OnePlus 8T vs iPhone 12: Which is the better flagship smartphone of the two?

Can the flagship specs of the OnePlus 8T take on the iPhone 12?

Apple and OnePlus had a very close fight in terms of flagships past many years. This year OnePlus came up with its latest model, the 8T that was just launched recently in October which is a successor to the OnePlus 8 and packs in quite some powerful specifications like a premium glass design, 120Hz display, a Snapdragon 865 chipset, and the most striking of all is the 65W fast charging. 

On the other hand, Apple came up with the newer iPhone 12 series out of which the iPhone 12 feels the proper flagship considering its specifications and price. The iPhone 12 has a newer design, comes with the latest Apple A14 Bionic chipset, and brings in a better display compared to its predecessor. Both have the best combination of hardware and software with support for 5G on both. 

The OnePlus has one of the best internals whereas iPhone exudes a sense of richness and good usability. Which is the better flagship smartphone to be considered?

OnePlus 8T vs iPhone 12 Design:

In terms of design, both the OnePlus 8T and iPhone 12 sport different designs but they have a glass sandwich design in common. The OnePlus 8T is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5 both at the front as well as on the back. The back of the OnePlus 8T has a frosted finish.

The iPhone 12 (Review), on the other hand, is made up of aluminum and has a flatter body with fewer edges around it which is almost the same design we had seen on the iPhone 4 and 5 in the past. It is slightly thicker to hold and at the back, you get two cameras, and the back acts like a magnet so small pins can be attached to the back of the iPhone 12. 

The OnePlus 8T (Review) has a rectangular camera module which is much different from the vertical alignment of cameras on other OnePlus devices whereas the iPhone 12 continues to stick with its large camera module square in shape. On the front, the OnePlus 8T has fewer bezels compared to the iPhone 12.

There is a single punch hole camera to the top left corner on the OnePlus 8T which looks much better compared to the wider ugly notch on the iPhone 12. It looks a bit strange as most manufacturers in 2020, are moving towards the full screen or punch hole displays.

On the sides, both come with a power button, volume buttons, and an additional button to control sound where additionally you can set to vibrate on the alert slider in the OnePlus 8T. Both the smartphones do not have a 3.5mm headphone jack and have a USB Type-C port where Apple continues with a lightning port.

The iPhone 12 provides an IP68 rating and supports wireless charging both of which the OnePlus 8T lacks. The OnePlus 8T comes in two colors - Aquamarine Green and Lunar Silver whereas the iPhone 12 comes in five different colors - green, blue, red, white, and black. 

The OnePlus 8T feels quite good to hold compared to the iPhone 12 and if you have larger hands and want a larger smartphone, it will serve it better and if you need a compact smartphone with flagship features like wireless charging and IP68 rating, then the iPhone 12 is the better one.

See also: OnePlus 8 Review

OnePlus 8T vs iPhone 12 Display:

On the front, both have different screen sizes where the OnePlus 8T has a 6.55 inches Full HD+ (1080x2400 pixels) Fluid AMOLED display, the iPhone 12 has a 6.1 inches XDR OLED (1170x2532 pixels) display with a screen to body ratio of 19.5:9.

The switch from IPS LCD on the iPhone 11 to OLED on the iPhone 12 is a good upgrade. Both the displays have good color reproduction and viewing angles. 

On the protection side, the OnePlus 8T comes with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 both on the front and back whereas the iPhone 12 has the newer Ceramic Shield which protects the display and is much stronger and shatterproof compared to displays on previous iPhone models. 

The single punch hole camera looks better on the OnePlus 8T compared to the wider notch on the iPhone 12. Talking about the notch, it houses the front 12MP camera, auto-brightness sensor, and an IR sensor for unlocking it using FaceID. The OnePlus 8T also provides face unlock but it is not as good as on the iPhone 12.

