OnePlus 7 Pro's 90Hz Display Is Smooth & Addictive, Packed With Features To Defeat Any Flagship

Ever since last year, we knew the OnePlus 7 Pro would be the device to look forward to in 2019. Well the year has rolled around and we're not disappointed.

The OnePlus 7 Pro is everything you could ask for in a flagship and more. And this time, it's got a little extra flair.

Images courtesy: Gwyn D'Mello/Indiatimes

The OnePlus 6T was a great device, and yet OnePlus is releasing two new devices to replace it, in the OnePlus 7 and 7 Pro. The former is the more affordable one of course, but it's the latter that really shows off some style and substance like never before.

Design

If you're used to the recent OnePlus offerings, the first thing you'll notice is that the design has changed a bit. For one, it's (somehow) been made to look a lot sleeker than before. The device is available in three colours: Mirror Gray, Almond, and the Nebula Blue we got our hands on. It's a really nice finish similar to the OnePlus 6T Thunder Purple, except with display that has curved edges and corners. The overall form factor has gone up, and so has its weight in the hand -- which is a bit of a bummer.

Display

The OnePlus 7 Pro features a 6.67-inch Fluid AMOLED (3120x1440) at 516ppi. Thanks to the redesign, there's more display to enjoy, with a 90Hz refresh rate that's the company's smoothest yet. Whether gaming or binging Netflix, your content is ensured to always be butter smooth. Frankly, every flagship phone should have a display this good.

The reason for the increased screen real-estate however is specifically thanks to the removal of the notch, the replacement for which we'll get to in a second. The only problem you might face here is if you have small hands, or are uncomfortable working big phones. In which case, sorry bub, but this is kinda the smartphone trend now.

Powerful shooters

OnePlus has always been decent at its photo game, but it's never been great so to speak. But that's all about to change now. The 7 Pro features, for the first time for the company, a triple lens setup on the rear.

A powerful 48MP f/1.6 from Sony is the main shooter, that features OnePlus' UltraShot imaging software. It makes for some incredibly sharp snapshots, and with a pretty fast autofocus. Alongside it is a 8MP f/2.4 telephoto lens that gives you some insane clarity with a 3X zoom. No, we didn't use it to click a photo of the guy on the balcony of the building across from us. Whatever are you talking about?

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. And though all three could still use some work in the low-light department, at least daylight shots are crisp as can be. We noticed photos with a bit of faded colours and haywire exposure at times on the OnePlus 7 Pro, but nothing that a camera firmware can't fix in future.

A jumpy selfie cam

Arguably the coolest feature in the OnePlus 7 Pro though is the 16MP f/2.0 front camera. It isn't necessarily more powerful than others like it, but it does fare decently well. The reason we mention it though is because it's installed in a little module housed within the body of the phone itself.

That means, when you hit the button to toggle selfie mode, the camera silently pops out of its housing in the top edge. This is OnePlus' solution to avoid a notch, or punch hole display, or what have you. Frankly, I couldn't be happier that the notch is gone. Others however worry about how stable the build is, whether that mechanism could loosen in time, and whether it will let dust enter the device. That last one is a huge concern when living in a country like India, so it remains to be seen how it fares.

In the meantime, at least there's no worry of you destroying the slider by dropping the device. If the selfie camera is in 'out' mode when your stupid butterfingers let it slide out of your hand, there's a default-enabled fall detection, that immediately has it slide in and display a warning on the screen.

Performance

Like every model before it, one thing the OnePlus 7 Pro doesn't compromise on is performance. The brand continues to offer light-speed processing at a fraction of the price associated with other flagship devices.

In this case, that's provided by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 (octa-core, 2.84GHz) processor with Adreno 640 GPU. It also comes in three RAM versions with 6GB/8GB/12GB LPDDR4X RAM, and with either 128GB/256GB storage. Switching between apps and streaming is a breeze, as should be expected, and even running heavy games like PUBG Mobile offers playtime with no stutters whatsoever.

Even better, the OnePlus 7 Pro also features a massive 4000mAh battery. If you're a regular user, you can count on at least a day and a half of usage on a single charge. And if you're a power gamer, you can still count on a full day of intermittent to heavy gaming without having to reach for the adapter. And even when you do, the Warp Charge will have you back at 50 percent in just about 20 minutes, and at full in about an hour.

Added perks

If all of that wasn't enough for you, the OnePlus 7 Pro has a new 10-layer liquid cooling system that'll keep you from running too hot even during extended gameplay periods, not to mention extending your battery's lifetime.

Additionally, the Gaming Mode from Oxygen OS has received an upgrade. Turned on automatically when you fire up a game (you can pick and choose which ones it activates for) it gets all the cores fired up and dedicates them to your gaming. It also handily tweaks notifications so they signal you audibly, as well as with a ticker across the top of the display, without impinging on your actual game on screen.

The verdict

You can get your hands on the OnePlus 7 Pro right now, starting at Rs 48,999 for the Mirror Grey with 6GB RAM and 128GB storage. That goes all the way up to Rs 57,999 for the Nebula Blue 12GB/256GB.

Frankly, OnePlus has once again delivered a hell of a flagship killer albeit at a slightly higher asking price -- because of its two phone strategy. If you're upgrading from something like the 6T, maybe you won't see as big a difference. Anything older though, and it's certainly a purchase you can make with your eyes closed.