OnePlus 10T Smartphone Review
This $650 phone has gamer-friendly specs. Better yet, it's priced lower than the manufacturer’s flagship OnePlus 10 Pro.
By Melanie Pinola
OnePlus has dropped the price of its premium 10 Pro smartphone from $900 to $800. If that’s still too rich for your budget, you might consider the OnePlus 10T introduced in September with a $650 starting price.
It looks almost identical to the 10 Pro, with a large 6.7-inch OLED display, but there are notable differences between the devices.
The most glaring shift is that the company’s signature alert slider doesn’t appear on the right side of the phone. That may seem like a small thing, but if you’re a fan of that unique feature to quickly silence or set notifications to vibrate, you’ll likely mourn its loss.
The company told us it dispensed with the alert slider to make room for the phone’s new hardware: a bigger, 4,800-milliamp-hour battery; a second charging pump to enable fast 125-watt charging (compared with the 10 Pro’s 65-watt charging); and a new antenna system.
Many of the improvements are intended to boost the model’s mobile gaming features:
• The new antenna system is designed to get a better signal when the device is held horizontally in landscape mode.
• The cooling system has been redesigned to counter the heat from more intensive games.
• A $750 model has 16 gigabytes of RAM and 256GB of storage to accommodate games that demand more memory and space.
• The high, 120-hertz refresh rate makes for smoother gameplay.
• Qualcomm’s latest chipset, the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, should provide better performance and energy efficiency than previous phones, according to the company. (Note that there’s no OnePlus 9T to compare the 10T with, nor have we seen a regular OnePlus 10 yet this year.)
To get a sense of what it’s like to use the phone for playing video games—not to mention texting, scrolling through social media, and streaming videos—I asked OnePlus for an early 10T press sample to compare it with the 10 Pro the company had loaned me in the spring. I received the version with 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, which is the same model that CR purchased and tested in its labs. (Everything reviewed by our testers—from laptops to pickup trucks—is purchased at retail, so it’s no different from the item you buy.) The $650 version has 8GB of memory and 128GB of storage.
Both models are available at Amazon, Best Buy, OnePlus, and T-Mobile, and the phones work solely on T-Mobile’s network.
Want to cut to the chase and know if the OnePlus 10T is a good phone? We’d say so, for the most part. The phone earns an overall score of Very Good and nearly broke into the top 10 phones in our ratings.
Here’s what we learned after using the OnePlus 10T for a few days and running it through a battery of tests.
Display and Design
Like the 10 Pro, the OnePlus 10T is a big, sleek phone. In fact, I had a hard time telling the two models apart without looking for the alert slider on the side of the 10 Pro.
The 10T feels good to hold, thanks to the slightly rounded sides and the textured glass on the back. The phone is a glass sandwich—Corning Gorilla Glass 5 on both the front and back—but it’s worth noting that the OnePlus 10 Pro features the stronger Gorilla Victus on the front. Still, you probably won’t notice much of a difference, unless you’re prone to dropping and scratching your phone.
The frame of the 10T, however, feels a bit plasticky to me, compared with the aluminum frame on the 10 Pro. The slick edges might not appeal to those with butterfingers, though that’s simple to fix with an easy-to-grip case.
I like the 10T’s weight. For such a large phone, it’s noticeably lighter than my 6.8-inch Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, which is starting to feel like a brick to me after testing other models.
From left to right, the 6.4-inch Google Pixel 6, 6.7-inch OnePlus 10T, and 6.7-inch OnePlus 10 Pro
Photo: Melanie Pinola/Consumer Reports
The 10T is available in black (Moonstone) and green (Jade). The black version has a subtle glittery effect on the back that catches the light in a pleasing way. It’s the kind of detail you might not want to cover up with anything but a clear cell phone case.
Outdoors in direct sunlight, the screen is bright enough to read clearly.
The phone did have some minor scratches on the frame after being dropped 100 times in our tumble test, but it was still in working condition and survived a 5-minute gentle rainfall test. Note that the 10T isn’t designed to survive an actual plunge.
Performance
Like the 10 Pro’s screen, the display on the 10T has a high 120Hz refresh rate, which makes for smoother animations, gaming, and scrolling through menus, apps, and the photo gallery. To conserve battery life, you can adjust the refresh rate to 60Hz.
