OnePlus 7 Review

OnePlus 7 review

This year, OnePlus launched two smartphones OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 7 Pro. OnePlus 7 is the real successor of OnePlus 6T while the OnePlus 7 Pro is a phone of next level. OnePlus 7 is there to keep the company’s presence in the lower premium smartphone segment that actually made OnePlus a big company. Recently, I started using OnePlus 7 and here is the OnePlus 7 review based my experience of the device.

What’s in the box

  • OnePlus 7
  • USB cable
  • Clear TPU case
  • 20W charger
  • Quick start guide
  • SIM ejector tool

OnePlus 7 Review

OnePlus 7 keeps the design of OnePus 6T but with some noticeable differences. Compared to OnePlus 6T, OnePlus 7 is just 0.2mm taller and 3 grams lighter. it weighs 182 grams.

The phone has a glass sandwich design having a rounded metal frame around. Front side has Gorilla Glass 6 and Gorilla Glass 5 on the back. This design makes the phone comfortable to hold. The 6.41-inch display has a waterdrop notch at the top for the selfie camera. It has thin bezels around the display.

The right edge has an alert slider and power button. The left edge has volume buttons and SIM card slot. All buttons are at easy to reach positions and offer good clicky feedback. The top side has a secondary microphone. The base side has a speaker located behind the left grille and USB Type-C port. The speaker offers stereo sound output and earpiece acts as a second speaker.

The back panel has a vertical dual camera module positioned in the center, along with the dual-LED flash. The camera bump sticks out from the back panel. When you let the phone lie flat on its back and use the phone, it will start to wobble.

There’s no headphone jack and OnePlus also didn’t provide Type-C to 3.5mm dongle in the box. What I really like is the bundled plastic case to keep the device safe. Raised corners of the cover prevent the display from touching the surface when you put it from the display side keeping the display safe.

OnePlus 7 lacks IP certifications, but the company claims it to be daily water resistance and the phone can survive splashes. OnePlus 7 is pretty slippery, so you shouldn’t use it without the case. OnePlus 7 also comes with a case that is strong enough to protect the phone from accidental drops.

OnePlus 7 features a 6.41-inch Optic AMOLED display offering a Full-HD+ resolution. The display has good color reproduction and works well in outdoors. The display has good viewing angles and becomes bright enough at full brightness level. The phone also comes with a Widevine L1 certification, so you can watch Netflix, Prime Video, etc in High Definition quality.

OnePlus 7 review

By default, the phone is set to a ‘Vivid’ display profile that most of the users don’t change. You can switch to Nature for more natural tone or Advanced that brings options for AMOLED Wide Gamut, sRGB and Display P3 color space. You also get both Night mode and a Reading mode

OnePlus 7 runs on Oxygen OS 9.5.5 based on Android Pie. The software experience is what makes OnePlus phones so special. The phone offers a clean Android experience with faster experience and notable features. The newly added Fnatic mode boosts the performance of the phone when you start a game.

There’s a Zen mode that disables all the functions of your phone except the ability to make or receive emergency calls and take photos. When you enable it, it forcibly disconnects you from digital distractions.

OnePlus 7 packs latest top-tier Snapdragon 855 SoC just like every other 2019 flagship phones. You also have an option of either 6GB or 8GB of RAM. The presence of faster UFS 3.0 storage makes this phone faster than other phones with same Soc. OnePlus 7 is powerful and offers a smooth performance throughout the day. It handles everything including high-end games. PUBG Mobile runs smoothly on High settings without any kind of lag. If you play games for more than 30 minutes, it becomes warm but not uncomfortable to use long.

Here are the benchmark scores.

OnePlus 7 benchmarks

OnePlus 7 comes with same 48-megapixel main camera that is in the Pro model but it only gets the support of 5-megapixel depth sensor. The primary camera has 48-megapixel Sony IMX586 sensor that is also used in several other phones this year. This sensor uses pixel binning to produce sharp 12 megapixels images. The camera also has OIS and EIS along with PDAF and wide f/1.7 aperture. The secondary 5-megapixel depth sensor is used to capture depth information and blur the background when using Portrait Mode. It is a fixed focus sensor with f/2.4 aperture. There’s no telephoto or ultra-wide angle offering.

OnePlus 7 offers a good photography experience. There’s a slight improvement over its immediate predecessor OnePlus 6T. The image processing boosts the colors to make shots more beautiful, so you won’t feel accurate colors most of the times. This camera performs well in a broad daylight offering good details and wide dynamic range. By default, the camera captures 12 megapixels shots, but you can switch to 48 megapixels. But you will have to compromise in dynamic range. Portrait mode does a good job in blurring the background.

Low-light photography has been improved and this area really impresses. While you still see noise in markets areas, the overall photos are still better. It now also captures more details. NightScape mode also works well to produces usable shots without many efforts.

The Selfie camera also performs well. You get a good skin tone. Portrait mode offers good bokeh and low-light selfies are also good.

You can record up to 4K 60fps videos from the primary sensor and recording limit is set to 5 minutes. If you switch to 4K 30fps, you can record up o 10K videos. Video recording impresses. Stabilization also works well.

The in-display fingerprint reader has been improved but still. it is not as efficient as the traditional fingerprint sensor. OnePlus 7 has a fast Face Unlock, so you will mostly use face unlock in place of the in-display fingerprint sensor.

OnePlus 7 review

OnePlus 7 comes with a dual speaker system where the earpiece doubles as one speaker and the second speaker is on the base side. While the positioning isn’t ideal, it manages to offer a good experience. Speaker can also go quite loud but output at loudest volume feels less appealing. The phone lacks 3.5 mm audio jack and offers USB-C audio. OnePlus also doesn’t ship with a USB-C to 3.5mm audio adapter. So, I used the Type-C earphone to test it. This phone offers good audio over headphones.

OnePlus 7 packs 3700mAh battery that is unchanged compared to that of the OnePlus 6T unchanged compared to that of the OnePlus 6T. The battery easily lasts for more than a day. I mostly get around 6 hours of screen-on-time on regular usage that includes social media, YouTube and normal daily calling activities.

OnePlus 7 Battery Review

OnePlus supplies a 20W charger that takes 1 hour and 15 minutes in fully charging this battery from 0 to 100%. It reaches 52% in the first 30 minutes.

OnePlus 7 is overall a good package. It is not as killer as OnePlus 7 Pro but it is also much cheaper. OnePlus 7 comes with a good build, it has a good display, performance well offers good gaming and battery lasts a day easily. The camera on the phone is also good. Considering the price of OnePlus 7, it is a good phone you can buy.

Asus 6Z is its closest competitor and I also did an in-depth review of that phone. You can read the Asus 6Z review to know more about that phone and then decide what phone should you buy.

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