OnePlus 7 Pro Review: Display, Camera, Gaming, Benchmarks And More

Specifications

• 6.67-inch multi-touch capacitive touchscreen with 3120 x 1440 pixels resolution
• 48 MP (f/1.6) + 16 MP (f/2.2) + 8 MP (F/2.4) triple camera setup
• 16 MP (f/2.0) pop-up selfie camera
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SoC
• 12 GB LPDDR4x RAM
• 256 GB internal storage
• 4000 mAh battery with Warp Charge 30
• In-display fingerprint sensor
• Oxygen OS based on Android 9 Pie

 

Design

Without a doubt, the OnePlus 7 Pro is the best looking OnePlus smartphone, especially the Nebula Blue color model that I am reviewing. The Nebula Blue OnePlus 7 Pro has a dual tone gradient design, which looks different from different viewing angle, and the matt finish also ads up the overall aesthetics of the smartphone by hiding fingerprints.

Though the primary camera setup does have a bit of a bump, the soft silicone case does absorb the bump, which results in a flat look, and with the silicone case, the smartphone will not rock on a flat surface. At 206 grams weight, the OnePlus 7 Pro is a bit heavy compared to other flagship smartphones and using it on a single hand is almost impossible.

The back panel is not the only new thing about the design of the OnePlus 7 Pro, in fact, the OnePlus 7 Pro is the first OnePlus smartphone to offer a dual curved display design (more on this in the display section), and the edge to edge bezel-less display design does elevate the overall aesthetics of the smartphone by a huge margin, compared to the competition.

Just like the previous OnePlus smartphone, the 7 Pro has volume controls on the left side, whereas the ride side houses the alert slider and the power button. Overall, I am satisfied with the design of the OnePlus 7 Pro, except for the fact that the device misses out on the IP rating for water and dust resistance.

Display

The OnePlus 7 Pro has a massive 6.67-inch Fluid-AMOLED display with QHD resolution (3120 x 1440p), which is again a true flagship grade display. The display has a curved finish on both sides, which is reminiscent of the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge.

The OnePlus 7 Pro's display is sharp with 2K resolution, and it also offers 90Hz refresh rate, which results in smoother system animations, and with select games, you can also enjoy gaming at 90Hz (only a handful of games on Android run at 60fps or above).

There is an option to tweak down the resolution of the display (FHD+, QHD+, or Auto Switch) and to tone down the screen refresh rate to 60Hz. OnePlus claims that toning down the display resolution and display refresh rate will improve the battery life a bit. However, in my testing period, I did not notice a major difference in battery life while running the phone at QHD+ and FHD+ resolution. For the most part, I kept the setting at Auto switch, which automatically switches between FHD+ and QHD+ resolution, depending on the task.

The AMOLED display offers punchier colors, and the device does offer an option to select from different display settings like sRGB, AMOLED Wide Gamut, Display P3, Vivid, and Natural. Depending on your liking you can select a profile that suits you.

As the smartphone has a big no-notch, no-bezel screen watching movies, web series, and YouTube videos on the OnePlus 7 Pro is a joyous activity, as the display is HDR 10+ certifies, and premium video streaming services like Prime Videos and Netflix (even YouTube for an extent) has a lot of shows and movies which are shot and processed in HDR 10+ standard.

The smartphone also has OnePlus's 2nd Gen in-display fingerprint sensor, which is a tad quicker than the OnePlus's first generation fingerprint sensor found on the OnePlus 6T. However, the fingerprint sensor is not as quick as a capacitive fingerprint sensor found on the OnePlus 6 or the OnePlus 5T.

Though the in-display fingerprint sensor is a bit slower than the capacitive fingerprint sensor, in no way it is slow. It still unlocks the smartphone within a fraction of second, and, you can brag about the same in front of your friends and colleagues.

The only caveat that I have about the display of the OnePlus 7 Pro is the dual curved edges. Though the dual curved edges on the 7 Pro offers a seamless smartphone experience, sometimes it mistakenly provokes some settings (while watching movies and playing games), especially in the full-screen window.

