OnePlus 7 Pro First Impressions: Great Looks With A Pop-Up Camera That Isn't Just A Gimmick

The OnePlus 6T isn't exactly old yet, having launched in October last year. But the company isn't waiting around, as it announced two new devices last night: OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 7 Pro.

And we got to play around with one of them, the stellar and uber-cool OnePlus 7 Pro. Here's a quick look at what we think with just a couple of days on the "flagship killer."

Images courtesy: Gwyn D'Mello/Indiatimes

Design

Now, the first thing you'll notice about this device is the modified design. The 7 Pro departs from the traditional OnePlus flagship look, and has instead moved towards something you might find familiar with Samsung's Galaxy range of devices.

The device comes in three colours: Mirror Gray, Almond, And the Nebula Blue we got. The finish is similar to that of the OnePlus 6T Thunder Purple, with a colour gradient and Gorilla Glass 5. This time around however, OnePlus has opted for a display with curved edges as well as corners, really upping the aesthetic.

Display

The OnePlus 7 Pro features a 6.67-inch Fluid AMOLED (3120x1440 at 516ppi) that is honestly a joy to behold. And with a 90Hz refresh rate, it's the company's smoothest display yet. Most importantly however, there's a distinct lack of a notch despite an edge-to-edge display, thanks to the new camera.

Camera

On the rear, the OnePlus 7 Pro is tricked out to the max, featuring three lenses for pretty much any situation. An incredibly powerful 48MP f/1.6 is the main shooter, that features the company's UltraShot imaging software. This makes for some incredibly sharp snapshots, and with an incredibly fast autofocus. Alongside it is a 8MP f/2.4 telephoto lens that gives you some insane clarity with a 3X zoom. Use responsibly please. There's also a 16MP f/2.2 Ultra Wide lens, for when you're trying to get all your friends in a shot, or particularly expansive scenery.

The coolest thing here however is the 16MP f/2.0 front camera. It's not necessarily more powerful than others like it. However, it's installed in a little module housed within the phone itself. When you hit the button to toggle selfie mode, the camera silently pops out of its housing in the top edge. Because of this, there's no notch anymore and good riddance, meaning there's no more worry for developers trying to fit their apps accordingly.

Performance

The OnePlus 7 Pro features a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 (octa-core, 2.84GHz) processor with Adreno 640 GPU -- the best chip available on a phone this calendar year. It comes in three RAM versions with 6GB/8GB/12GB LPDDR4X RAM, and with either 128GB/256GB storage. Ours was the premium 12GB/256GB variant. We haven't yet had the time to fully put it through its paces, but we can at least say that switching between apps, streaming content, and playing PUBG left us with no complaints of lag or stutter whatsoever.

The device also features dual nano-SIM capability (as is generally the case now) and a massive 4000mAh battery. This baby kept going through a whole work day of use and then some. Combine that with the insanely fast Warp Charge, and you're not likely to ever experience nomophobia except in the most extreme circumstances.

Usage

The biggest selling point of this device is clearly the pop-up camera. Not only does it mean the removal of the notch, which I greatly appreciate, but it's undeniably a novelty attraction at the moment. Whether this design aesthetic withstands the test of the next few years remains to be seen.

I can say however, that it does slightly slow down Face Unlock time, as compared to the 6T. And by this I mean there's a delay of a fraction of a second when you compare the two. Of course for Face Unlock on the 7 Pro, when you hit the power button, the camera is popping up, registering your face, and sliding back in all in about 1.05 seconds. So objectively, it's a pretty short delay of only about 0.30 seconds despite involving a moving piece of hardware, so I can live with that.

Ready to work

All in all, the OnePlus 7 Pro has been incredibly fun to mess around with. We're still working on a full review, so check back with us by the end of the week for an update. In the meantime however, thinks are certainly looking positive.