While phones continue to reach that $1000 price point, one company finds a way to still provide a great phone experience at a reasonable price. As long as you can settle on no IP ratings, and a camera that may not be as good as the big 3 (Samsung, Apple, and Google), then you can have a phone with a great experience without breaking the bank.
The One Plus 7 Pro will be available through T-Mobile and One Plus starting on May 17th. And if you have an eligible device for a trade in, you can get up to $290 off towards the purchase of a new phone. But what are you getting that makes this phone worth purchasing?
Well for starters you will get a 6.7 inch all display screen with no notch. That means you will get to enjoy the full display, and to make things better you get a 90Hz refresh rate. For those unfamiliar with what that means, basically you can scroll down Twitter as fast as you can and the display will be able to keep up. This is the same feature that made gaming phones appealing as the refresh rate made gaming and navigating through the phone silky smooth.
But what about the price?
I’ll get to that in a minute. But let me continue down the list of what you’re getting in the box. And that is a phone with up to 12 GBs of RAM, 4,000 mAh battery, the same in-glass fingerprint sensor found on the 6T (but a little faster), Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor, fast charging (able to go from 0 to 50% in 20 mins), Android 9.0 Pie, dual sim slots, USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type C (basically faster data transfer speeds for files), and come in nebula blue, mirror gray, and almond.
Now for the price.
For the entry level 6 GB of RAM model with 128 GB of storage it will cost $669, $699 for 8 GB RAM and 256 GB of storage, and lastly the 12 GB RAM and 256 GB of storage caps off at a price of $749. For comparison, the Samsung Galaxy S10e (the cheaper model) goes for $749 (unlocked version).
All display is nice, but where is my selfie cam?
The front facing camera is hidden in the body and slides up when you are ready to take a selfie. And though it is a mechanism, it is fast. A similar style from the Vivo Nex, whose style this phone copied, but smoother and improved. Plus it also will detect when a phone is dropped and automatically retract the selfie cam. That means a slip of the phone will not equate to a damage selfie cam.
Where is the compromise…..”Never Settle” seems to settle on something to drop the price?
If the big boys are charging upwards of a thousand bucks or more, One Plus have to cut corners somewhere to make this an affordable phone. And the things left on the table are wireless charging, an IP rating for water resistance, and the camera is better than the 6t, but still not on the level as a Samsung, Apple, or a Pixel. But if you can settle with that then you will be getting a great phone. And for me I could settle on that just fine. My other issue is in the trade in program. For what they are offering for their own One Plus 6t, I can almost double that selling it on my own. When I plugged in the numbers for my unlocked 8GB 128 storage model, they offered me $240. And this is for a phone that is 6 months old. So if you’re looking to trade in your phone, don’t. Sell it on Ebay or Swappa and get a better value than what One Plus will offer.
With what One Plus was able to put in to their 7 Pro, my eyes are on Google. There is no reason why the Pixel 4 specs wise shouldn’t have 8 GB of RAM and at least a 128 GB storage option. The 64 GB of storage will no longer cut it on a flagship in this day in age.
