OnePlus 10T review: Elegant design meets flagship specs

The OnePlus 10T is a sleek, elegant, mid-tier smartphone with potent specs that rival many Android flagships, but some may judge it harshly for what it doesn’t have like Hasselblad-tuned cameras and the alert slider. OnePlus explained that dumping the slider allowed them to place a larger battery (4,800 mAh) and an improved 3D vapor cooling system within the 10T, which ensures better overall performance. I’ll take better battery life and performance over a slider any day. 

I prefer to focus on what the OnePlus 10T does come with, including a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor; a powerful triple camera array; a crisp, colorful 6.7-inch AMOLED 120Hz adaptive display; and OxygenOS which is one of the best, smoothest running Android based operating systems for smartphones. The OnePlus 10T styling is business elegance, that feels so good in the hand and looks great when I slip it out of my suit jacket. It made my ginormous beer-can-smasher hands appear worthy of a martini at the Havard club. 

If I were Apple or Samsung, I would be looking over my shoulder because OnePlus is starting to breathe down the flagship phone king’s necks. Between the 10 Pro and the 10T, OnePlus is building steam and climbing up our best smartphones list, let’s take a deeper dive into the OnePlus 10T and see if it might be perfect for you. 

OnePlus 10T price and configurations 

The OnePlus 10T starts at $649, which includes 8GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage. You have the option to upgrade to 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage for $749. The 10T is available in either a beautiful Moonstone Black or Jade Green. The Moonstone Black 10T looks like something James Bond whips out and disarms villains with and then slips back into his tux to remind a bartender he likes his martini shaken, not stirred.

I must admit to being a little confused by the 10T’s spec options. The OnePlus 10 Pro ($899) is the companies flagship phone, but only arrived with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage with an upgraded 12GB RAM and 256GB of storage option added later with a retail price of $969. Our 10T review unit features the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 CPU, 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage for $749. This makes me feel like that time I got upgraded from coach to first class for no reason at all. 

OnePlus 10T design 

The OnePlus 10T is part of the company's “burdenless” design movement and doesn’t deviate much from the 10 Pro’s design. However, you will immediately notice a few changes, such as the missing slider, the selfie cam centered instead of off to the left, and the 10T lacks the curved waterfall edge display that some find appealing. However, the 10T’s subtle differences create a very elegant feel and, side by side, the 10T appears to be slightly wider, and its flatter screen feels like it has a little more real estate as well. 

The rear camera array mirrors the 10 Pro in appearance with only the location of the flash changing. The camera array is protected by a layer of ceramic and is seamlessly molded into the unit’s aluminum frame, which wraps nicely around the phone. The overall look and feel of the OnePlus 10T is clean, and the subtle differences between the two are enough for the 10T to cut its own path and there is definitely a difference in weight The 10T feels a bit sturdier than the 10 Pro and this could just be because of the slight difference in girth and density.

The review unit I received came in Moonstone Black, with the black chrome aluminum chassis mated to a textured black rear panel inspired by basalt that feels luxurious in the hand. The Jade Green option is a bit more fun and available for those who aren’t fans of the black tie affair vibe the Moonstone gives off. I personally prefer the elegance of the Moonstone, but the Jade is funkier and should catch the eye of the avant-garde. 

The waterfall edge display of the 10 Pro, though stylish and premium in look, isn’t for me and the 10T’s fully flat display panel’s ergonomics are lovely. I also find that the 10T is easily managed in one hand and the slightly wider 10T feels better in my larger-than-average hands. 

At 6.4 x 2.9 x 0.34 inches and 7.1 ounces, the 10T measurements are nearly identical to the 10 Pro (6.4 x 2.9 x 0.33 inches, 7.1 ounces), with the only difference being 0.01 of an inch. 

As with the OnePlus 10 Pro, the 10T possesses a more ergonomic design and feel than the Pixel 6 Pro (6.45 x 3 x 0.35 inches, 7.4 ounces) and although heavier than the Galaxy S22 (6.2 x 3 x 0.3 inches, 6.9 ounces), it remains narrower. In comparison to the iPhone 13 (5.7 x 2.8 x 0.3 inches, 6.1 ounces), it appears bigger. 

The OnePlus 10T doesn't hold up to its rivals on dust or water resistance. The IP54 certification for the 10T indicates it will hold up to a little dust or a spray of water, but it is well shy of the IP68 certification of true flagships that are able to survive submersion in water for up to 30 minutes. Now hopefully you don't need to test that in either case, but it's something to be aware of. 