The OnePlus 8T has an in-display fingerprint scanner which is very fast and accurate whereas iPhone 12 relies on a much more secure FaceID. In terms of brightness, the iPhone 12 can go as bright as 1200 nits compared to 1090 nits on the OnePlus 8T. Under direct sunlight or in dark, with the smaller size and the same resolution, the iPhone 12 looks brighter.

There is also support for Dolby Vision HDR on the iPhone 12 but the most important thing that the OnePlus 8T has support for 120Hz refresh rate compared to the standard 60Hz refresh rate on the iPhone 12. 

So scrolling through webpages, multi-tasking, and playing games felt smoother on the OnePlus 8T and mainly it gets a 240Hz touch sampling rate compared to 120Hz on the iPhone 12 which makes it very responsive.

Both have support for HDR, come with Widevine L1. Overall, both displays are good but with the larger display, a punch-hole camera instead of the huge notch on the iPhone 12, and support for 120Hz refresh rate, the OnePlus 8T has the better display of the two.

OnePlus 8T vs iPhone 12 Performance:

Both the OnePlus 8T and the iPhone 12 pack in flagship chipsets of 2020. The OnePlus 8T has the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 whereas the iPhone 12 has the Apple A14 Bionic chipset. So in terms of performance, both are powerhouses.

The Snapdragon 865 chipset is the most powerful on the Android side next to Snapdragon 865+, but the Apple A14 Bionic seems to be the most powerful chipset as it is the first chipset to be built on a 5nm process compared to the 7nm process of the Snapdragon 865.

Both have support for 5G and can easily run all normal to heavy games without breaking a sweat in their highest graphics settings. The 120Hz refresh rate and 240Hz touch sampling rate makes the gameplay on the OnePlus 8T a tad smoother compared to the one on the iPhone 12.

In terms of benchmarks, there is very little that differentiates the two. In Geekbench 5.1, the OnePlus 8T scored 790 and 3189 in single and multi-core tests compared to 1603 and 4089 on the iPhone 12. Clearly, with benchmarks, the iPhone 12 looks the most powerful but considering daily scenarios, the application loading, RAM management there is no difference between both.

The iPhone 12 ships with a base 4GB RAM and 64GB storage which can go up to 128/256 GB and on the OnePlus 8T, you are getting base 8GB RAM and 128GB storage and another 12GB RAM and 256GB storage. The storage speeds are faster on the OnePlus 8T with UFS 3.1.

In terms of raw gaming and performance, the iPhone 12 holds the edge but the OnePlus 8T with the 120Hz display and a larger display offers a better experience.

OnePlus 8T vs iPhone 12 Software:

The OnePlus 8T runs on the latest Android 11 and has OxygenOS 11 on top of it. This newer version brings in a different look and as from the past, we have known OxygenOS for its customizations and experience almost close to Stock Android. 

The iPhone 12 runs on the latest iOS 14 out of the box which is a considerable upgrade over the iOS 13 as it brings a newer look, widgets placement on the home screen, and also an App Library where all different applications are organized and also Apple's ecosystem where you can use Apple TV and newer look to Siri.

The OnePlus 8T with the OxygenOS 11 brings in a newer Zen Mode, a dedicated GameSpace, a newer Always-On display with different clock styles, and also provides more customizations compared to iOS 14. Both have system-wide dark mode and navigation gestures as first seen on Android 10.

Coming to software updates, OnePlus provides two years of Android updates with three years of security and software updates whereas, on the other hand, iOS has a good track of updating its four to five years old smartphone to the latest version of iOS.

It all depends on your personal preference whether you want more customizations and features of OxygenOS or access to Apple's large ecosystem and good usability. 

OnePlus 8T vs iPhone 12 Cameras:

iPhones have continued to impress in terms of cameras and with OnePlus, the cameras were not so good but slowly they are providing a good camera experience with each of its iterations and we can clearly see with the OnePlus 8T.

In terms of cameras, with the iPhone 12, we get only two cameras that include a main 12MP camera and a 12MP ultrawide camera whereas on the OnePlus 8T there are four cameras that include a 48MP Sony IMX586 main camera, a 16MP ultrawide camera, 5MP macro camera, and a 2MP monochrome camera.

