The OnePlus 7 Pro Review: Outstanding Performance & Screen, Adequate Everything Else
by Andrei Frumusanu on June 19, 2019 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Mobile
- Smartphones
- OnePlus
- OnePlus 7 Pro
System Performance
One of the key aspects of the new OnePlus 7 Pro is its promised performance. OnePlus now for a few generations has made a large focus on the performance of their devices, opting to go the extra mile to optimise the software experience of their devices and the OS software. The new 7 Pro promises to thus to differentiate itself from other Snapdragon 855 devices.
Another way that the performance of the OnePlus 7 Pro should be much improved compared to the competition is the inclusion of UFS 3.0 storage as well as the new 90Hz display. Admittedly our testing setup for NAND is currently inadequate to fully test the storage speed, however the 90Hz refresh rate does have some immediate effects on some benchmarks, in particular our favourite, PCMark.
In PCMark’s web browsing test, the OnePlus 7 Pro showcases some larger score discrepancy between its 60 and 90Hz modes. What is interesting is that the 60Hz score is unusually low, performing quite a lot worse than what we saw from other Snapdragon 855 devices who are 60Hz themselves as well. The 90Hz mode does up the score notably, however it still slightly lags behind the Galaxy S10+ as well as all other Kirin 980 powered devices.
The video editing score is in line with the majority of the pack, but again the OP7Pro is lagging behind the Samsung S10+ with the Snapdragon 855.
It’s in the writing sub-test, arguably the single most important workload of PCMark where the OnePlus 7 Pro manages to distinguish itself more compared to other devices. Here both in 60 and 90Hz modes the device manages to take the top spots in the charts.
The photo editing workload is also an important indicator of general device snappiness. Here the OP7Pro again beats the competition from Samsung and LG with the same SoC. I think it’s possible that OnePlus has better and more optimised OS libraries and this is why this is seen as a performance advantage compared to the competition.
The data manipulation score again has a notable difference between the 90Hz and 60Hz modes, but much like the web-browsing test we’re again seeing some oddly low performance of the 60Hz mode, much below that of other Snapdragon 855 devices.
Finally the end-score of the OnePlus 7 Pro ends up just shy of the Snapdragon Galaxy S10+, losing some yet winning others. The 60Hz mode does have an effect of the score and in this mode the OP7Pro loses a few hundred points.
Browser JS Benchmarks
In the Javascript web-browsing benchmarks the OP7Pro is relatively in line with the LG G8. The odd thing here again is that Samsung’s Galaxy S10+ with the same chip offers a quite different performance fingerprint. This is particularly visible in WebXPRT where it has a lead over the OP7Pro. It’s to be noted that in the web benchmarks I haven’t seen any difference in scoring whether the device was in 60 or 90Hz display modes.
Device Performance Conclusion – A Lot Not Covered By Benchmarks
While the OP7Pro performed quite well in our system benchmark suite, there’s a few aspects of the phone that unfortunately aren’t really covered. One such things is the NAND storage and the experience that the 90Hz mode gives.
In terms of the new UFS 3.0 storage, its addition to the phone was something that I immediately noticed in regards to application installation speeds. Here the OP7Pro was significantly faster than any other Android device I’ve had before, shaving off significant chunks off of installation times.
Another subjective aspect that is hard to objectively convey in benchmark numbers is simply the vastly improved UI fluidity brought forth by the 90Hz refresh rate of the phone. Any PC user with a higher refresh rate monitor will know what an immense difference this makes compared to the more traditional 60Hz. The very first time I held the OP7Pro at our pre-briefing I immediately saw the massive difference this makes to the fluidity of scrolling and very much knew that this would be the killer feature of the phone, no matter how all other aspects would end up.
While in terms of UI snappiness, the OnePlus 7 Pro isn’t any faster than say Samsung’s S10, its fluidity just stands out as something beyond any other current device (Asus Rog Phone & Razer phones aside). OnePlus’ combination of high-refresh rate on an OLED screen makes for an incredible selling point.
