OnePlus 6T Review

The upgraded version of OnePlus 6 is here with similar larger display, smaller notch and new fingerprint sensor embed in the screen. OnePlus has established its flagship market with its two devices a year strategy. The ‘T’ version comes with enhanced features and refined experience on its immediate predecessors.

Like always, OnePlus announced three variants of OnePlus 6T – 6 GB RAM + 128 GB storage, 8 GB RAM + 128 GB storage and 8 GB RAM + 256 GB storage. These variants are available in two colours – Midnight Black and Mirror Black.

Build Quality

Nothing much has changed with new 6T, it uses the similar design ethics of OnePlus 6. However it has a larger screen, but you hardly can notice that. The back has a curved 3D glass that feels a bit slippery and can attract smudges. But the reflective glass finish looks great.

On the right side, 6T has OnePlus’s signature physical alert switch, enabling to toggle between silent, vibrate and ring, and power button. The volume rocker is placed on the left. All the three buttons are easy to reach.

The top has a smaller notch with the front shooter and speaker grill placed a bit lower to the screen to make enough room for camera placement. On the bottom, USB type C port is available, but you can miss 3.5 mm jack with 6T. But don’t worry as the smartphone comes with one USB type C to 3.5 MM converter cable.

Display

OnePlus 6T comes with a slightly larger display than 6 to please media-lovers, photographers and gamers. It produces vibrant colours and renders everything with perfect sharpness. Like its predecessor, 6T supports the full DCI-P3 wide colour gamut. The AMOLED panel ensures to deliver great contrast and deep blacks, enhancing video and gaming experience.

Thanks to the brightness levels, you can enjoy watching videos or other activity on the device in different light conditions. We didn’t notice any problem while using the phone in bright environments.

The notch of the phone is far more aesthetically pleasing, a small rounded divot hosts the front shooter and earpiece. Also, the phone supports face unlock which works well even using a single RGB camera. However, it is less secure as it doesn’t use IR dot projection method. We tried to cheat the face unlock and out of 10 times, 4 times it failed to recognise the face and unlocked the device.

The in-display fingerprint sensor is perfect with its stylish fingerprint icon. When you place your finger it appears on the lock screen. The approach of the company is futuristic, but not up to the mark. The front fingerprint sensors are not as fast as it was when mounted rear or beneath the screen.

Camera

OnePlus 6T has exact camera specifications as its predecessor OnePlus 6. At the rear, it has a dual 16 + 20 megapixel snapper with wide f/1.7 aperture and PDAF (phase detection autofocus), along with OIS (optical image stabilisation) and enlarged 1.22µm pixels on that main 16-megapixel sensor. The front 16 MP shooter comes with EIS (electronic image stabilisation).

The OnePlus team focused to improve the HDR and low-light camera capabilities. Also, it comes with a handful of extra settings to play with. Out of many, Auto Nightscape Detection is nice addition that enables camera to detect ambient light for great low-light photography.

Using the primary camera in daylight, it took amazing shots with crisp details and colours. The improved portrait mode lets you capture amazing bokeh shots. Using night mode, it brightens up landscapes and objects without any issue.

It can shoot up to 4k resolution videos at 60 fps and the video quality is great, nothing to complain about. Also, the slow-motion video recording at up to 480fps (at 720p) is remarkable.

Performance

OnePlus 6T combines great hardware to deal with different apps and games easily. The flagship phone delivers fluid performance. Whether you play high-graphics intensive games or toggle between different games, you won’t be able to see any performance lag. Experiencing the gaming performance, the smartphone comes with gaming mode, as you launch any game, it optimises the device performance and enables you to manage calls and notification. Also, this mode limits the background network usage of other apps and optimising CPU, GPU and memory performance.

The OnePlus 6T runs an enhanced version of that same Android 9.0 Pie experience out the box with OnePlus’ OxygenOS overlay on top. Thanks to the OnePlus team, you can enjoy native Android Pie features out-of-the-box. There are some tweaks in the OxygenOS such as you can customise quick-launch actions.

Battery Life

The OnePlus 6T is backed by a huge 3700mAh battery that can easily manage more than one day backup with moderate usage. With heavy video and gaming usage, it can stay for the entire day or 14 to 15 hours. It comes with Fast Charge (formerly Dash Charge) that can charge 50% battery in just 30 minutes.

Early Verdict

OnePlus ditched 3.5 mm jack which is annoying as you need to carry additional cable as well as you can’t charge the phone while using the earpiece. Sporting the same design, you get the larger screen and better camera capabilities. However, the in-display fingerprint sensor might be better.