OnePlus 7 256GB detailed review

With the OnePlus 7 Pro now becoming the de facto flagship of the company, OnePlus in 2019 is a changed company with one foot on the premium side while one still drags along the lines of a budget flagship. Not to forget its roots, OnePlus announced the regular OnePlus 7 alongside the Pro version with some obvious downsizing. The company went from launching one flagship smartphone a year, to a 6-month refresh cycle and now, we have two OnePlus phones vying for your attention at the same time. It’s no longer the case where one device will get all the attention. Instead, the focus was divided between two — Everything’s that’s premium (90Hz display, triple cameras) will be present in the Pro variant while everything that isn’t (a regular AMOLED display, dual cameras) will be reserved for the regular variant. Does this bode unwell for OnePlus fans? You still get the flagship Qualcomm processor along with more RAM and storage that you can possibly put to use, but here’s the thing. The OnePlus model of success is now copied by almost everyone. Sitting in the second half of 2019, we have more flagship phones south of Rs 50,000 than above it, and while that’s definitely a good thing for the consumer, it’s something OnePlus would probably be spending a lot of sleepless nights thinking. So with the OnePlus 7 now coming in a crowded space, does it still hold the same promise as before? Let’s find out.

OnePlus 7 vs competition

The OnePlus 7 is pitted against the Asus 6z, Oppo Reno 10X Zoom and the Black Shark 2. The upcoming Redmi K20 Pro will also give tough competition to the smartphone. All of these devices are powered by the Snapdragon 855 processor and as such, good flagship performance is more or less guaranteed. Where the OnePlus 7 excels is in offering a good software experience. It’s better than most budget flagships out there. OxygenOS 9 stays updated regularly, offers smooth, lag-free performance and a minimalist design. However, the OnePlus 7’s camera might not be up everyone’s taste. The Oppo Reno 10X Zoom’s camera, in my opinion, offers punchier, more vibrant colours and the flexibility to go up to 10X zoom and 120-degree wide-angle. The Asus 6z is also unique in its own way. The flip camera on the phone doubles up as both the rear and front camera, with the same 48MP camera coming on both sides. The OnePlus 7, as a result, stands out, for covering the basics really well and offering just a little bit more in terms of uniqueness.

Performance and battery

Let’s start off with the most important aspect first. The performance of the OnePlus 7 is pretty flawless while the battery life is enough to power through the day. The Snapdragon 855 inside the phone is coupled with up to 8GB LPDDR4X RAM and 256GB UFS 3.0 storage. There’s no question of the phone slowing down anytime soon. The components OnePlus has used in this are the same as the Pro variant, save for the lack of a 12GB RAM variant. As a result, the performance of the phone is one of the best on an Android device. Credit should also be given to OxygenOS that’s based on Android 9 Pie and brings onboard interesting optimisations that ultimately result in faster app launches, unlock and boot-up and the likes. Having said that, if you are coming from the OnePlus 6 or the OnePlus 6T, it’s likely you won’t notice any significant boost in speed.

Benchmark analysis reveals the OnePlus 7 is just as fast as its sibling and even ahead in some cases when compared to other Snapdragon 855-powered phones. You can see the scores projected in the graphs below to get a better idea of where the OnePlus 7 stands. For a more detailed analysis, check out our performance comparison between the Asus 6z, Oppo Reno 10X Zoom and the OnePlus 7.

Part of OnePlus 7’s blazing fast speed is also because of the software the phone uses. It’s a customised take on Android 9 that’s very close to the stock Android interface in terms of the aesthetics and there are deep-seated optimisations in place that make the phone run super smooth. On top of that, there are now a handful of India-centric features like parking location, live cricket scores and a dedicated gaming mode which frees up resources, puts calls and notifications on hold and the likes. Then there’s the Zen Mode which I found particularly useful. When the mode is turned on, you can’t do anything on your phone for 20 minutes. The aim is to wean users off smartphone addiction and while it pretty much failed to do so in my case, the mode did allow me to focus on my work much better.

The 3,700mAh battery on the OnePlus 7 is the same as its predecessor. But while the capacity is the same, there is a slight increase in the screen-on time, thanks to the 7nm efficiency Snapdragon 855 brings to the table. On Geekbench Battery Test, it took around 10 hours 15 minutes to drain the battery while 15 minutes of PUBG Mobile drained the battery by around 5 percent. On the other hand, 30 minutes of Netflix (with HDR on) drained 7 percent battery and an hour of navigation brought down the charge by 8 percent. These are decent numbers and in line with most other Snapdragon 855-powered phones, so the efficiency is more or less at par with other budget flagships out there in the market.

