It can be confusing to talk about the last few and probably coming OnePlus T phones. For one thing, it’s phonetically weird. For example, the excellent OnePlus 6T phone from last year makes you sound like you’re saying 60. The newly announced OnePlus 7T is no different. It sounds like you’re saying 70 instead of 7T. But make no mistake about it, the OnePlus 7T is going to be one of the most distinct smartphones out there for years to come.
The confusion surrounding this new phone is even more compounded by a slight reshuffle of their devices. For most of its existence, these T versions served as iterative upgrades to their base models. This automatically makes them the company’s flagship upon release.
Not this year though.
Just a few months ago, they released the OnePlus 7 Pro. It’s most certainly OnePlus’ undisputed flagship for 2019. It’s got all the bells and whistles that the company can offer its customers. The OnePlus 7T, however, has got things up its sleeves that make it a compelling option without cannibalizing potential sales of its bigger brother.
So, right now, it sits all by its lonesome in a category that’s quite not in the league of the OnePlus 7 Pro but not quite your average midrange either.
If you’re a smartphone nut, you’re not going to be confused with the OnePlus 7T. It’s just so unique in its execution in terms of features.
But to give you a better view into what the 7T is capable of, it’s probably best to just dive right into the review.
90Hz + HDR 10 Goodness
On the surface, especially if you’re only looking at it from the front, there’s almost no difference with this year’s base OnePlus 7. They’re both almost fully free of bezels except for a tiny teardrop notch at the top for the selfie shooter. It’s quite literally just below that glass surface where the magic happens. You see, the OnePlus 7T comes with a 90Hz screen.
It doesn’t seem like a huge feature on paper. Even on video reviews, it probably doesn’t look like much too. But in person, the high-refresh rate makes staring at the screen for long periods such a breeze. It doesn’t matter if you’re looking at moving objects in a game or just reading on your phone, this feature just makes it so much easier on the eyes. These days, both work and play has starting to migrate from PC screens to our smartphone screens. Having a screen that doesn't give you headache after a couple of hours of use is a feature that we would want.
Another bleeding-edge screen tech that the OnePlus 7T is going to ship with is its HDR 10+ compatibility. While HDR displays have been around for a long time now, smartphone companies have been slow to adopt the technology. HDR content just wasn’t abundant enough to justify buying hardware for it.
Things have turned around though. Amazon Prime and Netflix, for example, have started to roll out HDR videos onto their platforms. This means more content at its best possible video quality to consume on your OnePlus 7T.
Don’t think that OnePlus is screwing with people who already own the 7 Pro, though. Despite all the bleeding edge tech embedded in the screen, it’s still got a lesser panel. It has a slight color-shifting going if you view it just a little off-axis. But, it’s nothing to be alarmed about. It does not take much away from the user experience. HDR content is still very nice to look at.
There’s another polarizing screen feature that might point you towards the 7T instead of the Pro. In the 7T, OnePlus decided not to bend the display over to the side of the device.
This omission may be a downgrade for some people, but for many, this is a huge plus. For them, the Samsung-style curved edges were nothing more than a gimmick. Sometimes it was a gimmick that intruded with their experience due to accidental touches.
Slightly Improved Hardware
While it loses out on the OnePlus 7 Pro’s screen design, the OnePlus 7T takes after the Pro in a lot of other ways in term so hardware. In some respects, it may even outclass the more expensive phone.
One of the more important upgrades of the 7T versus the Pro is that it has a oh so slightly better processor. While the Pro is equipped with the beefy Snapdragon 855, the 7T has an 855 Plus. It’s an iterative upgrade, yes, but it’s an upgrade all the same.
This processor, aside from the slight speed bump, enables the phone to charge faster. They call this feature the Warp Charge 30T.
In other aspects, both the 7T and the Pro are similar. It’s going to have 128GB or 256GB 3.0 UFS storage paired with 8GB on both versions.
All of these paired with a near-stock Android 10 experience with the Oxygen OS makes this one of the most buttery-smooth smartphones you can use. It should crush whatever task you put up to it.
Camera Tech
If you look at the camera spec sheet, you’d think that OnePlus merely copy pasted the page from the OnePlus 7 Pro to the OnePlus 7T. From the surface, the only difference between the two would be the layout. The Pro has them arranged vertically while the 7T has lines them up horizontally.
But upon closer inspection, you’d quickly realize that the 7T has a significantly improved macro mode. This enables you to bring the camera up to 2.5 cm from the subject and keep focus perfectly. This allows you to take interesting perspectives that not a lot of smartphone cameras can take.
It’s important to consider that OnePlus phones has never been known have top-notch camera quality. You can expect this reputation to follow it into this new phone again. The images should be decent but not on par with the Google Pixel 3s of the world. At a base price of $600, though, you it would be unfair to expect that they would go toe-to-toe on this respect.