The 10T also gets the slightly older Gorilla Glass 5 protecting its screen, compared to Gorilla Glass Victus on most Android flagships. When combined with its aluminum chassis, it makes the 10T fairly resilient, but it won't go toe to toe with the Galaxy S22 or the iPhone 13 Pro, WIth that said, it should stand up to the normal abuses most smartphones deal with on a daily basis. As we all know, every phone is vulnerable to drops on hard surfaces such as concrete or ceramic tiles, so it would be smart to use a case to protect your investment. 

As mentioned previously, the familiar OnePlus alert slider was eliminated from the  10T. On the left, you will find the volume rocker

and on the right we find the power button, 

with the USB-C port centrally located at the bottom and the sim card slot located to the left of it. 

The loss of the alert slider is something that will bother many long-time OnePlus fans to no end, but will go completely unnoticed by anyone coming from another brand.

OnePlus 10T display 

The OnePlus 10T’s AMOLED (2412  x 1080) 6.7-inch display is HDR10+ certified, with native support for 10-bit color depth, an adaptive 120Hz refresh rate, and a 20.1:9 aspect ratio. Most importantly, it is crisp, colorful, and great to watch content on. 

I tapped on my Disney Plus app and started rewatching Avengers: Infinity War, when Thanos’ minions arrive on Earth and face up against Doctor Strange, Wong, Iron Man, and a Hulk-less Bruce Banner. When Stark initiates his new and improved nanite armor, the red, gold and blue-ish energy waslovingly saturated by the OnePlus 10T’s display. The special effects of Wong and Dr. Strange’s orange glowing spells were reproduced to perfection and it was a truly enjoyable experience.

Our lab specialist took a deeper look into the OnePlus 10T’s display performance. It reproduced 90.5% of the DCI-P3 color gamut in its Natural color setting. That’s enough to top the iPhone 13 Pro (82.5%) and the Pixel 6 Pro (73.8%). It’s just beneath the Samsung Galaxy S22+ (90.9%), but is quickly gaining on it. In vivid mode, the 10T DCI-P3 score was 127.2%, which is just fantastic. 

During our Delta-E color accuracy test results (lower is better), our 10T scored 0.21 in its Natural setting. This bested the Galaxy S22+, and Pixel 6 Pro, which tallied 0.27 and 0.3, respectively. 

The OnePlus 10T registered 727 nits of brightness at its max, which is solid. But it’s comparison mates all fared better with the Galaxy S22+ (1,326 nits) leading the category, followed by the iPhone 13 Pro (1,024 nits), and the Pixel 6 Pro (842 nits) also scoring brighter. 

I found the OnePlus 10T’s display to be fantastic, with its color enhancement and HDR support allowing for outstanding content viewing experiences throughout my time with it. Although Samsung remains the undefeated and undisputed champion, the 10T’s display is excellent, producing beautifully saturated vivid colors and crisp, clear images.

OnePlus 10T audio 

The OnePlus 10T comes with dual stereo speakers, noise canceling mics and Dolby Atmos support. All my calls sounded very clean, loud, and clear, and I was told my voice sounded excellent on the other side without any odd noise canceling muffling you sometimes find in some devices. 

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that while watching Avengers: Age of Ultron, I was pleasantly surprised by not only how loud the dual speakers on the 10T were, but also by the audio depth these tiny speakers produced. There were defined tonal differences between high, mid, and low tones, which honestly I do not know how that is achieved, but bravo to the engineers behind that. When Captain America scolds his fellow Avengers about their use of foul language, his slightly nasally tone was spot on and when an explosion happened to his left, there was clear depth in the low rumble of the explosion. 

Normally, when listening to music, I use a pair of wireless earbuds, but I wanted to see if the same audio experience I enjoyed while watching video content would extend to music. I was feeling like some Latin rhythms, so I put on Marc Anthony’s “Aguanile” as the potent Salsa horns, conga drums, and timbales filled my space with some loud clean audio worthy of getting up and dancing. However, although there was some nice depth, when I used the equalizer to push the 10T produce more bass, there was a tiny bit of distortion. Let's face it, it’s a smartphone, not a boom box. The overall audio experience of the 10T is solid but, if you’re looking to party, do what I did — use the Bluetooth to connect to a larger speaker or use some earbuds.

