OnePlus today launched the OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 7 Pro. With the ‘pro,’ the company is jumping to the flagship territory and hopes to compete directly with the iPhones and other flagship smartphones in the market with features and specs instead of price.

The company has a relatively small presence in the United States where it started selling its phones under T-Mobile’s network with the OnePlus 6T last year. However, in parts of Europe and India, OnePlus has a strong following and dominates the premium smartphone market.

OnePlus 7 Pro

The OnePlus 7 Pro is no longer a flagship killer. Instead, it is a flagship handset with a price tag to match.

The design of the OnePlus 7 Pro builds on the OnePlus 6 and 6T from last year. The highlight of the handset is its bezel-less front achieved by using a pop-up selfie camera. This is similar to what the likes of Vivo and Oppo use in their premium smartphones. Apart from the bezel-less front, the 6.7-inch display of the OnePlus 7Pro is also its major highlight.

OnePlus had already highlighted how the OnePlus 7 Pro is going to be all about its display and its clearly evident. The handset features a QHD+ AMOLED panel with a 90Hz refresh rate. While QHD+ OLED panels in smartphones are nothing new, the 90Hz refresh rate means the OnePlus 7 Pro will feel notably smoother than almost every other smartphone in the market. In fact, there are only a handful of smartphones or tablets in the market which feature a refresh rate higher than 60Hz.

There’s no IP certification but OnePlus says the OnePlus 7 Pro will survive a drop in a bucket full of water. The standard warranty does not cover any kind of liquid damage so one must keep that in mind as well.

At the rear, there’s a triple camera setup. This includes Sony’s 48MP IMX586 sensor paired with an f/1.6 lens and OIS, a 16MP 117-degree ultra-wide angle shooter, and an 8MP 3x optical zoom sensor. The camera hardware is a notable step up from previous OnePlus offerings and the company is confident that it can finally offer flagship-grade camera performance with the pro.

The triple rear cameras give the OnePlus 7 Pro a level of flexibility which the iPhone XS/XR simply cannot match.

The pop-up selfie camera houses a 16MP sensor.

The internals of the OnePlus 7 Pro also lives up to its ‘pro’ name. It packs a Snapdragon 855 chipset, 6/8/12GB RAM, 128/256GB UFS 3.0 storage, in-display fingerprint scanner, and a 4,000mAh battery. There’s no wireless charging here but with 30W Warp Charging support, I doubt anyone is going to complain.

There’s OxygenOS based on Android 9.0 Pie. It comes with a RAM Boost mode for better multitasking and gaming performance, a new and improved gaming mode called Fnatic, and Zen mode which will lock down all the phone features for 20 minutes barring the camera, phone, and emergency mode. The navigation gestures have also been tweaked to make them feel smoother. The animation algorithm has also been tweaked for a smoother experience. OnePlus is promising 2 years of Android OS udpated for the OnePlus 7 Series.

The handset will be available in Nebula Blue, Mirror Grey, and Almond colors.

OnePlus 7

With the OnePlus 7 Pro being notably expensive than the OnePlus 6T from last year, OnePlus has also announced the OnePlus 7. This non-pro model skips the 90Hz OLED panel for a regular 6.4-inch FHD+ OLED display, dual rear cameras which include the 48MP primary camera and an ultra-wide angle shooter, and a smaller 3,700mAh battery.

The internals of the handset remains the same as the pro variant including the faster UFS 3.0 NAND so the performance across both models is going to be similar.

Price and Availability

The OnePlus 7 Pro will retail for $669 in the United States for the base variant.The OnePlus 7 Pro will be available on T-Mobile’s network in the United States apart from being sold unlocked.

In India, the OnePlus 7 Pro starts from Rs 48,999 for the 6GB RAM/128GB variant. The 8GB RAM/256GB variant is priced at Rs 52,999 and the top-end model with 12GB RAM is priced at Rs 57,999.