OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 7 Pro are one of the most anticipated flagships of 2019 and the wait is almost over. On May 14, the Chinese smartphone maker will unveil the OnePlus 7 series to finally end the suspense around its features, specifications and price. But before that, OnePlus decided to let a Wired reporter try out the triple camera setup and the results seem promising.
OnePlus phones have always managed to ace performance, usability, design and battery, but the cameras haven't been the strongest suit. As companies have come up with phones featuring 4-5 lenses and delivering the impossible in terms of mobile photography, OnePlus is catching up to the trend by offering a triple camera setup in its upcoming OnePlus 7 Pro.
Rumours have indicated that the OnePlus 7 Pro will sport a 48MP primary sensor alongside a 16MP ultra-wide-angle lens and an 8MP telephoto sensor. The Wired's Andrew Williams, who had the chance to test the OnePlus 7 Pro's camera before release, did not go on to spoil the surprise, but OnePlus' imaging director Simon Liu was more than willing to shell out a few details.
"I think we have a shot at competing with the first tier phones. I don't think we can beat them, but the imaging world is always subjective," Liu said of the new OnePlus 7 Pro camera. But a lot of advancements have been made in areas of zoom, portrait and low-light, which have been shown with examples in the Wired report.
OnePlus 7 Pro will support 3x optical zoom, an upgrade from 2x zoom in the 6T model. While some rumours suggested that there might be a ToF lens in the setup, it is now clear that the special depth sensor won't be included after all. Despite that, the 7 Pro is said to support 10x digital zoom, which is no match for Huawei P30 Pro's 50x zoom, but certainly gets the job done. OnePlus is relying on software for its 10x zoom.
At first glance, the shots taken during the day or night seem promising. The details are just about right, there's high dynamic range and shooting a subject with the sun in the background didn't seem to be much of a problem for OnePlus 7 Pro, thanks to the improved Auto HDR option.
"We're bringing a lot more clarity and density to our pictures. Our pictures are a lot more detailed compared to our previous phones," Liu told Wired. The report also suggests that OnePlus 7's camera uses pixel binning to create 12MP images and the option to create photos at full resolution was not available at the time of testing. Pixel binning is a technique used to reduce noise in images.
Finally, OnePlus 7 Pro's bokeh effect is going to be more natural although we did not see any samples proving that claim. "The bokeh effect is closer to what you'd get from a professional lens. Previously it was more artificial, to prove that there is an effect, but when you're using a digital camera, it's not actually that strong," Liu explained.
The biggest takeaways from the OnePlus 7 Pro's hands-on test is that the cameras are vastly improved over the predecessors and this could be the flagship ready to compete in the big league with the likes of Samsung, Huawei and Google. We will be testing out the handset to see how much of the 7 Pro's camera claims are true, so stay tuned.
