The OnePlus 7T is a spectacular phone for its $600 price tag, with killer performance, Android 10, a 90Hz smooth display, and a versatile camera system (check out our full OnePlus 7T review for all of our impressions and thoughts). But it also has a trick up its sleeve, one that few phones with ultrawide-angle cameras do, including the new iPhone 11: Macro photography.
Macro photography is when you capture photos extremely close up to a subject, like for detailed photos of plants and insects. On the OnePlus 7T, the ultrawide-angle camera is employed, but you’ll need to tap on the macro icon at the top right corner of the camera app.
It’s not true macro photography — for that, you’d need a dedicated macro lens or some type of accessory. The OnePlus 7T adjusts the autofocus to allow for subjects to be in focus between 2.5cm and 8cm, which means you’ll be getting really close to whatever you’re capturing.
The camera app still presents you with options to switch to the main camera or the telephoto lens in Super Macro mode, but the camera isn’t actually switching to these lenses. It’s digitally cropping from the ultrawide-angle, offering up different perspectives, but it does mean the image quality of photos captured by the normal or telephoto crops will be lesser than if you stick to the ultrawide.
Why would you need such a feature in the first place? With Super Macro mode, you’re now getting yet another style of photos you can capture from a smartphone. There are already three lenses on the phone that let you capture normal photos with the main lens, shots of subjects that are too far away with the telephoto, and you can take in vast landscapes or small spaces with the ultrawide-angle lens. The Super Macro mode now lets you focus on the tiniest of subjects and add it to your photography portfolio.
These kinds of shots aren’t entirely possible with the iPhone 11’s ultrawide-angle lens. For example, I wanted to get a close up of this Toon Link figurine and the iPhone couldn’t get in as close as the OnePlus 7T, and it still had trouble focusing.
Meanwhile, the OnePlus 7T was able to get much closer and retain focus.
It’s not a feature that will radically change your life, but it’s a fun new addition that boosts the OnePlus 7T’s capabilities.
OnePlus is hardly the first to add a macro feature into its phones — the Huawei P30 Pro has a mode like it, though I’d say it’s not as good. OnePlus’ Super Macro mode accounts for camera shake far better and often doesn’t give me a blurry shot, whereas that was the case on Huawei’s phone.
You can also get really cheap attachments such as the Magniband, seen above attached to the iPhone 11 Pro, to get macro shots for less than $7.
But at the end of the day, it’s nice to have a macro mode baked into the camera app on your phone, and the OnePlus 7T has just that.
Motorola has built some of my favorite foldables and flagship phones. I had a great time with both the Razr Fold and last year's Signature. So when the company began teasing the Signature 27, I couldn't help be excited. The new model comes with Qualcomm's blazing-fast Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6, and better still, it is finally getting a proper global release.
One of the reasons I was obsessed with the last-gen Signature was its amazing price tag. But it seems like that budget flagship dream might be officially dead. Portuguese retailer MegaPC has prematurely listed a 12GB RAM and 512GB storage Signature 27 in Pantone Coal Smoke for €1,594.90 (approx. $1,775).
Two new highly requested iCloud plugins just got added to ChatGPT, giving people who rely on Apple’s Mail and Calendar services a way to search emails, check appointments, and manage their schedules directly through the chatbot.
The integration is rolling out to all ChatGPT plans, including the free tier. You can access it on the web, desktop, and iOS.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.