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The Samsung Galaxy S10 might not have the groundbreaking camera of the Huawei P30 Pro or the astounding battery life of the Moto G7 Power but the total package it brings to the table makes it a serious contender for best Android phone of 2019.

Related: Amazon Prime Smartphone Deals

The Galaxy S10 was is one of the first true flagships to hit the market in 2019. Not long after, stiff competition arrived in the form of the aforementioned P30 Pro and the potent OnePlus 7 Pro. There’s no denying that it’s a tough time to be a flagship phone, based on the sheer amount of competition out there, however, it also means buyers have a wealth of worthwhile choices to consider.

In this technological jigsaw, the Galaxy S10 is the perfect fit for the masses; a wholly worthwhile alternative to the iPhone that boasts everything and the kitchen sink, with regards to its features and abilities.

One of the biggest shifts for a phone like the S10 is that it’s not the sole choice if you want Samsung’s current flagship. While ‘Plus’ models have existed for a few years now, this is the first time an S-series flagship has arrived in four discreet flavours.

Alongside the S10 you also have the smaller, simpler, more affordable Galaxy S10e (which boasts the same top-tier processor), the larger, longer-lasting and more camera-laden Galaxy S10 Plus, and for those who need it, the super-sized, super-speedy Samsung Galaxy S10 5G.

• Read our Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus review
• Read our Samsung Galaxy S10e review

With all these other options, should the standard Galaxy S10 still be worth considering? In a word, yes. Here’s why:

The Samsung Galaxy S10 has a lovely screen and design, with a minor catch

As with most top Samsung phones, the screen left me seriously impressed. The S10 sports a 6.1-inch Dynamic AMOLED display, which occupies 88.3 percent of the phone’s front. Paire with the curved cover glass, it gives the impression of a true edge-to-edge display and what’s more it packs in a ton of tech worthy of a flagship-class display.

This is an HDR10+ panel, boosting colours and dynamic range when viewing supported content from Netflix and YouTube, for example. Watch a few episodes of Star Trek: Discovery and you’ll instantly notice the deep colours and intense brightness. I wouldn’t normally use a phone screen to watch content over extended periods but the quality on display here makes it surprisingly immersive.

The screen is bright, too, which is essential for both outdoor viewing and, as previously mentioned, HDR content. It’s a little tricky to gauge just how bright this screen gets due to the variety of boosting modes Samsung engages but I measured a peak brightness of 350 nits in regular use. DisplayMate claims it can match the 1250 nits suggested by Samsung in its own tests, however, we were unable to recreate such a figure in a real-world environment.

• Huawei P30 Pro review

Brightness ramps up when you’re using the phone in direct sunlight or utilising the screen enhancer mode. The latter adds a faux-HDR effect to regular content – YouTube videos, for example – which ups the brightness to give a more cinematic look. It works a treat, even if it does consume battery life at double the rate compared to when it’s turned off.

The display has a few other quirks, too, all of which help to shape the look of the Galaxy S10. The first is the new Infinity-O display, which is Samsung’s effort to steer away from the plight of a notch. Instead of a dip in the display, as seen on the iPhone XS, the S10 moves its front camera into a circular cutout that sits towards the top-right of the panel. Unlike the notch, the screen flows around the camera, creating a more seamless finish.

• Best Samsung Galaxy S10 wallpapers

I much prefer the circular cutout here rather than the longer, pill-shaped version you’ll find on the S10 Plus; it’s noticeably less intrusive when watching videos. Nevertheless, it isn’t perfect and certain apps – games especially, still assume the hole is a notch and therefore display a black bar that covers the entire top portion of the screen. Hopefully, developers will update said apps as this style of cutout becomes more popular.

I’m less enamoured by Samsung’s continued use of curved displays. As seen in the S8 and S9, the sides of the Galaxy S10 slope away from the front, blending into the metal frame running the phone’s edge. Design-wise, it’s a trait that’s a few years old now and extensively used by other premium phones. Nevertheless, it still has that slick, instantly eye-catching finish that gets it noticed in the sea of boxy, rectangular slabs.

Despite how attractive it might look, it makes actual use of the device more difficult. I’ve experienced numerous accidental presses with the curved Galaxy S10 than I have done with the flat Pixel 3 or iPhone XS. It consistently registered accidental pressure from my palm and I’m having to alter the way I hold the phone to counter this problem. You’ll likely get used to it but having used both the S10 and S10 Plus for a few weeks, it remains an issue.

For the most part, the rest of the design also follows the same blueprint Samsung’s employed for the past few iterations of its flagship phones. You’ll find glass both front and back, a metal rim sandwiched between them, and a super-precise finish.

There isn’t much of a size difference between the Plus and the regular-sized S10 (the Plus has a 6.4-inch screen as opposed to 6.1-inches) but I do find that the smaller device feels more comfortable to hold and is easier to navigate, not requiring me to stretch my thumb too far. If you’re coming from an S9 or an iPhone then you’ll likely feel a lot more at home with the S10 compared to the Plus.

One feature missing on the Galaxy S10’s display is a high refresh rate option. The OnePlus 7 Pro, for example, can ramp things up to 90Hz creating much smooth motion and animations on-screen. Maybe this is something we’ll get with the Galaxy S11, next year.

The Galaxy S10 is feature-packed, with an in-display fingerprint sensor and reverse wireless charging

Samsung has a fondness for “features”. It loves to cram its phones with every imaginable option, if only to have plenty to shout about when it comes to advertising. It’s an approach that’s quite the opposite of Apple, which has historically rejected options such as expandable storage.

With the Galaxy S10, Samsung’s focus on features remains. If there’s a feature you’ve been hankering after, then it’s likely included in the S10: wireless charging, expandable storage, a headphone jack (you won’t see that too often in 2019), as well as inventive additions such as reverse charging and an in-display fingerprint sensor.

• Best wireless chargers

That in-display sensor is the standout – and while the S10 isn’t the first handset to include one, it’s comfortably the best I’ve used.

The fingerprint sensor on the Galaxy S10 doesn’t reside on the back or inside the home button. Instead, it’s found directly beneath the screen. Once set up – a process you’ll be requested to do at the start – you unlock the phone by pressing your finger against a fingerprint outline that sits towards the bottom of the screen. It does everything your traditional capacitive sensor does; it just doesn’t need to be there messing up the back of the phone.

As futuristic as it is, the in-display sensor isn’t quite as effective as the traditional unit of the S9 or iPhone. It requires a firmer press. If the fingerprint sensor on the S9 works 95% of the time, on the S10 it’s closer to 70%.

It’s a better fingerprint sensor than the one on the Huawei P30 Pro, however, the version used on the OnePlus 7 Pro is a lot snappier.