OnePlus 10T cameras 

I’m a camera head. I love everything and anything cameras and I really like the triple camera array on the 10T because I guess I am still of the mindset that a smartphone camera cannot match a good mirrorless camera like the Nikon Z6 ii or a cinema camera like the Blackmagic 6K. That expressed, the OnePlus 10T’s main 50MP Sony IMX766 1/1.56-inch sensor camera shoots some quality photos that are sharp and colorful. The images may not match those rendered by the iPhone 13 Pro, which seems to be made from Unicorn horns, as I still can’t figure out how they continue to make the best cameras in smartphones. 

The first thing you will notice is the UI when using the camera is very similar to the one you use when shooting with the OnePlus 10 Pro, which has cameras tuned by Hasselblad. To be quite honest, the difference between the images I have shot with both are very similar in quality. The 10T shoots faster and the autofocus functions better as well. I found the images to be very color accurate, as you can see here when I took some photos of some glasses we have in our home.

The color reproduction is very true to life and I was quite pleased and so was the Buddha you see here. 

I took some early evening sunset photos with the main camera and the results were sharp, color-accurate images. As it got darker, the camera’s f/1.8 aperture came in handy and I was quite pleased.

The ultrawide camera is 8MP with a 119.9-degree field of view with an aperture of f/2.2, which performed pretty well under the right lighting conditions and in many lower light situations.

I tested out the 2MP macro camera with middling results, which is what I expect with a 2MP camera. As you can see, the flowers came out color accurate but also a little fuzzy. I tried to take other photos with the macro camera, but, it was a bit breezy so my subjects were moving a bit and that doesn’t help when trying to shoot macro images. OnePlus almost certainly put the macro camera here to maintain the camera layout of the 10 Pro with its actually useful telephoto, but for the most part you should pretend it isn't there.

Last but not least, the 16MP selfie camera on the 10T was a nice surprise, as I found it to be an improvement over the 10 Pro’s front facing camera and enjoyed shooting selfies with it, as you can see. I found the autofocus seemed speedier, and I got cleaner, crisper images with the 10T’s front facing camera than I did with the 10 Pro’s.

The overall camera experience with the 10T feels like an improvement over both the 9 Pro and the 10 Pro, which both featured Hasselblad refinement. I don’t know why, but I found the 10T’s cameras to be quicker in not only gaining focus but also maintaining focus. However, this was while using OxygenOS 12 and the results changed while using OxygenOS 13.

The OnePlus 10T shoots fine 4K videos at 30/60 frames per second, some fun slow motion at 240fps at 1080p, and time lapse as well. You can shoot photos in raw format, which gives you a more detailed image but also eats up more data because you’re using more pixels. The camera’s feature set is jam-packed with Nightscape 2.0, Ultra HDR, Smart Scene Recognition, Portrait Mode, Pro Mode, PanoramaLong Exposure, Dual-View Video, and it even has a Cat/Dog Face Focus mode for all of us pet lovers.

OnePlus 10T performance and graphics 

Our OnePlus 10T review unit features the latest Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor, 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, which places it  in the range of the higher-priced flagship Android phones. I will admit that, no matter how powerful the specs of any Android device, Apple’s iPhone remains the unchallenged performance king. Thing is, often times, the iPhone’s specs and performance feel like overkill. 

The 10T never fluttered, faltered, or appeared overwhelmed with anything I threw at it. I popped open about 15 Google Chrome tabs and a Disney Plus video playing in the background, all while bouncing around apps like Instagram, TikTok and Twitter. I found Qualcomm’s Snapdragon to be more than up to the task, as the 10T remained super responsive, handling my demands speedily. Yes, Apple’s A15 Bionic is otherworldly, and it’s like having a smartphone powered by an Infinity Stone, but again, it sometimes feels like overkill and the Snapdragon performs excellently in its own right. 

Like the 10 Pro, the 10T has it’s own beautiful 120Hz display and when combined with OnePlus’s HyperBoost Gaming Engine, GPA Frame Stabilizer, GPU load control (GLC),  and 1,000Hz instant touch sampling rate, it takes your gaming to a whole new leve land results in  one of the smoothest gaming experiences I’ve had to date. 