Camera

The camera is the second most important thing in a smartphone. Straight off, it becomes clear the OnePlus 7 Pro was what the company was more focused on, while the OnePlus 7 camera comes off as an afterthought. The 7 Pro’s triple-camera offers flexibility with an ultra-wide angle lens, a 3X telephoto lens and a 48MP primary sensor. For the OnePlus 7, only the 48MP sensor was brought down and paired with a 5MP depth sensor. By default, you are restricted to shooting either the regular wide-angle photos or portrait shots with blurred backgrounds. There is 2X zoom, but that’s digitally acquired and doesn’t offer the same quality as optical zoom.

As for the images themselves, they carry the typical OnePlus look. Neutral colours, excellent HDR performance, and now extra sharpness thanks to the pixel binning that the camera performs by default every time it takes a photo. As such, the OnePlus 7 camera is pretty reliable in taking landscape photos, but struggles to take close-up shots. The AF system in the 48MP sensor has difficulty locking focus even after tapping the region you wish to be focused. For instance, in the photo below, you can see the branch being in focus while the flower is blurred out despite both being approximately at the same distance.

There’s OIS in the camera which helps take a stable shot when zoomed in, but it particularly helps while shooting videos where the OnePlus 7 does a decent job and focusing is much more reliable. This could just be a bug in the camera software and if highlighted, could be fixed via an OTA update.

Then there’s the portrait mode. The feature has mostly worked well on previous OnePlus phones, at least when assisted with enough light, and on the OnePlus 7, it works well in objects that are near the camera. Objects that are a little further away has inconsistent subject separation which is ironic considering the only use of the secondary 5MP depth sensor is to get better depth of field.

There’s also the nightscape mode which works pretty well, but not without its own flaws. For one, it takes a long time to shoot the image irrespective of the amount of light available. For instance, phones from Huawei, we have observed, take less time to shoot multi-frame night mode images when there’s at least some level of illumination. In case of the OnePlus 7, the number of shots, and as a result, the take time, is a constant. Thankfully, there are algorithms in place that controls the amount of exposure the shot needs. The shots are also sharper when you shoot with night mode (provided the subject is steady for the time it takes to shoot), but don’t expect too much out of them. Zooming into a nightscape shot will show the details are artificially rendered and touched up with a lot of noise reduction.

As such, the OnePlus 7’s rear camera stack is reliable, but not exciting. Around the price of the OnePlus 7, you have phones that come fitted with a wide-angle camera, while paying a little extra will get you all three lenses including a telephoto lens with 10X hybrid zoom.

Design and Display

Even though the OnePlus 7 is built out of glass, it feels pretty solid. There’s Gorilla Glass 5 on the back and Gorilla Glass 6 on the front allowing at least some level of protection. There’s a screen-protector built-in to the display that got scratched easily and the mirror red finish that we received for review looks pretty swell. Unlike the OnePlus 7 Pro that offers a new design, the OnePlus 7 is quite identical to the OnePlus 6T — A waterdrop notch, thin bezels, curved rear panel and a sturdy aluminum frame. What’s changed is the gigantic bump around the camera module that makes the phone wobble when placed on a flat surface. Otherwise, the button quality and the tactile response is pretty solid and gives a feeling of longevity.

The OnePlus 7 doesn’t have an advertised IP rating, but OnePlus did assure there is some level of water resistance but water damage is not covered under warranty. What’s missing is the 3.5mm headphone jack but the dual stereo speakers have made their way to the OnePlus 7 as well along with support for Dolby Atmos. There’s also an in-display fingerprint sensor that’s visibly faster than the OnePlus 6T, and is pretty accurate too. However, face unlock still works faster and I hardly got the chance to use the in-display fingerprint sensor on the phone.

The display on the OnePlus 7 will come off as a big compromise if you get your hands on the OnePlus 7 Pro. For one, this is a smaller 6.41-inch AMOLED panel  interrupted by the waterdrop notch in the middle. It’s FHD+ instead of QHD+ on the Pro and the screen refresh rate is 60Hz instead of 90Hz. Not that all that makes the OnePlus 7 look bad or anything, but once you use the display on the Pro, there’s no going back to the regular ones. Having said that, the OnePlus 7’s display is bright and vibrant. It’s HDR rated and also supports Netflix HDR.

Bottomline

The OnePlus 7 is the budget flagship OnePlus was known for before they started getting into the very segment they intended to kill. The good thing about that is while the OnePlus 7 Pro breaches the Rs 50,000 mark, the OnePlus 7 starts at a price lower than what the OnePlus 6T did. For a lesser price, you not only get the same raw performance as the OnePlus 7 Pro, but also an HDR display and a sturdy build. In fact, one of my coworker told me he found the OnePlus 7 more handy than the OnePlus 7 Pro for the form factor it retains from its predecessor. The OnePlus 7 Pro, on the other hand, is heavier and the curved display often results in accidental touches. If OnePlus is your brand of choice and spending over Rs 50,000 is out of the question, the OnePlus 7 is the phone to get.

