[OnePlus 7 Pro Real Life Review] tigerxchaos:
Comparison Opinions - OnePlus 7 Pro vs. OnePlus 6T

For background purposes, my last 5 phones:

Samsung Note 7 > Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge > OnePlus 3T > OnePlus 6T (T-Mobile Version) > OnePlus 7 Pro (OnePlus Version)

When I got the 3T, I thought it was the best Android phone I'd ever used. Then I got the 6T, and with the minor frustration of the fingerprint reader's often-slow unlock and the fact that I would wait months for updates to be pushed out from T-Mobile, I thought it was the best Android phone I've ever used. (I did have it OEM unlocked but for some reason never actually took advantage of it and stayed on stock software pushed out OTA by T-Mobile.)

I ordered my 7 Pro (Nebula Blue, 8GB RAM/256GB storage) last Tuesday night 5/21 and it was in my hands Friday 5/24 afternoon.

Here are my thoughts on the phone as compared to my previous ones.

Physical Appearance and Feel:

* This is a beautiful phone in Nebula Blue. The back of the phone is striking and I love the matte look. I find it sad that I have to immediately cover it with a glossy case that really reduces how nice it looks.

* The phone is definitely heavy and large. The case I had on my 6T resulted in it being about the same size and a little heavier than the 7 Pro so I am not noticing any detriment here, but we'll see what happens once I have a more robust case on the 7 Pro.

* I feel like the volume buttons are up a little too high on the side of the phone to be usable. From the teardown videos I've seen, it doesn't seem like there's a way around this design choice, unfortunately.

* The fact that there are nearly no bezels and the edges of the display are curved, is resulting in some inadvertent touches to the top and sides of the display (I have yet to experience the "ghost touch" issue reported by some people; I've been able to trace back these inadvertent touches to the way I'm holding the phone at times). This will take some getting used to.

* I am paranoid about holding and using the phone given the enormous screen. I think this will be better once I have a more protective case.

Performance:

* There isn't much to say here. This is the fastest phone I have ever used or seen. Apps launch much faster than the 6T, and the 6T was no slouch.

* I have noticed some very slight and intermittent graphical hesitation here and there, mostly when switching between recent apps. Most likely something a software update will fix at some point, and isn't an issue for me.

Screen:

* The screen is -phenomenal-. The only area in which I wish it were a little better is outdoors use. While it's the most usable screen outside of the five phones listed above, it can still be hard to see on bright days, regardless of sun or clouds.

* The 6T was the first phone where I felt OnePlus's clutch on the 1080p panel started to hurt it a little bit. The higher-resolution panel on the 7 Pro has thoroughly done away with that.

* The 90Hz refresh rate is something you don't need until you have it. Now, going back to my 6T on the rare occasion I need to, feels a little barbaric.

Camera:

* I thought the 6T camera was really good. I have taken a number of pictures in multiple modes with the 6T and the 7 Pro. I feel like the 6T gave sharper pictures, but one of the things I've noticed is that I can zoom in much further with the 7 Pro than I could with the 6T. I can't help but wonder if this is contributing to what people are noticing with mediocre shots along with the higher resolution panel, because the picture is pixelated at full zoom-in, but the phone smooths out the pixels and it's hard to detect unless you look closely. Until you do so, it just feels like the picture is not as crisp. When I compare pictures from the gallery on both phones, it seems like at the same zoom level, the sharpness is pretty comparable. (I am still on OOS 9.5.3 and have not yet received what is claimed to be the "DxOMark firmware version".)

* The options available in the stock camera app are really impressive. I stumbled across the ability to zoom OUT with the main camera, as well as the ability to use the entire 48MP sensor without binning while in pro mode. I do miss the "JPG+RAW" option and hope they bring this back at some point - it seems to have been removed in favor of the 48MP mode.

* The telephoto and wide angle lenses suffer in picture quality and I don't anticipate using them very much. Honestly, I wish they would have ditched them and used the extra space for a larger battery or larger sensor for the main camera.

* The night mode is much faster, but feels like it softens photos and loses more detail than on the OnePlus 6T. Admittedly I didn't use it very much either.

* The selfie camera is pretty quiet (when using it for Face Unlock, half the time I don't hear it raising). Picture quality seems okay, but I feel like it's not as good as the 6T. I believe this may be due to software post-processing, or possibly the higher-resolution screen emphasizing shortcomings in picture quality.

Battery Life:

* Battery life feels noticeably reduced from the 6T. Obviously this is a more powerful phone, with more going on, a more power-hungry screen, etc. I wish they would have squeezed a little more battery into this phone.

* I have noticed that certain chargers that charged my 6T pretty quickly, don't charge the 7 Pro nearly as quickly. I don't feel like this is related to the larger battery; it may be due to me using the phone while charging and that more power has to go towards the phone components, leaving less to charge the battery with. It could also be OnePlus limiting things with software and trying to push people towards the Warp accessories. /shrug

Biometric Security (Fingerprint Reader, Face Unlock)

* The fingerprint reader has been improved substantially and noticeably over the 6T. With the 6T, I had to rely on Face Unlock a lot of the time because the fingerprint reader was often sluggish. I no longer feel like it's slower than Face Unlock on the 7 Pro and I don't feel like it's as finicky about placement (likely due to the larger sensor field). On the 7 Pro, the fingerprint unlock is once again my main unlock method.

* Face Unlock is still pretty quick despite the additional time overhead to raise the selfie camera. It's not as fast as on the 6T but alongside the faster fingerprint sensor, I experience no frustration in unlocking my phone.

Data Transfer

* Data transfer using the OnePlus Switch app wasn't completely seamless, but it backed up and transferred the most important of my data, and Google filled in the rest such as game progress, etc.

Overall, I'm very satisfied with this phone. The camera quality hopefully will be improved by software updates going forward; OnePlus has put way too much effort in the engineering of this phone to leave the camera struggling, especially with the widespread public disappointment in it. Thankfully, I made the decision this time to buy direct from OnePlus instead of T-Mobile; after my experiences watching 6T users getting update after update while T-Mobile remained silent, I won't go the carrier route again.