For years OnePlus has distinguished itself from the premium phone crop with unseen differences, offering the same high-end specs and design for much lower prices. That hasn’t changed with the OnePlus 7T. But this time around OnePlus wants everyone around you to know you’re not using a Galaxy, Pixel, or an iPhone.
That’s because OnePlus has gone circular. While square camera arrays are all the rage at the moment, with Apple and Google following Huawei’s Mate 20’s lead with an unapologetically prominent square camera on the back of their newest phones. But OnePlus is eschewing the square array with the 7T for a circular bump in the center of the back of the phone, a design element that could very become OnePlus’s trademark.
Michale Simon/IDG
The camera is the standout of the OnePlus 7—literally.
Of course, OnePlus isn’t the first or even the only smartphone right now that uses a circular camera array: the Moto G phones and Huawei Mate 30 instantly spring to mind. But with an impressive (if not predictable) combination of features and specs, and of course, a killer price tag, the OnePlus 7T will make a nice alternative for anyone who doesn’t want to spend hundreds more on a Galaxy or Pixel phone.
The specs we expect
While the OnePlus 7T is technically a refresh of the OnePlus 6T that arrived last year (since the OnePlus 7 wasn’t available in the U.S.), it’s very much cut from the same cloth as the OnePlus 7 Pro. While the front looks a lot like the 6T, with a teardrop notch and a flat design, the display is vastly improved.
But even though it’s not as big as the 6.67-inch 7 Pro, the OnePlus 7T’s 6.55-inch display has the same 90Hz refresh rate. That means scrolling and swiping is extremely fast. Couple that with a compact design, the fastest Android processor, and lots of RAM, OnePlus has once again built a phone with the best specs around:
What you’ll notice first about the OnePlus 7T—both on paper and in person—is the camera. Even before you take a single shot with it, its black circular countenance surrounded by a ring of color will stand out against the blue or silver body. No matter how you feel about Apple’s or Google’s giant square cameras, you’ll appreciate the OnePlus 7T’s array if for no there reason than it can rest on a table without wobbling.
Michael Simon/IDG
The OnePlus 7T brings the specs as you’d expect.
More importantly, the OnePlus 7T has gained a third camera, giving it an extremely similar setup to the OnePlus 7 Pro. As we learned with that phone, hardware is only part of the story when it comes to smartphone photography, but based on a few early test shots, OnePlus is doing well to refine the system in the face of serious competition from the Note 10, iPhone 11, and upcoming Pixel 4, particularly when it comes to low-light shots, as you can see in the photo above.
Speed, speed, speed
Around the front, the OnePlus 7T has a lot of bezel around the screen compared to the 7 Pro, but it still very much feels like a 2019 phone. It has the same “teardrop” notch as the 6T, which helps reduct the top bezel, but OnePlus boasts that it’s “31.46 percent smaller.” You can definitely see the difference when the two phones are side by side, but in day-to-day use, you’re still going to notice that there’s a dip in the screen.
The 90Hz screen certainly does its part in helping OxygenOS feel snappy, but the Snapdragon 855+ processor along with the new Android 10-based build also do their part. In benchmarks, I was able to top 10,000 in PCMark’s Work 2.0 test, a relatively small leap over the Galaxy S10+’s 9,500, but an impressive milestone nonetheless.
Equally impressive is OnePlus’s speedy adoption of Android 10. While other phones have issued updates already, OnePlus can claim the distinction of being the first phone to ship with Android 10 on board, and the new gestures and animations make the whole system feel fresh.
Michael Simon/IDG
The notch on the OnePlus 7T (top) is definitely smaller than the 6T, but not so much where you’re going to notice it.
Even dark mode gets a refresh here, with OnePlus embracing Android 10’s still-in-beta theming. You can tweak the accent, change the shape of the icons and quick settings buttons, or flip the tone from white to black, as well as apply a system-wide dark theme. The abundance of settings can get a little confusing, but it’s nice to see OnePlus embracing a deeper level of customization.