The ultrasonic version here doesn’t require light to work and doesn’t require you to press down so firmly.

Another feature on the S10 that’s similar to something you’ll see on the Huawei Mate 20 Pro and Huawei P30 Pro is reverse wireless charging. Called Wireless PowerShare, this lets you turn the S10 into a Qi charger for compatible products. For example, you could charge your iPhone XS this way, or Samsung’s new Galaxy Buds. You could even charge the new AirPods 2019. 

It’s a clever addition but like the in-display fingerprint scanner, it needs a bit more work. It’s super-slow to charge, and you need to turn it on every time you want to charge a device.

The Galaxy S10’s benchmarks lead to the superb performance

Joining the packed feature list is a selection of internal components – which will vary depending on your region. I’ve been using the European model, which ships with Samsung’s own Exynos 9820 chipset and 8GB of RAM. If you’re buying the phone in the USA, your device will be powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855.

• Best Samsung Galaxy phones

Judging a phone’s performance is tricky, especially when it’s fresh out of the box. Whether you’re paying £799 for the Galaxy S10 or £269 for the Moto G7 Plus, phones tend to initially be super-fast but then gradually slow down.

Since the S10 is powered by the very latest available internals, it should be no surprise that it’s a performance beast, churning out benchmark scores at the top-end of phones we’ve reviewed. Simply put, no task on this phone feels slow or laggy. Nor are there any apps – that I’ve tested – that really push the hardware to its limits.

The same is true of games. The Galaxy S10 will smoothly run any game at the highest possible settings without running into trouble. Titles load up noticeably faster than a Samsung Galaxy S9, and only slightly slower than an iPhone XS.

This is also one of the first handsets to ship with support for Wi-Fi 6, so if you have a capable router then you’ll notice a slightly altered logo in the status bar. There’s no 5G, though, since the next-gen data speeds are restricted to an as-yet priceless Samsung Galaxy S10 5G variant.

• What is 5G?

The Galaxy S10’s camera is versatile, even if it isn’t the best overall

The Galaxy S10’s camera line-up is another headline feature. Three can be found on the back, with another unit on the front for selfies and face unlock. It’s a trio of cameras that will look familiar to anyone who has laid eyes on the Huawei P30 Pro

The main rear camera is an optically stabilised 12-megapixel sensor, with an aperture that can shift between f/1.5 for night shots and f/2.4 for the day. There’s an ultra-wide, 16-megapixel f/2.2 sensor, too, and a stabilised 12-megapixel telephoto sensor for zooming.

Of the three, it’s the ultra-wide sensor that’s new. In the app, you can zoom out to enter wide view and there’s somewhat of a fisheye effect on the results.

The main camera consistently judges exposure better than its predecessor, while the improved HDR mode helps give you a good dynamic range across most scenes, with fewer blown out highlights and overexposed shots.

Leadenhall Market: Samsung Galaxy S10 (left) vs Samsung Galaxy S9 (right) – move slider to compare

The latter isn’t quite on the same level as the iPhone XS’s Smart HDR mode, though, which manages to pull out much more detail from the dark areas of dimly lit scenes.

Low light performance, in general, is good if a little behind the very best – that honour goes to the Huawei P30 Pro with its RYYB Super Sensing sensor and fantastic dedicated night mode. 

The main camera’s bright f/1.5 aperture (which automatically reverts to f/2.4 in brighter conditions) gives it a strong base to work from, though the S10 can still be a bit heavy-handed with noise reduction and image processing, which smudges out some fine details. This isn’t too noticeable when viewed on the S10’s screen, but photos can look more like paintings when cropped or viewed on a bigger screen.

The S10’s smarter ‘scene optimiser’ mode, which works on all three cameras, performs well in most situations. It can now recognise up to 30 different scenes, including faces and night scenes, and tweaks the colours to make them vibrant and punchy without going too far towards oversaturation.

The only downsides are the occasional mistake – for example, recognising a glass building as the sky and giving it an unnatural blue cast – and that its Super Night Shot mode doesn’t seem to be quite as powerful as the ones seen on the Google Pixel 3 or Huawei Mate 20 Pro, with no way to manually turn it on.

• Best camera phones

Still, the S10’s bokeh effects are every bit as good as its rivals, only being slightly beaten out by the P30 Pro and its dedicated ToF sensor. This added sensor gives a cleaner finish and a more accurate cut around details like glasses and hair.

Still, the S10 reliably cuts out faces and objects while applying realistic gradual blur. You can also tweak the level of fake bokeh after a shot when using the Live Focus mode, but it’s best to keep the intensity on the low side for maximum realism.

While nothing major, there do seem to be a couple of bugs in the S10’s own camera app. The focal length wheel, which lets you zoom in between each camera’s default view, sometimes opens when you try to press the shutter, preventing you from taking a shot. If you move quickly between the three cameras, the autofocus also occasionally locks up before settling down again. These will no doubt get fixed in a software update.

Video recording is handled well, especially thanks to the new super-steady stabilisation option. This uses the ultra-wide sensor to record and then crops in, smoothing out your footage and ridding it of the judder often associated with mobile video recording.

• For loads more camera samples and comparisons head to our Samsung Galaxy S10 camera review

Samsung Galaxy S10 battery life should have been better

Samsung has crafted an excellent phone in the S10 with a gorgeous screen, high-end internals and a bevvy of great features all packed inside a well-designed body. However, it isn’t perfect.

Samsung’s One UI sits atop Android 9, and while it’s a big improvement over Samsung’s previous attempts at software, it remains ugly and bloated.

• 5 of the best One UI features

One UI’s aim is to make the software elements more accessible on larger screens. Apps that feature multiple input options towards the top – messages, for example – are pushed to the bottom, so you don’t need to dislocate your thumb trying to reach them. The majority of Samsung’s own apps have been updated to benefit from this design, and it does make navigation easier.

But the software is still full of useless additions. The virtual assistant Bixby is, and always has been, inferior to Google’s excellent Assistant – but it’s so tied into Samsung’s apps that it’s hard to get rid of. There are reams of bloatware here too, including multiple Microsoft Office apps and Samsung’s own version of many of Google’s own apps – calendar, browser and messages, for example.

For battery life the S10 isn’t as good as some rivals; even similarly sized handsets such as the Huawei P30 Pro beat the S10 for endurance. However, it’s slightly better than the Galaxy S9 and roughly comparable with the iPhone X and iPhone XS.

During my 10 days with the phone – I’ve been reviewing the European Exynos 9820 version, so US-based buyers with the Snapdragon 855 version might see different results – I haven’t always managed to get from a morning alarm to 11pm without forcing the phone into either a battery-saver mode or worrying it will die-out during something important.

If you want a more detailed look at the battery life, head to our dedicated Samsung Galaxy S10 review battery life page.