MSI GT73VR 7RF Titan Pro 4K detailed review

Whenever someone asks me whether they should be investing in gaming laptops or a desktop, I tell them to invest in a desktop if they play only at home. But, there are many who want to game on the move, or do not want to undertake the hassle of building and maintaining a gaming PC. For these people gaming laptops are the solution. They offer portability (to some extent) and are usually plug-and-play, which is tougher for desktops. However, when I saw this giant MSI GT73VR 7RF Titan Pro for the first time, the concept of a laptop being portable was immediately out the window. There’s also the price tag. At Rs. 3,34,990, costs almost as much as a new car, so one must determine whether it’s worth the premium.

Tech specs of our test machine:

Display: 17.3-inch, 4K, IPS Panel

CPU: Intel Core i7-7820HK

RAM: 32GB

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080

Storage 1: 2 x 512GB SSD (Raid 0)

Storage 2: 1TB HDD 7200RPM

Battery: 75 whr

Price: 3,34,990

Looks and aesthetics

Gaming PCs or laptops are expected not only to perform well, but to have its extreme appearances. They should either look understated or should go all out with wild angular accents, fins, large heat vents, LED stips, you get the drift. The GT73 Titan Pro does the latter. It has all the right angles, paint schemes, design aesthetics, and screams gaming. You get red metal inlays on the lid, the dragon logo is backlit, the power button sits underneath an angular cut-out on the keyboard deck, the vents have red accents and the bottom has a red perforated grille. The MSI GT73VR 7RF Titan looks dramatic, which will appeal to the gamer.

MSI has almost nailed the design here, but I believe it could have been better. Machines like the Asus G752VY not only look good visually, but are distinctive as well, whereas the MSI GT73 settles for the same old black-and-red design. That being said, it is as unwieldy as the Asus machine, weighing over 4kg and its about 2-inches thick. 

Build quality and I/O

Like the design, the build quality leaves little room for complaints. The lid and the keyboard deck are metallic, laid over a plastic sub-frame. The machine feels quite sturdy and there is minimal flex in the body. There’s some flex in the display, but it is not a really deal-breaker. Since this is a gaming laptop, there are plenty of grilles and vents. The keyboard is well laid out and the keyboard deck offers plenty of space to rest your palms on. The base of the laptop is plastic and has more perforated grilles for air flow. 

The display hinge is one of the smoothest I have seen in awhile and opens to about 140 degrees, leaving enough room for third party cooling pads. While the base of the laptop is removable and some things, like the RAM and storage, can be user replaced, warranty will be voided if you do so.

On the I/O front, you get almost everything you may ask for. You get three USB 3.0 Type-A ports on the left and two on the right. On the back, there’s a standard RJ54 ethernet port, mini DisplayPort, Thunderbolt 3 via USB Type-C (USB 3.1 / Gen-2) and an HDMI 2.0 port, which will support a 4K output @60Hz. You also get an SD card reader on the right, but a DVD drive is not included. DVDs are indeed obsolete today, but the company provides one on its much cheaper GE62 laptop, so not providing one here seems a bit odd. Also, I expected at least two USB Type-C ports on the laptop.

Keyboard and touchpad

The MSI GT73VR shares the same keyboard and touchpad layout we saw on the much cheaper GE62 a few months back. It’s a Steelseries designed keyboard, with RGB lighting and a  large but slightly stiff touchpad keys.

The keyboard has nice large keycaps and offers more travel than most of its counterparts. Each key-press feels precise, but if you are accustomed to a mechanical keyboard, you might want to stick to that. As for the light settings, there are plenty to choose from (RGB) and you can tweak them from the MSI Dragon centre app. While the keyboard works for gaming to some extent, I would have preferred a row of macro keys as well. It will take some getting used to, due to the unorthodox key layout. For example, the right Shift key is shortened to make space for the top arrow key, there is no Windows key under your left thumb and the Delete key sits on the top row above the keypad, breaking the flow whenever you use it. 

I also find the the function keys quite cumbersome. They are smaller in size and would have been better if brightness controls and media volume controls were integrated. That said, I am pretty sure nobody would be buying this machine to use Word and Excel.

The touchpad is good, as is expected from a high end laptop. The cursor speed is not calibrated to cover the 4K screen in a single swipe by default, but that can be toggled with in the settings. Once that was done, I didn't find the experience lacking in any way. The trackpad itself is smooth, supports gestures, and is quite accurate. The left and right click buttons are stiff to press, which pushed me to connect a mouse immediately. You will be a using a mouse most of the times anyway, as the touchpad is not really meant for gaming. Meanwhile, RGB lovers will love the illuminated ring around the touchpad.

