OnePlus 7 Pro Review: Is the new OnePlus 7 Pro truly a Premium smartphone?

OnePlus has now, with the OnePlus 7 Pro, officially entered the premium market. With the kind of high performing devices from the company, it almost feels like OnePlus has earned its way to the top category. Even a look at the specs and what the phone really packs in, it’s pretty clear that OnePlus has put in all its might to get this one right, but did it? Is it really a premium phone? And more importantly should you buy it? Let’s check it out.

Build and Design

There is so much to talk about when it comes to the OnePlus 7 Pro, let’s just start with the build and size first, you just can’t ignore it. This is the biggest device from OnePlus. The OnePlus 7 Pro is 6.4 inches tall, about 3 inches wide, 8.8mm thick and weighs over 200gms. Now it’s not uncommon for the premium smartphones to be bigger in size like the Galaxys and the iPhones, so in its new avatar of premium smartphone, it does sort of fits the bill, fitting in your hand is a whole different story. It is certainly not your one hand phone and it will take some getting used to but if a big uninterrupted almost bezel-less display is what you are looking for, then you’ll make your peace with it, with time. While size does not determine the premium-ness of a smartphone, but the look and feel sure does. And the OnePlus 7 Pro, in all its massive glory, look and feel premium through and through. The OnePlus 7 has a curved display, different from the phones OnePlus has launched in the past. And yes, the curved display reminds us of Samsung’s Galaxy phones. I am personally not a big fan of curved display, it makes the screen more susceptible to breaks but it does help in achieving an immersive viewing experience. I’ll talk about that in a bit. The OnePlus 7 Pro comes in three colours, Mirror Grey, Nebula Blue and Almond. It’s not just different colours the back finish is different too for the phones, like Nebular Blue has a matte back and Mirror Grey has a glossy finish. But all three colours look high-quality. I am using the Nebular Blue. The phone has a glass back but with matte effect which can help you avoid the ‘greasy finger prints’ situation that is the bane of the glass back phones. The point is why go for glass, as it does not even allow wireless charging. The metal back with matte effect could have also looked premium and made the phone a lot more durable. Well, the phone does come with a transparent phone cover in the box and, let's just say, you would certainly need it.

Display

Display is my favourite part about the OnePlus 7 Pro. OnePlus has talked about it nonstop prior to the launch and well it deserved all the holler it got. With Fluid AMOLED panel and QHD+ (3,120 x 1,440) resolution, the screen gives you stunning detail, crisp and perfect colours making the display one of the best out there. What makes the device so smooth is the refresh rate of 90Hz which makes everything fast from gaming to watching video to just scrolling. You can certainly feel the difference even when you are just scrolling up and down your Instagram feed. It’s rare for a smartphone to have this feature except a few gaming phones. I should also mention here that the finger print sensor on the display is way faster and more responsive than the 6T and many others. What adds to the viewing experience is the 6.67-inch curved screen with no notch whatsoever and very little bezel. What I love about the bezel situation is the fact that it's uniform all around that is just pure design feat for OnePlus. Let me give it to you straight, it ups your viewing experience by a lot when you watch a video full screen on this device. Truly immersive.

Pop-up Camera and Triple lens setup

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And the immersive display is the reason why you have a pop-up front camera on the phone. This is yet another new feature that OnePlus has introduced with its latest flagship. The 16 MP Selfie Camera or the front camera pops up every time you want to use the front camera. If you haven't used the device, you can be a bit unsure about the motorized front camera (trust me I did too) but that feeling will go away almost instantly after you see it at play, I promise. And remember, it’s there for a higher cause, a big screen with no notch and almost bezel-less display. OnePlus has really worked hard on it and you can easily tell. The movement of pop camera is fluid yet durable. Even though it’s a small piece that juts out of the top of the phone when in use, it does not feel brittle at all. But the important thing is will it survive the test of time and the innumerable selfies. Only time can tell. Not only that OnePlus 7 Pro also has Face unlock and while it’s pretty fast, it also means more use of the pop-up camera. For Face Unlock the camera pops out, unlocks phone and pops right in in about one second. While its super-fast using it for unlocking your phone every time may not be ideal. OnePlus says it can handle upto 3,00,000 movements. We'll have to get back on that one! On the back, the OnePlus 7 Pro has three cameras, a 48-megapixel f/1.7 main camera (with optical stabilization), along with an 8-megapixel f/2.4 3x-zoom telephoto camera and a 16-megapixel f/2.2 ultra-wide camera. Now yes, there are other phones that better photos, but OnePlus has a cult following in India and they have always loved the OnePlus camera. Photos in general are bright, vibrant, and clear. I was quite impressed. It is certainly better than everything OnePlus has done so far. You can see the difference and improvement in the quality of image with Night mode and portrait mode from its predecessor 6T. Besides the three different lenses do give you a lot to play around. The selfie camera can give you some really good portraits too. So overall, OnePlus has stepped up its game on the camera front too and you can tell or see. Again, it’s not the best out there but it can is pretty premium. 

Performance and Battery

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Well the processor must be powerful to run the massive phone with a massive display. OnePlus 7 Pro uses Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 855 processor, can pack up to 12 GB RAM and has up to 256 GB of storage. There are no stones unturned on this front, everything runs fast and smooth.  I haven't experienced any crashes or sudden resets or lags on the OnePlus 7 Pro while using it. OnePlus has also bumped up the battery on this one. OnePlus 7 pro comes with 4,000mAh battery and it easily lasted me a day with normal use which included, general browsing, taking lots of pictures, checking out Instagram, Facebook and Twitter and streaming a couple of episodes of ‘Dead To Me’ on Netflix. So, it came through. OnePlus has moved on from the 20W Dash Charge to a 30W Warp charge adapter for the OnePlus 7 Pro. Warp Charge was first introduced for the 6T McLaren edition. It is pretty fast and can almost make you forget about wireless changing, that the phone does not have. I was already impressed with Dash Charge, this one is even better as in faster. It took me an hour to get my dead phone to a full charge.

Software and features

While there are many other features that we can talk about the OnePlus 7 Pro but if we are looking at the premium factor of the phone then, I believe, experience is key. The OnePlus 7 Pro features the latest OxygenOS 9.5, the OS is intuitive and boots easily. While using the phone, I could feel how refined it is and does provide a premium experience. OnePlus has also introduced Screen Recorder on the OnePlus 7 Pro. It is a much-requested feature and can be helpful when you need to show someone how to use a certain feature on the phone, it can also prove useful to gamers as you can record your game with commentary as its records audio too. Certainly, a good add-on. Another feature that OnePlus has introduced on the OnePlus 7 pro is the Zen Mode which helps you disconnect and reflect? Or just take a break from your device. The feature disables everything, during the Zen Mode that lasts 20 minutes, you can only make and receive calls and use the camera all other notifications are muted. It is an interesting feature to get off your smartphones for 20 whole minutes, and if you remind yourself to use it everyday, you have your very own new age meditation routine.

It all boils down to the pricing. With all these features and more, starting price for the OnePlus 7 Pro is Rs. 48,999 and goes upto nearly Rs. 60,000. Now it is a bit difficult to digest that OnePlus is bringing in phones costing almost Rs. 50,000 and upwards. We've known OnePlus ever since the OnePlus One device, the brand is known for its high performing phones at reasonable price. But would I say the pricing for the OnePlus 7 Pro is reasonable? Well, yes. Even though there are still a couple of things that are missing like wireless charging, IP rating, headphone jack, the phone does pack in quite a bit and I can truly say that the OnePlus 7 Pro can now officially be seen as a premium device as it stands tall (also literally) among its new peers in the premium segment.