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OnePlus’ motto is “never settle,” but despite some major advancements, the OnePlus 8T is another frustrating exercise in compromise: the camera system is mediocre at best, and there’s no wireless charging or rating. waterproof.
The problem here seems to be one of positioning: In the past, OnePlus would launch a flagship in the spring and then update it in the fall with a “T” version. But in the last two years, OnePlus has dramatically expanded its product line and raised its prices.
On that note, the OnePlus 8T is just one of several phones OnePlus released this year, and it’s not even an upgrade to its higher-end phone, the OnePlus 8 Pro. Instead, it’s an upgrade to the standard OnePlus 8, which OnePlus still sells for some reason. Confused Yet? Welcome to the club.
Design
Like previous flagship-class OnePlus phones, the OnePlus 8T arrives in an attractive aluminum and glass form factor. Only two colors are offered: a matte moon silver and a reflective, glossy aqua green, and my review unit is the former, which I prefer.
Compared to its predecessor, the OnePlus 8T differs mainly in its redesigned rear camera assembly, which is no longer centered on a vertical column but instead occupies a larger rounded rectangle, similar to Samsung. Fortunately, the camera bump is minimal, as it was on the OnePlus 8.
Beyond that, the OnePlus 8T is almost identical to its predecessor from a size, shape, and weight perspective. It’s a great design.
Monitor
The OnePlus 8T display is the first major update to the OnePlus 8. It is still 6.55 inches diagonally, with a tall and slim 20: 9 aspect ratio which I find almost perfect, and it still has the same 2400 x 1080 resolution and screen size. 402 PPI point. But the OnePlus 8T Fluid AMOLED display is flat and has no curved edges, and I prefer flat displays. It also offers a fast 120Hz refresh rate, as opposed to the more standard 60Hz, allowing for smoother scrolling and animations.
Just as good, the display is wonderful in everyday use, with deep blanks and a nice pop of HDR color. It has tiny bezels, a piercing selfie camera that is not distracting, and none of the reliability issues that plague even the best curved screens.
Simply put, the OnePlus 8T’s display is near perfect.
Hardware and Specifications
Internally, the OnePlus 8T runs mostly on modern components, including a Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 processor, Adreno 650 graphics, 12GB of LPDDR4X RAM, and 256GB of very fast two-lane UFS 3.1 storage. As with the OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro, the OnePlus 8T also comes with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X55 and its second-generation 5G modem, enabling 5G compatibility worldwide, in addition to Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.1 and NFC.
This is great for the most part, of course, and should be viable for years to come. But I’m surprised that OnePlus didn’t upgrade the processor to the newer and slightly faster 865+, and there’s no storage expansion.
The AV experience is excellent. Between the device’s gorgeous display, powerful stereo speakers, and Dolby Atmos support, it’s easy to get lost in video content, especially. And it was a pleasure to use this phone to watch movies on the elliptical bike at the gym. That said, there is no headphone jack, if that’s an issue for you. (I switched to wireless headphones a long time ago.)
Call quality is great too, but the OnePlus 8T doesn’t come with an IP rating for water and dust resistance. I guess it’s pretty sturdy given that the version sold through T-Mobile only has an IP68 rating. But … there is no guarantee. That is a strange omission.
Battery
With its very large 4,500 mAh battery (actually two 2250 mAh batteries and a step up from its predecessor’s 4,300 mAh unit), the OnePlus 8T had no trouble getting through entire days of uptime and more. Just as good, this is the first OnePlus phone to ship with a 65-watt Warp Charge 65 fast charger. That upgrade, combined with the 8T’s unique dual battery design, means it can fully charge the battery from neutral to 100 percent in less than 40 minutes. I charged it from 40 percent to 100 percent in less than 25 minutes.
And if you’re out and about and have to use a third-party charger, there’s more good news: You can still get up to 27 watts of charging power depending on the charger, says OnePlus. In the bad news section, the OnePlus 8T inexplicably does not include wireless charging of any kind, a curious omission.
Cameras
As I wrote earlier in Inconsistency (Premium), the OnePlus 8T is the Achilles heel of this product, with inconsistent shooting quality. It’s unclear to me why OnePlus can’t deliver a better camera experience than it does, but I suspect it’s a combination of bad hardware, not exceptional software, and a lack of computational photography expertise. Whatever the problem, it’s real – I often look at my shots on the web later with a bigger screen and find that many of them are unacceptable.
I guess he focused on the background for some reason.