The OnePlus 7T might have a slightly smaller battery than the 7 Pro (3,800mAh vs 4,000mAh), but you won’t need to spend as much time charging it. While the OnePlus 7T still doesn’t have wireless charging, it does pack a new Warp Charge 30T charger that fills up the 7T 18 percent faster than the previous power adapter. OnePlus estimates that’s you’ll get from zero to 70 percent filled in a half-hour.
The price is right
Of course, the most important spec of all with OnePlus’s phones is the price, and the 7T doesn’t disappoint. Where the 7 Pro’s curved screen bumped the starting price to $699, the 7T is a much more palatable $599, with largely the same or better specs. That’s $100 less than the iPhone 11, $150 less than the Galaxy S10e, and $350 less than the Note 10, for those keeping score.
The OnePlus 7T will be available at oneplus.com and T-Mobile stores beginning Oct. 18.
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Following a flurry of teasers from OnePlus itself, the company took to the stage at an event in New Delhi, India to reveal the iterative upgrade to the current line-up, the OnePlus 7T. As with previous “T” iteration smartphones, the OnePlus 7T sports upgraded internals, but there’s much more to it this time around.
We’ve spent a lot of time texting, calling, snapping and gaming on the OnePlus 7T ahead of the reveal, and here’s our full review.
Price & Availability
So far, the OnePlus 7T’s release date and pricing have only been confirmed for India, with wider market pricing being unveiled at the phone’s global launch on October 10.
Expect to pay ₹37,999 (approximately £430/$535) for the 8GB RAM/128GB storage model or ₹39,999 (approximately £456/$563) for the 8GB/256GB SKU. Both phones go on sale in India from September 28.
We’ll be sure to update this section as soon as details are announced. Judging by the price of the 8GB/128GB OnePlus 6T at launch in 2018, we expect the OnePlus 7T to cost around £529/$579, but this remains unconfirmed for now.
For us, it’s not the internals but the display of the OnePlus 7T that really steals the show – and it’s not just because of that buttery smooth 90Hz refresh rate on offer, although it does help.
The OnePlus 7T sports an upgraded 6.55in Fluid AMOLED display – up from 6.41in on the OnePlus 7 – and ships with a new 20:9 aspect ratio too. It’s detailed, boasting a resolution of 2400 x 1080 (402ppi), and with a claimed 1000nits max brightness, we’ve found that it’s more than bright enough to be used in sunny environments without issue.
You’ll also find HDR10 certification, another feature of the OnePlus 7 Pro, which provides improved contrast ratio when watching HDR content on Netflix and YouTube. Combine that with a new-generation display panel which OnePlus claims cuts blue light by 40% and you’ve got a comfortable mobile viewing experience.
But, of course, it’s the upgraded refresh rate of the OnePlus 7T that has everybody talking. The 90Hz refresh rate makes the 7T feel more responsive in use, even if you’re just swiping through Twitter or reading your favourite website (Tech Advisor!) in Chrome. Everything seems smoother, and it provides a premium mobile experience when compared to most smartphones on the market at the moment.
The in-display fingerprint reader is back with the OnePlus 7T, and it’s faster than ever. That’s mainly due to enhanced algorithms powering the technology, but whatever the reason, the end result is that fingerprint scanning now takes less than a second and hardly ever rejects a registered fingerprint. In fact, we’d go as far as to say that it’s amongst the fastest and most responsive in-display fingerprint scanners we’ve seen to date.
Display tech-aside, the OnePlus 7T display is as near to bezel-less as you’ll get without ditching the front-facing camera or implementing a pop-up solution like of the OnePlus 7 Pro. You’ve still got the waterdrop notch that houses the front-facing camera, but it’s around 30 percent smaller than that of the standard OnePlus 7 and less noticeable than other notched smartphones available in 2019.
Enhanced design
Alongside the new display, the OnePlus 7T sports an enhanced design that sets it apart from the standard OnePlus 7, but this isn’t evident by looking at the front of the device. You see, it’s on the rear that you really notice a change – more specifically, the inclusion of a large circular central camera housing instead of the rounded rectangular housing of the older model.
