OnePlus 7 Pro review: Bigger and brighter, but is it better?

Since its inception, OnePlus has been one of the most beloved companies among Android users. Its rapid growth was driven by fan input and was literally molded over time to produce phones its fans wanted to buy.

The OnePlus 7 Pro feels like the first device from the company that has truly entered the hyper-premium space. It’s bigger, faster, and more expensive than any OnePlus device before it. The company clearly listened to fan input around the design of this phone, but it also added features made to directly compete with Samsung and HUAWEI — and it shows in the price.

Do the new features justify the higher cost, and will fans stick with the company now that it is trying to compete more directly with the big dogs?

This is Android Authority’s OnePlus 7 Pro review.

OnePlus 7 Pro review: The big picture

The OnePlus 7 Pro is the biggest, fastest, and most expensive device the company has ever offered. Its edge-to-edge display trades the notch for a mechanical pop-up selfie camera, and the new high-resolution 90Hz display looks and feels amazing. In adding these features, however, the 7 Pro trades a key benefit for which the company has traditionally been known: battery life.

OnePlus devices have typically targeted customers who want the best experience at the lowest price. The latest from OnePlus still undercuts the competition in raw price-to-performance, but the 7 Pro doesn’t quite offer all the bells and whistles found in devices like the Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus or the HUAWEI P30 Pro.

OnePlus is also launching a standard OnePlus 7, albeit not in the U.S., and that might be a better option for people who prioritize battery life over the display and triple-camera array. The standard model is substantially cheaper than the OnePlus 7 Pro, so if you liked the form factor of the OnePlus 6T you’ll find updated specs at a reasonable price.

What’s in the box

• Warp Charge 30 (30W) charging brick
• Red OnePlus USB-A to USB-C cable
• Clear protective case

The OnePlus 7 Pro comes with the company’s Warp Charge 30 charger. This is a 30W brick. It doesn’t charge quite as rapidly as HUAWEI’s 40W SuperCharger, but it does get close. When you plug the phone in you’ll see a special animation. It’s nice to be able to top up the battery extremely quickly. OnePlus says its charger keeps the phone from getting too hot by converting the voltage to 5V at 6A in the charger itself, instead of handling the conversion on the device.

The phone also comes with a cheap clear TPU case. OnePlus’ wide array of first-party cases are some of the best we’ve used over the years, so we recommend checking those out to replace the case boxed with the device.

Design

OnePlus refines its design about twice a year and has done so for the last five years. I’d label the OnePlus 6 as the height of design for its smartphones. It’s clear the company sees curved edges and bigger screens as the preferred design aesthetic, and that isn’t a bad assumption. Both Samsung and HUAWEI use curved edges on their flagship devices, and while bigger screens and curved edges arguably add a premium look, there’s a point at which screens just feel too big.

The OnePlus 7 Pro has a 6.67-inch display that’s great for consuming media, but doesn’t lend itself to one-handed use. I feel OnePlus should have maintained the body size of the OnePlus 6T — or even gone smaller since there is no notch and very little bezel in the OnePlus 7 Pro. Instead, OnePlus went the other direction.

OnePlus achieves this nearly-bezel-less design by hiding the selfie camera in a pop-up mechanism in the top of the device. The mechanism is quite silent and fast, and you can even use it for face unlock without skipping a beat. OnePlus says it takes 0.53 seconds for the camera to emerge from the housing and 0.65 seconds to recognize your face for unlocking the device. Like Oppo’s Find X, I found this unlock mechanism to be surprisingly fast and accurate. This isn’t 3D face unlock, though, so it may not be as secure as something like the in-display fingerprint reader.

The rear of the device is made of the same soft-touch glass as the OnePlus 6T. It feels more like metal than glass, so depending on your preference you might love it or hate it. The phone comes in Nebula Blue, Mirror Grey, and Almond, depending on your market. The colors are very classy and subtle. A Mirror Blue colorway was announced exclusively for India on July 8, though we may see it show up in other countries in the future.

