Vodafone Smart Platinum 7 review – taking on the OnePlus 3

Battery Life

The Smart Platinum 7 has plenty of stamina to get you through the day, too. Its 3,000mAh battery lasted an excellent 13h 16m in our continuous video playback test with the screen set to our standard brightness measurement of 170cd/m2, which is three hours longer than the Nexus 5X. The OnePlus 3 still has the edge here, though, as this lasted almost 17 hours under the same conditions. If you want a phone that still has a decent amount of juice left when you wake up the next day, the Platinum 7 will always play second fiddle to its OnePlus rival. 

Camera

The Platinum 7’s main downfall is its 16-megapixel camera. While our shots indoors were relatively bright and colourful, our outdoor shots were very much on the dark and dingy side of things, with darker objects in the frame having almost no detail whatsoever. This wasn’t the only area where the camera struggled, either, as the rest of our shots were also very grainy and lacking in texture. Paving stones blurred into one another and brickwork was almost non-existent when I viewed each shot at full resolution.

^ Colours were very dark, even in relatively bright conditions

^ Detail was also lacking, with smudged textures and soft outlines

Even our indoor shots were quite smeary when viewed up close, both in low light and with our studio lights turned on. Objects in our still life arrangement were very soft around the edges, for example, and the texture of our teddy bear’s fur was almost painterly, showing a distinct lack of sharpness and definition. This is a shame, as it just can’t match the quality of other camera sensors I’ve seen for £300, such as those on the Nexus 5X, OnePlus 3 or Samsung Galaxy S5 Neo.

Fingerprint sensor

I also wasn’t a huge fan of the Platinum 7’s rear-facing fingerprint sensor. It’s quite small, for starters, and its almost flush design makes it difficult to find when you’re in a hurry. Even when I did find it correctly, it’s not particularly fast, and it often made me wonder whether I’d pressed it correctly. It doesn’t inspire a huge amount of confidence, and in the end I stopped using it, opting for a more traditional swipe pattern instead.

Conclusion

The Smart Platinum 7 doesn’t quite reach the same heady heights as some of Vodafone’s other own-brand smartphones, then, but it’s also got some pretty tough competition to deal with as well, namely the excellent OnePlus 3, Nexus 5X and Samsung Galaxy S5 Neo. 

All three are excellent smartphones in their own right, but the OnePlus 3 just blows everything else out of the water, if you’re willing to buy your new phone upfront in cash.The Platinum 7 has plenty of things to recommend it, including its fast speed, great battery life and excellent display, but when the OnePlus 3 does all this and more for just £15 extra. 

If you’re looking for a contract on Vodafone then things are less clear-cut. The excellent LG G5 is a strong alternative with similar contracts costing around £4 more per month than those for the Smart Platinum 7. It’s a superior handset for the money and we’d choose the G5 over the Platinum 7 at that price. 

Buy the Smart Platinum 7 now from Vodafone