The circular housing is polarising; while we like the way that it hides the triple camera setup instead of highlighting it, others seem to think it’s a little too big. We don’t imagine it being a deal-breaker if you’re not a huge fan though, especially with the range of high-end features on offer from the 7T.
The phone is also covered in OnePlus’ anti-glare glass and sports the company’s fourth-gen frosted matte glass finish, providing a rather unique look. You might want a OnePlus 7T case, though.
The new Glacier Blue colour option is great at catching the light, but it’s not as reflective and in-your-face as the mirror-finish smartphones on the market. That subtlety is appreciated by us, and it also means that it’s not as much of a fingerprint magnet as its mirrored counterparts either.
It’s also impressively thin at only 8.1mm – down from 8.2mm of the standard OnePlus 7 – and feels relatively lightweight in the hand too, measuring in at 190g. Fans will also be glad to know that the much-adored Alert Slider is back too.
A serious upgrade in the camera department
As mentioned above, the OnePlus 7T features a triple rear-camera setup, up from the dual-camera setup of the standard OnePlus 7. The OnePlus 7T’s main sensor is actually the same as that of the OnePlus 7 Pro – it’s 48Mp, with an f/1.6 aperture, Optical Image Stabilisation and a seven-element lens to provide a high-end mobile shooting experience.
As you’d expect with a camera boasting those specs, the performance is impressive – images are generally detailed, well-balanced and avoid unnatural contrast levels. There’s also pixel-binning tech at work to enhance the quality of images taken, although there is also a Pro mode that allows you to take full 48Mp RAW images if you desire.
Alongside the main sensor you’ve got a 117-degree ultra-wide 16Mp camera with a six-element lens to capture more in your shot, but much like the 12Mp 2x telephoto lens, there’s only Electronic Image Stabilisation on offer across photo and video shooting modes.
OnePlus claims that the wide-angle camera of the 7T can be used by third-party apps like TikTok, but we imagine this will have to be added on a per-app basis and, of course, there aren’t any that support it pre-launch.
We’ve skimmed across the headline specs of the cameras because it’s the software that really helps you get the most out of them. First up, the OnePlus 7T can utilise the ultra-wide-angle sensor to provide a new macro shooting mode that can take photos of subjects only 2.5cm away from the lens, capturing minute details that would’ve been lost on a standard smartphone camera.
OnePlus’ Nightscape mode is also present in the OnePlus 7T, but unlike smartphones before it, you’ve now got a choice between taking images using the main 48Mp sensor or the ultra-wide sensor, helping to capture more of the scene in dimly-lit conditions.
However, during testing we’ve found that there is a noticeable difference in the quality of images produced by the two sensors, with the f/2.2 aperture of the ultra-wide lens not quite up to the job – even with algorithms and post-processing tech to layer multiple images into a single low-light shot. See the below comparison to understand what we mean.
The OnePlus 7T also boasts enhanced performance in the Portrait mode, which now features two focal lengths – standard and telephoto – with easy switching between the two, making it easier to frame your shot. There’s also improved post-processing, especially with regards to depth measurements and backlight compensation, giving the finished images a more professional look.
The issue is that there are limited customisation options – you can’t tweak the intensity of the blur either during shooting or in the Gallery app, and there are no lighting effects to choose from either. The only optional feature is beautify, which softens out the skin of the subject of your portrait shot.
On the video front, you’ve got the ability to shoot up to [email protected] via the rear cameras, but at the highest quality, you won’t get any kind of stabilisation. For a stabilised video experience you have to drop down to 1080p (at either 30- or 60fps), which is a little underwhelming when you consider the likes of the ZenFone 6 offers [email protected] recording with EIS.
The newest feature is Super Stabilisation; it’s a feature you can toggle via the video section of the camera app and looks to provide a super stabilised video akin to that produced by the GoPro Hero7 Black. The mode works incredibly well, producing impressively stabilised wide-angle footage even when we were intentionally shaking while walking, but there’s a bug in the pre-release software that renders the videos useless.