Using the bundled charger, the S10’s 3400mAh battery goes from 0-100% in around 90 minutes. You can get yourself 40% in roughly 40 minutes which is handy for a quick top-up.

There haven’t been any huge improvements to the charging tech, and there’s no high-speed method to rival the Mate 20 Pro’s Super Charge. This is a shame, but the lack of improvement isn’t quite as obvious as it is with the larger S10 Plus as that battery takes much longer to charge.

If wireless charging is more your style, expect to get a full charge in just over two hours if you’re using Samsung’s own Fast Charge capable pad.

• Just picked up an S10? Read our Samsung Galaxy S10 tips and tricks guide to get started

Why buy the Samsung Galaxy S10?

There isn’t a more complete flagship Android phone you can buy right now than the Samsung Galaxy S10 – and its two biggest competitors are, at this moment, the smaller S10e and the pricier S10 Plus.

So is there a reason to buy the S10 over those two other choices? The S10e is cheaper and ditches the curved screen, while the S10 Plus has a bigger screen and battery. Being the middle child, it does feel like the regular might get left out. But I’d say the S10 is the easiest choice. It’s the perfect mixture of size and feature-set, with a price tag that’s £200 less than the iPhone XS.

For a more detailed look at some of the most important parts of the Samsung Galaxy S10, check out the links below to see our full testing data including loads of camera samples and comparisons, benchmarks and display data. 

• Samsung Galaxy S10 camera
• Samsung Galaxy S10 screen
• Samsung Galaxy S10 performance and benchmarks
• Samsung Galaxy S10 battery life

Samsung Galaxy S10 price and release date

The Samsung Galaxy S10 is on sale right now.

Prices in the UK start from £799 for the 128GB model and £999 for the 512GB model. In the US, it costs $899. As such, the Samsung Galaxy S10 is £60/$180 more expensive than the Samsung Galaxy S9 when it launched in February 2019. Or you could view it as being £200/$100 cheaper than the iPhone XS.

In the UK, all major carriers – EE, Vodafone, Three and O2 – are stocking the phone, alongside Virgin Mobile and Tesco Mobile. Check out our Samsung Galaxy S10 deals for all the latest news on pricing and the best offers.

This review is of a Galaxy S10 (UK Exynos 9820 version) unit provided to us by Vodafone, and was conducted over the course of ten days – with additional days afterwards for more in-depth testing. Previously, we’d been using the Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus, which comes with many of the same features.

Is the Samsung Galaxy S10 going to be your next phone? Tweet us @trustedreviews and let us know.

 

The post Samsung Galaxy S10 appeared first on Trusted Reviews.

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What is the Roccat Noz Gaming Headset?

The Roccat Noz Gaming Headset is a worthwhile budget offering, available for a reasonable £59.99. Despite its alluring price, it isn’t without issues, falling beneath the bar of quality I’ve come to expect from its competitors in a few key areas. Build quality is lacklustre and the sound blasted to your ears is inferior to rival headsets. 

So, what’s to love? Turtle Beach’s Stealth 600 and Razer’s Electra V2 sit in a similar price bracket and feel better, sound better and offer a more versatile experience. Overall, unless you’re a sucker for the Roccat brand, there are better options available. That being said, it isn’t all doom and gloom. 

Related: Best gaming headset

Roccat Noz Gaming Headset – Design

From a design perspective, the Roccat Noz is pedestrian. Much of the device is formed around a black plastic chassis that lacks a premium feel, arguably coming across as cheap and flimsy if I’m being critical. Its foam ear cups and padded headband are comfortable enough, and the overall small footprint meant that it’s supremely comfortable for long gameplay sessions and also ideal for taking with you on the go.

Gaming headsets are often quite heavy, abundant with exuberant bells and whistles, which means I’m often pulling them off following a few hours’ use developing a headache. Even whilst wearing glasses, the Roccat Noz sat upon my head without issue, so it’s a shame then that the remainder of its features seldom manage to impress. 

Like most modern headsets, the left ear cup boasts a volume dial, mute button and 3.5 mm insertion point for a detachable microphone. They’re all conveniently placed that reaching them during a heated multiplayer session is easy. Adjusting the Noz to fit your head reveals a small piece of metal that feels great, although looks unusual when set against the otherwise plastic design. 

The cable has an in-line Y splitter with separate inputs for both the headset audio and microphone, making it easy to use the Roccat Noz with a variety of platforms. Whether you’re playing on PC, console or even mobile, there’s a versatility here that makes hopping between them a breeze.

I also want to mention this headset’s weight: its lightness add to both its comfort and portability if you’re hitting up LAN parties or even fancy using it on your commute as a dedicated device for music and podcasts. 

Related: Best PC games

A removable mic at this price is a welcome feature, given many of Turtle Beach’s offerings are impossible to remove unless you fancy breaking the peripheral completely. Otherwise, it feels like Roccat is going for less-is-more with the Noz headset, which I can definitely appreciate. Although cables and overall build quality feels unusually flimsy for the £60 price. 

Roccat Noz Gaming Headset – Audio

In terms of gaming performance, the Roccat Noz is perfectly adequate for the price. It delivered a satisfactory mixture of tones as I ploughed through Judgment alongside a few lengthy sessions of Overwatch. Sound is clear and concise, with effects and dialogue easy to differentiate as you explore virtual environments. Beeping car horns and chatterbox civilians penetrated the soundscape with ease, seldom interrupting the core audio on which I wanted to focus. 

However, given the lack of optional audio customisation and the headset’s small size, there isn’t a whole lot of bass to go around. If you’re a fan of first-person shooters or adventure titles chock-ful of explosive set-pieces, this is worth taking into account. Landing squarely in the mid-treble range, it simply doesn’t have a lot of impact, failing to establish an identity of its own. 

I found the Noz worked for most situations, but with no way to alter the profile, you’ll have to grin and bear it. As I said before, with cheaper or only slightly more expensive rivals providing the option, it makes the Noz difficult to recommend, despite boasting a collection of worthwhile feathers in its cap. 50mm audio drivers and a supremely light 210g footprint help what audio there is to sing, but I was still left wanting. 

Related: Judgment review

Why buy the Roccat Noz Gaming Headset?

The Roccat Noz is a perfectly servicable gaming headset offering decent audio and an attractive form factor. However, this versatility doesn’t make up for underwhelming audio performance and build quality that doesn’t match up to its £60 price.

If you find it with a tenner or so shaved off the price, take the plunge – but for now, this is a peripheral that sadly doesn’t do quite enough to stand out.

 

The post Roccat Noz Gaming Headset appeared first on Trusted Reviews.