Sound

The OnePlus 7 Pro yet again, is the first OnePlus smartphone to offer a dual stereo speaker setup, where the earpiece at as a secondary speaker. The dual speaker setup on the OnePlus 7 Pro is Dolby Atmos certified, and it is clearly louder than the OnePlus 6T and the OnePlus 6.

I in the past few months I have used a lot of smartphones with dual stereo speaker setup, including the Poco F1, Asus ZenFone 5z, and the Asus ROG Phone. The OnePlus 7 Pro is definitely louder than the Poco F1 and the Asus ZenFone 5z, and it is not as loud as the stereo speaker setup on the ROG Phone.

Even at the higher volume levels, I did not notice any sort of distortion in the sound quality (with high-quality sound), and I am satisfied with the sound output that comes out the OnePlus 7 Pro.

I do like to highlight the fact that the OnePlus 7 Pro does not have a headphone jack, and the retail package does not offer a complimentary 3.5mm jack to a type-C dongle.

Coming back to the sound, the device has an all-new haptic feedback vibration motor, again, first for a OnePlus device, and it does make the OnePlus 7 Pro a great smartphone. The device offers up to 6 different vibration patterns and there is also an option to tweak the vibration intensity. If you care about the vibration motor, then the OnePlus 7 Pro should definitely on your watch.

Storage and RAM

Speaking of storage and RAM, the OnePlus 7 Pro that I am reviewing comes with 12 GB of LPDDR4x RAM and 256 GB UFS 3.0 based storage. Like every other flagship OnePlus smartphone, the OnePlus 7 Pro misses out on a microSD card slot, so make sure that you choose the right model at the time of purchase.

On the base variant, the OnePlus 7 Pro offers 128 GB storage, which should be sufficient for general users. However, if you are a person like me who stores a lot of data like movies and web series, then you might want to opt the higher storage variant with 256 GB of storage.

We ran AndroBench 5 on the OnePlus 7 Pro and it came out with flying colors. The smartphone registered a record-breaking 1.4 GB/s read and 384 MB/s write speed on the benchmark platform. Though these numbers might seem low compared to an M.2 SSD, these are the highest scores that we have seen on a smartphone, as the OnePlus 7 Pro is the only smartphone in the world (at the time of writing this review) with UFS 3.0 storage, and even Samsung uses UFS 2.1 storage module on the Samsung Galaxy S10 and the S10+.

With 12 GB RAM in place, we did not face any issue with respect to memory management or the app loading on the OnePlus 7 Pro. Do note that, the average memory usage on my unit OnePlus 7 Pro is 5.9 GB (which again depends on the usage pattern). So, going with at least 8 GB RAM model looks like a safe bet, especially if you are planning to use the smartphone for the long term.

Camera

The OnePlus 7 Pro has a triple rear-camera setup, again, a first from the brand. The device has a 48 MP primary RGB sensor (OIS) with an f/1.6 aperture, a 16 MP super wide angle lens which is not optically stabilized, and an 8 MP telephoto lens with an f/2.4 aperture, which is again, optically stabilized. Thanks to the all-screen display design, the OnePlus 7 Pro has a pop-up selfie camera, that too a 16 MP sensor, which is at least on-paper similar to the OnePlus 6T and the OnePlus 6.

Thanks to the triple rear-camera setup, the OnePlus 7 Pro scores a whopping 111 points on DxOMark camera benchmark platform, outperforming the iPhone XS, Galaxy S10, and even the Pixel 3 XL. In the real world scenario, I got mixed results from OnePlus's primary and selfie camera.

Here are the camera samples from the OnePlus 7 Pro

48 MP primary camera

The 48 MP sensor on the OnePlus 7 Pro is the Sony IMX 586 sensor, which is the same sensor used on the Honor View20, Honor 20, and the Redmi Note 7 Pro. The main camera sensor can shoot photos at 12 MP and 48 MP resolution, and the latter option is only available via pro mode.

Coming to the images shot on the 48 MP camera, both 12 MP and 48 MP images look vibrant and the color output from the native images is a bit over saturated. The main camera does capture a lot of details, especially in the 48 MP mode, where the image retains the details even after excessive zooming into the image. There is no shutter lag even while capturing and processing 48 MP images, which is again a sign of a flagship smartphone.

