OnePlus 7T Pro review - Very good, but too similar - Android
If you’re looking for a no-compromise flagship without spending big bucks, a OnePlus phone is probably on your mind. The OnePlus 7 Pro, released earlier this year. signaled the company’s intent to more directly take on full-featured devices such as the Samsung Galaxy S10 and the Huawei P30 Pro. It competed well, and delivered flagship grade performance at almost half the price point.
Five months in, OnePlus is back with an upgrade. Launching on the heels of the drastically updated OnePlus 7T, the OnePlus 7T Pro is a much more modest upgrade.
Here we take a closer look at what makes the hardware tick in the Android Authority OnePlus 7T Pro review.
The OnePlus 7T Pro is a mid-cycle upgrade to the company’s premium offering. Big enhancements, therefore, are limited. Coming on the heels of one of the fastest phones around, that’s not a bad position to be in. However, if it is speed you need, the OnePlus 7T Pro bumps up its processing prowess by using the absolute newest and most powerful Snapdragon chipset.
OnePlus’ latest device continues to offer an impeccable — and unmatched — price-to-performance ratio. Sure, there’s the Redmi K20 Pro, but MIUI isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Meanwhile, in India, you can get the ROG Phone 2 at a lower price point. Is the ROG a better phone? For some, sure. But its sheer size and gamer aesthetic are definitely not geared towards mass appeal.
The OnePlus 7T Pro is for those seeking the absolute best without spending top dollar. It nails almost everything you’d want from a 2019 flagship, and the few misses are easy to overlook for the money you save. For everyone else, there’s the OnePlus 7T.
The box packaging for the OnePlus 7T Pro is, for lack of a better word, a bit excessive. There’s minimalist typography plastered across the front fascia. Inside, you’ll find OnePlus stickers, as well as a letter from the CEO welcoming you to the user community.
Of course, you also get everything you need to get started with the phone — that is, aside from the USB-C headphone adapter that OnePlus and other OEMs have started leaving out of the box. There’s a cheap clear TPU case, which is basic, but functional. It covers the lip of the phone and the back, and provides extra grip and protection.
The OnePlus 7T Pro is the tock to the tick of the OnePlus 7 Pro. Part of the company’s mid-cycle refresh, the phone’s design doesn’t garner much of a change. That’s okay, since the OnePlus 7 Pro was already one of the most stunning phones around. The OnePlus 7T Pro, by extension, also looks particularly appealing. Between the curved display, the use of glass on the back, and the minimal bezels, there’s a lot to like here.
Despite the questionable utility of curved displays, aesthetics aside, I like the OnePlus approach towards design. The curvature doesn’t impede daily usability, and it doesn’t go too far out on a limb, like the waterfall display on the Huawei Mate 30 Pro. The 6.67-inch panel stretches out nearly all the way to the edges with exceedingly slim bezels. By hiding the selfie camera within a pop-up mechanism, this is as close as you get to an all-screen design.
The selfie camera functions exactly the same as it does on the OnePlus 7 Pro. That is to say, it is mostly silent, and very quick to activate. In fact, it is fast enough to be used for face unlock if you chose. There’s an optical in-display fingerprint scanner included, too, and it does the job perfectly.
The OnePlus 7T Pro employs soft-touch glass at the back and it feels luxurious. The frosted rear panel doesn’t attract fingerprints and the subtle gradient makes it look elegant. The Nebula Blue color of the OnePlus 7 Pro has been swapped out for an all-new Haze Blue and I think it looks great. That said, unless you like to live dangerously, you’ll want to use a quality case with the phone. Start with the basic TPU case in the box, but be sure to check out OnePlus’ line of fantastic first-party cases.
There's no excuse for the lack of an IP rating at this price point.
Other features include a USB-C port, a dual-SIM card tray, and a speaker grille built into the bottom edge. Pretty standard fare. A second speaker up top enables stereo sound. Over on the right side is the famed OnePlus alert slider. I love this nifty little toggle, which lets you switch phone profiles. I would love for OnePlus to offer the ability to fully map out the slider to custom apps. For now, you can customise individual profiles and settings.