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The Sony Xperia 1 doesn’t play by the rules set out by the Samsung Galaxy S10, Huawei P30 Pro and iPhone XS. By doing things differently, it focuses on a different audience and – ultimately – (mostly) impresses.

This isn’t a mainstream phone and it certainly isn’t for everyone. For example, the 2:1 aspect ratio display makes for an unwieldy handset that takes some getting used to. However, I can’t help but be impressed by the fact that Sony has tried to do something different – and mostly succeeded.

Yes, the Sony Xperia 1 display is 4K, OLED and HDR – It still isn’t the best out there, though

Sony has included 4K screens on its devices in the past, starting with the Xperia Premium and continuing with the XZ2 Premium. Neither of those panels really used that resolution to its true potential, though – and, ultimately, it felt like wasted tech that jacked up the price of an average phone.

Things are far more positive here. The most notable upgrade is the switch from LCD to OLED, providing better contrast, perfect blacks and generally richer colours.

The aspect ratio, too, moves from the 18:9 that you’ll find in many other flagships to 21:9. This stretched-out aspect ratio makes for a very tall phone, but also one that’s ideal for content shot at 21:9. It’s a shame then that content actually made for this screen is lacking; you’ll usually find yourself stretching out regular 16:9 or 18:9 footage to fill the whole screen (unless you’re happy with black bars, that is).

Some of Netflix’s original content is shot at 21:9, which is great, but even on a screen such as this I’ve found it difficult to become fully immersed in a film when it’s only 6.5 inches wide. I’m more likely to watch a few YouTube clips or short TV episodes, but these don’t look as good. You’re likely to appreciate the Sony Xperia 1 more if you like watching movies on phones.

The 4K and HDR support is a little confusing. HDR content is available through Netflix and Amazon Prime with the correct subscription and it looks great, while YouTube will play content in both 4K and HDR (again, if the video supports it). Now, Sony reps told me Netflix and Amazon will both play content in 4K – but, for me, they don’t. Amazon limits even 4K content to 1080p (it shows a 1080p badge in the bottom corner) and Netflix seems to do the same.

I’m not even convinced that much resolution is required on a phone with a 6.5-inch display. Playing a 4K video on YouTube next to 1440p content on a OnePlus 7 Pro and Galaxy S10 didn’t reveal much extra detail. In fact, I preferred how the image was presented on the none-4K phones thanks to the more familiar aspect ratio.

The Sony Xperia X1 can’t compete with the best in the business in terms of pure display quality, either. While colour gamut, brightness levels and such are fine – I’ve achieved more complete results from competing Android devices. You can see a full breakdown of this on our Sony Xperia 1 screen review page.

There are two screen modes on the Xperia 1: a “Creator” mode and a “Standard” mode. By default the phone is in Standard; however, Creator mode aims to “provide a faithful reproduction of the creator’s intended vision”. The Creator mode is softer on the eyes, displays a more orangey hue, and doesn’t present as much of an artificial tone.

There’s plenty going on with this display, and depending on the tasks for which you use the phone, you’ll either love it or just wish for something a little more mainstream. It isn’t the most accurate display around, but it’s good for watching media, especially content that’s made for this 21:9 screen.

Xperia 1 design is different, with the 21:9 aspect ratio making it taller than the competition

While the tall 21:9 display has its benefits for certain types of videos, I don’t think the trade-off for usability in worth it. This is certainly true for me; your mileage may vary and, depending on how you use your phone, it might actually offer an improvement.

The Xperia 1 is the tallest mainstream phone I’ve used. Line it up next to other large flagships such as the iPhone XS Max, OnePlus 7 Pro and Samsung Galaxy Note 9 and it sticks out as the odd one out. Yet, it doesn’t feel as big as those phones as it’s narrower. This means while it’s virtually impossible to move your thumb from the bottom to the top, overall the phone is easy to grip and doesn’t feel at all like it’s going to fall out of my hands.

Still, there are some odd design choices here. The biggest in my opinion is the sheer number of buttons along the device’s right side: camera shutter, fingerprint sensor, lock key and a long volume rocker. I’m completely for these side-mounted fingerprint sensors, and the one here is super-quick and far superior to any in-display alternative, but it needs to incorporate the lock switch, too, as it does on the Samsung Galaxy S10e and Honor 20 Pro.

Along the top is a SIM and microSD slot, while the USB port for charging sits along the bottom edge.

It’s a well-built phone that has soft, curved edges and a light body. It feels far more “plasticky” than the iPhone XS or Samsung Galaxy S10, for example. However, as a result of this it feels less delicate, too: I’ve already dropped the Xperia 1 a couple of times and it’s barely picked up a scratch. Drop the iPhone XS once and you’ll certainly see some shards of glass.

The Xperia 1 software does a good job at making the tall display make sense

To really put that tall display to good use, Sony has heavily tweaked its Android skin. There’s much focus on easy multitasking, with that extra screen real-estate giving you more room than normal to have two apps sitting side-by-side.

Multitasking here still leaves you with fairly small portions of each app to use, but you can cram in more – in a more usable way – than you would on a phone with a squatter, wider screen.

App support, in general, is fine with the new aspect ratio. You won’t find many apps that don’t automatically resize – although it’s more common to see black bars running down either side of the panel in certain games – and you have the option to manually stretch video in apps such as Netflix and YouTube.

Some of the less convincing software tweaks come in the form of a number of Sony feature brought from the previous Xperia XZ3 flagship. Side Sense, in theory, allows you to tap the sides of the phone to initiate a number of actions including a pop-up app menu and to shrink the homescreen into a one-handed mode. In practice, it’s doesn’t work properly. Sometimes, it will burst into life with the slightest touch; other times, it doesn’t respond to even a hard jab.

Another Sony software addition is Dynamic Vibration – and it’s about as successful as Side Sense. The idea here is that this system adds haptic responses not only when you receive messages or calls, but when there’s sound playing from a video or game. I have to say it’s super-odd trying to immerse yourself in a film whilst having the phone spew out random vibrations. Even with the vibrations turned down to their lowest it was an annoyance.

Thankfully, Sony has refreshed its once-ugly Android UI, turning it into very much a tweaked version of the software you’ll find on a Google Pixel. Of course, it’s still home to plenty of useless bloatware, but the overall look is slick and clean. I like the introduction of swipe gestures to pull down the notification panel (required on a screen this tall), and you can switch back to the traditional set of three Android soft-keys if you want.

Related: Best Android phones

The Sony Xperia 1 camera setup is the best of any Sony phone so far, if not quite the overall king

The Xperia 1’s triple-camera system gives it the photographic firepower to compete with its flagship rivals, although it doesn’t quite blow them out of the water.

Alongside the main 12-megapixel camera, which has a bright f/1.6 aperture, there’s a 52mm option for 2x optical zoom, plus a handy 16mm wide-angle lens for squeezing that soaring architectural masterpiece into your shot.