As seen in the above video sample, there’s a weird central distortion to all Super Stabilised videos. We really hope that OnePlus fixes this issue before launch as it’s incredibly noticeable and ruins the overall professional look of the footage. We’ll update this section if/when OnePlus fixes the issue.
Another issue with the video aspect of the OnePlus 7T is the omission of the ultra-wide-angle lens.
While you’re free to shoot video with either the main or telephoto lens, we can’t currently find any way to record video using the ultra-wide angle camera aside from using the heavily-cropped (and currently broken) Super Stabilisation mode. We hope that like the Super Stabilisation issue, this is a bug that’ll be fixed prior to launch.
Flipping over the OnePlus 7T, you’ll find a front-facing 16Mp fixed-focus selfie camera capable of recording [email protected] with EIS. It offers support for the built-in Portrait mode, although you won’t be able to shoot front-facing super-stabilised video or take low-light images.
Still, though, it’s a detailed snapper that will suffice for the likes of selfie-taking, Snapchatting and video calling.
It performs like a high-end flagship
Moving beyond the display and cameras, the OnePlus 7T, like all iterative “T” upgrades before it, offers a faster chipset.
Specifically, the OnePlus 7T sports Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 855+ CPU alongside the Adreno 640 GPU. It’s among the first to do along with phones like the Asus ROG Phone 2.
There’s 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. While other manufacturers offer several versions of the same phone with varying RAM and storage options, OnePlus has decided to keep it simple and offer a single version of the OnePlus 7T.
Of course, with specs like that, it should come as no surprise that the OnePlus 7T is incredibly fast in use, which is complemented by the 90Hz refresh rate of the display. No matter what you’re doing on the OnePlus 7T, whether it’s taking selfies, scrolling through Twitter or playing mobile games, you’re unlikely to experience even the slightest bit of lag.
While on the topic of gaming, we should point out that while the display maxes out at 90Hz, it seems that games are still capped at 60fps on the OnePlus 7T. We’d have liked the ability for games to take advantage of the higher refresh rate, much like with gaming-dedicated smartphones including the ROG Phone 2 and Razer Phone 2, but for whatever reason, that doesn’t seem to be the case here.
We ran a series of benchmark tests to help you get an idea of how fast the OnePlus 7T is compared to the competition, and we break those results down in the chart below:
Fairly standard connectivity
The OnePlus 7T features most of the connectivity options you’d expect, including Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 5.0, NFC and GPS, but unlike the standard OnePlus 7, there’s no dedicated 5G variant of the smartphone. That means you’ll be stuck on your network’s 4G LTE band, even if you’re one of the few people that currently have access to the faster 5G connectivity.
You’ll also find a USB-C port for charging with built-in OTG support, although those hoping that the OnePlus 7T would re-introduce the 3.5mm headphone port will be sorely disappointed.
Impressive battery life and speedy charging
Battery life is an area where the OnePlus 7T excels, boasting a 3,800mAh battery that we’ve found during testing can last a day with ease, even with tweeting, snapping photos and playing the odd game here and there. This is backed up by the Geekbench 4 battery benchmark test at a standard brightness, which saw the OnePlus 7T last 9 hours and 17 minutes. That’s just under 4 hours longer than Samsung’s Galaxy Note 10 lasted.
Even if the 7T needs a top-up during the day, the Warp Charge 30T support (aka 30W fast charging) should get you untethered in no time. OnePlus claims that it’ll provide 50 percent in 20 minutes, 70 percent in 30 minutes and 100 percent in an hour and we’ve found this to be fairly accurate during our testing:
20 minutes: 46% charge
30 minutes: 69% charge
53 minutes, 23 seconds: 100% charge
The good news is that any 30W charger should provide those speeds as OnePlus claims that the charging enhancements are all internal, with the battery of the 7T being more efficient and less resistant than previous generations.
As usual, there’s no wireless charging here.
OxygenOS 10 enhances the Android experience
Speed is a focus for OnePlus, and this is evident in the software. The OnePlus 7T ships with Android 10 running OxygenOS 10, the company’s own take on Android. While we’re generally against manufacturer UIs, OnePlus is one of very few companies that has created a UI that truly compliments stock Android.
