A well-packaged OnePlus with nothing so special features!!
OnePlus flagships have always been the right choice in the smartphone market as they provide all the necessary specifications that focus primarily on top-class hardware and a very smooth software experience with the OxygenOS. In the flagship space, there is a regular model launched in the first half of each year and after that, a T model is found with some very minor upgrades.
The OnePlus 10 series had a slow start this year as we had the OnePlus 10 Pro (Review) which is the only premium flagship out there and we did not see the OnePlus 10. Now OnePlus came up with the OnePlus 10T which is a complete package as it brings some very good specifications which do seem to be a slight downgrade over the OnePlus 10 Pro but it is cheaper than the OnePlus 10 Pro.
The biggest highlighting feature of the OnePlus 10T is the newer Snapdragon 8+ Gen1 chipset which seems to be a small upgrade over the Snapdragon 8 Gen1 chipset present on many flagship smartphones in the market. Other than that it has a good 120Hz AMOLED display, 50MP triple camera setup, a 4800mAh battery with 150W fast charging, etc.
So how good is the OnePlus 10T when compared to other flagships in the market? Is it worth buying? Let's find out in the full review.
OnePlus 10T Design:
Like the OnePlus 10 Pro, the OnePlus 10T brings a familiar design with a larger square-shaped camera module that consists of triple cameras with a LED flashlight. Unlike the OnePlus 10 Pro which had a separate camera module, this camera module on the OnePlus 10T moulds well with the back and below the camera module sits the OnePlus logo. Both the front as well as the back are protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5.
Another big difference is that the OnePlus 10 Pro had a frosted finish at the back whereas the OnePlus 10T gets a smooth stone-like finish if you consider the Moonstone Black variant and if you choose the Jade Green colour variant, you will get a glossy finish at the back that does catch a lot of fingerprints. If you consider the Moonstone black variant, you will not get any such fingerprint or smudges.
Around the sides, there is a polycarbonate frame instead of a metallic frame as present on the OnePlus 10 Pro which has the power button on the right side whereas the volume buttons are located on the left side. However, just like some of the newer OnePlus smartphones, there is no alert slider which is a big disappointment as it was very handy for changing different sound profiles and this is present on the OnePlus 10 Pro.
At the bottom, there is a USB Type-C port, a primary microphone, a loudspeaker grille and a dual SIM card slot. There is neither any slot for a microSD card nor a 3.5mm headphone jack present. On the top, there is a secondary noise-cancelling microphone only. The OnePlus 10T weighs around 204 grams which makes it lighter but slightly thicker around the sides at 8.8mm.
There is no IP rating present at the back but you do get some sort of splash resistance. On the front, instead of the punch-hole being located to the top left as that of the OnePlus 10 Pro, here it is located to the centre on top and there are very minimum bezels around the sides. Overall, the build and design feel great but OnePlus has definitely made some mistakes by providing a polycarbonate frame around and removing the alert slider.
OnePlus 10T Display:
The OnePlus 10T sports a larger 6.7-inches Full HD+(1080x2400 pixels) AMOLED display with a screen-to-body ratio of 20.1:9. Since it is an AMOLED display, the colours look punchier and viewing angles are very good. There is also the 120Hz refresh rate which is a standard one, not the LTPO one as found on the OnePlus 10 Pro where the refresh rate switches dynamically between 1Hz to 120Hz.
The display is flat, unlike the OnePlus 10 Pro which has a curved display around it. Talking about refresh rates, there are two options - Standard and High only and there is no Auto Switch option here. Switching to High mode, the display refreshes at 120Hz but it drops to 90Hz or 60Hz frequently. Most of the applications and games run smoothly at 120Hz and if you want better battery life, then 60Hz is good enough.
Combined with this you get a massive 360Hz touch sampling rate which provides faster touch responses. In terms of brightness levels, the display on the OnePlus 10T can achieve a peak brightness of 950nits which is good and it also has good visibility under direct sunlight. However, these brightness levels are not as good as some of the E4 AMOLED panels which reach a peak brightness of 1300-1500nits on other smartphones.
You can set the colour temperature of the display and there are three different modes - Vivid, Natural and Pro Mode where Pro Mode further consists of the Cinematic and Brilliant modes. Out of the box, Vivid is set to default which provides punchier colours and if you switch to Natural, the colours look very soft and true to the source. Cinematic covers the DCI-P3 gamut and Brilliant covers the sRGB scale.
