The OnePlus 7 Pro is the company’s first smartphone to feature a triple camera setup. One of the highlight features is its 3X Optical Zoom which has been stated clearly on all marketing materials. Turns out, the telephoto lens isn’t doing 3X optical zoom in the first place.
A couple of users have discovered that the OnePlus 7 Pro has a wider field of view in portrait mode than in 3X zoom mode. The smartphone uses only the telephoto lens to shoot in portrait mode. So if it truly does 3X optical zoom, there shouldn’t be any difference in the field of view for both modes.
When they did the comparison, it looks like the actual “optical zoom” is around 2.2X instead of 3.0X. You can see this in action here.
It is worth pointing out that this isn’t the first time OnePlus has messed up its camera claims. The OnePlus 5 was initially perceived to be doing 2X optical zoom but it was later clarified that the device was doing 1.6X optical zoom and the remaining 0.4X was done through smart capture multi-frame technology.
OnePlus has responded to Android Police on the matter and below is a copy of their statement:
The OnePlus 7 Pro has 3x zoom with no digital zoom or loss of detail. The telephoto camera serves two main purposes: 3x zoom and portrait mode photography. It will switch the field of view depending on the camera mode. With 3x zoom, the telephoto camera delivers the advertised lossless 8 megapixels images. Portrait mode utilizes all 13 megapixels from the sensor in the telephoto camera.
Note that OnePlus has avoided using “optical zoom” in their statement and they emphasised its ability to create lossless images at 8MP. If that’s the case, it would be more truthful to claim 3X hybrid or lossless zoom like its competitors. For example, the Huawei P30 does 3X Optical zoom and 5X lossless Hybrid Zoom, while the P30 Pro has 5X Optical Zoom and 10X lossless Hybrid zoom.
It appears that even the folks at DxOMark are not aware of this since it refers the OnePlus 7 Pro to have a 3x telephoto lens (78mm-equivalent) in their review. Do you think OnePlus is still able to claim 3X Optical Zoom because it has no loss of detail? Let us know in the comments below.