The Xperia 1’s strengths are shooting pleasingly natural daylight shots, impressive portraits and stabilised 4K video.

Its Eye AF feature (taken from Sony Alpha cameras) works well, without making a dramatic difference to your snaps, while the distortion correction option on its wide-angle photos makes that mode much more useful than on other phones.

Sony Xperia 1 (left) vs Google Pixel 3 (right) (use the slider to jump between the two sample photos)

The Google Pixel 3 and Huawei P30 Pro are still better all-rounders for daily shooting. The Pixel 3’s auto-HDR processing remains the best around, while the P30 Pro has 5x optical zoom. Note that the Xperia 1 lacks any kind of night mode for getting usable results when the lights are down.

Still, shots from Sony’s flagship might be more to your taste if you prefer subtler image processing. And it’s one of the best phones for shooting video, particularly if you like tinkering with colour-grading or pulling focus while shooting.

Its combination of optical and electronic stabilisation works very well for handheld walking videos, while the Cinema Pro app gives you various levels of control (manual focus, shutter speeds, pro ‘looks’ like Venice CS) that you can’t really find elsewhere.

The Xperia 1’s camera experience could do with a little extra polish and consistency. The manual mode, for example, is only available on the main 26mm camera, and annoyingly you don’t get Eye AF on the front camera, where it could prove most useful.

But the photographic experience is a real improvement on previous Xperia phones and makes the Xperia 1 a powerful all-rounder to have in your pocket for both stills and video.  

Related: Best camera phones 2019

Sony Xperia 1 performance is as good as other 2019 flagships – although don’t expect 5G support

5G is the buzzword of the moment. EE’s next-gen mobile network is live in the UK, with Vodafone following in July and Three confirmed to hit before the year is up. 5G phones are here, too: OnePlus 7 Pro, LG V50 ThinQ and Samsung Galaxy S10 5G all take advantage of the faster speeds. While Sony teased a 5G phone earlier in the year, the Xperia 1 is plain-old 4G LTE capable.

Related: 5G in the UK

It’s high-end in other ways, though. There’s a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 chipset running the show, backed by 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage (expandable via microSD) – all pretty run-of-the-mill stuff for 2019.

These are speedy specs with performance to match, although I’d be disappointed with anything less. Coming over from the OnePlus 7 Pro with its ridiculously fast 90Hz display, the Xperia 1 does feel slower when scrolling – but then that’s the case for every phone I use. Would I take that higher refresh rate over fancy extras such as a 4K display? Yes, without a moment’s hesitation. The addition of 4K doesn’t make too much difference, whereas that jump from 60Hz to 90Hz impacts everything you do on the phone.

There’s no headphone jack – hardly a surprise in 2019 – so it’s a benefit that the Dolby Atmos-enabled speakers offer a good hit of sound. Call quality is strong, too, and the mics do an excellent job of cancelling out excess background wind and noise.

Does a “small” battery lead to poor Xperia 1 battery life?

Many of the 2019 flagship phones we’ve seen so far have come packing huge batteries. You have the OnePlus 7 Pro and Huawei P30 Pro whose cells hit 4000mAh, and I’d expect the upcoming Note 10 to match that. It might seem odd, then, that the Xperia 1 comes with a 3300mAh battery – especially when there’s that 4K display to power.

After using the Xperia 1 for a couple of weeks it’s clear that the battery isn’t terrible; but it isn’t great, either. I’d put it on par with the smaller Samsung Galaxy S10, which normally gives me between three and four hours of screen-on time per day. I’d class myself as a heavy user (it comes with the job…), so depending on your usage – and really how much content you watch on the display – this will vary significantly. An hour of HDR Netflix streaming consumed 12%, which is higher than I’d have expected.

There’s no wireless charging here, which is a real shame. The handy nature of just being able to pop a phone down on a Qi-enabled pad and have it juice up is something that’s difficult to be without once you’ve become used to it. There’s no special form of fast-charging – such as OnePlus Warp Charge or Oppo’s Super VOOC – either. Instead, Sony has opted to utilise the USB PD standard. I like this approach since it allows you to fast-charge the phone with any number of USB-C chargers. A full charge takes around 90 minutes (roughly the same as the Samsung Galaxy S10).

Should I buy the Sony Xperia 1?

The Xperia 1 is directly aimed at fans of the iconic Sony brand and those bored with the current state of similar-looking smartphones. It does thing differently – for better or worse.

There’s no doubt this is the best camera Sony has ever put on a phone and it’s the finest display I’ve seen on an Xperia phone, too. That being said, the Pixel 3 still has a better camera and the OnePlus 7 Pro a better display.

Unlike previous Xperia phones, there’s nothing to seriously put me off the Xperia 1. The battery life isn’t world-beating, but it’s fine; the software is much cleaner than it used to be; plus I appreciate the physical fingerprint scanner. In my opinion, the only true missing feature is wireless charging.

Verdict

The best Sony phone in years and a unique approach that should deservedly win fans.

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The OnePlus 7 Pro might be the company’s headline-grabbing handset this year but it wasn’t alone at launch. The standard OnePlus 7 is also here, looking to entice those with tighter purse strings to the latest generation of the company’s phones.

The OnePlus 7 bridges the gap between last year’s OnePlus 6T and this year’s 7 Pro, utilising different bits from the two devices to create a handset that takes on the likes of this year’s Xiaomi Mi 9 and Asus ZenFone 6.

While the 7 still aims to offer a flagship experience at a fiercely competitive price, unlike previous OnePlus phones, it doesn’t try quite as hard as the ‘Pro’ model. On the one hand, this means it lacks features that help it stand out quite as much, on the other, it starts at £150 less than the beefier OnePlus 7 Pro.

The OnePlus 7’s camera is still a big upgrade

That main camera on the back of the 7 is fronted by a 48-megapixel Sony IMX586 sensor. It’s become a wildly popular component on many current mid-to-high-end phones, meaning its capabilities hinge on OnePlus’ ability to deliver competent software to complement the hardware at play.

Despite the megapixel count, the OnePlus 7 takes 12-megapixel stills by default through a process called ‘pixel binning’. Basically, it treats four standard pixels as one large pixel, allowing more light in for use in the resultant 12-megapixel shots that it captures.

Of course, a keen eye will spot that the back of the 7 lacks at least one member of the 7 Pro’s camera setup, but it takes things further, with only a 5-megapixel depth sensor accompanying that main 48-meg snapper – in place of the Pro’s ultra-wide and telephoto sensors.

Overall, picture quality holds promise, and provided you’re OK with the lack of versatility compared to the Pro model, it makes for a decent all-round cameraphone. Its a definite improvement over the 6 and 6T, which themselves already demonstrated more competent image handling from OnePlus’ photography team.

