OnePlus 7T Pro long-term review

Camera

The OnePlus 7T Pro ships with the now familiar triple camera system on the back, including the ideal combination of a wide, ultra-wi,de and telephoto lens. There are no unnecessary macro lenses here, as OnePlus just incorporated that feature into the ultra-wide-angle lens, which works just as well and possibly even better than most dedicated macro lenses we've seen.

Starting with the main 48MP wide camera, the image quality is good in most lighting conditions. The level of detail in the 12MP final images is acceptable in good lighting and we don't really miss not being able to shoot in the native 48MP resolution (the 48MP option in Pro mode is a sham). The dynamic range is good, too, and you can just leave it in auto mode and trust the camera to do the right thing in most situations. The large sensor also has a very shallow depth of field, which can sometimes make parts of the image look very blurry when shooting something up close due to how out of focus they are.

Main camera daylight samples

The only thing about the images that needs to be worked on is colors. The colors in most situations are acceptable but are a bit of an acquired taste. We usually prefer if the camera just captures the colors as they are but the OnePlus camera images definitely have a particular look to them, which you start noticing once you stare at enough of these pictures. It adds a warm touch to all the images and is especially partial to orange and green hues. Reds, on the other hand, can be hit or miss at times and occasionally are just rendered as deep pink. The irony that the company logo is the exact color the camera struggles with isn't lost on us.

The telephoto lens also takes some good quality images. The 3x optical zoom can occasionally be a bit too tight, especially for portrait shots but if you are looking to isolate your subject then the perspective offered by this lens is really great and makes for some truly interesting shots.

Telephoto camera daylight samples

Lastly, the ultra-wide lens also offers an interesting perspective of its own. The image quality isn't the greatest, as is often the case with these lenses, but the distortion is well controlled and if you don't go looking too closely then the overall quality is fine. Both the ultra-wide and telephoto lenses do have good dynamic range and detail but also suffer from the same color reproduction issues.

Wide-angle daylight samples

In low light, the OnePlus 7T Pro does reasonably well. The main 48MP sensor, with its large size and pixel binning, does produce some clean looking images, even without enabling night mode. The images are also often exposed correctly and largely look as they should.

It's only in really low light situations do you need to enable the night mode, called Nightscape. Nightscape isn't really the best night mode around and the images you get out of it aren't usually the cleanest or the most natural looking among competing devices. But, if you're in really low lighting conditions and must take a picture for some reason, you can get a usable image out of it, which is often what you're looking for.

Main camera Nightscape samples

The telephoto lens does not support Nightscape. It's also not really used in low light conditions as the camera defaults to using 3x digital zoom on the main 48MP sensor. The only way to trigger the telephoto camera in low light is to switch to Portrait mode, but that's not really recommended.

The ultra-wide camera does support Nightscape, which is just as well as there's no trick you can pull to emulate that perspective on the main lens and the wide-angle camera isn't really great in low light. Nightscape shots from this lens often come out quite well and are again, far more usable than what you'd have gotten without it.

Ultra-wide Nightscape samples

Overall, the cameras on the OnePlus 7T Pro are very good and you can get some really good pictures out of them. OnePlus has really come a long way from its early days and they have made some significant strides in the past year alone when it comes to the camera quality. They still have some ways to go before they can compete with the absolute best on the market, and they are almost 90% there. Unfortunately, the final 10% is also the hardest part and why people pay top dollar for that iPhone or Pixel.