OnePlus 10T Review : Still A Flagship Killer?

Making another appearance this year from OnePlus is the 10T. Notorious for being the most specced-out version that OnePlus makes, you could say it lives up to the reputation here coming with a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, a 6.7" Fluid AMOLED display, a triple camera construction, yet somehow missing the prestigious Hasselblad branding on the back.So how does this stand against the Pro variant released earlier this year? – which was also released pretty much under the radar in most countries. And does it have the right to stand amongst other flagships with a mid-range price tag?

This Jade green colour-way which was first seen on the Nord 2T, still looks more blue than green to our eyes, sometimes coming off a little grey-ish too? But it pulls off the look better in most lighting conditions.Either way, the plastic frame and glass back meshes in nicely with the camera module, while at 204g also weighing a little lighter than Oppo's version of this design, the Find X5 Pro. In some ways, we prefer this iteration as it's equipped with a Fluid AMOLED HDR10+ flat-edged display, capable of producing over 1 billion colours, with a 120Hz refresh rate and 720Hz touch sampling rate for all your doom scrolling or gaming needs, which we'll get into in just a bit. The overall 87.9% screen-to-body ratio does feel slightly tighter than the one found on the Find X 5 Pro, but with its flat-edged display, handling this in the hands might justify avoiding accidental touches during intense gaming sessions. Viewing angles are also great and by no means feels any less of a display compared to the LTPO2 displays on both the Find X 5 Pro and the OnePlus 10 Pro. So it likely won't be a dealbreaker to most, being arguably a wise decision which might have helped keep prices down when it came to developing this phone. While there are still stereo speakers, outputs aren’t exactly loud. Thankfully, Bluetooth 5.2 and Dolby Atmos makes the wireless headphone experience just a tad bit more worth your while having very low latency. There's also options to choose between Environment or Scenario-specific profiles. These different sound modes makes gaming, movies, and music feel more tuned for their respective purposes. For us, we personally found the Movie scenario profile to be most balanced and akin to the likes of Apple’s Spatial Audio, providing a 3D sound experience but not quite as 3D as you'd imagine if we're being honest. The OnePlus 10T is equipped with a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 and Adreno 730, 8GB of RAM and options to upgrade to 12GB RAM, which could help make things feel a little faster. But it doesn't show any signs of feeling slow even with 8GB while having multiple apps open.

Even our Geekbench scores manage a score of 1008 Single-Core and 3478 for Multi-Core. Considerably one of the higher results we've tested and even maxes out on our WildLife Test. Extreme WildLife tests show an overall score of 2781 and averages 16.7 frames per second.

Battery consumption and temperature management are also very stable for games such as Call Of Duty or Real Racing 3 and should keep you cool throughout. Cameras on the other hand, comes with a Sony IMX766 1/1.56" Sensor and consists of a 50MP Main Camera, 8MP Ultra-wide, and a 2MP Macro camera, Video outputs are quite underwhelming, topping at 4K at 60fps with higher frame options available up-to 240fps. Some of our examples here in 4K do tend to shift in colour balance and exposure for daylight settings.

Other factors such as dynamic range are still good but quickly lose their quality due to lacking in exposure management. Stabilisation isn't the best showing warping effects when walking but handles decently for those bumpy car rides. But when it comes to image quality alone, we'll let you decide if it's up to your standards.

Photos however, gets a solid B+ for retaining colours throughout all 3 focal lengths and perhaps the most consistent thing these cameras are capable of for photo captures.

Despite it not having any Hasselblad branding on the back as it did in the Pro variant, it seems some of the computations done here still have some of its influence. Producing very tactile-sharp images and a flattering natural depth of field at a wide aperture of f/1.8. Even the 16MP front facing camera is reasonably up-to-par for megapixel count and more than enough for your casual selfies. Battery life got us up to about a day and a half worth of use with its capacity, but thankfully is included with a 150W SuperVooc Fast Charger — which will get you from 0 to 100% under just 20 minutes.4800mAh.

The OnePlus 10T comes with Android 12, 8GB/12GB RAM and storage options of 128GB/256GB and has a starting price of RM3,199 or S$999.

As for our final thoughts, the 10T feels as though OnePlus might have their identity in the mix here. Showing some really promising hardware and software, but lacking in areas where it should count. Well…aside from the cheaper price tag of course. With the Oppo Find X 5 Pro coming with a slightly larger screen, waaay better Hasselblad cameras, and a bigger 5000mAh battery — all of which was also available in the 10T Pro, it somehow feels like the 10T was left on the back burner. We figure it hopes to appeal to the Southeast Asian market while keeping its Pro variant on the down-low, and marketing it as its top tier flagship. Maybe the future of OnePlus is still unknown even for OnePlus themselves. We can only speculate how the path seems unpaved or unimagined. Optimistically, the brand taking a whole new approach could benefit in appealing itself to newer fans, yet there hasn't been any results so far that sticks. In other words, focusing on expansion beyond your current fan base without appeasing your existing ones first, might do more harm than good.

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Written by Fitri Aiyub