30, a 5V/6A low-voltage high-current flash charge technology, the OnePlus 7 Pro has cranked up the charging speed by 38% to make your daily charges even faster.
One of the great advantages of Warp Charge 30 is that a constant temperature can be maintained even if you use your OnePlus 7 Pro intensively while charging. When you’re in the middle of an intense game or taking long videos, the OnePlus 7 Pro will not produce any excess heat, nor will it slow down in charging speed.
Equipped with an industry leading X-axis motor, the OnePlus 7 Pro provides multiple levels of vibrational feedback and virtually zero delay for a more realistic experience, especially while gaming.
The team at OnePlus has upgraded the cooling system on the OnePlus 7 Pro with liquid cooling to allow the device to remain cool even after prolonged and intensive use. Even if you were to game for long periods of time on the OnePlus 7 Pro, it will not overheat nor experience slowdowns in performance.
Here are the prices and availability of the OnePlus 7 Pro
| Product | Configuration | Price | Availability (open sales) |
| OnePlus 7 Pro Mirror Gray | 6+128 GB, 8+256 GB | INR 48,999, INR 52,999 | 17 May |
| OnePlus 7 Pro Nebula Blue | 8+ 256 GB, 12 + 256GB | INR 52999, INR 57,999 | 28 May |
| OnePlus 7 Pro Almond | 8+ 256 GB | INR 52,999 | June |
Verdict
The OnePlus 7 Pro has a lot going for it. It is the top performing phone I have seen in a while. The display is a wonderful thing and gives you a great immersive experience. The solid innards combined with the thoughtful Oxygen OS optimizations make this a true flagship with a superlative android experience