As this is an AMOLED display, there is an optical in-display fingerprint scanner present that is accurate and fast. The display on the OnePlus 10T has support for HDR content on Youtube and also there is Widevine L1 present which means you can stream HD content on OTT platforms like Netflix, Prime Video, etc. Overall, this display on the OnePlus 10T is very good for media consumption.
OnePlus 10T Performance:
The OnePlus 10T is powered by the latest and most powerful Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset which is a slight upgrade over the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset found on the OnePlus 10 Pro. Both the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 are built on a similar design i.e. 1+3+4 cores. The primary core on the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 is clocked at 3.2GHz compared to 3GHz on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1.
However, the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 has a 1x3.19GHz Cortex-X2 core with 3x2.75GHz Cortex-A710 cores with other 4x1.8GHz Cortex-A510 cores based on a 4nm process and is coupled with the similar Adreno GPU as present on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset. Another big difference between both chipsets is the manufacturing process where Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 is made by TSMC, and the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is based on the Samsung process.
In terms of daily performance, the smartphone handles all the tasks with ease whether it is lighter or heavy multitasking. All games like Call Of Duty Mobile, BGMI, etc run smoothly without any frame drops and you can easily run BGMI at HDR frame rates with Ultra graphics. After long hours of gaming, the smartphone does not show any lag and the back also does not heat up so much.
In terms of benchmarks, the scores are very good and definitely, the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 shows its colours in the CPU throttling tests, where we could achieve a sustained performance of around 85-90 per cent which is excellent compared to 70-75 per cent of sustained performance on the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 or the Snapdragon 888 chipset.
In terms of network connectivity, you get good carrier aggregation support and also support for 12 bands of 5G. The OnePlus 10T is available in three different storage versions - 8/12/16GB LPDDR5 RAM with 128/256GB UFS 3.1 storage speeds. Overall, the performance and gaming remain excellent on the OnePlus 10T.
OnePlus 10T Software:
Like all OnePlus smartphones, the OnePlus 10T also runs on the latest Oxygen OS 12.1 based on Android 12. The look and feel of OxygenOS have always been close to Stock Android but after the merger of OxygenOS with ColorOS in 2021, things have changed like still getting the look and feel of ColorOS in the settings, quick toggles, camera application, etc.
With OxygenOS you get a lot of customisations where you can change icon shape and size, different themes and wallpapers and also different styles for Always-On display. Other than this, there is no sort of bloatware present on OxygenOS as always. As Android 12 is present, you can get control over all the applications where you can see which of them can access the camera, location and microphone.
Depending on the wallpaper, the colour gets applied throughout the user interface which includes the dialler, notification toggles, etc. OnePlus-specific features include Shelf, Zen Mode and Work-Life Balance. In terms of software updates, the OnePlus 10T is assured of another three years of Android OS updates and four years of security patches. Overall the software experience is very good.
OnePlus 10T Camera:
The OnePlus 10T sports a triple camera setup that consists of a main 50MP f/1.8 Sony IMX766 sensor for the main camera, an 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera and a 2MP f/2.4 macro camera. On the front, there is a 16MP f/2.4 camera for selfies. These camera specifications seem close to OnePlus Nord 2T (Review) which also has a similar camera setup except for the 2MP depth sensor and the 32MP front camera.
The main camera takes images with good dynamic range and details look sharper. The colours look natural as there is no oversharpening in the background. There is some amount of noise present in the background but still, the same sensor is being used in the OnePlus 10R (Review) also which is cheaper than the OnePlus 10T. In terms of images taken in HDR, the colours look punchier and there is no such noise present.
At night, the images from the main camera come out with an excellent level of detail and dynamic range. The exposure is well under control and very less noise is present in the background. With the Night Mode turned on, the images come out with slightly saturated colours and noise also reduces completely.
The 8MP ultrawide camera does a good job in terms of dynamic range and the level of details comes out slightly softer. This is one area where OnePlus has done cost cutting as in their earlier T series, they used to provide a 16MP ultrawide camera but this is not the case now with the OnePlus 10T. The images come out with some amount of noise and there is a lot of distortion around the edges.