OnePlus makes some of the best first-party cases on the market, and with most any smartphone you’re probably going to want to use some protection. Here are some good options.

The OnePlus 7 Pro has one speaker grille on the bottom of the device, and another embedded in the top bezel. OnePlus was able to hide the top speaker in the crevice between the aluminum frame and the display, and it doesn’t take up much more physical space than the bezel itself. This allows for a nearly edge-to-edge display, with only the slimmest chin on the bottom.

On the right side of the frame, you’ll find the power button and classic physical mute switch, and on the left, you’ll find the volume rockers. The phone is fairly bare otherwise, save for the pop-out camera in the top.

The bottom of the device also houses a USB-C port. To the left of that, you’ll find a dual-SIM slot, but there is no Micro-SD card expansion in this device. You won’t find a headphone jack, either.

The screen is made of Gorilla Glass 5, so while it isn’t the absolute newest glass on the market, it’s still relatively shatter resistant. 

Display

Most flagship devices are now using OLED displays, and OnePlus is looking to reinstate its “Flagship Killer” prowess with a high-quality Samsung AMOLED panel. This enables things like an always-on display and enhanced battery performance in apps with AMOLED modes. There’s a certain magic of having only the necessary pixels illuminate to display notification information on your display.

This isn’t a standard Samsung AMOLED display, though. OnePlus is using a 90Hz panel in the OnePlus 7 Pro, which means animations and movement look more fluid than they would on a 60Hz screen. We’ve seen manufacturers such as Razer ship devices with high refresh rate panels, but Razer opted for an LCD panel where OnePlus chose AMOLED. The 7 Pro won’t force apps to run at 90Hz, but apps and animations that support 90Hz look noticeably smoother than they would on a phone with a slower refresh rate.

This is also the first device OnePlus has sold at the Quad HD+ resolution. I don’t usually mind smartphones sticking with 1080p, especially since many apps and content default to that resolution anyway. Since the OnePlus 7 Pro costs more than previous devices and the screen is noticeably larger, it’s nice to see the spec bump.

The display on the OnePlus 7 Pro is one of the best smartphone displays I’ve ever used. Colors are bright and vivid but not overly saturated. DisplayMate even gave the OnePlus 7 Pro an A+ rating, which is the highest score awarded to the company. The 90Hz screen makes a bigger difference than you might think, playing well into the “fast and smooth” motto that OnePlus professes. Even scrolling through the app drawer feels fluid.

This panel is also HDR10 and HDR+ compatible, meaning it can properly display content with more color and contrast information between pure black and pure white. Services like Netflix are actively adding HDR content for consumption (the OnePlus 7 Pro comes with Netflix pre-installed.) While I’m not a fan of pre-installed third-party software of any kind, it’s clear OnePlus wants consumers to experience HDR10 content on this device. HDR content, by the way, looks good, particularly very dark content such as Stranger Things.

Performance

The OnePlus 7 Pro continues the company’s heritage of delivering one of the smoothest experiences on the market. Nearly all the device’s components are on the bleeding edge, including the newest premiere processor and fastest storage on the market. The combination of the capable hardware and wonderful software makes performance on the OnePlus 7 Pro great.

In day-to-day use, OnePlus offers a number of features that help the device fly. It does things like keep key app data in the memory to make apps launch faster, and this makes a big difference. The device is well optimized, and I never once felt a stutter or slowdown during my time with it.

In benchmarks, the OnePlus 7 Pro scores well. It achieved a score of 361,038 in AnTuTu. In 3DMark, it achieved a score of 5,412 and 4,814, respectively, in OpenGL and Vulcan. In Geekbench, it nabbed 3,411 and 10,628 for the single-core and multi-core tests, respectively. In Gary’s Speed Test G, the OnePlus 7 Pro finished the course in 1 minute 33 seconds, tying the Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus exactly.

