OnePlus 7 Pro review

Synthetic benchmarks and performance

The OnePlus 7 Pro, like many other flagships this year, is running the latest Snapdragon 855 CPU from Qualcomm. We are already acquainted with the 7nm chipset in several other smartphones we've tested, and although impressive, OnePlus isn't the first to cram 12GB of RAM into a phone.

Just as important as the processor speed is the speed of the storage itself. The OnePlus 7 Pro uses 2-lane UFS 3.0 storage which offers significantly faster storage speeds compared to the OnePlus 6T's UFS 2.1. Do you see why OnePlus didn't include an SD card slot?

Sequential read speeds are very impressive and almost double that of the 6T's, 1441 MB/s vs the 6T's 728 MB/s. Sequential writes are clocked at 381 MB/s vs 193 MB/s on the 6T. Meanwhile, Random read speeds are 177 MB/s vs the 6T's 133 MB/s and random write speeds are 29 MB/s vs 22 MB/s.

The OnePlus 7 Pro's 2-lane UFS 3.0 storage performance is neck-and-neck with the Galaxy Fold, which is the first smartphone to use the same UFS 3.0 standard. The OnePlus 7 Pro gives the Galaxy Fold a run for its money since it even uses LPDDR4X RAM like the Fold.

Although it isn't the first phone to be announced with UFS 3.0 storage, the Galaxy Fold's new release date is yet to be confirmed. Thus, the OnePlus 7 Pro and OnePlus 7 non-Pro will be the world's first smartphones to launch with the new storage.

We ran the usual bunch of benchmark apps and found the 7 Pro to be well in line with other Snapdragon 855 devices. The 7 Pro even managed to surpass the Samsung Galaxy Fold in some of the tests.

Qualcomm's Snapdragon 855 is among the top-performing mobile chips on the market. It performs as well as the latest Exynos CPU, just short of Apple's A12 Bionic, and Huawei's latest Kirin 980 is at the bottom of the pack, but still very capable.

GeekBench 4.1 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone XS Max
  11432
• Xiaomi Mi 9
  11181
• Samsung Galaxy Fold
  11028
• OnePlus 7 Pro
  10943
• LG G8 ThinQ
  10735
• Samsung Galaxy S10+
  10387
• Huawei P30 Pro (perf. mode)
  10014

GeekBench 4.1 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone XS Max
  4777
• Samsung Galaxy S10+
  4522
• Samsung Galaxy Fold
  3512
• Xiaomi Mi 9
  3503
• LG G8 ThinQ
  3419
• OnePlus 7 Pro
  3402
• Huawei P30 Pro (perf. mode)
  3323

The OnePlus 7 Pro's GPU is well-equipped to handle any mobile game. With the 90Hz display, we anticipate more games will support higher frame rates for new and updated titles.

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone XS Max
  99
• Samsung Galaxy Fold
  71
• Xiaomi Mi 9
  70
• Samsung Galaxy S10+
  69
• OnePlus 7 Pro
  68
• LG G8 ThinQ
  65
• Huawei P30 Pro (perf. mode)
  56

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone XS Max
  60
• Xiaomi Mi 9
  56
• Samsung Galaxy Fold
  52
• Huawei P30 Pro (perf. mode)
  50
• Samsung Galaxy S10+
  37
• LG G8 ThinQ
  33
• OnePlus 7 Pro
  33

GFX 3.1 Car scene (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone XS Max
  60
• Samsung Galaxy Fold
  42
• Samsung Galaxy S10+
  42
• Xiaomi Mi 9
  42
• OnePlus 7 Pro
  41
• LG G8 ThinQ
  40
• Huawei P30 Pro (perf. mode)
  33

GFX 3.1 Car scene (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone XS Max
  47
• Xiaomi Mi 9
  35
• Samsung Galaxy Fold
  32
• Huawei P30 Pro (perf. mode)
  29
• Samsung Galaxy S10+
  23
• LG G8 ThinQ
  20
• OnePlus 7 Pro
  19

3DMark SSE 3.1 Unlimited

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Fold
  6135
• OnePlus 7 Pro
  6093
• LG G8 ThinQ
  6017
• Xiaomi Mi 9
  5816
• Samsung Galaxy S10+
  4632
• Huawei P30 Pro (perf. mode)
  4315

Finally, the compound AnTuTu test confirms the OnePlus7 Pro is a force to be reckoned with, meeting just above the Galaxy Fold's s score. It still falls short of Apple's chipset, but over the years the competition has been creeping close behind them.

AnTuTu 7

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi 9
  372006
• OnePlus 7 Pro
  364025
• Samsung Galaxy Fold
  363016
• Apple iPhone XS Max
  353210
• Samsung Galaxy S10+
  333736
• LG G8 ThinQ
  331537
• Huawei P30 Pro (perf. mode)
  316156

As much as we can say that the 90Hz display is great for gaming, the reality is that not all games will support frame rates beyond 60fps. There is, however, a lengthy list of titles that could take advantage of the 90Hz display and it is certainly growing.

While some titles compatible with the Razer Phone 2's 120Hz display, they don't all work right away with this display. It appears that many titles require their developers to update them to support this specific hardware.

When you launch a game, a window pops up, offering you to enable the game optimizer called "Fnatic Mode". This mode optimizes all the phone's resources to give you the best possible game performance. It will also drop apps that were suspended in the RAM, so do keep this in mind so you don't accidentally lose an unfinished post.

Fnatic mode also offers options to limit or completely disable alerts and notifications and various other options.

Fnatic mode

Overall, the OnePlus 7 performs admirably and in the UI and web browser, this impression is fortified by the high refresh rate, which takes buttery smootness to a whole new level compared to regular 60Hz phones. Gaming is covered really well, but we do wish more titles support the new 90Hz refresh rate as it would really make a difference. Overall, we think the battery life hit from using the 90Hz mode is negligible (around 15% of Screen-On time) and the tradeoff is well worth it.