OxygenOS 10 features over 370 optimisations, ranging from animations to unlock speed and gesture support, to enhance the overall OnePlus 7T experience. It’s not so far from stock Android that you’re unsure of how to use it, but it certainly has its own individual (and heavily customisable) style.
OxygenOS 10 utilises AI like many smartphones in 2019, but in a different way. Rather than using it in gimmicky ways, OnePlus uses built-in AI to learn which apps you use most and intelligently display information from those apps on your lockscreen. This varies depending on the apps you use, but we’ve seen calendar reminders and media playback information appear without any prompt from us.
Zen Mode has also made a return in OxygenOS 10 allowing you to lock yourself out of your phone (but still take photos or recieve calls) if you need to force yourself to have a break. However, you can now extend the downtime in 10-minute increments up to an hour at a time, perfect for situations where you want to switch off and avoid the temptation of mindlessly scrolling.
And like other Android manufacturers including Asus and Nokia, OnePlus has a regular update commitment with the OnePlus 7T, offering two years of OS upgrades and three years of security patches.
Verdict
The OnePlus 7T is a phenomenal smartphone that bridges the gap between the company’s standard and Pro lines, featuring a large 6.55in AMOLED display with speedy 90Hz refresh rate and HDR10 support, a triple-camera setup on the rear consisting of a wide, ultra-wide and telephoto lens and rapid 30W charging that boosts your phone to almsost 50 percent in just 20 minutes.
The design is eye-catching without being too in-your-face, and the lightweight form factor makes it feel good in the hand too.
Admittedly it’s not the perfect smartphone with a slightly buggy Super Stabilised video mode and a 60fps cap on games despite the 90Hz refresh rate, but there’s still a lot to be excited about with the OnePlus 7T – especially at a sub-flagship price point.
Boston Dynamics’ nimble quadruped robot Spot is now available to lease as part of an early adopter program, and it’s already strutting its stuff in a handful of forward-thinking workplaces.
Boston Dynamics hasn’t revealed exactly how much it will cost to buy your very own robo-dog when it goes on sale, but according to TechCrunch, the price will be comparable to that of a car.
For that, you’ll get a seriously powerful bot that’s small enough to work in spaces designed for people, but able to cope with rough terrain, steps and obstacles that would send wheeled robots sprawling.
It has 360-degree vision thanks to its stereo camera system, helping it avoid crashing into people and objects, and can right itself automatically if it takes a spill.
Spot can carry loads up to 14kg across these perilous paths (far more than an aerial drone), and back in April, Boston Dynamics demonstrated its pulling power by harnessing up a pack of 10 Spots to tow a truck across the company’s parking lot.
That stunt wasn’t just good PR; it also showed Spot’s potential for pulling vehicles out of treacherous locations where it wouldn’t be possible to use a conventional tow truck.
That’s not all it can do, though – Spot isn’t a single-use bot, but a whole platform, with a software development kit for programming it however its owners see fit. Its hardware, meanwhile, can be customized with additional sensors, power packs, and an arm attachment for opening doors and carrying objects. Check out the video below to see more of its capabilities.
Small steps and giant leaps
Spot is already hard at work, but it’s still playtime for Boston Dynamics’ bipedal robot Atlas. The robot has already been filmed performing parkour-style jumps, and now its creators have released a new video of it performing a gymnastics floor routine.
Although it can’t complete the sequence of jumps and rolls perfectly every time, Boston Dynamics says Atlas is now able to finish without fumbling 80% of the time. Perhaps it will soon be ready to enter the workforce too.
Amazon’s deep pockets mean that once it gets behind a product category – usually one that will lock customers into its ecosystem and encourage it to buy more things from Amazon – it tends to give it enough backing until it gains traction with consumers.
It launched the Kindle at a time when e-readers were in their infancy and backed it until the concept of eBooks was firmly entrenched in the minds of consumers.
The Amazon Echo helped popularise smart speakers and got Alexa – and Amazon – into people’s homes. Meanwhile Amazon Prime has developed from a speedy delivery service into an all-encompassing entertainment package.
