That changes with the OnePlus 10T, a $649 phone focused on delivering high performance. It’s a well defined niche and the phone lives up to its promises. It’s not everything to everyone and that’s what makes it good. If there’s one thing that stands out on the 10T’s spec sheet that you should know about, it’s the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 processor. It’s a capable chipset — the best you’ll find in an Android phone in 2022. And the 10T has it for less than $700. That tells you a lot about the whole deal of this phone. There’s also very fast wired charging on board — 125W in the US and it only stops there because our outlets aren’t designed to handle higher voltages.
Good stuff
Top shelf chipset and performance Seriously fast wired charging The heat dissipation system works well
Bad things
Pointless 2 megapixel macro camera Waterproof, not waterproof Photo exposure can be hit or miss
How we rate and evaluate devices What the 10T lacks is equally notable: there’s no wireless charging and no Hasselblad branding on the camera system like the flagship 10 Pro offers. There’s a large OLED screen with a fast refresh rate that anyone can appreciate, but for extra niceties like wireless charging, you’ll have to look elsewhere. The 10T is a phone for people who care about getting the best performance they can without spending $1,000. If that’s you, then you’ll be very happy to hear that OnePlus is indeed making a comeback. A top processor and very fast wired charging headline the 10T’s spec sheet. To go along with that flagship Qualcomm processor, the base model OnePlus 10T includes 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage — without a microSD card slot for expansion. There’s also a 16GB RAM / 256GB storage version for $749, both of which will be sold in North America. These are extremely competitive specs, especially for the price where 6GB of RAM is a more common starting point. I tested the 16GB version and it handles intensive tasks like a $1,000 phone would. I can tap and scroll seamlessly through the virtual 3D home tours on Zillow’s mobile site (who among us doesn’t window shop for a new house for fun?). I played Diablo Immortal for 30 minutes without running into any major issues, except for, like, an angry fire-breathing monster that I had to hit seven sides to submit. The framerate is a little choppy at times as I move into a new area, but it’s subtle — not a sudden, distracting drop that disrupts your flow. With Genshin Impact, gameplay is very smooth and dropped frames are rare. It’s one of two games for which OnePlus says it has optimized the 10T with frame stabilization technology (the other being PUBG Mobile), and it seems to work very well. It really puts the “brick” in the brick charge. The 10T’s fast wired charging does what it promises, too. The phone comes with a charging brick and USB-C to USB-C cable, and the AC adapter is heavy enough to let you know it means work when you pick it up. Charging speeds are nothing short of impressive: blink and you’ll lose up to 30 percent of the phone’s charge in less than five minutes. Within 10 minutes, I saw a 60 percent charge and a full charge within 20 minutes. This kind of speed can change the way you think about your phone’s battery life: if you don’t mind carrying around the charger, you can easily add hours of use with just a few minutes in an outlet. You don’t have to be precious about how much time you spend gaming or streaming video, even if you spend most of your day away from a power source. Beyond that, battery life is good. The 4,800mAh cell lasted solidly through a day of moderate use with about 60 percent charge left in the tank. I tested it heavily on mobile data with High Performance turned on — and why wouldn’t you with a phone like this? — use the fastest screen refresh rate mode (enabled by default). This is a moderate usage day. if you plan to do a lot of gaming, which is a key use case for this device, then you’ll need that quick, late-afternoon recharge to avoid single-digit battery hell. The 10T carries an IP54 water resistance rating wherever you buy it in the world. This was a point of confusion on previous OnePlus devices that sometimes had an implicit IP rating because the same phone on T-Mobile does, but the unlocked version doesn’t. It’s IP54, which protects against dust intrusion and water spray — not full submersion. That’s well below the IP68 waterproof ratings on most flagship devices, but it’s a small safeguard against accidental splashes and better than nothing. One thing you won’t find on the 10T: OnePlus’ signature notification slider. The company’s explanation is that in order to give enough space to the phone’s chipset and heat dissipation system, it had to cut the slider. It’s also hard to stress that just because this phone doesn’t have a notification slider doesn’t mean it’s gone forever. Still, it’s a fan favorite, and ditching it is undoubtedly an unpopular move among the OnePlus faithful. For what it’s worth, I did just fine without it as I used the phone. There’s a matte-finish glass panel behind — and no Hasselblad branding to be seen. With a high-powered chipset and fast charging, OnePlus made sure to include a serious heat dissipation system in the 10T. OnePlus says it contains the largest vapor chamber in any of its devices to date. There’s 3D graphite and copper foil, and I don’t really understand what all that means, but I can say this: it works pretty well. The phone does get warm, sure — 15 minutes into the 15GB Genshin Impact download (with animated loading screen enabled) and it’s warm to the touch, but not alarmingly hot. The same happens after 20 minutes of Diablo Immortal: the phone is noticeably warm, but remains comfortable to use. The only time I noticed the phone getting too hot was when I put it on a soft surface like a couch cushion while doing some intensive work like downloading large game files. This is more about me, though. the cooling system really can’t do it’s job when it’s choked. OnePlus has included a serious heat dissipation system in the 10T The OnePlus 10T offers a spacious 6.7-inch OLED with 1080p resolution and a top refresh rate of 120Hz. The panel itself is flat, although the edges of the device are curved. It’s also not an LTPO display, meaning it can’t drop to extremely low refresh rates, but the display will automatically adjust between 60, 90 and 120Hz to minimize battery drain. It’s also not the brightest display I’ve come across, but the 950 nit peak brightness is good enough to keep it visible in direct sunlight. On the display is a very good in-display fingerprint reader for biometric unlocking — after using the Pixel 6A’s far less responsive reader for a few weeks, this feels lightning fast. In a device whose entire premise is based on speed, it feels right at home. Companies like Google and Samsung have increased the number of years they commit to supporting devices with software updates, and OnePlus has followed suit. It doesn’t offer as much support — some Pixel and Galaxy devices get up to five years of security updates — but it does promise three OS version upgrades and four years of security updates for the 10T. That’s not great, but it’s good, and the 10T should be able to keep up well four years from now when it gets the latest security updates. Grid view The camera system on the 10T seems like an afterthought, and that’s actually a good thing. It has all the hardware I’d expect from a premium mid-range phone: a 50-megapixel main camera with stabilization, an adequate 8-megapixel widescreen, and a 16-megapixel selfie camera. There is a 2 megapixel macro camera on the back which is almost useless, with very low resolution and fixed focus. If you like to wonder if your photo will be the center of attention, then you will have a great time with it. Otherwise, OnePlus could have done us a favor and included an ultra-wide close-up instead, but it didn’t. Hasselblad branding is conspicuously absent, and in a group press briefing, OnePlus spokesperson Spenser Blank explained that the company wanted to position it differently than the higher-priced 10 Pro. Fair enough – using that Hasselblad logo probably doesn’t come cheap, and Hasselblad’s integration hasn’t exactly improved OnePlus’ cameras by leaps and bounds. No big loss there. All this means that the cameras on the 10T are just average: photos in good light look nice, and they are acceptable in low light. Sometimes it takes the camera a few shots to get to the right answer, but eventually it gets there. First, the exposure can be off a bit – I took three photos of my husband and son that look a little overexposed, and finally a fourth with the right exposure and skin tones. It keeps shutter speeds fast enough to get sharp enough shots of moving subjects in moderate light. In very low light,…