Battery

• 4,000mAh
• Warp Charge 30 (30-Watt, 5V/6A)
• No wireless charging

The OnePlus 7 Pro uses a 4,000mAh battery, up from the 3,700mAh cell in the OnePlus 6T. This is counteracted by the larger, higher-resolution display and faster refresh rate. Disappointingly, this resulted in worse battery life during my time with the phone. OnePlus says the two phones should have similar battery life, but I got about 5.5 hours of screen-on time with the 7 Pro compared to the 6.5 to 8 hours I got with the 6T. That’s a significant drop.

Further reading: OnePlus 7 vs OnePlus 7 Pro battery comparison: It all evens out

If you reduce the resolution and refresh rate of the display — a trick often used by power users — you can achieve much better battery life, as long as you don’t mind the less dazzling experience. While it’s nice to have the option to toggle these settings to optimize longevity, I’m not sure regular consumers will know to do it. I would have preferred to see OnePlus prioritize battery life over the display.

OnePlus’s Warp Charge 30 charger helps top off the device quickly, without generating too much heat. The 7 Pro uses a special liquid cooling system to prevent heat build-up during intense usage. I only found it got warm during an extended time plugged into the Warp Charger. In daily use, it never got too hot, even while multitasking.

Unfortunately, OnePlus did not include any wireless charging in the 7 Pro. Though wireless charging hasn’t completely taken off in many markets, it would have been nice to see this “flagship” feature included, especially since the company increased the phone’s price by a substantial amount. OnePlus told Android Authority it has confidence in the charging speed of its wired connection. Meanwhile, OnePlus competitors such as Xiaomi have not only added wireless charging to their phones, they’ve also unveiled fast wireless chargers. OnePlus needs to step it up. 

Camera

Update, July 9: The OnePlus 7 Pro received a fairly large camera update on June 7. The software patch is supposed to improve image quality across the board. Our impressions below still stand.

OnePlus has never been known for making impressive cameras and, unfortunately, that remains the case with the 7 Pro. The photos it produces aren’t bad, and in good light, it can snag some nice shots, but if the light you feed the lenses drops even a little bit the images end up washed out and muddy.

Notice how I said lenses? OnePlus has adopted the three-camera configuration on the back of this phone. You’ll find a standard, wide-angle, and telephoto trio with various resolutions and apertures. After using similar setups on phones such as the Samsung Galaxy S10 and HUAWEI P30 Pro, I’m really glad OnePlus went this route. The versatility three lenses afford you is amazing, and I can’t see myself going back to a two-lens setup, let alone a single lens.

The standard lens is probably the best of the bunch, with the new 48MP sensor taking in more light thanks to pixel binning. This results in sharper, brighter photos. The 3x optical telephoto lens delivers quite good results, too, and I didn’t notice a significant loss in quality. The wide lens feels a bit too wide for most circumstances, but it works wonderfully for landscapes.

In general, I really liked the color profile of images produced from this device. Photos have a nice exposure, but weren’t particularly overexposed or oversaturated. The level of sharpness seemed pretty exceptional in good light. Images are sharp but not too sharp, and they looked natural overall. In low-light circumstances, though, the camera really fell apart and images of simple things like people became muddy.

If OnePlus wants to compete head-to-head with the other flagships on the market it really needs to make low-light performance better. The Pixel 3a — which costs only $399 — makes most every other flagship camera seem horrible when you weigh the price. I’d like to see OnePlus up its low-light game.

The OnePlus camera app is very simplistic and easy to use. You’ve got most everything you need within a tap, and you can access extra settings by swiping up from the bottom of the viewfinder. Pro mode will allow you to get technical with the camera, while Nightscape allows for better dynamic range at the cost of extra shooting and processing time.

Just like on the OnePlus 6T, Nightscape shots are really made for preserving highlights, but not for brightening shadows like other devices. OnePlus says it’s improved the processing, but the results seemed the same as the OnePlus 6T.

The selfie camera is where the OnePlus 7 Pro gets both interesting and surprisingly good. The selfie cam physically slides out of the device. We’ve seen this kind of mechanism in vivo and OPPO phones in the past, but this is one of the first with this design to come to the U.S.. Images are sharp and have great color reproduction, and the lens is wide enough to fit a lot of people in the frame. 

