One year with the OnePlus 7 Pro - Officially my favorite Android phone ever - Android

The OnePlus 7 Pro is officially a year old. I've used it as my daily that entire time, and I won't give it up any time soon.

One year ago today, OnePlus unveiled its newest flagship: the OnePlus 7 Pro. It was the first phone from the company with a “Pro” moniker and represented the absolute best-of-the-best specs and design for 2019 smartphones at that point.

I’ve been using the OnePlus 7 Pro as my daily driver ever since it launched. Over the past 12 months, it’s become not only my favorite phone of 2019 but my favorite Android phone…ever. Every phone I’ve read about or even had the chance to use since hasn’t topped it.

Now, I don’t want you to think that this is going to be a OnePlus puff piece. The phone is far from perfect and there are plenty of things I would change about it if I could, which I’ll get to in a bit. But after a full year of using the OnePlus 7 Pro every single day, I can’t help but still be incredibly impressed.

The OnePlus 7 Pro display won me over

Before I owned the OnePlus 7 Pro I owned the OnePlus 6T. That phone came out only six months prior to the OnePlus 7 Pro. Since the 6T was still pretty new, I saw no reason to upgrade, at least at first.

I changed my mind immediately, though, when I first used the 7 Pro. Although the display on the OnePlus 6T was really good, it couldn’t hold a candle to the OnePlus 7 Pro display. The better resolution, higher refresh rate, and the fact that there was no notch of any kind and ultra-thin bezels instantly made my OnePlus 6T seem ancient in comparison.

Related: Not all 120Hz displays are made equally, and here’s why

In fact, the display is the main thing that, so far, has prevented me from lusting after any other phones. The Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra is a specs beast with an incredible display, but it has a cutout at the top that interrupts its beauty. The Google Pixel 4 XL has a similar resolution and the same 90Hz refresh rate as the OnePlus 7 Pro but it has sizable bezels that make it feel less premium. Even phones available here in the US without notches and bezels — such as the Asus Zenfone 6 — haven’t had the same resolution, refresh rate, etc.

In terms of balancing design and quality, the OnePlus 7 Pro display just hasn’t been beaten yet — not even by OnePlus itself!

Performance and battery have been stellar

For a phone to work as my daily driver, it needs to be dependable above all else. It needs to have long battery life and it needs to do what I need it to do when I need to do it. The old adage of “it should just work” is essential for a phone to be something I use every day.

Thankfully, the OnePlus 7 Pro fits this description. While the 4,000mAh battery in the phone isn’t even close to being the largest capacity we’ve seen, the phone easily gets me through a whole day. That’s with streaming music, watching videos, texting, browsing the web, taking photos, and capturing video on a regular basis. I could probably get through two days without charging if I wanted to, but I always just charge it up on my nightstand when I go to sleep, so this has never been necessary.

Even though the OnePlus 7 Pro is a 2019 phone, it feels as fast and powerful as the 2020 flagships I've used.

While the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor inside the OnePlus 7 Pro is now outdated by two newer models (2019’s Snapdragon 855 Plus and this year’s Snapdragon 865), I honestly can’t tell the difference. I’ve used the Galaxy S20 Ultra quite a bit since it came out and in day-to-day usage I truly don’t see it being any faster or smoother than the OnePlus 7 Pro. The only thing I have noticed is that the Galaxy S20 Ultra is better for console emulation, but that doesn’t count since I don’t use that every day (if you want to read more on this, check out my other article here).

The bottom line is that this phone with a 2019 processor and a 4,000mAh battery still feels like it can go head-to-head with something like the Galaxy S20 Ultra, which has a 2020 processor and a 5,000mAh battery. I call that a win.

Related: Why smartphone battery life is far more complex than just having a big battery

Cameras are fine for me, and the pop-up is still a hit

Despite OnePlus’ success in the industry, the company just can’t catch a break when it comes to smartphone cameras. It tries so hard to push just how great its cameras are only to have review sites — including Android Authority — point out that they objectively aren’t as good as the competition.

You know what, though? I just don’t care. To me, the OnePlus 7 Pro takes amazing photos. I’m not a photographer, but I’m sure professionals could point out to me all the ways in which the OnePlus 7 Pro’s camera is inferior to something else, such as the iPhone 11 Pro Max or the Google Pixel 4. I would politely nod my head, but, in the end, the photos I take with my 7 Pro look so close to the photos I take with other, higher-end phones. Unless you’re a pixel-peeper or super nit-picky about pictures and video, you’d probably be happy with them, too.

Camera shootout: OnePlus 8 Pro vs Galaxy S20 Plus vs Huawei P40 Pro

On a related note, the pop-up selfie camera — which is a real point of contention — has proven to be one of the star features of the OnePlus 7 Pro. Not only is it more convenient, aesthetically pleasing, and secure to have the selfie camera hidden away when I don’t need it, but it’s a fun party trick. Not too long before the quarantine started, I saw someone’s jaw drop when I used the selfie camera on my phone. “That is so cool,” they shouted. How often does that happen with smartphones anymore?

Only a few gripes and all are minor