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OnePlus 7 Lineup Learns From the Midrange OnePlus X Flop

The cult smartphone maker traditionally only sells one smartphone at a time. But today, OnePlus introduced three, but don't expect a budget device in there.

 & Sascha Segan Former Lead Analyst, Mobile

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Is OnePlus growing up? The cult smartphone maker, which shot to prominence in the US this year on the back of a deal with T-Mobile, traditionally only sells one smartphone at a time. But today, OnePlus introduced three: The $669 OnePlus 7 Pro, the only one coming to the US; the lower-cost OnePlus 7; and the OnePlus 7 5G, which will come out later this year on the EE 5G network in the UK.

One Plus 7 5g

(The OnePlus 7 5G)

"We've matured as a company," said OnePlus General Manager for North America Kyle Kiang. "As we move forward, we'll be able to offer products that offer some degree of choice."

OnePlus 7

Now, don't get too crazy; OnePlus isn't going midrange. Kiang said the company learned its lesson with 2015's doomed OnePlus X. "What we learned from the OnePlus X is not to go into the midrange," he said. "We have a flagship-only approach."

We have a full review of the OnePlus 7 Pro, which has a bunch of features we haven't seen on other mainstream phones, including a pop-up selfie camera and a 90Hz screen.

The standard OnePlus 7 has two rather than three main cameras, a notch-style selfie camera, and a flat 60Hz screen rather than a curved 90Hz screen, kicking its price down a bit. It keeps the 48-megapixel main camera, but only has two rather than three lenses.

Both phones will be available this week, with the OnePlus 7 Pro appearing at T-Mobile stores across the U.S. starting on May 17. In the UK, the OnePlus 7 Pro will start at £649 and the OnePlus 7 will cost £499. The company is also keeping last year's OnePlus 6T on sale, at $549 for the 128GB model and $599 for 256GB.

OnePlus 7 Pro 6

The 5G phone, OnePlus said, is ready but has been challenging to design, as our UK reporter Adam Smith outlines here.

Along with the phones, the company is releasing a new version of its Bullets Wireless Bluetooth headset, the Bullets Wireless 2, for $99. Bullets Wireless is key to OnePlus' strategy because its phones don't currently have headphone jacks. The company also sells the best USB-C earbuds we know of—the Type-C Bullets—for $19.99.

OnePlus Bullets Wireless 2

According to OnePlus, the new headphones have a "larger sized moving coil" for better bass, and support for both AptX HD and Bluetooth 5.0. The first of those improves music-transmission quality when used with recent phones; the second gives stronger and more stable connections.

Kiang also called out faster charging as a key feature of the new headset, which has 10 hours of playback time on 10 minutes of charging, double that of the previous units. The headset has 14 hours of battery life, he said.

About Our Expert

Sascha Segan

Sascha Segan

Former Lead Analyst, Mobile

My Experience

I'm that 5G guy. I've actually been here for every "G." I reviewed well over a thousand products during 18 years working full-time at PCMag.com, including every generation of the iPhone and the Samsung Galaxy S. I also wrote a weekly newsletter, Fully Mobilized, where I obsessed about phones and networks.

My Areas of Expertise

  • US and Canadian mobile networks
  • Mobile phones released in the US
  • iPads, Android tablets, and ebook readers
  • Mobile hotspots
  • Big data features such as Fastest Mobile Networks and Best Work-From-Home Cities

The Technology I Use

Being cross-platform is critical for someone in my position. In the US, the mobile world is split pretty cleanly between iOS and Android. So I think it's really important to have Apple, Android and Windows devices all in my daily orbit.

I use a Lenovo ThinkPad Carbon X1 for work and a 2021 Apple MacBook Pro for personal use. My current phone is a Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, although I'm probably going to move to an Android foldable. Most of my writing is either in Microsoft OneNote or a free notepad app called Notepad++. Number crunching, which I do often for those big data stories, is via Microsoft Excel, DataGrip for MySQL, and Tableau.

In terms of apps and cloud services, I use both Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive heavily, although I also have iCloud because of the three Macs and three iPads in our house. I subscribe to way too many streaming services. 

My primary tablet is a 12.9-inch, 2020-model Apple iPad Pro. When I want to read a book, I've got a 2018-model flat-front Amazon Kindle Paperwhite. My home smart speakers run Google Home, and I watch a TCL Roku TV. And Verizon Fios keeps me connected at home.

My first computer was an Atari 800 and my first cell phone was a Qualcomm Thin Phone. I still have very fond feelings about both of them.

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