The next stage of Amazon’s development is the smart home and the announcement of Sidewalk is a significant development for the consumer Internet of Things (IoT) market.
What is Amazon Sidewalk?
A number of wireless standards are used to connect IoT devices, each of which have their own advantages and disadvantages. Bluetooth offers high bandwidth but limited range, Wi-Fi promises low power consumption and high capacity but coverage isn’t universal, while 5G will include provisions for IoT – once network deployments are complete.
Sidewalk uses unlicensed spectrum in the 900MHz band (reserved for amateur radio transmissions) to deliver low bandwidth and long-distance connectivity. It has a range of between 500 metres to one mile, making it ideal for devices that require low-cost and low-power transfers of small amounts of data
The standard is also secure, meaning developers can issue over-the-air updates and devices have more protection.
“One of the things we learned from the Alexa Connect Kit is that developers are always looking for new ways to invent for their customers, and that includes pushing the boundaries outside the home,” said Amazon during the unveiling.
“Bluetooth has limited range. Wi-Fi only goes so far. And 5G cellular is incredibly important when you need reliable, long distance, guaranteed delivery of data, but it can be complex.”
Another key difference is that Sidewalk is based on mesh networking technology. This means the more devices that support Sidewalk are switched on, the stronger the network becomes. Amazon also uses mesh technology in its Eero Wi-Fi system.
Mesh networking also eliminates the need for widespread infrastructure deployment associated with wireless and cellular networks. To illustrate its point, Amazon said it sent 700 Sidewalk devices to Ring employees and their friends and family. Within three weeks, the entire of Los Angeles was covered.
(Image credit: Future)
What devices will be covered?
Amazon’s vision is one that sees Sidewalk sensors around the home informing people of what’s going on around them. The first product is a reference design in the form of the Ring Fetch – a connected dog collar that uses Sidewalk to track a pet’s location within a geofenced area.
Other Ring products will likely become connected in the future, and its clear that Amazon wants the development community on board – just as they have been in creating Alexa devices and skills.
“We think developers will build all kinds of useful, low-cost products for this network,” said Amazon. “We started with the obvious use case of lighting with Ring’s smart lighting, but think about all the things that are far from your home Wi-Fi that might use Sidewalk—weather stations to tell you how much rain you’ve gotten, a water sensor in your garden with your tomatoes, a little sensor in your mailbox that lets you know when the mail has been delivered. The possibilities are endless.”
What does this mean for IoT?
If Amazon is able to create city-wide IoT networks with relatively few access points, then the appeal of Sidewalk to developers eager to attract as wide an audience as possible is obvious. Not to mention the fact that all of this ties into the wider Alexa ecosystem.
However it is very early days for Sidewalk and the ubiquity of Bluetooth, cellular, and Wi-Fi will be difficult to challenge – even if that is Amazon’s aim. Low Power Wide Area (LPWA) standards such as Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT), Long Term Evolution for Machines (LTE-M), LoRa and Sigfox have significant developer and manufacturer report and coverage is expanding.
Meanwhile, the high capacity and low latency of 5G and Wi-Fi 6 networks will also be critical for the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT).
Amazon Sidewalk is unlikely to challenge the status quo (at least for now), but as the company seeks to strengthen its relationship with its customer base and continue its advance from mobile devices and online into the home, then Sidewalk could be a huge feather in Amazon’s bow.
Twitch has been given a redesign that fine-tunes the look of the site, and introduces a new layout with the broad aim being to “elevate every single person on Twitch”, no less.
This includes a new logo and font (‘Roobert’ – inspired by the Moog synthesizer logotype, so it’s quirky, but with a modern feel) for the site, and a fresh color palette.
(Image credit: Twitch)
The latter means a brighter purple and a couple of dozen new colors that will be splashed across the site here and there (with a Creator Color tool being introduced which will let creators set one of these specific colors to represent their brand). The Dark Mode theme has been updated, too.
(Image credit: Twitch)
The redesign will mean that the site is less text-heavy overall, and the site layout has been overhauled in various ways so it looks cleaner and more modern.