If you drop the device while the camera is open, it will retract back into the phone, keeping it from taking damage on impact. The camera closes extremely quickly, and I tested this by dropping it repetitively on a pillow. This worked every single time. OnePlus added a gasket around the camera to keep dust and liquids out, but I found dust on the module nearly every time I opened it, which means some debris is still getting inside. I wouldn’t use the selfie camera in the rain for fear of water damaging the internals.

The design is no doubt set to be controversial due to the unique mechanical design, and we’ll have to want and see how consumers react to it. It’s the trade-off you have to make when creating a full-screen phone.

Video quality on the 7 Pro was good, and I liked the ability to switch cameras while recording. The low-light performance seemed better in video mode than it did in photo mode, and audio quality is good, with audio that feels full and well-bodied. Color is not as punchy as we’ve seen on some other devices, such as the Google Pixel 3, but that’s because OnePlus’ color science is a bit flatter. If you want to see a low-light video sample, check out the clip above.

The images above have been compressed for page load speed. If you want to see the full resolution images, check this Google Drive Link.

Further reading: OnePlus 7 Pro camera review: Average at best

Software

• OxygenOS 9.5
• Android 9 Pie

OxygenOS hasn’t changed significantly since the OnePlus 6T, but that’s not a bad thing. OnePlus has a tremendous track record of keeping its devices up to date with the latest version of Android. Even the OnePlus 3T is running Android 9 Pie, so if you buy a OnePlus 7 Pro you can feel confident your phone will be supported for a long time.

The OnePlus 7 Pro is running OxygenOS 9.5 based on Android 9 Pie, the latest publically available Android version. OnePlus was one of the first companies to get an Android Pie beta up and running on its devices, so it’s likely the OnePlus 7 Pro will see Android Q soon after it becomes available in final form.

OxygenOS is the best Android skin I’ve ever used. It’s clean, lightweight, and has useful additions that aren’t just bloatware or gimmicks. This includes things like reading mode, which makes the display black and white while reading, and gaming mode, which prioritizes data throughput to select apps and restricts certain notifications. OnePlus is great at listening to its community and crowdsources new features that actually bring value to consumers.

The OnePlus 7 Pro is introducing a few new OxygenOS features, which will likely make their way to other OnePlus devices in the future.

The first new feature is a built-in screen recorder. This is a feature that Android users have been clamoring for and that Google will eventually add to Android Q. The feature is already available in the iPhone and the HUAWEI P30 Pro, so we’re happy to see it reach more devices.

OxygenOS 9.5 introduces a new setting called Zen Mode, which puts your phone into a 20 minute “paused” state. This means you can’t use your device or receive notifications, though you can still make and receive emergency calls. Even if you restart the phone, it will remain locked until the 20 minutes have fully elapsed. Community feedback directly inspired this feature thanks in part to Google’s Digital Wellbeing initiative. 

The final change to OxygenOS in the OnePlus 7 Pro is the introduction of Night Mode 2.0. This filters out the blue light that keeps you awake at night, and OnePlus managed to reduce screen brightness to just 0.27 nits.

Don’t miss: OnePlus 7 and 7 Pro update hub

Audio

• No headphone jack
• Stereo speakers
• Dolby Atmos certified

The OnePlus 7 Pro doesn’t have a headphone jack, but it does have stereo speakers. These speakers are Dolby Atmos certified, but I found the sound to be lacking. The phone definitely gets loud, but it doesn’t sound great at high volumes and lacks bass. The Dolby Atmos certification is certainly at work here though, because stereo separation on video with stereo audio is great. I recommend cupping your hand to direct the bottom speaker audio toward you though because the top speaker sends audio directly at you while the bottom speaker sends it away from you.

OnePlus is selling some new Bullets Wireless 2 Bluetooth headphones, which we’ve got a review for as well, but you’ll have to get some USB-C headphones or an adapter if you want to go wired.

