Oneplus 10T: The smarter choice

In recent years, Oneplus has launched a flood of premium-class mobile phones. Two in the spring, a standard and a Pro model, and then one or two more in the fall with the T addition. Plus the occasional special edition here and there. In the last year, they have kept up with the number of models. There was no Oneplus 9T, and the Oneplus 10 Pro was released last spring, but without a “regular” Oneplus 10. Now the manufacturer has launched the Oneplus 10T, which manages to fill the happiness of both the T series and the standard model.

Sales of the Oneplus 10T will only start on August 25, but we have already had the opportunity to test it a week before today’s launch. Since last Friday, it has been our test editor’s daily mobile and has undergone a thorough review.

The Oneplus 10T is in many ways exactly what we would have expected if Oneplus released a Oneplus 10 this spring. Still a top-class mobile, but with a flat screen instead of a curved one, a simpler camera without optical zoom and a lower price. Over the years, Oneplus T models have been both simplified and upgraded versions of the spring flagship, more stripped down in function and with a lower price, but often also with some interesting upgrade. The Oneplus 10T ticks all that off.

First, it has a significantly more affordable price tag, 7,990 for a model with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, or 8,990 for a model with a full 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. There is also an intermediate model with 12 GB of RAM, but it is not sold in Sweden. It is significantly cheaper than the Oneplus 10 Pro, which is between SEK 10,490 and 11,490.

A new performance gear

Meanwhile, the 10T is a performance upgrade, thanks to the new Snapdragon 8+ gen 1 chipset. It ups the speed with higher multi-core clocks and the GPU, and is said to boost energy efficiency. We’ve seen the Snapdragon 8+ gen 1 in two mobiles so far, both from Asus, and the Oneplus 10T places itself between them in terms of performance.

How much performance you can squeeze out of the circuit depends a lot on the cooling, and here a larger phone like the Oneplus 10T has an advantage over a compact model like the Asus Zenfone 9, but it can’t match a dedicated gaming build like the ROG Phone 6 Pro. Oneplus 10T is said to have improved and larger so-called vapor chambers for heat dissipation from the circuits, and it seems to do the trick.

With a large chassis to distribute the excess heat in, it also takes a long time before the phone becomes painfully hot to hold. It is largely only during long-term gaming that we experience it as annoyingly warm. And it’s easy to fix with a peel. The model we are testing is the more expensive one with 16 GB of RAM. This allows it to load and keep more apps in memory, resulting in faster switching between apps and faster loading of the most used apps.

Glossy or matte

The design borrows from the Oneplus 10 Pro, with a large, square camera panel on the back, but also from some of last year’s Oneplus Nord models, with smoother lines and no sharp corners that can collect dust. The mobile comes in two designs, glossy Jade Green and matte Moonstone Black. Here we probably prefer the black one, as the model with a glossy glass back is quite sweaty to the touch, and not just when it becomes lukewarm from heavy load.

A shiny chrome frame all around with rounded edges makes the phone extra easy to grip, even if the shape adds a few millimeters to an already wide phone. You get volume controls on the west side, power button on the right, and sim card reader for two nano sims at the bottom.

Fans of previous Oneplus mobiles may flock here. Where is Oneplus’ unique alert slider, the physical slider on the side to set it to silent or vibrate mode? It is here removed, for the first time in a top model. According to Oneplus, it simply took up too much space and in the 10T they have prioritized maximizing the battery and keeping the cost down.

Ready for update

Unfortunately, they haven’t replaced the slider with something else readily available. In Android 12, the same three choices are easily reached with a tap on the volume control, but in Oneplus interface Oxygen OS 12.1, that option is not present. Why would it, when there is a button for it? We’ll have to go into the audio section of the settings menu to get that control, and there’s no shortcut there either. We put a software update for the 10T that fixes it on the wish list.

In 2023, the Oneplus 10T will be one of the first models to be updated to the upcoming Oxygen OS 13, which was presented at the same time as the new phone. The manufacturer works hard to underline that the kinship with Oppo does not mean that they give up their own identity, and that Oxygen OS should still be something entirely its own. What that means we will simply have to wait and see, but what we were presented with seemed promising. Oneplus also promises three major Android updates for the 10T, which can be taken for granted.

The Oneplus 10T has a sharp 1080p amoled screen with all the fine picture characteristics we expect in a premium class. Brightness of up to 950 cd/m2, color gamut matching Display P3 standard, high color accuracy tested at multiple brightness levels, 10-bit color management and support for hdr10+.

Leading speed even in the screen

You get a maximum screen update of 120 Hz and also have the highest screen reading frequency we have seen so far in a screen of 1,000 Hz, which together with the well-optimized interface and alert vibration motor gives a nice feeling of direct control. You can manually set the screen to 60 Hz, or let the phone switch between 60, 90 and 120 Hz automatically as needed. However, there is no ltpo technology in the screen, so it is the fixed steps that can be run.

