(futuristic synthesizer music)
- Here's the new OnePlus 7T.
It's a lot like one of our favorite phones of the year,
the OnePlus 7 Pro,
but it's a little bit smaller and it costs less.
It's a follow-on from the OnePlus 7
that was available in other markets,
but not here in the US.
So you can think of it more as a successor
to the OnePlus 6T from last year.
You'll be able to buy the 7T starting on October 18th,
from either OnePlus or T-Mobile
for 599 bucks,
which is about 70 to 100 dollars less than the 7 Pro.
Now don't let that lower price lead you into thinking
that the 7T is a worse phone than 7 Pro,
because in realty, between the two,
it's the one that I actually prefer.
(smooth synthesizer music)
It still has the best parts of the 7 Pro.
That super-smooth 90 hertz screen,
fast and responsive performance,
but it doesn't have the other things
that make the 7 Pro challenging to use,
like a giant size and curved edges.
It also has a couple of new tricks
that the 7 Pro doesn't even offer.
So let's talk about specs,
because when you review a OnePlus phone,
you have to talk about specs.
The 7T is a 6.55 inch 10 eDP OLED display
with that 90 hertz refresh rate.
So scrolling on this looks a whole lot smoother
than on most other phones.
Now you probably can't see it on video,
but trust me, it's buttery in person.
It has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855+ processor,
which is technically faster
than the standard 855 in the 7 Pro,
but I doubt you'd really notice
much difference between them.
Either way, performance is still excellent.
The 7T that will be available here in the US
has 8 gigs of RAM and 128 gigs of storage.
Other markets like India and China
are also going to get a 256 gig option.
The screen has a 20 by nine aspect ratio
which makes it a bit tall,
but it's noticeably narrower than the
7 Pro and even last year's 6T.
That, plus the flat surface,
there's no waterfall curves here,
make it more comfortable to hold.
But you shouldn't go thinking
that this is a suddenly new, small phone from OnePlus.
This is still a big phone,
it's just a little smaller than the 7 Pro.
The display doesn't have a completely uninterrupted screen.
There is a small water drop notch at the top
for the front camera,
because the 7T doesn't have the fancy
pop-up motorized front camera that the 7 Pro has.
Now OnePlus says this notch is specifically 31.6% smaller
than the notch on the 6T and the 7.
And to be honest with you,
I really haven't found it to be any problem
in use over the past week or so.
Now the screen supports both HDR10 and HDR10+
and it's 27% brighter in direct sunlight,
thanks to a new boosted outdoor mode,
which lets it get to up to a peak of 1,000 nits.
There's really not a whole lot to complain about
with this screen.
It's bright, it's colorful,
it has that fast refresh rate that's awesome.
Now it's technically a lower resolution
than the 1440p panel on the 7 Pro,
but I really can't see a difference
in sharpness between them.
Now if we stop staring at the screen for a second,
which, I admit, it's hard to do,
we could flip the 7T over and check out its camera system.
Now just like the 7 Pro
and a lot of other phones out this year,
the 7T has a three-camera system.
It's got a standard one,
an ultra-wide and a telephoto.
And they're all housed in this kinda giant hump
on the back of the phone.
It kind of reminds me of the old Nokia Lumia 1020.
The standard camera and the ultra wide
are basically exactly the same as the 7 Pro's camera.
And the telephoto is just a 2x zoom
instead of the 3x that you get on the 7 Pro.
You can expect the same kind of images
from the 7T as you can get from the 7 Pro
and I think a lot of people
are gonna be really happy with these results.
One new thing that the 7T has is a super macro mode
that lets you get focused really close on an object.
It can be challenging to use
because it's hard to hold still
and get a sharp shot at these close distances,
but with a little practice,
it can be a ton of fun
and you won't be able to get this on the 7 Pro,
even through a software update,
because OnePlus tells me that to get this to work,
it requires some special hardware
that the 7 Pro just doesn't have.
Another thing that the 7 Pro doesn't have
is Warp Charge 30 plus,
which is the latest version of OnePlus's
proprietary fast-charging system.
The company says it's up to 23% faster
than the Warp Charge 30 that's on the Pro,
and it should charge the 7T's battery from zero to 100
in just 60 minutes.
In my test, I was able to go from 22 to 87%
in just 30 minutes, which is really impressive.
But just know that, in order to get those speeds,
you're going to have to use the included brick
and cable that came in the box with the 7T.
The 7T is launching with Android 10
and OnePlus's OxygenOS 10,
making it one of the first phones
to launch with Google's latest software.
Now you can choose
between Android 10's new gesture interface,
or the standard three buttons.
But if you were a fan of OnePlus's old gestures,
I'm sorry to report, those are no longer available.
One new thing in OxygenOS that I particularly like
is the chromatic reading mode,
which desaturates the screen to make it easier to read,
but it doesn't turn it fully monochrome like before.
Now I like using this when I'm using Pocket
or the Kindle app and doing a lot of reading,
but if you prefer the older,
full-style monochrome version,
you can choose that if you want to.
So, what's not to love with the 7T?
Well, for starters,
I'm only seeing average battery life with it,
which is about four to five hours of screen time.
Even though this thing has
a big 3800 milliamp hour battery.
I don't think this is a huge problem
and I think most people will be able to get
through a full day with the 7T,
but if you saw that stat
and were hoping for a multi-day monster,
this ain't it.
It's clear that the 90 hertz screen
does take a hit on battery life,
but I think it's totally worth the trade.
The 7T also has the familiar OnePlus complaints.
It doesn't support wireless charging,
which might not matter to you,
but matters to me.
It doesn't have a rated official IP rating
for water and dust resistance,
and you can't expand the storage with a micro SD card.
It also tends to aggressively shut down apps
when I'm not using them,
which is something the company says
it'll be addressing in future software updates,
but it just hasn't yet.
I mostly notice this when I'm using
Android messages on my computer
and I can't send or receive new messages
until I wake up the 7T on my desk.
But I can forgive and forget a lot of those things
when I consider the fact that I'm getting this screen
and this performance for 600 bucks.
We're expecting Google to put a similar 90 hertz display
in the upcoming Pixel 4,
but I guarantee that won't be available
for anywhere near the price of the 7T.
In fact, when I compare the 7T to any other phone right now,
even the 7 Pro,
I'm not sure anything else
can touch this combination of display,
performance and price.