Comparing the main camera on both the smartphones, the OnePlus 8T has a larger 48MP camera compared to the 12MP camera on the iPhone 12. On paper, clearly, the OnePlus 8T has the better camera but the iPhone 12's main camera has an f/1.7 aperture compared to the f/1.8 aperture on the iPhone 11.

The images from the main camera on both the smartphones come out with good details and excellent dynamic range. The 48MP camera on the OnePlus 8T captures more subjects into the frame and has a wider field of view compared to the iPhone 12's camera. The iPhone 12 has a better dynamic range and the colors look more natural.

The images on the OnePlus 8T have slightly oversaturated colors and there is some noise present. When you zoom into the images, the OnePlus 8T has better details and the colors look good and on the iPhone 12, it looks punchier.

Both have OIS for the main camera though. Moving to images shot in low-light, the ones on the iPhone 12 has better dynamic range and lower noise. The OnePlus 8T also takes good images in low-light, but there is a fair bit of noise present and the over-saturation in images is present.

Turning on the respective Night Modes on both, the iPhone 12 completely turns the favor as it handles dynamic range much better and brings in slightly better highlights in shadows, and handles long exposure shots better compared to the OnePlus 8T.

The second camera is an ultrawide camera on both where the OnePlus 8T has a 16MP one compared to 12MP one on the iPhone 12. The images on OnePlus 8T have a wider field of view and the dynamic range is good but the iPhone 12 has more natural colors and the noise is also lower.

At night, with the Night Mode, the iPhone 12 has better dynamic range and good contrast compared to OnePlus 8T. The highlights in shadows are better on the iPhone 12 but still, the OnePlus 8T is not far behind. In terms of ultrawide camera, both are equally good.

The iPhone 12 lacks a telephoto camera which is present on the expensive iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max. Using the main camera, you can go up to 2x zoom on the iPhone 12 and up to 5x and 10x zoom on the OnePlus 8T. The images on the OnePlus 8T have slightly washed out colors at 5x or 10x, the iPhone 12 retains better colors at 2x zoom. 

The dedicated 5MP macro camera on the OnePlus 8T takes close-up images with good dynamic range and punchier colors. For the iPhone 12, you can use the normal zoom for close-up images and they come out with good details but there is some noise present. So in terms of macro images, the OnePlus 8T is better.

Portraits on both smartphones come out good with proper edge detection. The OnePlus 8T captures better portraits with the main camera compared to the iPhone 12. The dynamic range is good on the iPhone 12 and when you focus, the details are good with a more natural look. The colors look over-saturated on the OnePlus 8T, so with portraits, both are equally good.

On the front, the OnePlus 8T gets a 16MP f/2.0 camera which has the Sony IMX471 sensor compared to 12MP on the iPhone 12. The selfies come out better on the iPhone 12 with natural-looking skin tones and dynamic range. But the OnePlus 8T has slightly better details and captures more subjects into the frame.

The selfie portraits come out better on the OnePlus 8T with better edge detection and background blur. The iPhone 12 supports Smart HDR 3 and Deep Fusion that works really well. OnePlus 8T has more customizations in its camera application.

In terms of videos, both the OnePlus 8T and the iPhone 12 can shoot 4K videos up to 60fps. Both have OIS and EIS, so there is lower noise and the videos come out good on both smartphones. The image processing on the iPhone 12 is much better thanks to the Apple A14 Bionic chipset.

Shooting at 4K at 30fps, the videos from the iPhone 12 have a better dynamic range and the color reproduction is good. The OnePlus 8T videos are also good but there is some amount of noise and the details are not as good as on the iPhone 12. 

4K videos from the ultrawide camera come out good on both and here the OnePlus 8T videos outperform the iPhone 12 with more and better details and good dynamic range. The stabilization is good on the iPhone 12 though.

