OnePlus 7 Pro vs. Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus

OnePlus has a knack for making flagship-killer phones at an affordable price point. The company’s latest, however, the OnePlus 7 Pro, comes in at a comparable cost to the Galaxy S10 Plus.

So, what’s the better deal: Samsung’s ultra-premium Galaxy S10 Plus, or the spectacular OnePlus 7 Pro? Below, we break down the details of both devices and crown a winner in this smartphone showdown.

Specs

Performance, battery life, and charging

Both these phones come with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 855 processor inside, so you can expect extremely fast performance and neither will have any issues running demanding games or apps. You have a choice of 6GB, 8GB, or 12GB of RAM with the OnePlus 7 Pro, while the S10 Plus comes in 8GB or 12GB varieties. Storage is 128GB, 512GB, or 1TB for the S10 Plus and it has room for a MicroSD card, too, so you aren’t going to run out of space. The OnePlus 7 Pro comes with 128GB or 256GB of storage, but there’s no room for expansion.

The S10 Plus has an extra 100mAh of battery capacity and it shows, with Samsung’s phone managing almost an extra hour over the OnePlus 7 Pro in our battery test. The OnePlus 7 Pro is faster to charge, going from 15% to 53% in just 20 minutes. However, only the S10 Plus supports Qi wireless charging, and it even supports reverse wireless charging which enables you to use it to charge other Qi-certified devices in a pinch.

Winner: Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus

Design and durability

These are two of the best-looking phones on the market right now with curved glass front and back, a beautiful build quality, and almost all-screen fronts. Samsung chose to go with a hole-punch camera for its dual-lens front-facing shooter, which sits at the top right of the screen. OnePlus has opted to go with a pop-up selfie camera instead, which means the enormous screen is free of notches or holes. These are both big phones, but the S10 Plus is significantly sleeker in every dimension and it weighs less, making it easier to handle.

On the back, there’s a horizontal camera module for the S10 Plus, while the OnePlus 7 Pro has a vertically-stacked camera. There’s no fingerprint sensor on the back of either phone because they’re in the displays.

While the OnePlus 7 Pro lacks an IP rating, the S10 Plus is IP68 rated, which means it can be submerged in water without sustaining damage. Both need a case to guard against drop damage, though.

Winner: Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus

Display

The OnePlus 7 Pro boasts a 6.67-inch AMOLED screen with a resolution of 3,120 x 1,440 pixels, which is 516 pixels per inch (ppi). The Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus has a 6.4-inch screen with a resolution of 3,040 x 1,440 which translates to 526 ppi. They’re both stunning displays, with accurate colors, good viewing angles, and high brightness. They’re also both HDR10+ certified. It’s very hard to choose between them. The OnePlus 7 Pro does have a 90Hz refresh rate that ensures certain content is silky smooth, but it’s hard to find any fault with the S10 Plus.

Winner: Tie

Camera

The OnePlus 7 Pro has the first triple-lens camera we’ve seen in a OnePlus phone. There’s a 16-megapixel ultra-wide lens with a 117-degree field of view, a 48-megapixel lens with optical and electronic image stabilization (OIS and EIS), and an 8-megapixel telephoto lens for a 3x optical zoom or a 10x digital zoom. The Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus also has a triple-lens camera comprising a standard 12-megapixel lens with a variable f/1.5 to f/2.4 aperture, a 12-megapixel telephoto lens with an f/2.4 aperture, and a 16-megapixel ultra-wide-angle lens with an f/2.2 aperture. These are both versatile, strong camera suites, but we prefer Samsung’s software and image processing and it outperforms the OnePlus 7 Pro in most circumstances.

Around front, the OnePlus 7 Pro has that pop-up 16-megapixel selfie camera, but the dual-lens front-facing camera in the S10 Plus is better for portrait shots as it combines a 10-megapixel lens with an 8-megapixel lens to capture depth. The S10 Plus is also slightly more capable in the video department.

Winner: Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus

Software and updates

While both these phones have Android 9.0 Pie on board, they have different skins on top. We like Samsung’s polished One UI and it offers quite a lot of extra functionality. Oxygen OS on the OnePlus 7 Pro is closer to Google’s flavor of Android, though it does offer lots of customization options. This one comes down to your personal tastes and requirements. However, OnePlus scores a definite advantage in the update stakes, as it tends to be faster to update to the latest version of Android than Samsung is.

Winner: OnePlus 7 Pro

Special features

The S10 Plus is feature-packed with handy extras like reverse wireless charging. There’s also Dex mode, Gear VR support, and the ever-improving Bixby which now supports routines. You’ll also find a 3.5mm headphone port in the S10 Plus, water resistance, and a MicroSD card slot, which are all absent from the OnePlus 7 Pro.

Winner: Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus

Price and availability

The OnePlus 7 Pro starts from $670 for 128GB of storage and 6GB of RAM and goes up to $750 for 256GB of storage and 12GB of RAM. You can buy it from the OnePlus website or from T-Mobile stores in the U.S. The unlocked version will run on any of the major carriers.

The Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus is considerably more expensive starting from $1,000 for the 128GB of storage model. It goes all the way up to $1,600 for the 1TB model. It’s available at lots of retailers online and off and from all of the major carriers.

Overall winner: Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus

Given the choice we would certainly take the Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus over the OnePlus 7 Pro, but whether it’s worth the extra money depends on what you want. Perhaps, the most compelling reason to opt for the S10 Plus is the superior camera, but it also has better battery life, water resistance, wireless charging, and a handful of other extras that elevate it above the 7 Pro. However, if your budget simply won’t stretch, the OnePlus 7 Pro is certainly a good buy.