OnePlus 7 Pro Review: Killer Display, Great Performance And Value

The OnePlus 7 Pro comes in three colors currently, Nebula Blue, Mirror Gray, and a recent addition, Almond. Though we haven't set eyes on the other colors in person of yet, we will say the Nebula Blue is pretty gorgeous. OnePlus notes there are multiple layers of glass on the device, along with a layer of anti-glare material. We wouldn't say it resists fingerprints and reflections quite as well as the Mirror Black finish of our OnePlus 6T review unit, but it sure is pretty and also appears quite durable, unlike our Samsung Galaxy S10+ review unit that took a deep scratch on its backside in the first week, though we can't even recall an abusive incident.

In fact, with curved glass on both the front and back, the OnePlus 7 Pro feels alot like a Samsung Galaxy S device and looks similar too, in some respects. However, we'd offer that OnePlus "out-Galaxied" Samsung here, with a higher quality finish, strapped in Gorilla Glass 5. Do we dare give it a scratch or drop test. Heck no, and unfortunately we had to defer to protecting this beautiful device with its included clear case cover. It's advisable for any user to take these same protection measures, but suffice it to say that we feel the OnePlus 7 Pro is actually built slightly better overall versus even the very high quality Galaxy S10+. 

On the bottom you'll find a down-firing speaker that, in combination with the top earpiece speaker that doubles in stereo unison with the bottom speaker, delivers reasonably loud output though typically thin on the low-end. The bottom is also home to a USB-C sync and charge port, as well as a dual Nano-SIM card tray, but no external expansion and no analog headphone jack here kids. However, the sting is taken off both of these small shortcomings with and included USB-C to 3.5mm dongle and the fact that the OnePlus 7 Pro comes in configurations up to 256GB of very speedy UFS 3.0 storage (more on this in the benchmarks).

In terms of button configuration, the OnePlus 7 Pro brings back the company's beloved Silent/Vibrate/Ring slider switch that lets you mechanically set the phone for these various levels of do or do-not disturb. Also on the ride side edge with this switch is the power/screen lock button and on the left side edge is where you'll find the volume rocker. 

And ahh yes, that OnePlus 7 Pro pop-up selfie camera -- so far, loving it. The camera pops and retracts quickly and, as you'll see in our camera sample section, takes excellent shots. It does, however, have a nice integrated seal on the bottom of this motorized camera periscope, which makes this area of the chassis splash-proof. However, OnePlus still doesn't offer an official IP water or dust resistance rating for the phone. Is this a big deal? We don't think so. Don't plan on going swimming with this phone, but an occasional accidental splash or moist wipe-down for cleaning purposes is just fine. Finally, as we'll cover a bit more in our software and user experience section, this popup camera auto-retracts when the phone detects a drop or fall in progress, protecting it from damage. OnePlus also demonstrated hanging a 50 pound weight on the camera when extended, so in general its selfie camera is quite sturdy. 

The other obvious benefit of a pop-up, front-facing camera is a completely notchless, super-thin bezel display, and boy is the OnePlus 7 Pro's display something special. 

The first thing you notice with the OnePlus 7 Pro is that everything about its viewing experience is completely unfettered. Sure you get app bezel area for the bottom Home, Back and recent apps buttons, as well as  web browser control, but if you fire up a video or the picture gallery, full view modes and zoom to fill allow you to use every millimeter of the display. It's a refreshing super-clean look that appeals to our OCD side and of course to those who have been hating on the notch since the display design trend was introduced. 

The next thing you immediately notice with this display is the OnePlus 7 Pro's high speed 90Hz refresh rate. Once you've seen it, you can't un-see it as they say, and though you can switch to a 60Hz setting to conserve battery life, you'll never want to turn 90Hz off. Ever. Everything just feels faster, smoother and more crisp on the OnePlus 7 Pro's 90Hz setting. The phone is already lightning-fast, with its Snapdragon 855 processor, speedy UFS 3.0 storage, and 12GB of RAM (benchmarks soon), but when you couple the pixel response time of this display with this phone's raw horsepower, the experience was noticeably more nimble than any other phone we've tested to date.

Another aspect of this phone that is significantly more nimble is its under-display fingerprint scanner, which performs like night and day versus the previous generation OnePlus 6T. In fact, we couldn't recommend the scanner in the previous model, but the OnePlus 7 Pro's scanner performance is excellent and we'd use it as a daily driver for security without question. 

In terms of brightness, contrast and saturation, the OnePlus 7 Pro's 6.7-inch Fluid OLED display is punchy, bright and crisp at its full 3120X1440 resolution, though again you can dial it back to 1080p to conserve battery life. OnePlus enables screen calibration controls and a nice AMOLED Wide Gamut setting as well as a Display P3 setting. This display is also Mobile HDR 10+ certified supporting dynamic metadata and dynamic tone mapping. This display is so gorgeous and we're not just gushing here, DisplayMate gave it an A+ rating as well noting, "The OnePlus 7 Pro has a very impressive Top Tier Smartphone Display with close to Text Book Perfect Calibration Accuracy and Performance that is Visually Indistinguishable From Perfect." 

That is high praise to be sure and we'd concur. The one caveat here is that this is a large format phone with 6.7-inches of screen real estate. If you prefer smaller a device, the OnePlus 7 Pro's large screen will be something to consider, but we'd still suggest you give it a chance. In fact with its notchless, punchout-free, clean, curved glass design that cradles comfortably in your hand, we'd say this the best smartphone display and design we've ever laid eyes on, beating even Samsung at with its OLED display prowess. Bravo, OnePlus.