On the front, the OnePlus 8T can only shoot up to 1080p at 30fps whereas the iPhone 12 goes one step above and supports 4K videos at 60fps from the front camera. The 1080p videos come out better on the iPhone 12 with good dynamic range and excellent details. The OnePlus 8T also shoots videos with good details but there is a fair amount of noise present. 

Though the OnePlus 8T has a larger camera sensor and extra two cameras, it's the iPhone 12 that emerges ahead of the OnePlus 8T in terms of camera images and videos.

OnePlus 8T vs iPhone 12 Battery Life:

The OnePlus 8T sports a larger 4500mAh battery compared to the 2815mAh battery on the iPhone 12. Both can easily last for two continuous days with normal usage and the iPhone 12 having a 60Hz display and the Apple A14 Bionic chipset built on the efficient 5nm process, lasts slightly more than the OnePlus 8T.

With heavy usage that includes three to four hours of gaming, playing videos from third-party applications, or scrolling through webpages, the OnePlus 8T lasted a single day with some charge left as the standard screen on time is 5-6 hours which is almost similar to that on the iPhone 12.

Coming to charging, both smartphones have some interesting features. The OnePlus 8T gets the massive 65W Warp Charger inside the box which charges it from 0 to 100 percent completely in 37 minutes whereas the iPhone 12 only supports 20W fast charging which takes from 0 to 100 percent in 1 hour 20 minutes. 

Another benefit of the OnePlus 8T is that you get a charger bundled inside the box whereas, for the iPhone 12, you have to buy it separately. With this year, iPhone 12 series, you can use the MagSafe accessories which include a separate wireless charging pad where you can put the iPhone 12 on it and it will charge automatically at 15W.

There is no wireless charging on the OnePlus 8T which is a bit disappointing, but the 65W fast charger is enough to fuel up the smartphone. So in terms of battery and charging, it is a personal preference whether you need quicker charging on the OnePlus 8T or the extra features like wireless charging on the iPhone 12.

OnePlus 8T vs iPhone 12 Audio Quality:

Both the OnePlus 8T and the iPhone 12 get stereo speakers where the earpiece on top and the bottom-firing loudspeaker but the loudness and bass levels are better on the iPhone 12 and both have support for Dolby Atmos.

There is no 3.5mm headphone jack on either of the smartphones. So in terms of audio quality, the iPhone 12 edges over the OnePlus 8T.

Verdict:

The comparison between both the smartphones was very close and picking any one of them would not let you down. Clearly, we can see one aims to provide the best in terms of hardware and software and the other is packed with all the flagship features. 

Let's see the OnePlus 8T. It has a larger display that supports a 120Hz refresh rate, premium glass design, a powerful Snapdragon 865 chipset which is the best in Android, supports for 65W fast charging, and has the OxygenOS 11 with the Android 11 on top of it that provides almost Stock Android-like experience. It also has a good set of cameras that includes that 48MP camera.

On the other hand, the iPhone 12 provides a slightly smaller display, has the powerful Apple A14 Bionic chipset which is the best in terms of performance and gaming, the iOS 14 provides a good user experience combined with Apple's wide ecosystem and also brings support with MagSafe accessories and supports wireless charging and IP68 rating both of which the OnePlus 8T lacks.

The battery life is equally good on both of these smartphones. In the OnePlus 8T, you do miss on the features like wireless charging, IP68 rating and the sound quality is not as good as on the iPhone 12. The iPhone 12 does have an older design with a wider notch, lacks a higher refresh rate display, and does not provide as many customizations as the OxygenOS.

So if you are looking for a smartphone with the best of features like a 120Hz display, faster 65W charging, Stock Android experience, larger display, and a good set of cameras, then the OnePlus 8T will serve it better. And if you want those extra features like wireless charging, MagSafe, IP68 rating, and the best camera and overall raw performance, then the iPhone 12 is worth considering.

To sum up everything, it is the iPhone 12 which is the premium one and costs higher than the OnePlus 8T and is the clear winner of the two as it beats the OnePlus 8T by a slight margin.