Shots pack in plenty of detail, impressive dynamic range and pleasingly rich colour.

As for low light shooting, the OnePlus 7’s capture capabilities have unquestionably been improved (presumably via software tweaks) since the OnePlus 7 Pro’s initial launch, where the 48-megapixel camera left a lot to be desired. There’s still noise and grain in the darkest of areas but it’s far less invasive, while fine detail retention is surprisingly good.

Things, for the most part, get even better when you activate the phone’s Nightscape mode. It’s not going to give Google’s Night Sight cause for concern but in its own right, it’s a great boon when taking snaps under tricky lighting conditions.

Nightscape 2.0: Off (left), on (right) – drag the white slide bar to compare the two images

You can expect noticeably better colour capture and dynamic range, plus most of the aforementioned noise gets ironed out in the process too. However, this all comes at the expense of fine detail, with heavy-handed smoothing rounding out the edges of intricate aspects of a scene.

Portrait mode: Off (left), on (right)

Portrait mode is also suitably solid. There’s definite smoothing when flipping the mode on, even without virtual beauty mode activated, while dynamic range appears a touch wider, with more colour variation and higher saturation, especially across the face.

The depth effect – or bokeh – looks pleasingly natural, I just wish I had to option to adjust how strong the effect was, either at the point of capture or after the fact, a common ability among many competitors.

The OnePlus 7 packs the latest processor, lots of memory and a big battery

Despite its slightly lesser standing compared to its bigger brother, make no mistake, the OnePlus 7 is equipped just as well as any other top-tier flagship.

Numbered OnePlus phones have always been powered by the latest silicon from Qualcomm, and while the continuation of this trend was never in doubt for the top-end Pro, there was a chance that we could have seen the cheaper 7 ship with a mid-range CPU instead. Thankfully, that’s not the case here.

The OnePlus 7 packs the same Snapdragon 855 processor, paired to either 6GB or 8GB of RAM. The result is a phone that in my testing, came out near the very top of our current benchmarking tests, vying for the lead against the likes of the Black Shark 2, iPhone XS and, unsurprisingly, the OnePlus 7 Pro.

• Related: Best smartphone 2019

As you’d expect from a phone running this chipset, it’s very fast. OnePlus has always ensured that its phones have felt as snappy as possible, and that’s most certainly the case here.

Storage starts at a generous 128GB too, but you can splurge for the beefier 256GB if you prefer. As is usual with OnePlus phones, there’s no expandable storage but with so much internal space for the price, most users won’t have to worry about it becoming a limitation.

A lot of this performance comes from Oxygen OS, which remains my personal favourite reskin of Android. This is in part thanks to how faithfully it shadows Google’s own take on the Android user experience, augmented by a few smart additions that elevate things in terms of convenience and flexibility.

Some of the latest features are also some of the most memorable, with built-in screen recording now natively onboard, Zen Mode for completely blocking out notifications for 20-minute stints and the new Fnatic mode, which frees up the phone’s resources to ensure your gaming experience is as smooth as can be.

There’s also a 3700mAh battery inside that uses the same Fast Charge technology that we’ve seen for a few generations of OnePlus now.

The phone’s big battery was able to get me through two days of regular use and, while my initial test was an anomaly, the 20W fast charger was able to refill the OnePlus 7 in under 90 minutes, with almost half of the battery (47%) full after just 30 minutes.

The OnePlus 7 shares its design and screen with the 6T, and that’s no bad thing

If OnePlus has taken the internals and camera from the 7 Pro, then it’s taken the design and display from the OnePlus 6T.

Visually, the OnePlus 7 looks near-identical to the OnePlus 6T. The front keeps the dewdrop notch, the back feels like a slippery pebble and there’s no headphone jack. There’s also no wireless charging or official IP rating for water resistance. Considering the £499 price though, I’m not complaining too much.

If you inspect the 6T and the 7 side by side (as I did), you’ll notice that the company’s signature alert switcher, which serves as a physical toggle between ‘ring’, ‘vibrate’ and ‘silent’ profiles, is notably smaller on the newer 7. The earpiece grille, meanwhile, concealed into the top edge of the phone above the dewdrop notch of that 16-megapixel front camera, is much wider.

The new alert switcher is perfectly pleasing to use and may potentially offer better grip as a result of its lesser height, while the earpiece led me to believe that it’d be easier to hear recipients on the other end of a phone call.

In truth, it takes a little searching to find the earpiece’s sweet spot, so the extended design must only serve to differentiate between the old and new phones, albeit solely on a cosmetic level.

The 6.4-inch FHD+ might not match up to the glorious Quad HD+, 90Hz Fluid AMOLED panel you’ll find on the OnePlus 7 Pro, but it’s still a great display. Colours are punchy, there’s a decent array of screen modes (P3, sRGB etc.) and as it’s OLED you get perfect, deep blacks.

The in-display fingerprint has also been tightened up, which is a good thing considering how sluggish it felt before.

Should I buy the OnePlus 7?

This is a steady, slightly predictable update to the OnePlus 6T that is clearly trying to entice those who haven’t updated in a few years. If you’re coming from a OnePlus 3T or even a 5 or 5T, then the difference should feel significant.

If you’re going to be upgrading from the OnePlus 6 or OnePlus 6T the updates are less immediately obvious. The camera will be better and the performance should be too, whether the improvements will warrant an upgrade remains to be seen though.

That aside, however you look at it, this is a great value phone that’s a strong competitor to the excellent Xiaomi Mi 9.

• Related: OnePlus 7 Pro vs OnePlus 7

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The OnePlus 7 Pro has the best display currently available on a phone, the latest internals and a design that takes a lot of inspiration from the Samsung Galaxy S10. It’s also the priciest OnePlus phone yet, moving away from the company’s idea of offering high-end specs for a bargain price.

Despite starting life as a plucky underdog, however, OnePlus has had to grow up fast and nothing highlights the momentum the company has amassed like its debut entrants into the phone market for 2019: the OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 7 Pro.

The OnePlus 7 Pro is for those who want the best the company has to offer and a phone that packs in enough to compete with the latest rival flagships; devices like the Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus and Huawei P30 Pro.

OnePlus 7 Pro design brings a new level of attention to detail

The OnePlus 7 Pro looks and feels unlike anything the company has produced thus far. While the standard OnePlus 7 bears more than a passing resemblance to last year’s OnePlus 6T, the Pro model is a wholly different beast.

The lessons that Oppo learnt creating its Find X 2018 flagship may well have played a part in the engineering used by OnePlus’ new star player (as OnePlus uses Oppo’s production facilities to build its phones), based on not just its looks but the way it feels too.

