OnePlus 7 and 7 Pro

As my Pixel 2 starts to rapidly age (especially the battery), I'm considering moving to a OnePlus device rather than another Pixel. The specs all look good on paper, but the one thing I can't nail down is the OS.

What's OxygenOS like? How often/quickly do updates come over, how far do the stock apps differ from Google's, etc. ? I've used something as intrusive as TouchWiz and as light as Moto's. How does OxygenOS compare?

 

OnePlus is one of the fastest updating manufacturers. It's also not as heavy as Samsung's One UI.

Overall one of the better spots in the Android landscape anyway.

 

Andriod 10 finally hit the T-Mobile 7 pro... All I can say is about time.

 

^ That's the kind of thing that concerns me. I've been on Android 10 since September. Even Samsung has rolled it out to their newer devices. If timely updates aren't a thing, I'd probably go back to Motorola.

 

it's only with the carrier version. Others like the model you buy direct from OnePlus is much faster. Moto is slow now that Lenovo took them over.

 

That's good to know with OnePlus. I knew about Motorola and Lenovo. My Moto X Pure went from bi-monthly updates and a new OS the month after launch to nothing at all for 18 month.

 

OnePlus has been pushing a steady diet of updates for the 7 series. When they rolled out the 10 update, it was pretty prompt but was buggy. That being said, they realized this and pushed out fixed versions less than a week later fixing most issues.

Carrier versions in many cases fall victim to how far up the priority chain the update sits before the carrier dedicates the effort to certify the update. In T-mobile's case the 7 Pro quickly lost favor in their catalog when the cheaper (and better in areas) 7T and their anticipated McClaren 7T Pro 5G got the nods.

You can pretty easily flash a carrier version to a global version with little effort however.

I love the OnePlus phones.

 

I think the market for the 7 Pro is just greatly diminishing with the release of the McClaren 7T Pro and the upcoming 120hz display 8 Pro.

They're smart to try to clear out inventory now. Its still an excellent phone and anyone would be happy to jump on pricing like that for a flagship phone.

 

I read that Verizon will be offering the 8 in the coming months. Spec-wise the McLaren seems like what I want right now, but it's a T-Mobile exclusive.

 

The 7T Pro McClaren has a 1st Gen 5G modem and the 2020 Qualcomm 865 will have improvements with mandatory 5G (and likely a better, more power efficient antenna) requirements. However, the 5G modem will still be separate from the SoC and until Qualcomm brings out a new chip with an integrated 5G modem, getting a 5G anytime soon will be premature.

 

My thought exactly- separate chip = more power consumption. Even if 5G was deployed enough to care about, I don't want a hot phone with terrible battery life.

 

It was no different during the early onset of 4G.

It will take a good year or so before the 5G generation hardware to mature, not to mention what frequency spectrum carriers ultimately settle on.

 

I've had my 1+6 non T since release, best phone I've used, I was a LG G2,3,4 and 6 owner prior. To this day it's faster than many newer phones, certainly my Galaxy S9 for work. The fact they use fast memory and a lot of it goes a long way towards making for a good user experience. at almost 2 years old it's still in great working order, battery has lost a little bit of it's capacity, but not much. Also the fact that updates are still released regularly shows the commitment to supporting the product. Holding out without concern for 5G devices to mature a bit.

 

Truth! My Essential PH1 died, and I'm on a 6t now. Other than missing Android 10 a bit (but think it will happen) I think this is the best bang for the buck going right now. And I don't ming Oxegen, but grabbed Nova Pro and am really liking that.

 

Not sure about the 6, but it appears the 7 Pro has a pretty easy path to swapping out the battery.

Although given the very cheap repair parts prices ($11 for a battery), it might just be work paying their small labor fee and sending the phone to oneplus.

I've owned more LG phones that any other brand. Not necessarily a good thing, but significant improvement over on the oneplus side.

 

The Xiaomi 9 series smartphones (oneplus clones) are very good for the money also....bit hit and miss if their models support your carrier's LTE bands.

 

Yeah, heat gun and and replacement adhesive, all in for 15 bucks or so. It's not close enough to being an issue though. I still get 4-5 hours SOT. My preference to 1+ is in contrast to LG and Samsung(work phones) and overall the 1+ wins as there is no one thing that drives me such as camera, speed, etc. It's a well rounded device.

 

I would have liked to have seen wireless charging. Not that I'm an advocate of preferring to charge a battery this way, I do like the idea of a contingency charging method in the event of USB port failure.

 

Speaking of wireless charging...

It looks like the upcoming Oneplus 8 lite, Oneplus 8, and Oneplus 8 Pro, through leaked spec sheets, all do NOT feature wireless charging.

I guess they feel their improved 50W warp charging (how healthy is that for batteries?) will suit a fill gap for the lack of wireless capability.

 

That would be unfortunate as continual use of the USB C port eventually causes failures on the port. Plenty of users end up having issues of intermittent charging due to loose plugs that wiggle and break connectivity. I really enjoyed the OnePlus hardware and software but adding such a simple thing such as wireless charging would seem required for a phone to be considered top tier anymore.