In general, the OnePlus 7T has got a lot going for it. The cutting-edge display can be huge draw for general smartphone users. It’s not a niche feature. Which makes one think, is OnePlus still a fringe brand? It’s starting to look like one of the best and most popular Android smartphones out there. This new OnePlus 7T might just cement its place in the pantheon of great Android smartphone manufacturers and its piece of the pie in the global smartphone market.
The confusion surrounding this new phone is even more compounded by a slight reshuffle of their devices. For most of its existence, these T versions served as iterative upgrades to their base models. This automatically makes them the company’s flagship upon release.
Not this year though.
Just a few months ago, they released the OnePlus 7 Pro. It’s most certainly OnePlus’ undisputed flagship for 2019. It’s got all the bells and whistles that the company can offer its customers. The OnePlus 7T, however, has got things up its sleeves that make it a compelling option without cannibalizing potential sales of its bigger brother.
So, right now, it sits all by its lonesome in a category that’s quite not in the league of the OnePlus 7 Pro but not quite your average midrange either.
If you’re a smartphone nut, you’re not going to be confused with the OnePlus 7T. It’s just so unique in its execution in terms of features.
But to give you a better view into what the 7T is capable of, it’s probably best to just dive right into the review.
90Hz + HDR 10 Goodness
On the surface, especially if you’re only looking at it from the front, there’s almost no difference with this year’s base OnePlus 7. They’re both almost fully free of bezels except for a tiny teardrop notch at the top for the selfie shooter. It’s quite literally just below that glass surface where the magic happens. You see, the OnePlus 7T comes with a 90Hz screen.
It doesn’t seem like a huge feature on paper. Even on video reviews, it probably doesn’t look like much too. But in person, the high-refresh rate makes staring at the screen for long periods such a breeze. It doesn’t matter if you’re looking at moving objects in a game or just reading on your phone, this feature just makes it so much easier on the eyes. These days, both work and play has starting to migrate from PC screens to our smartphone screens. Having a screen that doesn't give you headache after a couple of hours of use is a feature that we would want.
Another bleeding-edge screen tech that the OnePlus 7T is going to ship with is its HDR 10+ compatibility. While HDR displays have been around for a long time now, smartphone companies have been slow to adopt the technology. HDR content just wasn’t abundant enough to justify buying hardware for it.
Things have turned around though. Amazon Prime and Netflix, for example, have started to roll out HDR videos onto their platforms. This means more content at its best possible video quality to consume on your OnePlus 7T.
Don’t think that OnePlus is screwing with people who already own the 7 Pro, though. Despite all the bleeding edge tech embedded in the screen, it’s still got a lesser panel. It has a slight color-shifting going if you view it just a little off-axis. But, it’s nothing to be alarmed about. It does not take much away from the user experience. HDR content is still very nice to look at.
There’s another polarizing screen feature that might point you towards the 7T instead of the Pro. In the 7T, OnePlus decided not to bend the display over to the side of the device.
This omission may be a downgrade for some people, but for many, this is a huge plus. For them, the Samsung-style curved edges were nothing more than a gimmick. Sometimes it was a gimmick that intruded with their experience due to accidental touches.
Slightly Improved Hardware
While it loses out on the OnePlus 7 Pro’s screen design, the OnePlus 7T takes after the Pro in a lot of other ways in term so hardware. In some respects, it may even outclass the more expensive phone.
One of the more important upgrades of the 7T versus the Pro is that it has a oh so slightly better processor. While the Pro is equipped with the beefy Snapdragon 855, the 7T has an 855 Plus. It’s an iterative upgrade, yes, but it’s an upgrade all the same.
This processor, aside from the slight speed bump, enables the phone to charge faster. They call this feature the Warp Charge 30T.
In other aspects, both the 7T and the Pro are similar. It’s going to have 128GB or 256GB 3.0 UFS storage paired with 8GB on both versions.
All of these paired with a near-stock Android 10 experience with the Oxygen OS makes this one of the most buttery-smooth smartphones you can use. It should crush whatever task you put up to it.
Camera Tech
If you look at the camera spec sheet, you’d think that OnePlus merely copy pasted the page from the OnePlus 7 Pro to the OnePlus 7T. From the surface, the only difference between the two would be the layout. The Pro has them arranged vertically while the 7T has lines them up horizontally.
But upon closer inspection, you’d quickly realize that the 7T has a significantly improved macro mode. This enables you to bring the camera up to 2.5 cm from the subject and keep focus perfectly. This allows you to take interesting perspectives that not a lot of smartphone cameras can take.
It’s important to consider that OnePlus phones has never been known have top-notch camera quality. You can expect this reputation to follow it into this new phone again. The images should be decent but not on par with the Google Pixel 3s of the world. At a base price of $600, though, you it would be unfair to expect that they would go toe-to-toe on this respect.
In general, the OnePlus 7T has got a lot going for it. The cutting-edge display can be huge draw for general smartphone users. It’s not a niche feature. Which makes one think, is OnePlus still a fringe brand? It’s starting to look like one of the best and most popular Android smartphones out there. This new OnePlus 7T might just cement its place in the pantheon of great Android smartphone manufacturers and its piece of the pie in the global smartphone market.
