The OnePlus 7 Pro Is Official: Snapdragon 855, Pop-Up Selfie Camera, $670

OnePlus started as a scrappy (and annoying) upstart company that promised to “kill” flagship phones and invited buyers to “Never Settle.” It began by offering phones that cut a lot of corners but cost hundreds less than the competition. Little by little, OnePlus has improved its hardware and software, and that brings us to the newly unveiled OnePlus 7 Pro. It’s the most expensive phone OnePlus has ever made, but it’s also the best. In fact, many reviews are calling it the best Android phone you can buy.

There are two versions of the OnePlus 7, but the “regular” one isn’t launching in North America. That phone is a revamped 6T with new internals, but the OnePlus 7 Pro is all-new and matches the recent leaks. This phone features a huge 6.67-inch 1440p curved OLED screen with almost no bezel. It doesn’t even have the tiny water drop notch of the 6T. Instead, the front-facing camera is in a small motorized pop-up. Granted, that’s a lot of trouble just to avoid a notch, but the phone does cut a striking figure.

The display is a high-quality Samsung OLED, rated as “A+” by DisplayMate. Not only does it have ample brightness and resolution, it’s the first smartphone OLED with a 90Hz refresh rate. That’s 50 percent higher than other smartphones at 60Hz. It makes the interface look incredibly smooth. OnePlus is using another in-display fingerprint sensor as well, but this one is faster and more accurate than the 6T’s last year.

This is one of the first phones with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 855 SoC, and it’s paired with at least 6GB of RAM and as much as 12GB. OnePlus equipped the 7 Pro with three cameras, and they’re all useful. There’s a regular 48MP sensor (binned down to 12MP), a 16MP wide-angle, and an 8MP telephoto. The front-facing pop-up camera is 16MP.

What seals the deal for the OnePlus 7 Pro is the price. The base model starts at $670 with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. The same setup for Samsung will cost you $900-1,000. The more expensive versions can go as high as $750, but even that isn’t too spendy for what you get. The 4G phone is unlocked for use on most carriers (including Verizon), and a 5G variant will come to some markets later.

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