Edgier-to-edgier
The front page of the site looks much slicker, and other major moves include making the video player edge-to-edge to put content creators ‘front and center’, with chat being made more user-friendly (although Twitch hasn’t messed with the emotes system).
(Image credit: Twitch)
We can expect more changes in the pipeline, too. In a blog post introducing the redesign, the company explained: “This is the first of many steps we’re taking with our new shared understanding of what Twitch’s brand and product experience should be.”
The redesign comes ahead of TwitchCon, which officially kicks off tomorrow in San Diego, and runs for three days.
The OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 7 Pro have only been out for half a year, but we’ve already seen the company announce the OnePlus 7T.
The new phone was just introduced at an event in India where the company also unveiled the OnePlus TV.
Coming so soon after the OnePlus 7, we’re not expecting many massive changes for the new handset but we’re listing everything that has changed below. This is a breaking story, so bear with us as we update with new information.
Cut to the chase
What is it? The next OnePlus phone
When is it out? Announced today in India, US and UK details come on October 10
What will it cost? A lot – but less than most flagships
OnePlus 7T release date and price
So far, we’ve only had confirmation of the OnePlus 7T launching in India. That’s because we have to wait until October 10 to hear the company’s plans for its UK or US release.
The company is hosting livestreams for both of those countries, where we expect to hear similar details about the OnePlus 7T.
The price hasn’t officially been unveiled, even at the India launch. The original OnePlus 7 cost £499 (around $640, AU$930) so we’d expect a similar amount for this newer handset.
This is a breaking story, so we’re just filling out what is being announced on stage by OnePlus. Below you’ll find what we want to see from the OnePlus 7T, but be sure to check back or tune into the OnePlus 7T launch live.
What we want to see
The OnePlus 7 and especially the OnePlus 7 Pro were impressive phones, but they could be even better with these upgrades.
1. A class-leading camera
The OnePlus 7 Pro has lots of lenses but they could use work
(Image credit: TechRadar)
While the OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 7 Pro both have decent cameras, they’re not among the best around, and given that the OnePlus 7 Pro is essentially a flagship, it’s not unrealistic to ask for it to have a truly top camera.
So we hope that the OnePlus 7T and/or OnePlus 7T Pro does. We’d particularly like to see low-light photo quality improved, along with the ability to zoom in further.
2. An IP rating
While OnePlus claims that the OnePlus 7 range does have some water resistance, there’s no official IP rating, meaning no certainty as to how water resistant the phones are.
The lack of an IP rating was apparently to save money – since it costs money to get the phones certified, and since even with such a certification most brands don’t cover water damage as part of the warranty.
It’s a reasonable argument, but for the OnePlus 7T we’d still like the reassurance that an IP rating provides, and ideally improved water resistance too, since various third-party tests suggest the OnePlus 7 range isn’t quite as water resistant as most flagships.
3. An in-screen camera
The OnePlus 7 Pro’s pop-up camera is cool, but not without problems
(Image credit: TechRadar)
The standard OnePlus 7 has a teardrop notch for its front-facing camera, which almost feels dated in 2019. The OnePlus 7 Pro meanwhile has a pop-up camera, which is more modern and allows for an all-screen design, but also makes the camera feel more vulnerable.
Not only that, it also makes facial recognition less appealing, since you have to wait for the camera to pop up, and since doing that dozens of times a day to unlock your phone could wear the mechanism out.
So for the OnePlus 7T we’d love to see an in-screen camera. That would allow the phone to retain the OnePlus 7 Pro’s all-screen design, without any of the problems that come with a pop-up camera.
We should note that this is unlikely to happen. While the tech exists, it’s not yet available on any handsets, and with the T model likely to be a minor upgrade we wouldn’t particularly expect it, but you never know.
4. Wireless charging
One small feature that OnePlus hasn’t yet embraced is wireless charging. This probably isn’t a huge deal for most people, but it is a standard flagship feature, so it’s something we’d like to see, especially with the OnePlus 7 Pro being more of a real flagship, rather than the usual more affordable alternatives that OnePlus offers.