An expansive and near bezel-free curved display stretches across the phone’s front, granting it an impressive 88.6 percent screen-to-body ratio; one of the highest of any current smartphone. Essentially, when looking at the front of the 7 Pro, all you’ll see is screen, especially thanks to the display’s curved edges.

Related: OnePlus 7 Review

With a curved Gorilla Glass front mirrored by the phone’s curved glass back, the metal frame that sits within this sandwich is decidedly thin, but in spite of this, the phone still feels sturdy and well-built.

There’s still room for OnePlus’ signature physical alert slider along its right side – a defining feature on the company’s phones that lets you quickly switch between ringing, vibrating and silent sound profiles without having to look; it’s a small but important bonus that you’d miss, were it taken away.

With no notch or hole-punch camera to speak of, OnePlus has instead opted for a motorised pop-up front-facing snapper, akin to the one found on the Vivo Nex (although this one looks and feels a lot more robust).

It’s quick enough for face unlocking and, as with every phone that’s integrated such a system, comes with claims of rigorous testing and reliability.

Related: Best Android phone

OnePlus states that the phone’s front camera mechanism has withstood some 300,000 actuations during testing, without any sign of lag, slowdown or breakage. There’s fall detection in there too, which will pull the camera back inside the moment the phone detects itself hurtling towards the ground.

Collectively, you should feel comforted by these assurances, but as ever, in the real world, I still have my doubts about the longevity of any moving parts on a phone, especially one a delicate and intricate as a motorised camera unit.

For all the care and attention OnePlus has poured into the aesthetics of the 7 Pro, such beauty does come at a practical sacrifice that some might not be willing to overlook.

For a start, with a 6.67-inch, 19.5:9 display; this is a very big device – OnePlus’ largest ever. It’s almost identical in width to its predecessor but notably taller, plus those narrow metal sides give you less purchase, making one-handed use precarious.

Add to that a complete lack of any one-handed mode within the software and elements at the top of the screen within apps (such as the placement of Instagram’s story ‘bubbles’) require two hands or a risky shimmy up and down the phone’s body to be pulled in reach of a thumb.

There’s also the matter of the finish of the phone. I appreciate OnePlus’ decision to shy away from a boring all-black body, instead offering up three colours at launch (partially tied to different RAM and storage configurations).

For the base 6GB RAM/128GB internal storage SKU your only option is ‘Mirror Gray’ – an understated colourway for those uninterested in flash and flare, or ideal if you’re looking to slap a case on it immediately. This is the closest thing to black on offer from this generation of OnePlus.

Fork out for the 8GB/256GB model and you have the full gamut of colours available to you. Mirror Gray is accompanied by ‘Almond’ – a mix of polished gold metal and an iridescent cream tone set behind glass, similar in styling to a gold iPhone XS. Nebula Blue is arguably the biggest head-turner and the finish that my review unit (pictured) came in.

While all three looks deserve praise for their ‘understated cool’, if you’re planning on going caseless, ergonomics once again come into play. The gloss finish of the Mirror Gray and Almond models backs attract fingerprints as readily as any of their competitors, while the finely-textured glass given to the Nebula Blue model will remain comparatively smudge-free.

The trade-off is that the blue model’s treated rear also lacks grip which, paired with it’s already unwieldy form, pushes the chance of the phone slipping from your fingers way up. While I haven’t asked OnePlus directly, I have no doubt that the 7 Pro’s fancy new screen isn’t cheap to replace. You have been warned.

The OnePlus 7 display is the first truly competitive mobile HDR screen

On a more positive note, that display is nothing short of exceptional. Out the box, it may not be as accurately tuned as some of its rivals’ screens but there are plenty of tools to customise the viewing experience should you wish to tinker around.

The company also lauded the screen’s A+ rating from independent body DisplayMate, before the 7 Pro had even officially launched, just in case there was any doubt about its capabilities.

It’s the first time we’ve seen a OnePlus screen transcend above Full HD+ resolution. This Quad HD+ panel is also HDR10 complaint, with approved support for services like Netflix – a popular service that previously only offered limited support for OnePlus devices.

Related: What is HDR?

The ‘Fluid AMOLED’ panel, as OnePlus calls it, gets its name not just from the inky blacks and vivid colours it can push out, but the intriguing 90Hz refresh rate that it supports.

Although you can manually dial it down to 60Hz, as most phones use (or have it jump down when battery saver mode is activated), the 7 Pro’s screen remains fixed at 90Hz. The result is an effortlessly smooth-looking user experience that lends itself perfectly to the idea that this is a cutting-edge handset.

Seeing really is believing, especially as only a handful of other devices offer anything close to what OnePlus has cooked up here.

Apple’s ProMotion technology, along with the Asus ROG Phone‘s OLED and the Razer Phone series’ IGZO displays all have the ability to operate at refresh rates notably higher than 60Hz, but in the smartphone space, the OnePlus 7 Pro might be the most approachable and mainstream handset to showcase such technology.

There are known concerns around the impact on battery life leaving the smooth 90Hz setting on all the time might have, but based on the longevity I experienced without ever switching it off (or rather, down to 60Hz), I’d just enjoy its inclusion and how it elevates acts as simple as swiping around the interface.

The worst thing about the feature? You really notice its absence when using any phone that doesn’t support it.

The display smarts don’t stop there. There’s also the integrated optical in-display fingerprint sensor – an evolution on the feature that OnePlus introduced with last year’s 6T.

This time around, OnePlus has enlarged the sensor’s read area and reduced latency; all I can say is that it feels much faster and more reliable than its predecessor, even if it can still be tripped up by particularly cold or wet hands.

With next-to-no bezel, there’s no notification LED to speak of, so instead light pulses down the curved edges of the display in the corresponding app colour to great effect – a feature that both Samsung and Oppo have used on curved-display laden devices.

OnePlus 7 Pro camera has greater versatility, but is that enough?

OnePlus has kept up with principle imaging trends in the realm of smartphone photography, and the OnePlus 7 Pro makes the same move that many of its contemporaries already have; implementing a triple-sensor on the back.

The 7 Pro’s three-lens arrangement is comprised of a 48-megapixel main snapper with OIS (optical image stabilisation), an 8-megapixel telephoto sensor, again with OIS, that grants the phone 3x lossless optical zoom, while a 16-megapixel ultra-wide angle sensor, with an impressive 117-degree field of view, rounds things out.

Related: Best camera phones

OnePlus has worked hard to ensure the hardware is put to good use, with the phone boasting enhanced versions of the company’s Nightscape (version 2.0) scene mode and pixel-binning technology (condensing the image data of four pixels into one to reduce shake and noise) as a result of that huge 48-megapixel main sensor.

The ultra-wide angle sensor lets you fit more in-frame, only adding to the 7 Pro’s photographic versatility.