Our review unit scored solidly during our Geekbench 5 benchmark, as the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 tallied a multi-core score of 3,476. In a world where the iPhone 13 Pro (4,718) doesn’t exist, it would rattle some cages. However, in comparison to it’s Android brethren, the Pixel 6 Pro, (2,760) and the Galaxy S22 (3,361), the 10T is leading the pack. That said, like the 10 Pro, its score doesn’t surpass the OnePlus 9 Pro (3,688) which came with a Snapdragon 888 CPU. 

I expected our OnePlus 10T to improve on the 10 Pro’s (1:02) Adobe Premiere Rush test score but, it too, took over one minute (1:05) to convert a 4K video to 1080p. Once again, the iPhone 13 Pro (26 seconds) made the jump to lightspeed, leaving everyone behind. The Galaxy S22+ (46 seconds) and Pixel 6 Pro (49 seconds) did their level best to prove Android phones could keep up, but numbers don’t lie.

During our Wild life Unlimited Graphics testing, the 10T averaged 65 frames per second, which placed it no too far behind the iPhone 13 Pro (70 fps), but, ahead of the Samsung Galaxy S22 (60 fps) and blowing the Pixel 6 Pro (40 fps) out of the water.

The OnePlus 10T scored well overall in comparison to other Android phones and even crept up on the iPhone 13 Pro in some categories.Clearly, it’s a phone to take seriously when you’re trying to decide between purchasing an Android device or joining the power of the dark side.

OnePlus 10T battery life and charging 

OnePlus is known for pushing the limits of fast charging and they’ve done it again. The OnePlus 10T supports up to 150W SUPERVOOC charging and comes with a 125W SUPERVOOC charger (there are rules in North America).According to OnePlus, it is capable of fully charging the 10T in 20 minutes. During our lab testing, we got 70% charge in 15 minutes and reached full charge in just over 24 minutes. 

As mentioned earlier, with the alert slider gone OnePlus was able to get a 4,800mAh battery in the unit, which should result in some good battery life. During our Laptop Mag Battery test, which has the phone continuously surf the web over cellular with the display set to 150 nits of brightness, the OnePlus 10T, on its adaptive refresh rate setting, averaged 10 hours and 59 minutes. When we dropped the display's refresh rate to 60Hz, we saw battery life extend to 11 hours and 22 minutes. This isn’t quite the 12 hours you’ll get with the iPhone 13 Pro but is much longer than the Galaxy S22 (9:27) and the Pixel 6 Pro (7:47).

I will say that I normally wake up around 8 a.m. and start my day by unplugging my phone from its charger and go about my business. I went two days without charging the OnePlus 10T and still had 27% battery life remaining. During those two days, I watched several episodes of Somebody Feed Phil on Netflix, watched Ms Marvel on Disney Plus, shot photos and read my normal amount of emails, so I was impressed with the results. Also, knowing that I could speedily charge it back up and go about my day was comforting. The 10T obviously ends up on our list of  phones with the best battery life, with Apple not too far ahead.

OnePlus will also be selling an 80W fast car charger that customers can purchase on the company's website. 

OnePlus 10T software 

The OnePlus 10T will arrive with OxygenOS 12 over Android 12, but OxygenOS 13 over Android 13 is launching the same day, so you will be able to immediately upgrade to  OxygenOS 13 and enjoy one of the best versions of Android available. OnePlus commits itself to three major OS updates and four years of securtity updates which, isn’t too shabby, but, won’t match Apple’s average of over five years of updates.

At the moment, I am still in OxygenOS 12 and it is one of my favorite Android modifications. The UI is very user-friendly, but OxygenOS 13 will feature a more “Aquamorphic” design to create a more soothing and tranquil user experience while keeping users’ favorite features such as Work-Life Balance, improved Smart Launcher, a Sidebar Toolbox, Faster Bluetooth pairing, Spatial Audio, and Private Safe 2.0 to further secure user’s data.

Bottom line 

Starting at just $649 for the base model with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, the OnePlus10T is a steal at this price, especially with its Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor.  For $100 more, you can push it to 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage and it’s still a huge bargain because, with those specs, you’re getting a flagship phone for under $800.

Although the low light and overall camera performance is an improvement over the 10 Pro, like 99% of Android phones, it falls short of Apple’s iPhone 13 lineup. However, you can get some nice quality images out of the 10T and fun 4K videos that you can share with family and friends. It’s not meant to film your magnus opus, but you could try.

For under $750, you can max out the OnePlus 10T and walk away knowing you now own a great do-it-all phone and still afford to pay your rent. That’s a win in my book.