5. A slimmer, lighter, smaller build
The OnePlus 7 Pro is a substantial handset
(Image credit: TechRadar)
The OnePlus 7 Pro in particular is a big, heavy and fairly thick thing, so we’d love to see the OnePlus 7T get shrunk down slightly, and be a bit lighter.
There will be limits to what can be done here while still offering a big screen and battery, but we reckon that refinements are possible. And the screen doesn’t really need to be quite as big as the OnePlus 7 Pro’s mammoth 6.67-inch one anyway.
6. A bigger battery with better life
The OnePlus 7 has a 3,700mAh battery and the OnePlus 7 Pro has a 4,000mAh one. Those are both respectable sizes, but not the biggest around, and neither phone delivers particularly brilliant life.
So we’d like to see a bigger battery in the OnePlus 7T, and beyond that possibly some software or hardware optimizations to help it last longer. Though in the case of software optimizations, we don’t want the company to take the sort of approach that could interfere with the functionality of apps.
7. Fast charging from third-party chargers
The OnePlus 7 range charges very fast, but only if you use an official OnePlus charger. That’s not a huge problem as one comes in the box, but if you ever need a replacement or a spare, they’re expensive.
This also means that if you borrow someone else’s charger you won’t get fast speeds (unless they happen to have a OnePlus one) and nor will you get fast charging from portable chargers/power banks. So we’d like to see this addressed for the OnePlus 7T.
At TwitchCon on Tuesday, Nvidia revealed the RTX Broadcast Engine, a collection of SDKs that uses AI to offer real-time virtual greenscreens, augmented reality effects, and style filters that developers can add to their streaming software. Nvidia may have loaded its GeForce RTX 20-series graphics card with dedicated RT and tensor cores to accelerate cutting-edge real-time ray tracing in games, but now it’s putting the machine learning chops of those tensor cores to more practical work for video creators.
Nvidia
RTX Greenscreen
RTX Greenscreen performs similarly to the virtual greenscreen functions built into the Logitech C922 and Razer Stargazer webcams—hopefully with more consistent results. It intelligently removes the background from your webcam feed, leaving only your body and face onstream, showing the game feed behind you.
The images provided by Nvidia look crisp and clean, but the aforementioned webcams show that the proof will be in the pudding for this one. If the technology works well, it could negate Logitech and Razer’s special feature, and maybe even the need to spring for a pricey physical greenscreen. We’ll see. It’ll be coming soon to OBS.
Nvidia
RTX AR
Like Greenscreen, RTX AR detects your face, right down to the movement of individual features. “Developers can use it to create fun, engaging AR effects, such as overlaying 3D content on a face or allowing a person to control 3D characters with their face,” Nvidia says.
Nvidia
RTX Style Filters
RTX Style Filters can transform the look of your webcam feed to mimic the style of a reference image. Nvidia’s example above gives the feed—including the streamer himself—the vibe of Van Gogh’s iconic Starry Night painting. The company’s Ansel “super screenshot” image filters can provide similar effects in games, though Ansel doesn’t need tensor cores to work its magic.
These new features require developers to add them to their streaming software, so we’ll have to see how widely they’re adopted. Adding RTX Greenscreen to OBS, one of the most popular Twitch-streaming programs in the world, is a great start. Executives from StreamLabs and XSplit provided canned quotes stating their excitement about integrating Nvidia RTX Broadcast Engine features into their own software.
Nvidia
Tapping into the tensor cores baked into RTX GPUs to power effects like this is a wickedly smart way to make GeForce more compelling to streamers, especially on the back of the superb RTX encoder. Over the past month, Twitch Studio, Elgato, and Discord all introduced features that lean on the Nvidia Fast Codec SDK for support as well.
If you’re at TwitchCon, you can see RTX Greenscreen in action in OBS at booth 1823. Our guide to the best graphics cards for PC gaming can help you decide which GeForce GPU is right for you, if this nudges you towards an upgrade, while our beginner’s guide to Twitch streaming can help you get started on your path to streaming stardom.
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Michale Simon/IDG
Michael Simon/IDG
Michael Simon/IDG