When I tried playing the action-packed, role-playing game Genshin Impact at a challenging 60-frames-per-second clip, I got a warning that the phone’s load was high, which could result in overheating or serious lagging. But I was able to tap my way through the imaginary world and battle bouncing blobs without any stuttering from the phone.
OnePlus’ proprietary operating system, OxygenOS 12.1, comes with a “pro gamer” performance setting designed for truly competitive play. It consumes more power and creates more heat, but it improves the touch controls and smoothness of animations. My character in Genshin Impact did seem to battle more fluidly with the setting on. The 10T ran warmer as a result, though.
There’s another game mode that blocks notifications and calls for a more immersive experience.
I also looked into OnePlus’ claim that the 10T can perform well even when running 35 apps in the background and found it to be true. CR testers say the phone’s speed and touchscreen’s performance are top-notch. To rate a phone’s performance, our testers measure processor performance, maximum upload and download speeds, and sound quality, among other things.
Battery Life and Charging
This large phone also has a large, 4,800 mAh battery. In CR’s tests, the model logged a decent 33.5 hours on a single charge. By comparison, the OnePlus 10 Pro, which has an even larger battery (5,000 mAh), clocked in at 30.5 hours.
The OnePlus 10T has a 125-watt charger. That’s the highest-powered charger we’ve seen on a phone and more power means faster charging. According to the company, the new rig can give the model up to a day’s power after 10 minutes of charging and a full charge in 20 minutes. And if you travel to Europe or Asia, where 220-volt outlets are available, the phone has a full 150-watt capability. By comparison, the OnePlus 10 Pro model sold in the U.S. has 65-watt fast charging.
Unlike many other smartphones these days, the 10T comes complete with a charging brick, which can power other USB-C devices. An optional 80-watt car charger is available for $40.
The phone doesn’t support wireless charging, though, which is a bit of a bummer when less expensive devices like the Samsung Galaxy S20 FE, $600, do.
Cameras
OnePlus has prioritized the battery and gaming performance with the 10T, making trade-offs when it comes to taking photos and recording video.
The OnePlus 10T has a triple-camera system on the back: a main 50-megapixel, an 8-megapixel ultrawide camera, and a 2-megapixel macro or zoom camera. On the front, there’s a 16-megapixel selfie camera.
That’s a downgrade from the 10 Pro’s main 48-megapixel, 50-megapixel ultrawide, 8-megapixel zoom, and 32-megapixel selfie cameras. The 10 Pro’s cameras were also developed in partnership with professional camera and lens manufacturer Hasselblad. For the 10T, OnePlus opted to use Sony sensors on the cameras instead.
The 10T did take great shots in my quick tests, but the photos snapped in lowlight conditions looked a little fuzzier than those from the 10 Pro. To my untrained eyes at least, the 10 Pro setup seemed to bring in more light.
In the labs, CR testers gave still shots from the rear cameras a Very Good score, but rated the rear video and front selfie image quality just okay.
Here are some shots I took of a photogenic pug, who is a very good model because she doesn’t like to move.
The slightly brighter photo on the left was taken with the OnePlus 10 Pro. The one on the right was taken with the OnePlus 10T.
Photo: Melanie Pinola/Consumer Reports
OnePlus 10T vs. OnePlus 10 Pro
So should you choose the OnePlus 10T over the 10 Pro?
That’s a good question.
The 10 Pro is OnePlus’ highest-performing phone in our smartphone ratings, cracking a top 10 dominated by Apple and Samsung models. And at the new $800 price, it’s more attractive than ever.
But you can save $150 more with the OnePlus 10T, which looks and feels much the same. You just have to give up a few premium perks—the handy alert slider, more advanced cameras, and wireless charging.
For many folks, that’s an easy trade-off.
Before you decide, here’s one more thing to keep in mind: OnePlus promises the 10T will receive three major Android updates and four years’ worth of security updates. That’s less than Google’s offer of three Android updates and five years of security patches for the Pixel 6a, $450, and Samsung’s four years of Android updates and five years of security updates for devices such as the Galaxy A53, $450.
Is it a dealbreaker? No, but it means you’ll need to replace the model in four years or forego the protection of up-to-date security.
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