Technology
OnePlus 10 Pro review: settling in
The ten Professional is OnePlus all grown up. The times of a scrappy upstart challenger are gone — that a lot was clear with final 12 months’s 9 and 9 Professional, with true flagship specs and costs to match.
This 12 months, OnePlus has sharpened its imaginative and prescient of a official flagship telephone to problem the large manufacturers, and the result’s a complicated, smooth gadget. It’s not only a cheaper flagship; it’s an actual different to Samsung and Google, with an identification all its personal.
That’s to not say that OnePlus has totally closed the hole between itself and the large Android manufacturers. The ten Professional’s $899 value makes extra sense than final 12 months’s $1,069 9 Professional. (There was a inexpensive model, nevertheless it by no means got here to the US.) However on the similar value, there are good causes to contemplate the Pixel 6 Professional or the $999 Galaxy S22 Plus over the ten Professional. OnePlus has some work to do to catch as much as these opponents within the digital camera division, for one. And it nonetheless hasn’t labored issues out with AT&T, so there’s no help for that provider’s 5G community — simply 4G.
These are some main issues, and so they preserve me from freely recommending the ten Professional to simply anybody in search of a premium Android telephone. However I’m inspired by the route the corporate is taking with the ten Professional, and if that is certainly the brand new OnePlus, I like the place it’s headed.
With a 6.7-inch display, the OnePlus 10 Professional is little doubt an enormous telephone. It incorporates a 1440p LTPO OLED panel that’s gently curved on the lengthy edges. Its 20:9 facet ratio is a hair taller than the S22 Plus and Pixel 6 Professional’s shows, and it matches their high refresh charge of 120Hz. Facet by aspect, I can see that the show doesn’t get fairly as searingly vibrant because the Galaxy S22 Plus’ after they’re each uncovered to direct daylight, nevertheless it’s vibrant sufficient to make use of comfortably, even open air.
The ten Professional options an aluminum body together with Gorilla Glass Victus on the entrance and Gorilla Glass 5 on the again panel. OnePlus took a web page out of Samsung’s e-book and blended the metallic digital camera bump housing into the aspect rails of the telephone, and it’s a superb look. They might be cribbing another person’s work, however at the least it’s one of many good children within the class.
OnePlus is doing that factor once more the place the provider model of the telephone — solely offered by T-Cell within the US — has an IP68 score, however the unlocked model doesn’t. OnePlus says there’s no construct high quality distinction between the unlocked telephone and the one on T-Cell’s cabinets. Do with that data what you’ll.
The bodily dimension variations between the ten Professional and some other huge flagship Android telephone are small — just some millimeters in both route, relying on what gadget you’re evaluating it to. That mentioned, it feels a bit of sleeker and simpler to deal with, owing partly to that taller display. It’s simpler for me to wield than the Pixel 6 Professional, which simply feels needlessly chunky the extra I take advantage of it. The ten Professional’s in-display optical fingerprint sensor is quick and responsive, too, which is a bonus versus the Pixel’s sluggish fingerprint scanner. Throughout, it’s an gratifying telephone to hold and use, even for this small telephone fan.
The OnePlus 10 Professional makes use of this 12 months’s high Qualcomm chipset, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. At launch, the one variant offered in North America would be the 128GB model with 8GB of RAM — OnePlus says its 256GB / 12GB RAM will probably be accessible within the US at a later date. These specs provide loads of processing energy for day-to-day duties. I seen some very occasional stutters with heavier duties like enjoying Genshin Affect, however for all intents and functions, this can be a speedy gadget that delivers flagship-level efficiency.
Like some other 2022 flagship telephone, the ten Professional provides 5G connectivity. It’s simply sub-6GHz 5G, no super-fast millimeter wave (mmWave), which isn’t an issue for the overwhelming majority of individuals. There’s full low- and mid-band 5G help on T-Cell proper from launch, however the story will get sophisticated for the opposite main US carriers. At launch, the ten Professional gained’t have certification to make use of Verizon’s 5G community, however OnePlus says it’s working with the provider to acquire it. In all probability, Verizon 5G help will arrive shortly after launch prefer it did final 12 months for the 9 and 9 Professional.
But additionally like final 12 months, there’s no help for AT&T’s 5G community and no plan so as to add it at a later date. Which means the ten Professional will probably be caught on 4G at the same time as AT&T lights up new mid-band spectrum over the subsequent couple of years that ought to make an enormous enchancment to its 5G speeds. The Galaxy S22 Plus and Pixel 6 Professional each provide full 5G help on all three main carriers with no caveats, in order that’s a considerable miss for the ten Professional, particularly should you’re hoping to apply it to AT&T.
The ten Professional features a huge 5,000mAh battery that, in my expertise, simply will get me by a day of reasonable (and even some heavy) use. Utilizing the Galaxy S22 Plus, I felt like I needed to control my battery proportion and was down into the only digits by the top of the day. That’s not the case with the ten Professional, although I’ll qualify that declare by saying that, since I’m on Verizon, I wasn’t in a position to check it on 5G.
I did allow each battery-draining setting I may consider, together with the telephone’s high-performance mode, 1440p display decision, All the time on Show enabled, and the quickest display refresh charge accessible. Even on a day largely spent off of Wi-Fi, with some 4K video recording and navigation within the combine, I by no means ended up in uncomfortably low battery percentages.
There’s extra excellent news on the battery entrance: the OnePlus 10 Professional helps quick charging, and there’s a quick charger offered proper within the field. You positively gained’t get that with a Samsung or Google telephone. Within the US, the telephone helps 65W charging, whereas different areas can cost at as much as 80W. OnePlus says that this solely accounts for a two-minute distinction within the whole time it takes to cost the telephone, and realistically, 65W is a lot quick — simply over half-hour to carry the battery from 0 to one hundred pc. At no level whereas I used to be testing this telephone did I want that it will cost sooner.
