The headlines from the OnePlus launch may be all about the flashy new 7 Pro but the company hasn’t forgotten its roots of affordable innovation with the OnePlus 7.
It may not have a pop-up camera or a genre-defying screen but the 7 does all the great things OnePlus phones do: fast performance, a decent design and a solid battery life, making it a serious upgrade contender for those using some of the brand’s earlier devices.
Here’s what you need to know about the new OnePlus 7.
OnePlus 7 specs
The big news with the OnePlus 7 is that is is fitted with Qualcomm’s 855 Snapdragon chipset, to supercharge your phone use.
The phone will be available in two variants: 6GB RAM with 128GB of storage and 8GB RAM with 256GB of storage.
A new addition to the phone includes Dolby Atmos stereo speakers, the first time a OnePlus device features this. When you’re listening to music or playing games, the sound quality will be much improved.
The in-screen fingerprint sensor has been improved too, using the next-gen tech in the camera that recognises the fingerprint behind the screen, so it should be faster than last year’s OnePlus 6T.
OnePlus 7 design
It appears that OnePlus has put all its design eggs in the 7 Pro’s basket, choosing to give the 7 only a few design upgrades.
There’s still a teardrop notch to house the front-facing camera, no fancy pop-up here, just like the 6T.
It has an all-over glass design, and a 6.4-inch AMOLED screen screen display, which makes it smaller than the Pro and more in keeping with the usual size of OnePlus phones.
The phone will come in one colour, Mirror Grey, an update on the OnePlus classic Mirror Black design.
OnePlus 7 camera
The new OnePlus 7 is sporting dual-lens camera on the back of the phone. The main sensor is 48-megapixels, just like the new sensor on the Pro device, and the second sensor boasts 5-megapixels to provide support for those bokeh shots in portrait mode.
As well as camera improvements, the OnePlus 7 will also benefit from the new Ultra Shot technology. This will greatly improve images taken on the device, offering better detail, colours and clarity.
On the front, there is a 16-megapixel camera, just like last year’s OnePlus 6T. This will enable facial recognition on the device too, which in the past has been incredibly fast, and will likely be the same on the 7.
OnePlus 7 software
OnePlus’s mobile operating system, Oxygen OS, has some exciting new features, also available on the Pro version.
A new RAM boost mode is an algorithm in the OS that learns what your most used apps to ensure they load faster over time. Also if you’re one of those people that closes down all their apps to keep their phone working fast and preserve battery? There’s no need now, thanks to RAM boost.
The phone will also have the new screen recording feature, to record anything you’re doing on the phone, whether it’s gaming or creating tutorials.
In terms of digital wellbeing, the OnePlus 7 will have a new Zen Mode, which allows to completely block everything on the phone for 20 minutes to give you a solid boost of concentration.
OnePlus 7 price and UK release date
The OnePlus 7 will be available for £499 in the 6GB/128GB version or £549 in the 8GB/256GB version, and is on sale at some point in June. We’ll update this piece with the official date once we know more.
OnePlus says that the 7 may not be a radical re-design from last year’s 6T but this isn’t a phone for a 6T user, this is more like a phone for someone using the OnePlus 5T, or even the OnePlus 3.
It shows that OnePlus can still design great phones for an affordable price, but it’ll be interesting to see how the company deals with this dual-phone strategy for this phone launch and beyond.
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