OnePlus 7 Pro specs

Value for money

• OnePlus 7 Pro: 6GB RAM, 128GB ROM — $669
• OnePlus 7 Pro: 8GB RAM, 256GB ROM — $699
• OnePlus 7 Pro: 12GB RAM, 256GB ROM — $749

Compared to the $1,000 price point that has become standard for flagships these days, the OnePlus 7 Pro is still a value-oriented phone. For the money, it undercuts the competition in regards to raw power, UI, and build quality even if it does miss out on some things. This is still definitely a flagship device, but it makes trade-offs some users may not be happy about.

If you’re a user who wants an incredible camera, great battery life, wireless charging, officially rated water resistance, or a headphone jack, you’ll have to cough up a bit more dough for something like the Samsung Galaxy S10e for $749 or S10 for $899. But if you’re just focused on speed, a great UI, and a huge, bright screen, the 7 Pro is still a decent deal.

Want a big phone with a great camera at a great price? It’s hard to beat the Pixel 3a XL. At $470, it offers stock Android, consistent updates, good battery life, and arguably the best camera on the market.

Those willing to part ways with even more money for an amazing camera and performance, the HUAWEI P30 Pro, Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus ($999) and Pixel 3 XL ($899) are all worth taking a look at. They offer best-in-class optics you just can’t get anywhere else, save maybe the Pixel 3a.

Update, July 9: Since our OnePlus 7 Pro review was first published, a number of strong competitors emerged. These include the Xiaomi Mi 9T/Redmi K20, the ASUS ZenFone 6, HONOR 20 Pro, and the ZTE Axon 10 Pro. 

Read:

• OnePlus 7 and 7 Pro: Price, release date, and deals

OnePlus is also offering a standard model OnePlus 7, which has a similar frame to the OnePlus 6T but offers a newer processor and the new 48MP camera from the OnePlus 7 Pro. This device isn’t available in the U.S. right now, but it’s definitely worth taking a look at. Check out our full comparison here.

You can pick up the OnePlus 7 Pro at OnePlus.com and T-Mobile for $669. OnePlus has also mentioned it will be offering a lucrative trade-in program for people who want to upgrade to this device, but we don’t have any information on this program just yet.

OnePlus 7 Pro review: The verdict

Starting at $669, the OnePlus 7 Pro is the company’s most expensive device yet. While the OnePlus 7 Pro may not necessarily offer the same camera, battery life, and extra features as the Samsung Galaxy S10, HUAWEI P30 Pro, and Google Pixel 3 XL, it makes up for it in performance, build quality, and that clean user interface.

Overall, the positioning for this device is quite weird. It’s still a lot cheaper than the competition, but it skips a lot of fundamentals that many users find important. Its camera is pretty good, but suffers in low light. The battery life is average at best. You can’t officially use this phone in the shower. There is no headphone jack. Nor is there wireless charging. If these are all things you need, you’re going to have to pay for a pricier flagship to get them.

OnePlus devices used to feel like no-brainer recommendations to me. They offered cutting-edge specs and an amazing user interface at half the cost of the competition. With the incomplete mix of features in the 7 Pro, the phone feels like just another option in an increasingly crowded market. You’re really going to have to weigh what you value before jumping in with your eyes closed. Thanks for reading Android Authority’s OnePlus 7 Pro review. 

OnePlus 7 Pro in the news

• OnePlus in 2020: Going to be some growing pains
• OnePlus will change up its branding this week, new logo leaks early
• If the rumors around the OnePlus 8 Pro are true, I probably won’t be upgrading
• OnePlus 8 launch could happen April 15, but one device could be missing
• OnePlus 8 series: All the rumors in one place
• Want to improve OnePlus’ OxygenOS? The company wants your ideas.
• OnePlus 7T, 7T Pro gets first Open Beta, along with Live Caption
• Software teardown suggests OnePlus 8 will land on Verizon
• Buying a OnePlus phone used to be simple, but that’s changed in multiple ways

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