However, the colours look well saturated and there is no oversharpening as such in the background. Similarly, at night, the colours look saturated but the dynamic range takes a hit and the details look softer slightly. There is a lot of noise in the background and the lack of a dedicated Night Mode is a big miss here.
The 2MP macro camera is just present for adding up the numbers as it takes macro images with average dynamic range and since this is a fixed focus camera, the details look softer and there is a lot of noise present. For better macro images, it is better to use the main camera by applying a 2x digital zoom and going closer to the subject.
In terms of portraits, the edge detection is perfect and the dynamic range is excellent. The background blur is well implemented and can be adjusted accordingly. The skin tones look natural also without any oversharpening in the background. You can also take portraits in 2x zoom level resulting in a good level of background blur and excellent dynamic range.
On the front, the 16MP camera does a good job in terms of selfies as you get a good dynamic range and the colours look slightly oversaturated. The field of view is not as larger as that of the 32MP camera on the OnePlus Nord 2T but still, the level of details looks good also in terms of portrait selfies, the edge detection is perfect though background blur needs some improvements.
In terms of videos, the main camera can record 4K videos at 60fps and these videos come out with excellent dynamic range and noise is very less in the videos due to the presence of OIS. There is also an Ultra Stable Mode present for both the main and the ultrawide camera. At night, the videos look really good with saturated colours and very less noise in the background.
However, though the chipset is very capable, OnePlus seems to have not put the 8K video recording feature which would have been better. The ultrawide camera is restricted only up to 1080p at 30fps which is slightly disappointing as it can support 4K video recording. The videos from the ultrawide camera come out with good dynamic range but the level of details looks softer and a lot of noise is there.
If you turn on the Ultra Stable Mode on the ultrawide camera, the noise gets reduced but still lot of improvement is required. The front camera can only record 1080p videos at 30fps which is a big disappointment as even some of the budget or premium mid-range flagships support 4K recording from the front camera. The videos come out with a good level of detail with slightly oversaturated colours.
Overall, the cameras are good on the OnePlus 10T but the ultrawide camera could have been better considering the history of the earlier OnePlus T series flagship range.
OnePlus 10T Battery Life:
The OnePlus 10T sports a slightly larger 4800mAh battery compared to the standard 4500mAh battery on previous OnePlus smartphones and in terms of normal usage that includes casual web browsing, streaming social media, etc. the smartphone easily lasted for two and half days and with heavy usage that includes heavy games like BGMI, taking videos, etc. the smartphone easily lasted for one and half days with some charge left.
The standard screen-on time was around 7-8 hours which is very good as the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 is built on a 4nm process and OxygenOS 12 is well optimized for battery life. In terms of charging, the OnePlus 10T supports 150W fast charging which is very fast and takes around 18-20 minutes for a complete charge from 0 to 100 per cent. The 0 to 50 per cent takes around 15 minutes making it quite fast.
OnePlus claims that they have split the 4800mAh battery into two battery sizes of 2400mAh each and then there are 13 temperature sensors that dissipate heat faster while charging at this speed. There is no support for wireless charging which is slightly disappointing but you do get fast USB PD charging. Overall, the battery life and charging speeds definitely provide a flagship experience.
OnePlus 10T Audio Quality:
The OnePlus 10T sports a dual stereo speaker setup that includes the earpiece on top and the speaker grill at the bottom the sound is very good and does not feel muffled at the highest volume settings. There is no 3.5mm headphone jack present but for enhanced sound, there is Dolby Atmos present.
Verdict:
The OnePlus 10T feels like a complete package as it packs a good build and design, a 120Hz AMOLED display, a powerful Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset for daily performance and gaming capabilities, a good set of triple cameras, good battery life with crazy 150W fast charging and excellent software experience.
The one thing that makes it unique is the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset which seems to be a massive improvement compared to its predecessor the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 which had issues with thermal throttling and poor battery life. However, there are some areas where it does lack the uniqueness of OnePlus smartphones as you miss out on the alert slider.
Though the cameras are good, it is a similar setup as found on the cheaper OnePlus Nord 2T and the OnePlus 10R, there is no telephoto camera present and there is no IP rating. Other than this, the OnePlus 10T is a proper flagship which provides you with a complete flagship experience though missing out on the typical OnePlus uniqueness.
It is definitely worth buying if you are considering a OnePlus flagship with the best performance.
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