OnePlus 10T Review

Last Wednesday, OnePlus launched its newest OnePlus 10T smartphone during a successful event in New York City we attended. We recommend reading the launch article as we explain some background information that we won’t cover again in this article.

The OnePlus 10T is a $649+ smartphone optimized for high-performance, and speedy battery charging, something that OnePlus feels was a vital market to address.

In the past, the OnePlus “T” series was the highest-end OnePlus phone, but today, the OnePlus 10 Pro fulfills that role with a fancier camera, a slightly larger battery, etc. It’s essential to understand the 10T positioning because it was built for a purpose: extreme performance at a reasonable price.

Design

Our new OnePlus 10T unit comes with a “Moonstone Black” textured glass, but there’s also a smooth glass version with a green color. The green is visually more appealing to me, but the textured glass is almost fingerprint-proof, which can be important for users who don’t have a case.

The overall design language is very similar to the OnePlus 10 Pro. Still, there are some slight differences, including the smooth camera slope and the flat display on the 10T instead of the curved display of the 10 Pro.

For long-time OnePlus fans, the lack of an “alert slider” is “the” thing to notice because it’s been an iconic OnePlus feature for years. You will probably not care much about this change if you’re not in that crowd. It’s a matter of personal preference, and I typically never used it, even back in the day.

Overall, the design is clean, and the phone is agreeable in your hand. It doesn’t look as luxurious as more expensive phones, but given the $649 price, it’s hardly something we can hold against this handset.

Display

The OLED display features a 6.7-inch FHD+ flat screen, one of the cost-cutting measures OnePlus uses to divert some budget towards computing and battery speed. Oneplus does an excellent job of hiding this with the default black wallpaper, and the curve display is not overly critical if you want to squeeze the best value out.

Still, the display supports 60/90/120 Hz refresh rates, providing a great experience in any scenario. Fancier displays offer a more significant refresh variability, but this is great in this price segment.

With a peak brightness of 950 NITs, the screen is readable in any condition, including on a bright sunny day, like we experienced around the launch event.

Sound quality

The OnePlus 10T can deliver audio loud enough that people nearby might complain (that’s a good thing). That said, at the maximum volume, there is some slight distortion that you wouldn’t find on a more expensive phone like the Galaxy S22 Ultra and other more expensive phones. Still, even at maximum volume, the speaker remains entirely usable.

OnePlus 10T Camera

The camera system is very decent, although it does not try to compete with high-end phones. The

The primary camera sensor is a Sony IMX766 That is paired with a modest 8MP Ultrawide camera and a 2MP macro camera. The latter doesn’t contribute much to the overall camera performance, but OnePlus can claim to have a “triple camera” module.

There’s no dedicated optical zoom camera and lens, but the 10T can use a Primary camera sensor crop to simulate a 2X zoom.

The overall OnePlus 10T Camera HW score could have been higher with a better two-cameras system. The OnePlus 9 Pro had a better camera combo, although at a much higher price point.

The primary camera yields relatively good image quality, which is why it is featured in devices such as the recent Asus Zenfone 9 and many other smartphones in the $650-$800 price range, making this OnePlus 10T one of the more affordable handsets with the IMX766 camera sensor.

From a software standpoint, OnePlus includes a newer version of its Image Clarity engine 2.0 and Nightscape, which is great.

This model has no Hasselblad co-branding, apps, or color science, unlike the OnePlus 10 Pro. That could be related to the fact that Hasselblad charges a license fee on a per-unit basis, but it’s just speculation.

We’re posting some sample photos, which are generally decent. As for the aesthetic (or “style”) of the camera, it is a bit processed and will not always closely match what you see (extra bright), so it is less predictable (or controllable) than other camera experiences.

OnePlus 10T Speed

Thanks to the Snapdragon 8+ Gen1 hardware platform, the OnePlus 10T exhibits an excellent performance profile, especially for graphics applications, including but not limited to, Gaming.

While the benchmarked CPU performance isn’t much higher than previous high-profile devices, being able to do so at a $649 MSRP price is impressive, and Ubergizmo’s unique “Value” metrics such as Performance/Dollar shows this very clearly.

OnePlus was right to promote the Gaming use case because it illustrates the value of the 10T very well. Conceptually, it would also be great for anyone or any organization interested in 3D/VR applications at scale (Education…)

OnePlus 10T Battery & charging speed

The 4800 mAh battery capacity of the OnePlus 10T is slightly below the 5000 mAh of the OnePlus 10 Pro, but is still very large. The new 10T can charge at a theoretical power of 150W, giving it a significant advantage.

Two important notes:

1/ the Power supply can draw 160W, but the phone can charge at a maximum power of 150W if used with a 220V outlet. In the USA, we have 110V outlets, which lowers the full charging power of SUPERVOOC charging to 125W.

2/ The fastest charging only works between the OnePlus 10T and the original OnePlus charger. The 10T falls back to a 40/45W charging via USB PD standard when paired with another charging device. Likewise, the 150W charger won’t be able to charge a laptop beyond 45W. Hopefully, USB PD (power delivery) will someday encompass these insane smartphone charge speeds.

In the real world, we clocked the charging at an effective maximum of 115W, which is close to the specs. We measured the device from 1% to 80% in 13mn, which is impressive (384 mAh/mn at peak), especially against much more expensive handsets.

If your device is down to 0%, the charge will typically start very slowly (6W), probably to avoid battery shocks. But you’ll hit the maximum wattage from 1% to 40%. Beyond that, we noticed that the power draw went down to 77W, then lower. That’s probably to keep the charging safe.

So, the first 40% comes very fast in five minutes. Then you’ll need eight more minutes to reach 80% (13mn total) and almost 20mn to have a 100% charged phone. We’re most interested in the first 80% charge and measured an awesome 295 mAh/mn charging speed.

When I have easy access to power plugs, I don’t always push the charging to 100% to prolong the battery’s overall life. OnePlus also has software features that will do some of that at night, and they have considered these issues and satisfactorily addressed them.

On the downside, there’s no wireless charging, which may or may not be a big issue for you. I’ll let you judge this, but it’s once again something that would have consumed space dedicated to cooling and antennas.

Conclusion

We’ve shown that the OnePlus 10T (official page) objectively fulfills the role OnePlus created it for. First, it brings extreme performance at a very affordable price point. Secondly, it can charge at incredible speeds when said performance has depleted its battery.

As an affordable phone, it doesn’t check all the boxes for everyone, and that’s the whole point of creating specialized devices. It does not have an Alert Slider, and Wireless Charging is not featured.

Also, its camera configuration is not as performant as the OnePlus 10 Pro, nor the OnePlus 9 Pro, for that matter. However, it can compete with many other phones in the same price range.

Specialized devices will shift some budgets towards specific features, and if you want a better well-rounded device, perhaps the OnePlus 10 Pro or other more expensive devices would work better.

That said, this level of performance is not easy to obtain at this price range, especially when the manufacturer commits to four years of software updates. Overall, we think the OnePlus 10T is an excellent device if you buy it for the intended reason (extreme perf and value).

Filed in Cellphones >Reviews. Read more about Android, Editorspick, OnePlus and Smartphone Reviews.