OnePlus 7T long-term review

Software

OxygenOS has always been one of the lightest Android skins around, and its newest version is no different. The software isn't actually 'stock Android' or anything close to it, but it definitely feels like that because of how much attention is paid to small details, like not changing the looks and design language, for example, just sometimes subtly expanding upon it.

Subtlety is a key feature of OxygenOS 10, that on the face of it seems to just be Google's Android 10. But it's not, it comes with a bunch of helpful customization options on top, while adhering strictly to most of Google's general philosophy for the new OS version that launched this year.

The launcher has swiping from the bottom to get to the app drawer and from the top to see the notification shade, and it's also got the Shelf feature to the left of your leftmost home screen. It's still up for debate whether this is really all that useful for anyone, but the good news is you can turn it off if you don't like it. And if you do enjoy it, you can add things to it, like a quick memo function, a toolbox area with useful stuff, your most recently used app and recent contacts, a dashboard of data, storage, and battery use, a wallet for loyalty cards, and a parking location service (that helps you not forget where you can find your car).

Launcher and Shelf, Quick Settings

You can also customize things like the number of columns and rows in your home screens, icon shapes and all that, but overall in use this launcher feels as smooth as Google's. And the beauty of it is that you can just leave everything be, with the default settings, and then it 'just works'. Or, if you like to tinker, you can customize it quite a lot actually. That seems to sort of be OxygenOS' general mantra.

Dark mode

Dark mode is in and it's fully AMOLED black, at least in Settings, and you can still customize the accent color to your heart's content (this has been a staple in OxygenOS before but is now a part of stock Android too). As this is Android 10, once you enable the dark theme, a lot of apps will adhere to it immediately - and these now include Google apps such as Gmail and the Play Store as well. As time goes by we hope more developers will support this automatic switching.

Oddly enough the dark mode toggle isn't in Display settings, and that's because OnePlus made a new Customization section in Settings where it put everything related to that. It's a logical system on some level, but you may still be confused the first time you hunt for the dark theme in Display settings and don't find it there.

Customization settings

On the other hand, this is much more than just a simple on/off toggle for a dark theme. You can actually pick between three themes, with "Vibrant tints" and "Illuminating light" alongside the "Nuanced dark" shown here. Then, you can proceed to alter the theme's tone, icon shape, and font (alongside the aforementioned accent color).

Gestures

Google has changed up gesture navigation again in Android 10, and OnePlus has adapted its system too. The two are not identical, though. Google's forces a 'pill' bar on the bottom of the screen on you, and the back gesture from the sides has a lot of complications related to app navigation drawers.

OnePlus added Google's system to OxygenOS 10, but made it better in two key ways. First, you can disable the pill bar and thus reclaim some wasted screen real estate. Second, the company was 'inspired' by Huawei and Xiaomi in dealing with the Back gesture, and so it works as such if the swipe is triggered in the bottom 75% of the left of right sides. If it's above that, then it will trigger the app navigation drawer, if there is one. This solution makes a million times more sense than Google's convoluted mess that results in zero predictability in use.

Gesture navigation settings

In effect, compared to OnePlus' previous gesture navigation system, the only change here is how the Back gesture is handled. You now swipe from the left or right sides, as described above, whereas before you needed to swipe up from the left or right side of the bottom. The new system seems more natural to use as there is a greater distinction between the Home and Back gestures. This back gesture is also easier to use on screens that are getting taller and taller by the day - and as the 7T has among the tallest in the business, it's a blessing that there's no more need to reach the bottom of the display to perform what is certainly the most used navigation gesture.

Settings

OnePlus has peppered OxygenOS with small useful additions on top of stock Android, and these are pretty much everywhere. Reading mode gives you a choice between a monochrome mode and a Chromatic effect that apparently will yield a more comfortable color experience. The Video enhancer does that to colors when playing videos, Dolby Atmos is baked in to automatically optimize the sound you hear based on three presets. Earphone mode has some very useful settings for things related to, well, using earphones - such as auto playing music, auto-answering calls, speaking who's calling, sounding the notification ringtone in your ears, that type of thing.

Settings

You can reach Google Assistant if you're using gesture navigation by swiping from either the left or right bottom corner diagonally, but you can also set it so that it listens to you once you've pressed the power button for 0.5s (in which case seeing the power menu will take a 3s long press). Quick gestures are built in too, and all optional - things like flip for mute, taking a screenshot with three fingers, double tapping to wake the screen, and controlling music and other stuff by drawing things on the screen while it's off.

Added benefits in OxygenOS

Parallel Apps lets you use multiple accounts on apps that themselves don't allow this in one instance, while App locker will encrypt the apps you select. Scheduled power on/off is self descriptive, and in the Labs section you'll find the DC dimming feature. When you turn this on the screen will be dimmed by directly manipulating voltage, and not by using pulse width modulation (PWM) as usual. PWM flickers and although you're not supposed to see this, some people are really sensitive to its effects even if invisible.

Finally, RAM boost learns from how you use your phone, and utilizes the memory accordingly, so the apps you use the most will always be kept in RAM more than the ones you only occasionally open. It predicts what apps you are going to use and what data should load inside them, thus speeding up your day to day experience.

More subtle goodies

This list is full of things that otherwise aren't in stock Android, but the beauty of OxygenOS is that it doesn't feel bloated at all, even with all of these features packed in. The additions themselves all feel like they may be reasonably useful to someone, and not just like gimmicks thrown together to create an endless Settings menu. Oh, and here's the thing - you can ignore each and every one of these things and simply use the OnePlus 7T as if they weren't there, just with the defaults. They're good enough for most people. And for those who are into tinkering, this skin provides a good enough experience too. It doesn't go crazy with the customizations, but offers just enough.

In Android 10 notifications got slightly altered again, nothing outwardly big this time, but you do get a very neat new feature, and that is a seek bar in media-related expanded notifications. So you can seek through that song or video without the need to jump back into the app. The Quick Settings area still looks very similar to Pie, with similar functionality, and overall Android 10 is going to take a very very short time to adjust to for anyone who's used a stock or stock-like build of Pie before, OxygenOS included.

Seek bar in media notifications

Updates

While it's great that the OnePlus 7T launched with Android 10 on board from day one, at a time when we see plenty of other devices running Android 9 Pie from the get-go, the update situation is anything but phenomenal when it comes to security patches. The 7T has already received a bunch of hotfix updates from OnePlus, but it's still stuck on the October 1, 2019 security patch level. That's two months old at this point, and that is rather unacceptable.

The current software

OnePlus has recently been making strides in delivering big Android updates sooner than before to its older devices, which is commendable, but we wish it would also focus on getting the monthly security updates out on an actual month-by-month basis. Especially as it is pushing out updates left and right to fix things, which means it's engaged in testing anyway. Might as well add the security patches and give its customers some additional peace of mind.

Obviously since it's already running the latest version of Android, it's very hard to speculate as to when the OnePlus 7T will receive Android 11. If Google's usual timeline doesn't change, the final version of that should be out in August or September next year. And if what OnePlus did for the 6T this year repeats, then expect the 7T to run Android 11 by the end of 2020.