Display

The MSI GT73VR has one of the best displays we have seen on a laptop. While it is available in 120Hz FHD panel, only the 4K (@60Hz) variant is available in India. It has impressive colour saturation and very good viewing angles. There is no light bleed and the display is quite bright with a recorded max luminance of 480 lux at the centre. What is even more impressive, is that the brightness remains uniform all over the display. In addition to great colours and uniform brightness, the 17.3-inch matte display is also G-Sync enabled. This is supported by the heavy hitting hardware the laptop packs.

Performance

With an Intel Core i7-7820HK at the helm and an 8GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 to handle graphics, the GT73VR Titan Pro undeniably houses the best gaming hardware available on a laptop. Both the CPU and GPU can be overclocked using BIOS and afterburner software, respectively. Although, you don't need extra processing power since the system already has plenty in stock mode. Our test machine was configured with 32GB of DDR4 RAM and dual storage solution, with two Samsung SSDs in Raid 4 and one 1TB Toshiba HDD @7200rpm. 

With such powerful hardware on the laptop, it wasn't a surprise that it blitzed through each and every benchmark we threw at it. While the scores are considerably higher than last year’s G752 from Asus, performance is very close to the Asus ROG G20CB (1080 revision) gaming PC I reviewed late last year. Compared to the Asus ROG G20CB desktop, one can easily see the difference or lack thereof in performance of a last gen Intel desktop processor and a current gen top of the line Intel mobile CPU.

So, whether you look at the PCMark 8 Creative scores or Cinebench, the Intel Core i7 6700 (not K) processor used on the G20CB performs at par with the latest Intel Core i7 7820HK used in this MSI GT73VR notebook. Although this is an apples-to-oranges comparison, the fact of the matter is that a desktop class processor, albeit last generation will give you similar performance.

Same goes for the desktop and laptop variant of the NVIDIA Geforce GTX 1080 GPU. In 3DMark synthetic benchmark, the desktop grade GTX 1080 performed marginally better than its mobile cousin, and that just goes to show how NVIDIA has closed down the performance gap between desktop and its mobile class GPUs, although a slight performance difference is still there.

Synthetic benchmarks aside, the GT73VR works like a charm on the gaming front and chews through every game we threw at it in 1080p or even 2K. Newer titles like Battlefield 1 and Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands run flawlessly punching more than 70 fps easily on 1080p. Even when I tried gaming on an external display, the drop in performance wasn't much. 4K rendering is still not particularly great, though. You can play most games in 4K in high or ultra settings, and it really helps if the game supports DX12. Older titles do struggle to provide you favourable frame rates.

Games like Tom Clancy’s Division, which is a heavy title, managed just 40 fps at 4K ultra settings, keeping it playable. However, older games like Metro Last light, known to bring GPUs to their knees, occasionally brought the frame rates down to single digits when testing on high graphic settings.

I even tested the machine with HTC’s Vive VR headset, which again works without any issues. I tried more than half a dozen experiences and they all worked fine, with occasional stutters, although it could be because of other reasons as well.

I am truly happy with the cooling on this machine, which is really loud, but does the job well. There are four vents on the laptop, two on the back and two on the side, pulling in air from the bottom and cooling the hardware inside. Even at high temperatures I recorded less than 40 degrees on the keyboard deck, which is quite good for a powerful machine like this.

I should also talk about the 4.1 speaker system on this machines, which is enabled by Nahimic audio and produces crisp and loud audio output throughout. The software can be set for different types of games.

Software

To help you toggle all the performance settings and various others, MSI has added its Dragon Centre application on the laptop that one can use to check system stats, change the RGB keyboard settings or change performance and cooling modes. The laptop will even connect to an app by the same name on your phone, giving you the vital stats of your laptop in the palm of your hand.

Battery Life

This is a gaming laptop, and the rule of thumb is that these machines don’t have good battery life. With a 75whr battery on-board, I wasn't expecting great battery life and the GT73VR didn't prove me wrong. In fact, the laptop ran for just an hour and a half, before dying on the PCMark8 Creative battery test. If you are using it for browsing or writing Word docs (I am judging you now), the system easily lasts for two hours or more, but beyond that you may have to pick up the 1.2kg power brick to charge this device.  

Bottomline

The MSI GT73VR 7RF Titan Pro is quite simply a desktop replacement for all your gaming needs. Yes, you can build a similar PC, but it will be only marginally cheaper if you include a 4K G-Sync display, keyboard-mouse and a 2.1 speaker system to match the GT73VR evenly. So, it is certainly worth the price, but do you need this much processing power? You don’t, unless you plan to game in 4K only.

In conclusion, the MSI GT73VR 7RF Titan Pro is the perfect gaming laptop, although not the one you and I would be able to afford. It is primarily meant for enthusiasts or hardcore gamers, who have the cash to spend for it. For most of us out there, building a gaming PC would be easier and you can keep updating it in future.