The quality of the telephoto snapper also left me impressed, with pleasing detail retention. Its narrower aperture means images do, however, suffer in low-light shooting

Main sensor (left), telephoto (right) – drag the white slide bar to compare the two images

As for low-light photography, I was surprised by the results produced by the phone, but not in a good way. OnePlus worked hard to improve the low light capabilities of last year’s OnePlus 6 and 6T, but this new hardware is clearly trickier to tune. As before, we’ll likely see subsequent software updates that rectify the phone’s current low light capabilities which I’m hoping will improve with time.

The newly-updated Nightscape mode certainly helps alleviate general low-light shooting but over-corrects, with hard-hitting sharpening and mismanaged colour correction that give shots an unnatural finish.

For a true deep-dive into this phone’s imaging capabilities, jump over to our full OnePlus 7 Pro camera review.

The OnePlus 7 Pro performance is stunning

The OnePlus X notwithstanding OnePlus isn’t in the business on skimping on performance. When you buy a OnePlus phone, you know you’re getting a top-notch processor and complementary smarts to match. Never has that been truer than with the OnePlus 7 Pro.

I already mentioned the memory and storage options that the 7 Pro is available in, which range from generous to pure excess (with up to an additional £150 in tow) but speed and power are everywhere within the phone’s internals.

The latest and greatest 7nm Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 chipset takes charge, which is also how OnePlus is able to convert the 7 Pro into the OnePlus 7 Pro 5G – the 5G-capable brother to the standard model that also integrates Qualcomm’s complementary X50 5G modem.

Then there’s the inclusion of Universal Flash Storage 3.0. OnePlus has managed to beat Samsung to the punch after the Korean tech giant had to pull its first foldable, the Galaxy Fold, before launch as a result of engineering and reliability issues.

Related: Samsung Galaxy Fold – The final chapter

With the Fold out of the way, it looks as though the OnePlus 7 Pro will be the first phone on the market to support UFS 3.0, with Samsung following with the rumoured Galaxy Note 10 later into 2019.

The technology is theoretically up to twice as fast when it comes to read and write speeds, which affects everything from app load times to file transfers.

There’s so much powerful hardware here that I can’t find fault with the 7 Pro’s performance, and this new addition only serves to help the 7 Pro take the lead in an area that its pricier competitors still haven’t ventured.

OnePlus 7 Pro battery life goes beyond expectation

The story of speed on the OnePlus 7 Pro doesn’t stop with the phone’s fluid user experience and raw performance; it sports suitably solid fast charging technology too.

We first encountered the company’s Warp Charge feature on last year’s OnePlus 6T McLaren Edition and it’s now become part of the mainstream offering here.

The 30W Warp Charge adapter and complimentary cable are unquestionably sizeable (although the previous generation Dash/Fast Charger wasn’t really any more compact) but the convenience they bring nullifies the hassle of carrying them around.

The 7 Pro’s large footprint means it’s also able to carry a hefty 4000mAh battery within its belly and, with the included Warp Charger, that sizeable cell can be refilled from flat to full in under an hour and twenty. What really impresses is the initial charge rate, however.

A third of the battery can be filled in just 15 minutes and more than a day’s worth of juice can be replenished within 30. Most of the battery can be charged within an hour too, so you never have to wait long to give the 7 Pro a meaningful top up.

While quick in their own right, OnePlus’ fast-charging capabilities are no longer industry-leading; Huawei has instead taken that crown. The OnePlus 7 Pro does also lag slightly behind due to its lack of any form of wireless charging – an absentee feature that the company has explained may never be part of the equation on its devices.

As for longevity, the OnePlus 7 Pro, left me thoroughly impressed. While charging the OnePlus 7 Pro is a lot less painless an experience compared to some phones (I’m looking at you Apple), not having to charge it all was an even bigger win.

I was consistently reaching two days of use and up to 5 hours of screen-on time on a single charge, which is well above most modern phones’ more approachable promised day-long endurance.

If I had flipped the refresh rate down to 60Hz or relied on battery saver mode at all, there’s every chance the phone would have lasted even longer.

Little has changed with OnePlus 7 Pro software, and that’s no bad thing

Android 9.0 underpins the software experience on this generation of OnePlus phones but the company’s OxygenOS overlay (version 9.5.2 as tested) is what you’re actually navigating around. It’s a great tweaked take on base Android that’s slick and clean, easy-to-use and powerful.

Integrated gestures make it easier to summon the notifications and quick settings (particularly useful with the 7 Pro’s tall display), as well as activating features like the camera and the flashlight without ever having to wake the phone up.

‘The Shelf’ is a dedicated space for iOS-like widget placement which keeps things tidy, and there’s a hidden ‘second space’ where you can place apps that you want to hide from prying eyes should you hand your phone to a friend. These are all pre-existing features, however.

Notable new additions for the 7 Pro include an enhanced gaming mode that silences notifications and locks screen brightness down, or by enabling ‘fnatic mode’ the phone directs all CPU, GPU and memory usage to your current gaming session and nowhere else.

The new Zen mode was born from the mindfulness practices of OnePlus’ senior staffers and takes a hard stance on pervasive phone checking by locking down everything, save for emergency calls, incoming calls and camera access, for 20 minutes at a time.

Not even restarting or powering the phone off and back on can you escape out of this experience, so make sure that you’re ready for the break, before committing.

The feature feels like OnePlus’ extension of Android Pie’s native digital wellbeing toolset and as with much of what makes the 7 Pro decidedly OnePlus, it’s an odd inclusion but one that I appreciate nonetheless.

Should I buy the OnePlus 7 Pro?

When I first took delivery of the OnePlus 7 Pro, I wasn’t told how much it would cost (that information came later), and I was a little worried.

This phone is undoubtedly feature-packed, the richest the company has ever made, but its higher price warrants greater scrutiny. Previous OnePlus phones have always been pit against the flagships of the time but the comparative affordability they’ve offered has absolved them of any minor shortcomings that would otherwise have been met with disappointment or beratement.

Even so, the OnePlus 7 Pro still undercuts the majority of the 2019 flagship pack (by several hundred pounds in some cases), meaning I can forgive the absence of features like (certified) water resistance and wireless charging – this phone will still leave you impressed (and with more money in your pocket).

Related: Is the OnePlus 7 series water resistant?

Where Huawei’s P30 Pro takes the cake for smartphone camera and battery ability, the OnePlus 7 Pro’s screen is easily one of the nicest I’ve clapped eyes on, plus OnePlus’ user experience is among the best skinned Android experiences you’ll find out there.

The OnePlus 7 Pro shows that the company is able to grow, bring about meaningful changes and greater competition without losing what makes the brand and its devices so uniquely appealing.

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