From a hardware perspective, the OnePlus 8T offers what I consider to be a dual-lens camera system – there’s a 48MP main (wide) lens with an f / 1.7 aperture and Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) and an ultra-large 16 MP wide angle. lens with a field of view of 123 degrees and an aperture of f / 2.2.
But OnePlus advertises it as a four-lens system, citing its 5 MP macro lens with an f / 2.4 aperture and a 2 MP monochrome lens with an f / 2.4 aperture. But let’s be serious here, those last two lenses are esoteric, if not completely useless. A telephoto lens with true optical zoom would be preferable.
This is a zoom shot of the moon in case you can’t tell
Normally it would spend a lot of time in the camera system, but in this case it is a waste of time. Due to inconsistencies, I stopped using the OnePlus 8T for photos about halfway through my normal testing process. It was too disappointing, considering the high-quality shots that could be obtained with the similarly priced Samsung Galaxy S20 F3, Google Pixel 5 and 4a (5G) and Apple iPhone 12/12 Mini.
Yes, many of the shots went well, or even very good in the right conditions. But the unpredictable quality really sunk the camera experience for me.
Security
As with the OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro, the OnePlus 8T features an in-display fingerprint reader that strikes me as one of the fastest and most reliable available. This is particularly useful in 2020, when a pandemic has forced all of us to wear face masks that override facial recognition. But even in normal times, I really like this system.
Unique hardware features
As with previous OnePlus phones, the OnePlus 8T offers a unique OnePlus alert slider that sits above the power button on the right side of the device and allows you to toggle the phone between three alert modes: Ring (default) , vibration and silence. no need for the device to be turned on or logged in. I wish all Android phones had this feature.
software
The OnePlus 8T is the first non-Google phone to ship with Android 11, in this case in the form of OxygenOS 11, OnePlus’s optimized version of the platform. OxygenOS is a key differentiator for OnePlus and its customers, and it’s even better than the Pixel version of Android that Google offers on its own phones.
Of course, OxygenOS has always delivered a highly streamlined and efficient experience. But with this latest version, OnePlus is doing more than ever to visually differentiate its software compared to stock Android. So, in addition to all the normal customization options, OxygenOS 11 also provides a new look in select apps such as Gallery, Weather, and others, providing Windows Phone-like layouts where there is a lot of white space and the items. selectable on-screen are all toward the bottom of the screen, where they are easiest to reach with one hand.
I usually like this sort of thing, but because OnePlus doesn’t even try to replace most of the Android’s built-in apps with its own, let’s say Samsung does, the experience is inconsistent. And with OnePlus using more stock Android apps on this phone, the phone and messaging apps are now from Google, which I prefer, this feels even more confusing.
OnePlus also added a selection of what it calls watch faces for the phone’s always-on display (AOD), giving you new customization options for what you’ll see when the screen is off and the device isn’t being actively used. There’s an Insight AOD that visually shows how often you’ve unlocked your phone that day in an effort to make you do it less often, a Canvas AOD that requires you to use a photo of a person as your lock screen and background. starting screen. so you can create a line drawing version of the image for the AOD and a Bitmoji AOD. I like the idea of customizing the AOD, but none of the current options are particularly compelling at the moment.
Pricing and availability
The OnePlus 8T is available in a single configuration in the US, with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, and it costs $ 749. It’s widely available now.
Recommendations and conclusions
I wanted to love the OnePlus 8T, and there’s certainly a lot to recommend here, from its epic fast-charging capabilities to the beautiful, flat OLED display and incredible optimized performance. But if camera quality and / or wireless charging are important to you, the OnePlus 8T isn’t a starter. Its camera system is mediocre at best, with inconsistent results and no optical zoom. And while the 65-watt fast charging is an impressive glimpse into the future, the lack of wireless charging is an embarrassing throwback to the past.
If those two characteristics no You care a lot, then the OnePlus 8T is an interesting step up from the original OnePlus 8, thanks to its superior display and fast charging. Whether that’s a sufficient step forward, given that the 8T arrived a mere 6 months after its predecessor, is debatable. But the OnePlus 8T doesn’t make it to the OnePlus 8 Pro, for sure, and it doesn’t offer any real competition to the Apple iPhone 12.
In general, there are too many compromises and missteps here.
Take a look
Never settle
- Incredible 65-watt fast charging
- Gorgeous flat OLED display with a high refresh rate
- Excellent performance
- OxygenOS 11 is highly optimized, infinitely configurable
Settle
- Inconsistent and missing camera system
- No wireless charging
- No IP rating
- No expandable storage
Tagged with OnePlus, OnePlus 8T
