The OnePlus 7 is as much of a powerhouse as the Pro

• The OnePlus 7 is powered the same flagship Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor as the Pro
• It’s available with either 128GB or 256GB of UFS 3.0-compatible storage and 6GB or 8GB of RAM
• Like the 7 Pro, it’s one of the top performers in our benchmarking tests

A OnePlus phone can’t really be a OnePlus phone without sporting the latest and greatest chipset on the market (the OnePlus X notwithstanding), which is why the OnePlus 7 comes with the same top-tier Snapdragon 855 SoC (system-on-chip) as nearly every other 2019 flagship, from the Xiaomi Mi 9 to the US build of the Samsung Galaxy S10 series.

You have the option of either 6GB or 8GB of RAM but for most users, the smaller memory option should still feel as fast and as responsive as anything. OnePlus also pushes its new RAM Boost feature, which prioritises frequently used apps and makes sure memory allocation is skewed in their favour; resulting in shorter app load times.

One talent that I wasn’t expecting to make the cut from the more premium Pro model was the inclusion of UFS 3.0 support. Now that the Samsung Galaxy Fold is out the race (at least for the time being) the OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 7 Pro are the only phones in the world to feature UFS 3.0 at the time of this review.

As for its value, it essentially doubles read and write memory speeds compared to devices relying on the current UFS 2.1 standard – meaning faster file transfers, shorter app install times and snappier performance all-round.

Just like the Pro model, this all boils down to an impressively responsive user experience, as well as one that’s great for multitasking and gaming (especially when leaning on the phone’s dedicated Fnatic gaming mode).

Such performance is also reflected in the OnePlus 7’s benchmarking results:

As you can see, in most cases the OnePlus 7 follows in the Pro’s class-leading scores, sometimes eclipsing it, depending on the test. Artificially speaking, this is one of the fastest phones you can get your hands on; in a real-world sense, this feels like one of the fastest phones you can get your hands on.