OnePlus has steadily pushed up the prices of its hardware, so it is a bit disappointing to see there’s still no IP certification. Sure, the company claims the phone can handle a splash or two, but that claim doesn’t give you the same peace of mind an official IP rating might.
Additionally, I still take issue with the sheer weight of the hardware. While I’ve come around to the size of the phone thanks to that gorgeous, immersive screen, the phone still weighed down on my wrist at 206g.
The display on the OnePlus 7T Pro is stunning. Earlier this year we said the OnePlus 7 Pro offered one of the best displays in the market, and not much has changed. The 7T Pro display still packs Quad HD+ resolution, and a 90Hz refresh rate. It’s a shame that few apps benefit from the 90Hz screen, but the high refresh rate has a profound impact on the perception of fluidity. There’s no stutter when quickly scrolling through the interface, and icons remain absolutely crisp.
Contrast levels of the OLED screen are fantastic; there’s something to be said about the inky-black levels that only an OLED can produce. Color accuracy is on point, and the display is capable of reproducing images exactly the way they were shot. We measured peak brightness levels of about 430 nits, which is more than sufficient for outdoor use.
For avid multimedia consumers, HDR10+ support is on board. I tested HDR content from Netflix on the OnePlus 7T Pro and it looked brilliant.
The OnePlus 7T Pro offers a truly immersive media consumption experience.
OnePlus takes its Never Settle motto seriously. Since the beginning, OnePlus has followed its ethos of delivering top-tier performance. Take the best possible components available, pair them with a fast and fluid software layer, and squeeze out the maximum. OnePlus hardware is some of the fastest available.
The OnePlus 7T Pro upgrades the processor to the bleeding edge Snapdragon 855 Plus. Truthfully, the spec upgrade isn’t exactly substantial. The primary Kryo 485 cores are now clocked at 2.96GHz vs 2.84GHz on the regular Snapdragon 855. Qualcomm claims a 15% upgrade in GPU performance, but the scarcity of hardcore, polygon-pushing content means these gains may go unused. You are essentially future proofing your hardware.
Read: Should you pick the Snapdragon 855 Plus over the regular 855?
Predictably, day-to-day performance is as fast as it can possibly get. There was never a moment in my time with the OnePlus 7T Pro that I was left wanting for power. Between PUBG campaigns and playing Real Flight Simulator, that expansive display and oodles of power kept me hooked. The friction-less experience of playing a multiplayer game with nary a stutter or lag is enough to convince you of the sheer power the phone packs.
The battery on the OnePlus 7T gets a minor spec bump to 4,085mAh. It’s a moderate improvement that makes a discernible difference to battery life, but also compensates for the faster chipset. The real upgrade here is in the charging solution. The phone uses the Warp Charge 30T tech that debuted on the OnePlus 7T. It promises up to 23% faster charging speeds, though real-world gains are a bit more conservative. Charging times from scratch clocked in at about 71 minutes, which is in line with our measured time for the OnePlus 7 Pro as well. However, the phone was noticeably cooler this time around.
Also read: The full list of OnePlus 7T Pro specs
The phone managed about 15 hours of continuous playback in our video playback test. This was almost an hour more than the OnePlus 7 Pro. Similarly, web browsing and screen-on times were noticeably improved. I comfortably managed about six hours of screen-on time, which was just enough to help me get over the battery anxiety I felt with the OnePlus 7 Pro. You won’t feel the need to switch over to 60Hz to extend battery life with this one.
The OnePlus 7T Pro ships with Oxygen OS 10, based on Google’s new Android 10, and it’s brilliant. OnePlus is known for its excellent approach to smartphone software — taking vanilla Android and sprinkling in useful and helpful features that benefit the user. Fnatic gaming mode and Zen mode return, making for great gaming and well-being experiences, respectively.
Oxygen OS 10 is a great refinement of 9.5, and many of the improvements were focused on the camera. For example, macro mode and dual-FoV portrait mode have been added to the app, allowing for even more versatility with the 7T Pro’s triple camera setup. On top of these, OnePlus made some notable changes to how the 7T Pro processes images. The company’s UltraShot technology will analyze what you’re shooting and then apply different presets of color, contrast, exposure compensation, and HDR effect. (This is similar to the AI camera features touted by OnePlus’ competitors.)
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