OnePlus 7T Pro vs. OnePlus 7T
Which one to get?
Battery Life
The OnePlus 7T has a 3800mAh battery, a small increase over the 3700mAh battery on the OnePlus 7. Meanwhile, the 7T Pro has a 4085mAh battery - a more modest increase over the 4000mAh on the 7 Pro.
While the difference in capacities isn't huge and the 7T Pro does have a larger, higher-resolution display to power, the 7T still posted lower battery life figures in our testing, with an average endurance of 90 hours versus 100 hours for the 7T Pro. Looking at the numbers individually, however, the difference in 3G talk time isn't huge at around 5 hours and the web browsing and video playback differences are even smaller.
Realistically, both phones are perfectly capable of getting you through an entire day on a single charge. And when the time does come to charge the devices, OnePlus' excellent Warp Charge 30T is available on both, with incredibly blazing-fast charge times.
In our testing, we found that the OnePlus 7T managed to charge 0-64% of its 3800mAh battery in 30 minutes. The 7T Pro, on the other hand, managed to charge 0-60% of its 4085mAh battery.
A full charge on the OnePlus 7T takes 1:16h, while the OnePlus 7T Pro was marginally faster clocking in 1:09min.
The charging on both phones is fast enough that we don't actually recommend charging them overnight as that would just be a waste of power. Instead, we recommend you set them to charge after you wake up, and they should be fully charged by the time you are ready to head out. We even wish OnePlus offered the option to turn off rapid charging for the cases when you're charging overnight, and you'd rather have a more battery-friendly charging speeds.
It's unfortunate that neither phone supports wireless charging. OnePlus' rationale has always been that the super fast wired charging negates the need for wireless charging. However, wireless charging has never been about the speed but rather the convenience. Besides, the real reason the feature was never included in the past on OnePlus devices was to save on cost. With the ever increasing prices for these devices, we do expect to see more in terms of such features.
Another thing to note is that OnePlus' Warp charging is only really supported by its own wired charger along with its own proprietary charging cable based on USB-C. You cannot get these charging speeds with any other fast charger. This pretty much rules out all the fast charging power banks on the market, most of which use Qualcomm's Quick Charge. OnePlus still doesn't make a portable power bank with Warp charging. This means outside of bed/desk side wired charging with the supplied charger and cable, expect to get standard charging rates everywhere else.
Winner: OnePlus 7T Pro. The two phones charge at the same rate but the 7T Pro definitely lasts longer.
Speakers
Both the 7T and the 7T Pro come with a set of stereo loudspeakers that use the earpiece and a speaker at the bottom of the phone in tandem. Both phones also support Dolby Atmos surround sound effect, which is optional for headphones but permanently On for the speakers.
In terms of sheer loudness, the smaller 7T actually beats the larger 7T Pro. Even if you don't look at the decibel meter, there is a small but noticeable difference in sound level when both phones are at their respective max volume.
However, in terms of audio quality, the 7T Pro sounds better. Both the speakers on the 7T Pro are perfectly tuned and sound very balanced throughout the volume range and there is no change in the audio characteristic as you increase the volume all the way to the max.
On the other hand, the speakers on the 7T are mismatched. The earpiece speaker has a significantly higher frequency response than the speaker on the bottom. Due to higher frequencies just generally sounding louder and more direct to the human ear, during the first 80% of the volume range, the earpiece speaker noticeably sounds louder than the bottom firing speaker.
It's only when you push the volume to the limit does the bottom speaker gain its voice and the sound it starts pushing out finally matches the earpiece speaker in terms of sheer audio output. Unfortunately, the sound still seems imbalanced, not due to the audio level this time but rather due to the difference in frequency response, as the earpiece speaker is still very treble-heavy and the bottom speaker is more focused on the mids and the lows.
Overall, we didn't enjoy the speakers on the 7T much. They sound fine in portrait mode or if the phone is not directly in front of you, and they are more than adequate for ringtones. But for watching videos or playing games in landscape, we find the imbalance in the sound from the two speakers distracting. We much prefer the speakers on the 7T Pro, which sound really good with no issues whatsoever.
Winner: OnePlus 7T Pro. Great sounding audio with none of the imbalance issues of the 7T.