16 MP telephoto lens

The 16 MP super wide angle lens (117° field of view) is a great tool to capture landscapes and group images. However, the color reproduction from the super-wide-angle lens is not accurate, as the smartphone tends over saturate the image, and the image captured from the ultra-wide angle sensor might differently, which is the case with food, flowers, fruits, or anything colorful.

8 MP telephoto lens

The 8 MP telephoto lens is optically stabilized, and the device uses the telephoto lens to capture images in the portrait mode. Thanks to the 25mm equivalent lens, the depth of field or the background bokeh looks great. However, as the sensor is an 8 MP one, the images captured on the telephoto lens is not as detailed as the one captured from the primary camera sensor.

Video

As of now, there is no option to shoot videos using the 16 MP super-wide angle lens. The 48 MP primary sensor and the 8 MP telephoto sensor does support 4K video recording up to 60fps, and the 48 MP camera can record 280p videos at 1080p, and 480p videos at 720p.

The OIS and EIS on these camera sensors work like a charm, and the videos shot at 1080p and 4K looks stable.

16 MP pop-up selfie camera

The motorized 16 MP selfie camera on the OnePlus 7 Pro is the Sony IMX471 sensor with 1.0 µm and an f/2.0 aperture. The selfie camera can shot standard selfies and portrait mode (only two ways to click photos on the selfie camera). When it comes to video, the selfie shooter can record 1080p video @30fps, and there is no option to shoot either 720p or 4K video.

The images shot on the selfie camera looked a bit dull, especially compared to the image shot on the OnePlus 6 and the OnePlus 6T, even with natural and adequate lighting condition. With a software update, the company might be able to improve the performance of the selfie camera, and this is definitely one of the drawbacks of the OnePlus 7 Pro.

Overall camera performance

As of now, the device does not support video recording on the 16 MP super wide angle lens. The 48 MP primary sensor and the 8 MP telephoto sensor can record 4K videos up to 60fps. Again, one can only record 240fps (1080p) and 480fps (720p) slow motion videos on the 48 MP sensor. Do note that, to get a usable slow motion video, one needs to have a lot of light, as the camera has to process at least 240 frames per second.

Coming to the video quality, the vides shot on both primary and the telephoto lens looks stable even without a tripod or a stand. The OnePlus 7 Pro is for sure one of the best Android smartphones of 2019 to capture videos.

To summerise the camera performance of the OnePlus 7 Pro, I did really like the fact that it comes with a telephoto lens and a super wide-angle lens, which gives a different point of view to the subject while shooting. The images shot on the primary 48 MP sensor does look great, but, it does not happen with every photo that you capture with the phone.

The telephoto lens helps to capture faraway subjects without using zooming in. However, it is just an 8 MP sensor, and the telephoto lens is not as good as the one found on the Huawei P30 Pro. Lastly, only use the wide angle lens if it is completely necessary, as the wide angle lens tends to over saturate the image a lot compared to the other two sensors.

Performance

What if I tell you that the OnePlus 7 Pro is the first commercially available smartphone in India, powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SoC? The Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SoC is the flagship package from OnePlus, which offers flagship grade CPU, GPU, and network performance.

The Snapdragon 855 is based on 7nm architecture, which results to lower power consumption, compared to, say, the Snapdragon 845 based on the 10nm manufacturing process. The chipset comes with a latest LTE modem, which offers better LTE and Wi-Fi speed, and the chipset also has a lot of headroom when it comes to CPU and GPU performance so that the smartphone powered by Snapdragon 855 SoC will stay relevant for at least 2 years.

On AnTuTu, the device scores 367301 points, which is again some of the best scores that we have seen this year. In contrary, the Samsung Galaxy S10+ with Exynos 9820 SoC scores 340345.

The same goes for CPU performance as well. On Geekench 4, the OnePlus 7 Pro posts 3426 points on single core performance and 10796 points on multi-core performance. Lastly, we ran 3DMark on the device and it scores 5470 points on Sling Shot Extreme - OpenGL ES 3.1 and 4840 points on Sling Shot Extreme- Vulkan. If we 3DMark performance of the OnePlus 7 Pro to the Huawei P30 Pro, the P30 Pro scores 2051 points on the Sling Shot Extreme - OpenGL ES 2.1 and 2208 points on the Sling Shot Extreme Vulcan, which proves that the OnePlus 7 Pro is at least twice as powerful in 3D applications.

