OnePlus 7 Pro Review (Long Term) | Truth about OnePlus in 2021
Today is nostalgia time. Grab your cup of coffee and relax as we wind back!
Well, it is time to go back in time. 2 years ago, the OnePlus 7 Pro was unveiled. And, oh boy, it was definitely one of the best OnePlus devices you could buy. I don’t feel this phone is going to need an upgrade anytime soon.
I haven't missed anything major which could have been on my phone. But, now the times have changed and so has OnePlus. If you know what I mean! Well, that topic is for some other day. Now, let us see how the OnePlus 7 Pro has held up after 2 years. Let us get started with the OnePlus 7 Pro Review (Long Term)
Table of Contents
OnePlus 7 Pro Review: Its about Time
The Review of the OnePlus 7 Pro is divided into some sections as below.
Display
Starting with the display, the display still holds up great in 2021. It is a QHD Panel along with a 90hz refresh rate. It is an HDR 10 Certified display as well. What all that means is that your multimedia experience is still going to be great.
The screen is curved extensively which is still acclaimed to false touches on the edges. But other than that, I have zero complaints to offer. I wish the curved was less pronounced like the Samsung phones. But, that’s available on the newer models. The brightness is decent outdoors.
Design
The design was good and refreshing. The build of the device was made from glass and metal. Sure, it was slippery but you could use a case. What I did was, I got a Rhinoshield Crash Guard Bumper Case and skin.
Performance
Moving ahead, the phone runs on Snapdragon 855 which was indeed that year’s flagship. It is holding up great for day-to-day performance. You won’t notice any hiccups until you are doing something intensive or performing benchmarking. There are some bugs in Oxygen OS which hamper the experience and I’ll talk about those in the latter part of the video.
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Camera
Well, when the phone was out in the masses, as usual, it was so-called to have a great camera. If you ask me to check the facts, well it did not. It was decent but several phones had superior cameras at that time. The only thing is that it retains all 3 lenses which are normal, telephoto, and wide-angle. All of these are useful unlike the current trend of macro lenses. The front camera is decent enough for normal selfies and nothing spectacular.
Well, the pop camera mechanism is still working smoothly without any hiccup, and kudos to OnePlus for that. I really like the pop camera as it gives one peace of mind when it comes to privacy. But it was just a bridge to move towards invisible camera technology, which we're yet to see widely implemented on any major phones.
The camera performance was surely improved a bit by using GCam. I have made a dedicated video on Google Camera for the OnePlus 7 Pro which you can check out over here. And, I wish to stress on the fact that the OnePlus 7 Pro came with stereo speakers which surely improved the audio experience.
Battery Life
Over all these years, the only thing OnePlus disappointed me with was the battery life. The phone was built-in with a 4500mAh battery which is decent. I used to get around 6-7 hours of SOT. i.e. it used to last till evening on a moderate to heavy usage. The fact that everything was set on high performance crippled the battery performance for me.
Though some users got great battery life, I did not. WARP charging came to the rescue which charged the whole tank within 1 hour and 10 minutes. Now, the phone battery capacity has degraded to below 70% so I think I shall be good with a battery replacement after lockdown. Everything being online during the pandemic affected battery health adversely.
Oxygen OS
The journey with OxygenOS was like a roller coaster ride. Initially, it was on the peak and everything was smooth and fine. Don’t get me wrong, even now most of the things are fine with an overall good experience. However, the frequency of updates and security patches have reduced significantly and been delayed by a huge margin.
As OnePlus was known to be the fastest in providing updates, now that crown is taken by Samsung. I can see them providing faster updates with 3 years of major updates and 4 years of security updates which isn’t the case with OnePlus devices. The device is currently running Android 11 with a recent update. Also, If you ask me what features do I miss on this phone, it would be a larger battery, wireless charging, and IP rating.
Conclusion of OnePlus 7 Pro Review
Summing up, the OnePlus 7 Pro was a great phone and it is still one in 2021. I miss the old times when OnePlus devices used to be the game changers in cut-throat competition. As they say, you either die being a hero or live long enough to see yourself becoming the villain. Let us see how long the OnePlus 7 Pro keeps going. Only time will tell.
I think this wraps up my take on the OnePlus 7 Pro Review after using it for 2 years. Are you using a OnePlus 7 Pro in 2021? If not, which device are you using?
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