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amazon OnePlus 8T reviews
When there is a ‘comeback’ to the market, OnePlus only brings two products, the mid-range smartphone OnePlus Nord and the highest-end flagship OnePlus 8 Pro, without the OnePlus 8 – an ‘in the middle’ option with quite a few thing configurations is ‘borrowed’ of the top product.
Perhaps this is a deliberate move because the company does not want so many options at a too close price range after the launch of the OnePlus 8T last month – an upgraded version of the OnePlus 8. What’s new in this smartphone. Will it become a brighter option than the 8 Pro or Nord?
The hardware is mostly old, but there are 3 new ones
I would point out that the OnePlus 8T has a lot of similar configurations compared to its predecessor, the OnePlus 8. We can include Snapdragon 865 processor, 12GB RAM, 256GB memory. Currently, Qualcomm also has a more powerful processor, Snapdragon 865+, but perhaps OnePlus feels the difference is not too big, so they have used the same version 865 for all 3 smartphones in the high-end segment most of them.
The camera system has only a slight upgrade from the OnePlus 8, with 2 main 48MP and 16MP ultra-wide cameras with no change, we have a 2MP depth sensor and a macro camera raised from 2MP to 5MP. In theory, the quality of photos from the OnePlus 8T will still be lower than the 8 Pro as both the main camera and the ultra-wide will use old sensors, with smaller sizes.
In actual use, the difference is not so much that it is still a high-quality camera system in many different cases. As mentioned in the OnePlus 8 Pro review, I also like how the company handles photos, not trying to harmonize colors, not being too bold to create eye-pleasing shots or easy editing after taking them. The most notable weakness is probably the lack of camera zoom, so capturing distant objects will be affected.
The change of the OnePlus 8 Pro lies in 3 main points: the color of the device, the screen, and the battery/charging system. First, 8T owns a new green called Aquamarine Green instead of the Glacial Green of the 8 and 8 Pro, the entire dorsal is lighter and more prominent. The back of the device has also been completed in the form of glossy glass instead of frosted glass as before, although still Gorilla Glass 5.
Each person, each eye, will think that the new color is beautiful or bad. I am a person who likes deep tones and also prefers matte glass back to glossy glass, so I think this is a step back from the OnePlus 8/8 Pro. The deep color with sanded glass has also become the ‘trend’ of today’s high-end products, so the fact that the OnePlus 8T goes against the trend is also quite a strange point.
Instead of using curved screens like the OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro, the 8T has switched to traditional flat screens. We have a 6.55-inch AMOLED display with FullHD + (1080 x 2400) resolution in flat form, with a refresh rate of 120Hz – the same as the OnePlus 8 Pro and higher than 90Hz of the OnePlus 8.
Losing the curved beveled edges, the front of the OnePlus 8T no longer looks eye-catching, but it is an upgrade during use. Flat screens won’t bend what we’re watching, create flare when exposed to strong light, and won’t create accidental press.
This is also a display with very high image quality, OnePlus advertised that it was the best flat smartphone display on the market and they weren’t lying. Color, density, and brightness are all guaranteed, along with a 120Hz high refresh rate that makes everything ‘smooth’. The 2 points that the OnePlus 8T still loses to the ‘elder’ 8 Pro is the size and resolution, when the 8 Pro owns a 6.78-inch WQHD + screen.
Quite similar to the image capture system, the difference in screen use is not as great as on the spec sheet. We still see a bit more sharpness on the OnePlus 8 Pro’s screen in small elements such as writing, but once you look closely enough to see this difference, you’re using a smartphone the wrong way!
What the OnePlus 8T outperforms the 8 Pro is in its fast charging capabilities, up to 65W instead of 35W as before. 65W fast charging technology is not new anymore, it has been applied in some OPPO products such as Find X2 / X2 Pro and Reno4 Pro before being shared by the company to ‘sister company’ OnePlus to use at 8T. But no matter how many times I have experienced it, I still feel impressed with this charging technology.
With 2 batteries with a total capacity of 4500mAh to share the power source and a dozen technologies you can learn more about in this article, the OnePlus 8T can be charged up to 67% in just 20 minutes in one go. I let the device run out of battery, and about 37 – 38 minutes to fully charge. As usual, these speeds can only be achieved by using the correct Warp Charge dock and charging cord that the carrier provides in the box.
The interesting point of the charging dock of the OnePlus 8T: it not only can charge 65W for smartphones but also integrates the Power Delivery (PD) charging standard for other products! Some reviewers tested, dock and charging cord Warp Charge to power up to 45W for Macbook. The source of the Macbook’s input is from 61W to 91W, so the speed will be much slower, but perhaps this method is only used for times when you need to only.
In our OnePlus 8 Pro review, one of the big reasons why I like this smartphone in particular and OnePlus, in general, is OxygenOS. This is a very ‘clean’ Android interface, close to Google’s stock Android, eliminating redundant animation elements to aim for one thing only: speed. OxygenOS does not have as many colors as other Android interface sets, or the transition is beautiful, ‘smooth’ like iOS, but always gives users a feeling of urgency, pressing what is, and immediately respond.
The OnePlus 8T is the first smartphone on the market to feature OxygenOS 11, the latest version of OxygenOS, and we do find a few changes that, personally, are positive. First, what I hope OnePlus will do is bring the clickable elements down the screen in the same way Samsung did with OneUI, and that’s what it did at OxygenOS 11.
From image viewing applications, Settings to computers we can see this change. We see a very large header at the top of the screen, then a small space, and then the elements interact with the user. This arrangement makes it possible for my thumb to control everything, which means using one hand becomes a lot easier.
One element that has not been updated in the toolbar as the buttons are still arranged in the ‘headline’ above the screen. This is probably the factor that needs to be updated before other factors because it is what we need to operate quickly and with one hand the most. Hopefully, in the next updates, the company will do this.
Another feature that is also very useful for one-handed use is assigning functions to the navigation buttons. We can adjust the press and hold, a double press of all 3 navigation buttons to do different things like turn on split-screen, open virtual assistant, open notification bar, turn off screen … in total These 3 buttons can do 9 operations.
OxygenOS 11 also reaffirms one thing: OnePlus designs smartphones for people who … don’t like to use smartphones. More understandably, the company wants to direct users to use smartphones to serve themselves when they need it, rather than sitting for hours doing miscellaneous things, wasting time that we can do other things more helpful.
We see this in Zen Mode, making OnePlus almost turning into a ‘brick’, you cannot use apps, cannot open Facebook, Instagram surfers for a specified time. The user will only be able to receive incoming calls, make emergency calls (for emergency numbers only, like in the lock screen) and take pictures. The ‘relaxing’ time without smartphones that we can set up to 2 hours, is quite a long time!
Or the Insight feature in the item’s always-current screen (something I use a lot but not in previous OxygenOS versions) does the same thing. Insight feature displays a vertical bar in blue (night) and orange (daytime) showing 24 hours a day, each time you turn on the device to use will create a black streak. The more you use the device, the longer this black streak will be, and by the end of the day, you will see how much you’ve spent ‘staring’ at your smartphone.
