OnePlus 7 First Impressions

There's no denying that the OnePlus 7 Pro was the star of the company's launch event on Tuesday, but we think the OnePlus 7 is a phone worth getting excited about too, since it comes at a more attractive price. Gadgets 360 was on the ground at the launch event in Bengaluru where the company spent a lot of time talking about the new OnePlus 7 Pro and its new Bullets Wireless 2 earphones, saving the OnePlus 7 for last.

To be fair, this phone isn't as exciting as its bigger and more expensive sibling, but what did grab everyone's attention was that starting price. For just Rs. 32,999, the OnePlus 7 offers tremendous value on paper as you get the same Snapdragon 855 SoC as the OnePlus 7 Pro. For many people, this would be reason enough to buy it. We managed to spend some time with the Mirror Gray and Red versions at the launch event, and this is what we think about the new OnePlus 7 so far.

Physically, the phone looks virtually identical to the OnePlus 6T (Review). In fact, other than a wider grille for the earpiece, it's really hard to tell the two phones apart. The OnePlus 7 feels very light, and at first we thought it was just us because we've used the relatively heavy OnePlus 7 Pro for a few days.

However, looking at the specifications sheet,, the OnePlus 7 is actually a bit lighter than the OnePlus 6T. Both colour variants are incredibly glossy and fingerprints are going to be a big pain if you're not planning on using a case. Of the two colour options, we think the Red one looks more attractive.

The OnePlus 7 isn't completely stripped of features, and thankfully some of the most important selling points of the Pro model are shared with the more affordable one. You get the same fast UFS 3.0 flash storage, stereo speakers, Dolby Atmos support, upgraded in-display fingerprint sensor, front camera, and primary rear camera of the bigger model. We couldn't test the speakers at the venue so it'll be interesting to see how they compare to those of the OnePlus 7 Pro once we get our review unit.

The secondary rear camera on the OnePlus 7 has been downgraded to a 5-megapixel depth sensor, from the 20-megapixel depth sensor on the OnePlus 6T. We look forward to seeing how this impacts images captured in Portrait mode.

The display is similar to that of the OnePlus 6T, and at the demo area, its brightness and colour reproduction seemed good. The OnePlus 7 was running the same OxygenOS 9.5 as the OnePlus 7 Pro, and has some of the same new additions such as the in-built screen recorder and Zen mode. However the Fnatic gaming mode was missing.

Like its bigger sibling, the OnePlus7 also doesn't support wireless charging and isn't water-resistant. Fast charging also uses the "slower" 20W standard rather than the 30W Warp charging feature on the OnePlus 7 Pro.

If you're a OnePlus 6T user, then upgrading to the OnePlus 7 won't be good value, as most of the updates are incremental. However, if you were thinking about picking up a OnePlus 6T, then it makes complete sense to wait for the OnePlus 7 to go on sale in June. Not only will you be spending less money, but you'll also be getting a much better smartphone overall.

We're expecting our review unit to arrive very soon, so stay tuned for our full review in which we'll test the OnePlus 7's performance, cameras, battery life, display, build quality, and more.

Is OnePlus 7 Pro an iPhone, Samsung Killer or yet another pretender? We discussed this on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.