While the 90Hz is fantastic, I have some serious doubts about the 60Hz mode of the phone and whatever OnePlus did to the software stack in terms of implementing this. For some odd reason, it makes things notably slower, and I’m not just talking about simply there being less frames, but actual reduced responsiveness and an impression of more sluggishness and jank. In fact, in 60Hz mode the phone feels notably more sluggish than the Galaxy S10, when in theory it should have been equal. The fact that the OnePlus 7 Pro somewhat performs more similar to the G8 in some web benchmarks has me suspect it actually has similar BSP performance issues, and the 90Hz mode somehow just counter-acts these negatives. It’s really odd.
That being said, just stick with the 90Hz mode and you’ll have a fantastic experience beyond that of any other phone out in the market right now.
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DillholeMcRib - Wednesday, June 19, 2019 - link
Can I flash this damn thing and run WIndows ARM on it?Jez1 - Wednesday, June 19, 2019 - link
I had this around a week and they were great things about it, but many things I didn't like so returned it.The screen was great and apps installed at an amazing pace, the UI was lovely but to many negatives. The camera was so erratic and one minute would take a nice photo, then the next would have washed out colors and lacked detail and sharpness when slightly zoomed in. A lot of the time my old S7 took more reliable photos and my wife's 6T was also better. I know this could get better with fixes, but was too poor out of the box.
The sides of the screen also got massive reflections outside and the inbuilt screen protector was rubbish. In a week of light use, it was covered in indention's from my nail and also stated getting air bubbles. So you couldn't even appreciate the lovely screen and there wasn't any 3rd party ones available.
The final thing which is subjective is the weight, it felt so heavy one-handed.
I then got a s10+ and and couldn't be happier with in comparison. I got a big discount for my old bashed up S7, so only paid £40 more. I hope OnePlus can get it together for their next phone as love their approach and really didn't want to get another Samsung
Quantumz0d - Wednesday, June 19, 2019 - link
With this phone OnePlus went full marketing mumbojumbo.They spent a lot of cash on that only and while sidetracking all the negatives this phone has. 90Hz is a gimmick, so many people don't want that. Instead they want a phone which is marked at $700 these -
- A 3.5mm headphone jack, (How come the 6T dropped the jack saying no space for the finger print scanner while they crammed a motorized camera into the chassis, It's plain BS as always with Apple or any company, Note had S-Pen, LG has Display fused OLED crystal sound with proper ToF camera with an ESS DAC equipped phone)
- No SD card slot, No don't say cloud or 256GB, I have a ton of data on my PC FHD high bitrate movies, 4K UHD recording directly to SD card pictures to SD card, High quality recording of Audio through Stereo and high bitrate likes of LG, Emulators, FLAC/DSD files etc and top of all, a fully reliable offline cheap storage which just works and offers expansion as per user choice from 128GB to 1TB.
- No IP rating, No the damn shilled tests from Dave2D or MHBHD aren't going to cut it, the IEC conventions are internationally agreed standards not some bs offscreen tests saying it increases price and all rubbish kool-aid.
- Trash camera
- No QI wireless charging, glass back and peanuts charging, they don't wnat to give because they want to milk with all these features barring the jack for another refresh or new unit.
- No price cuts, OP phones never get a price cut, today you can buy an SD835 (By no means a problem) phones like S8+ for 500USD which has everything more than this gimmick phone, LG phones see price cuts, got my V30S for far less price under 500USD which outperforms in all features, Yes even the BL unlock, coming to that, S9 and Note 9 are cheaper at $600USD which again rape this phone to oblivion esp Exynos models which have BL unlock. And the latest S10 is already seeing discounts, and once Black Friday hits the G8 and all phones will drop price.
Next is Zenfone6 that phone is making waves apart from the mediocre LCD display (No pentile, so FHD is fine but the brightness is not enough) and it has 3.5mm jack, Stereo speakers, a big arse 5000MaH battery without this over charging current rate.