It could have a negative impact on the battery life, but it’s already very good so it’s not something we think will be a disadvantage. The mobile’s 4,800 mAh large battery gives us active video streaming for an entire day, and as long as we don’t do specifically processor-intensive things, it lasts without problems all day even with more varied use. In most cases, it takes up to two days between charges.

Of course, it is possible to suck more energy out of the battery faster, with individual apps, camera use and games. So it can be good to have the charger handy. It is usb chargers that apply, the Oneplus 10T does not have any wireless charging. It is of course a small minus, but one that we can accept as it certainly contributes to the reduced price.

Fast charging… and long-lasting?

And the usb charging does not go off for hacks. It’s Oneplus’ fastest to date, the proprietary SuperVOOC technology adopted from Oppo, here with a whopping 150 Watts of power. The supplied charger even says 160 Watt, but that is precisely because such powerful charging apparently needs a little margin of error. It’s just as ridiculously fast to top up as you might think from zero to one hundred percent in 19 minutes according to Oneplus, 20 minutes according to our timer.

You can also use the charger for other usb c-charged gadgets, but then with a maximum power of 45 Watt. Not that little either. In addition to fast charging, it must also be gentle on the battery. Oneplus claims that it will last a full 1,600 charge cycles with a reduction in capacity of 80 percent. Of course, it’s impossible to test in a week, but if it’s true, it’s really good for long-term use. One charge a day for over four years.

One thing we complained a little about in the Oneplus 10 Pro was its weak speaker, which delivered nice sound, but was too thin. Oneplus 10T has succeeded better with that. It is the same fine detail reproduction in the midrange and treble, but with better fullness in lower frequencies. You also have Dolby Atmos support here, which can be set in a handful of preselected profiles. But unfortunately, you cannot adjust the sound image in detail if you want, for example, more bass.

The camera the biggest saving

What is mainly a downgrade compared to the Oneplus 10 Pro is the camera. This is what, above all, makes the 10 Pro still, despite lower performance, the more expensive flagship. In the 10 T, you get a simple macro camera instead of a high-end telephoto zoom, a simpler set of sensors for the other cameras, and you also have to do without the more advanced Hasselblad color and image management that the 10 Pro has.

Now, we honestly think that the Hasselblads-branded phones from Oneplus have not stood out as exceptional mobile cameras. Sure, they take good pictures, but by no means better than other top-of-the-line phones, and the quality of most better phone cameras these days is so high that you need a good eye for photography to tell the difference.

Here, the camera set-up is more in the good middle class. The main sensor is Sony’s IMX766, the same 50-megapixel sensor found in the Oneplus Nord 2T, Nothing Phone 1 and Asus Zenfone 9. You get optical image stabilization that allows you to get stable and vibration-free handling in long-exposure dark photos, something that Oneplus has used well over the years in its night mode. And also do here.

However, you don’t get the same tremendous sharpness and stability that the Zenfone 9 can offer, and digital zoom blurs more quickly. The high color saturation in photos can also feel a little overdone, especially since it’s not matched between the main sensor and the wide-angle camera. This applies whether we have the camera app’s ai mode on or off.

It’s hard to say how customers will react to the Oneplus 10T. This is both a step away from the features and quirks that have made Oneplus unique over the years, and a return to what historically made Oneplus good. High performance, brilliant screen quality, a system optimized for fast and direct experience and a competitive price are exactly what once upon a time set the map for Oneplus. Then the compromise in the camera and lack of wireless charging might not do much.

Specifications

Product name: Oneplus 10T
Tested: August 2022
Manufacturer: OnePlus
System circuit: Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1
Processor: Kryo Prime 3.2 GHz + 3 pcs Kryo Gold 2.75 GHz, 4 pcs Kryo Silver 2 GHz
Graphics: Adreno 730 900 MHz
Memory: 8/16 GB
Storage: 128/256GB
Screen: 6.7 inch amoled, 1080×2412 pixels, 120 Hz
Cameras: 50 megapixel + 8 megapixel wide-angle + 2 megapixel macro with rear, 16 megapixel front
Connections: Usb 2 type c
Communication: 2g, 3g, 4g, 5g, wifi 6, bluetooth 5.3, agps, galileo, nfc
Operating system: Android 12 with Oxygen OS 12.1
Miscellaneous: Dual SIM, in-screen fingerprint reader
Battery: 4,800 mAh, 26 hours 40 minutes of online video (wifi, high brightness, 60 Hz), approx. 21 hours of mixed use (4g, low brightness, 120Hz), approx. 32 hours of calls
Battery charging: 150W usb (Super VOOC)
Size: 16.3 x 7.54 x 0.88 cm
Weight: 204 grams
Rec. Award: SEK 7,990 (8/128 GB), SEK 8,990 (16/256 GB)

Oneplus 10T goes on sale August 25.

Performance

Antutu Benchmark: 1,020,711 points
Geekbench 5: 3,761 points
Geekbench 5 a core: 1,328 points
3dmark Wild Life Unlimited: 10,951 points
3dmark Wild Life Extreme: 2,761 points
Storage, reading: 1848.4 MB/s
Storage, writing: 1,092.6 MB/s