The wait is finally over as OnePlus launched its second flagship of 2018 today at an event in New York City. The OnePlus 6T comes with some significant improvements compared to the OnePlus 6 in addition to some great features like an in-screen fingerprint scanner. With a starting price of $550, this is one of the few smartphones that offer similar or even better performance than the Galaxies and iPhones, at almost half the price.
Like the OnePlus 6, the OnePlus 6T has a beautiful design with curved edges and a unibody metal build (The Mirror Black variant has a Glass back). From the rear, you can differentiate the 6 and 6T by the fingerprint scanner. The OnePlus 6 has one on the rear, but the 6T has one under the display on the front. Rest of the design remains the same on the rear.
Things change on the front as well as there is no longer a similar notch as on the OnePlus 6. The 6T now has a waterdrop notch that, along with the thin bottom chin, makes the phone look incredible from the front. The button placement is the same but talking about the ports, OnePlus did something that the company never did with its previous phones.
There is no longer a 3.5mm headphone jack as the phone has just a USB Type-C port for tasks like charging, connecting earphones, etc. But, the company added a bigger battery in the phone. This is the biggest battery that OnePlus has put in any of its phones launched till now.
Talking about that display, it is a 6.41-inch Optic AMOLED panel with a Full-HD+ resolution (2280 x 1080 pixels) and an aspect ratio of 19.5:9. The display is protected with the latest Gorilla Glass 6. The display has features like Adaptive Mode, Reading Mode, Night Mode, Lift Up Display, etc.
As for the performance, the OnePlus 6T has the 10nm 2.8GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor with the Adreno 630 GPU. There is 6/8GB RAM and 128/256GB ROM. This is the first time that we don’t have the base variant with 64GB storage. It is a good step since the OnePlus phones don’t feature a microSD card slot.
Coming to the cameras, the 6T has dual cameras on the back. The primary is a 16MP Sony IMX 519 sensor with f/1.7 aperture, 1.22 µm pixel size, Phase Detection Auto Focus, Optical Image Stabilization & Electronic Image Stabilization. The secondary rear camera is a 20MP Sony IMX 376K sensor with f/1.7 aperture PDAF & 1.0 µm pixel size.
The rear camera can shoot 4K 30/60FPS videos and super slow motion videos at 1080p/240fps or 720p/480fps. Other rear camera features include AI Scene Detection, Portrait Mode, Pro Mode, Night Mode, Panorama, Time-Lapse, HDR, HQ, Studio Lighting, RAW Image, etc.
The Night Mode is similar to the Night Sight feature on the Pixel 3 that takes good photos in low light situations. On the front, the OnePlus 6T has a 16MP camera with Sony IMX 371 sensor and f/2.0 aperture. There is EIS for the front camera as well. The front camera features include Portrait Mode, HDR, Screen Flash, Studio Lighting, Smile Capture, Face Retouching, etc.
As mentioned above, the OnePlus 6T is the phone with the largest battery that the company has ever put in any of its phones. It is a 3,700mAh unit that can be fast charged (5V/4A). The Mirror Black variant of the phone still doesn’t support wireless charging but who needs it when you have such a Fast Charging technology! OnePlus also mentions on the official site that the phone has a Haptic Vibration Motor.
The OnePlus 6T is the first phone from the company to launch with an in-screen fingerprint scanner. The reviews of the phone suggest that it is quite fast and faster than most of the phones with the in-screen fingerprint scanner. There is a single bottom firing speaker that has Noise cancellation support, Dirac HD Sound & Dirac Power Sound.
If you love stock Android, you know that OnePlus is the best when it comes to giving a stock-like experience with some really useful additions to the UI. The OnePlus 6T runs on Android Pie out of the box with Oxygen OS on top. The phone supports gesture navigation as well as the normal on-screen buttons.
Finally, coming to the pricing and availability, the OnePlus 6T is going to launch in Europe on November 6 and will go on sale in North America on November 1. The 6GB + 128GB variant is priced at $550 whereas the 8GB + 128GB variant at $580. There is the 8GB + 256GB variant as well that is priced at $630. The phone will launch in India on October 30.