Huge thanks to Andrei a lot for this piece on this stupid overdrive current charging done by Oneplus, fools at many blogs and youtube shills refuse to believe me that over high currrent charging is insane simply due to the cathode-anode reactions and faster degradation, esp this is why we need Qi not battery raping marketing BS. These oneplus garbage phones always overcharge and do this rubbish, look at QC with Samsung/LG/Sony any company apart from this and Huawei have that, Apple even sandbags the battery death by reducing the CPU perf. This BS is not seen my 99% of the people and they end up with junk on top of the non user replaceable batteries.
So all in all this is an overpriced "toy" not a proper pocket PC / Powerful computer in your hand.
Quantumz0d - Wednesday, June 19, 2019 - link
Edit - Zenfone 6 specs include - it also got UFS storage unlike Pixel 3a with eMMC trash, an SD855 a great camera than this junk well, at-least from the users, an SD slot, Bootloader unlock and highest SKU is less than 600USD (8GB/256GB)zodiacfml - Thursday, June 20, 2019 - link
I agree especially on the LCD display. I have a lot of praise for OLED until I got it for the first time in the S8+. It is easily not as sharp as my Nexus 5. Every time I open the Nexus 5, I'm taken away how sharp and clean the display is versus the AMOLED S8. I have late 30's eyes. I'd rather take an LCD display for my next phone as long it is reasonably priced vs premium OLED phones.I disagree with your fast charging criticism though. I'm no battery enthusiast, if rapid charging kills batteries, then we should not see them in electric vehicles such as Tesla cars.
My Nexus 5 doesn't have rapid charging tech but my second battery is, again, bulging with less capacity. It does heat a lot though with Data turned and/or during gaming. Certainly, it is heat is the detrimental effect and heat is only the effect of fast charging
Andrei Frumusanu - Thursday, June 20, 2019 - link
> if rapid charging kills batteries, then we should not see them in electric vehicles such as Tesla cars.Tesla batteries are also gigantic (In comparison to a regular wall outlet power) and designed to handle that.
We've had a smartphone vendor who promoted one of these super-high charging rate confirm some pretty atrocious long-term capacity degradation, while something like Samsung's degradation curve was like 20% higher in terms of retained capacity after the same amount of cycles.
zodiacfml - Thursday, June 20, 2019 - link
I refer to Tesla's Superchargers where a Model 3 can charge to 80 percent in 30 minutes. A Supercharger charges its battery cells as fast as quick charging smartphones.OP can afford a faster charging rate than Qualcomm's QC because there is no voltage conversion happening in OP's phone, thus less heat. The only drawback only works with OP's charger and thick cable.
rabidpeach - Tuesday, June 22, 2021 - link
sorry it's been years but hopefully the future readership realizes that TESLA herself encourages you to NOT supercharge the car constantly as that would increase the degradation as well as well-reported constant fleet usage of supercharge style system has shown degradation.Xyler94 - Thursday, June 20, 2019 - link
I will always prefer my AMOLED displays in phones. OLEDs have the advantage of having much higher contrast than LCD, because individual pixels can be turned fully off, creating true black. There's no LCD that can do that. LED LCDs come close, but only because you can turn off zones of the LED backlight.Also, colour calibration makes an image look better than the display tech. If the Nexus 5 had better calibration, then it would definitely be a better display. I know Samsung TVs always have too much blue (I've calibrated a few of them), it's possible their phone displays have a bit too much blue too.
zodiacfml - Thursday, June 20, 2019 - link
That's what I thought which led me to buy the Samsung. I realized, the infinite contrast has little value to me except watching movies in darkness.The sharpness of the LCD over the pen-tile AMOLED is noticeable with text, sharper edges with LCDs. Images from my DSLRs or conventional cameras are also sharper on the N5.
White background in AMOLED never convinced me, feels rough or dirty. I checked today, looked at my Samsung around 4 inches away, I can notice multicolored very tiny noise-like pixels.
The Nexus 5 has one of the best calibrated displays during its time. I'm just saying LCDs superior to AMOLEDs in image sharpness alone