OnePlus 7 Pro First Impressions: Finally a premium phone from OnePlus

OnePlus has finally launched the much-awaited OnePlus 7 Pro. With it, the company aims to capture the premium smartphone market and give tough competition to the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S10 and the Apple iPhone XR. It is the first OnePlus smartphone to come with a Quad HD+ display and the first phone in the industry to have a high refresh rate on an OLED display panel.

As I was present at the launch event, I was able to spend some time with the device at their experience zone. Here are my first impressions of the smartphone:

OnePlus 7 Pro: Specifications

OnePlus 7 Pro features a 6.67-inch Quad HD+ Fluid AMOLED display with 90Hz refresh rate. It is powered by the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor coupled with an Adreno 640 GPU. The dual-SIM handset packs up to 12GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage. It runs on Oxygen OS based on Android 9.0 Pie operating system. All of this is backed by a 4,000mAh, which also supports the company's new Warp Charge 30 fast charging technology.

As for the optics, the OnePlus 7 Pro features a triple-camera setup on the back consisting of a 48-megapixel primary, a 16-megapixel wide angle and an 8-megapixel telephoto lens. For selfies, there is a 16-megapixel pop-up selfie camera.

OnePlus 7 Pro: First Impressions

As soon as I held the phone for the first time, it gave me the vibe of a Samsung Galaxy S10 and the Huawei Mate 20 Pro. While this could be due to the glass sandwich design and the curved display up front, the OnePlus 7 Pro does have some features that distinguish it from others. For starters, OnePlus has finally shifted to a Quad HD panel and it is one of the first smartphones to feature 90Hz refresh rate on an OLED panel. The panel looks quite vivid and the brightness was also good enough.

OnePlus 7 Pro has been launched in three colour variants - Nebula Blue, Mirror Grey and Almond. While the Mirror Grey is too basic for my taste, I was really impressed by the matte finish on the Nebula Blue and the amazing look of the Almond colour variants. The smartphone looks spectacular especially from the front as there is no bezel or notch. The notch has now been traded for a pop-up selfie camera similar to the one seen on the Oppo F11 Pro.

Speaking of cameras, we did manage to take a few pictures using the OnePlus 7 Pro's cameras and we were definitely impressed. While it is not as great as some of the other smartphones in the auto mode, it does bring a significant improvement over its predecessor. We will need to take the phone out in the real world to test out its camera capabilities more thoroughly.

Also Read: OnePlus 7, OnePlus 7 Pro launched in India: Price, specifications and more

Apart from that, I also had my fingerprint setup on one of the units and I was really impressed. The speed and reliability of the fingerprint scanner have been vastly improved when compared to the OnePlus 6T. Further, the company has also put up a new vibration motor, which feels way better than any of the previous OnePlus smartphones and the device now also has haptic feedback, which makes it feel much more like other premium smartphones.

In the first few minutes I had with the device, I was really impressed. However, we will need to spend some more time with the phone to know about its flaws.

Disclaimer: The author is currently in Bengaluru on the invite of OnePlus India.