On AI Benchmark, the OnePlus 7 Pro scores 25832 points, which again outperforms the Huawei P30 Pro, which scores 18307 points.

These benchmarks re-iterate the fact that both CPU GPU, and AI processor on the OnePlus 7 Pro are powerful than other flagship smartphones available in India, which costs more than the high-end variant of the OnePlus 7 Pro.

The same goes for gaming as well. I played some of the most demanding gaming titles like PUBG on Fortnite on the OnePlus 7 Pro, and I did not notice any sort of lag or frame drops what so ever. Thanks to the all-screen display design, gaming on the OnePlus 7 Pro feels surreal, and the dual stereo speaker setup will also add a lot of value, which makes the OnePlus 7 Pro the best gaming smartphone.

OS

The OnePlus 7 Pro runs on Android 9 Pie with stock like Oxygen OS 9.0 skin on top (build 9.5.3). Oxygen OS 9.0 is the most comprehensive custom skin on Android compared to EMUI, MIUI, or any other custom Android OS.

Oxygen OS does not feature any third party apps, except for a few first-party apps like File Manager, Gallery, and Camera. Most of the UI on the OnePlus 7 Pro looks like stock Android, and added options like dark more, ability and quick gestures make it a wholesome OS experience. The dedicated gaming Fnatic mode will be a great boon for smartphone games, which block notifications and channelizes the CPU and GPU to give the best possible gaming experience.

If you have used a Pixel or any other stock Android smartphone, then you will be familiar with the overall UI. The Android Q beta is already available for the OnePlus 7 Pro, and the company has promised to offer 24 months of software update, which means the OnePlus 7 Pro will receive Android Q and Android R OS updates for sure.

Network and connectivity

The OnePlus 7 Pro has a dual nano SIM card slot with support for 4G LTE and VoLTE on both the slots. As per the network connectivity is concerned, I did not face any issues in my usage period. The device also supports Bluetooth 5.0, dual channel Wi-Fi (802.11/ac and 802.11/n) with NFC. Sadly, it does not support Wi-Fi 6, which is already available on phones like the Asus ROG Phone and the Samsung Galaxy S10.

Battery

The OnePlus 7 Pro comes with a 4000 mAh Li-ion battery, which can charge from 0 to 100% in around 80 minutes using the 30W fast charger that comes with the retail package. Make sure that you are using the stock charging adapter and stock charging cable to get benefit from the Warp Charge 30 technology, which offers 5V and 6A output.

With my previous smartphones, I used to charge them overnight and the OnePlus 7 Pro has changed the way that I charge the device. It offers around 30% of battery life in just 20 minutes, which will last for four to five hours, and gaming while charging will not slow down the charging process.

Coming to the battery life, I got a constant 6 to 6.5 hours of screen on time with mixed usage pattern (watching online video, gaming, and scrolling down through social media apps). Without a doubt, the OnePlus 7 Pro can last for a complete working day on a single charge for moderate users, and heavy users might have to refuel the battery just before the evening.

Verdict

There is a lot about the OnePlus 7 Pro to like and not to. To begin with the display and design, the device does shout out loud that it is a flagship smartphone and in no way, that the company has compromised in the design or the build quality.

However, it still lacks some features, which stops the OnePlus 7 Pro from becoming the holy grail of Android smartphones. It misses out on wireless charging, though the device is water-resistant it does not have the guarantee of the IP certification, and I note to forget the old-school jack.

The OnePlus 7 Pro is for those, who are planning to get a true flagship smartphone with a bit of a compromise and a price tag which is slightly less than the great flagships of a flagship like the Galaxy S10 or Huawei P30 Pro, or the iPhone XS.

I believe that the OnePlus 7 Pro is for hardcore Android smartphone games, and for those who are looking for a smartphone, which has very fewer chances of slowing down in the coming days. Though the OnePlus 7 Pro is the most expensive OnePlus smartphone, it still costs less than the Apples and Samsungs of the world.