All that is to say, you in all probability gained’t have to recharge the ten Professional in the midst of the day until you spend quite a lot of time gaming or streaming video. However should you do have to high the battery off, you’ll have the opportunity to take action shortly and with out having to spend one other $30–$50 to get a quick charger.
The ten Professional ships with OnePlus’ model of Android 12. It received off to a tough begin when it was launched for the 9 and 9 Professional, however the launch bugs appear to have been resolved, and I haven’t seen any vital points. The Shelf is again — that’s a house display web page the place you’ll be able to put your widgets and an inspirational message / each day affirmation / quote from a ’90s catastrophe film. It now options OnePlus’ search function referred to as Scout, which is analogous to Highlight on the iPhone. It’s not new new, however that is the primary time the function has appeared in a telephone offered within the US. It’s a pleasant method to shortly discover contacts, apps, and settings with out scrolling by menu pages.
I’ve seen different gadget makers embrace Android 12’s concentrate on interface customization, however OnePlus doesn’t appear as eager on it. With a Pixel or Galaxy telephone operating Android 12, you’ll be able to select a shade palette impressed by your wallpaper to use to system-wide controls and app icons. OnePlus provides a good quantity of personalization choices, however they’re a bit of extra restricted, and so they all have extra of a “OnePlus” taste to them. You’ll be able to have the telephone pattern colours from a photograph in your digital camera gallery and apply them to a stylized, graphic wallpaper. It’s neat however a decidedly completely different vibe — one which’s a bit of extra grown up and rather less playful.
OnePlus has boosted its help coverage to offer three main OS updates and 4 years of safety updates for the ten Professional. That’s not so good as what Samsung and Google provide, nevertheless it’s getting nearer. Google additionally guarantees three main OS updates for its personal units however has prolonged safety help to as much as 5 years. Samsung nonetheless provides the perfect help amongst Android gadget makers, with 4 years of OS upgrades and 5 years of safety updates. OnePlus isn’t matching that, nevertheless it’s taking a step in the suitable route.
There are three rear cameras on the ten Professional. The fourth cutout on the digital camera bump belongs to the flash, not a foolish monochrome sensor or one thing like that, thank goodness. There haven’t been any main updates to the rear digital camera {hardware} in comparison with the 9 Professional, however the selfie digital camera is upgraded with double the decision.
- Fundamental: 48-megapixels f/1.8 with OIS
- Ultrawide: 50-megapixel f/2.2
- Telephoto: 8-megapixel f/2.4 with OIS
- Entrance: 32-megapixel, fastened focus
This isn’t precisely the identical digital camera system as final 12 months, and there are some software-based enhancements. There’s now an choice to shoot in HEIF (Excessive Effectivity Picture Format), a compressed nonetheless photograph format with 10-bit shade that Apple has additionally adopted. It’s not on by default, however you’ll be able to allow it for all three rear cameras. Supplied you’re viewing a HEIF picture on a show that helps it, you’ll see a refined enchancment within the vary of shade it could actually reproduce in comparison with a normal 8-bit JPEG. The ten Professional can shoot 8K video at 24p, albeit with a reasonably heavy crop, and provides 4K taking pictures as much as 120p for sluggish movement.
OnePlus has launched a brand new RAW taking pictures mode, too, referred to as RAW Plus, which is accessible within the digital camera app’s Professional mode. It’s a computational RAW mode, like Apple’s ProRAW and Samsung’s Professional RAW. Not like normal RAW taking pictures, computational RAW modes embrace information from a number of frames to provide you a closing RAW picture with extra flexibility for post-processing.
I’m glad to see it on the ten Professional, although within the restricted testing I’ve been in a position to do with it, I’m not seeing the noticeable enhancements over normal RAW taking pictures that I noticed utilizing Samsung’s model. The RAW Plus file sizes aren’t considerably larger than the usual RAWs both, which leads me to consider it’s not compiling much more data into that computational RAW file. Possibly this function is a piece in progress. In any case, RAW Plus offers you normal DNG recordsdata, so you’ll be able to tinker with them in any RAW processing software program like Lightroom or an app like Snapseed.
There are just a few extra additions to the digital camera function set, together with three new shade filters referred to as Grasp Kinds named for Hasselblad ambassadors, a protracted publicity mode, and guide publicity controls for video recording. OnePlus has additionally tweaked its picture processing for noise discount and dynamic vary.
This checklist of updates is frankly a bit of underwhelming, particularly contemplating that OnePlus’ digital camera capabilities had been already lagging behind that of Samsung and Google. Samsung’s telephones now produce among the greatest portrait mode images from any telephone, and Google simply up to date its superb Pixel digital camera system with all-new {hardware}. The pictures I’ve taken with the ten Professional are good, and the ultrawide digital camera remains to be higher than most, however I can’t say I’m impressed in any other case.
Evening mode images are weirdly over-brightened, and the digital camera typically tends to overexpose pictures, even in reasonable indoor lighting. Portrait mode images look okay, however aspect by aspect with the S22 Plus, it’s apparent how a lot additional forward Samsung is. I hope OnePlus will put a bit of extra effort into the subsequent iteration of its digital camera reasonably than relying a lot on its Hasselblad partnership to do the leg work.
There are quite a lot of issues I like concerning the OnePlus 10 Professional, beginning with the day-to-day expertise of utilizing the telephone. It simply appears to be like good. Its software program is sweet. It isn’t fussy or loaded with quite a lot of apps I don’t want. It’s nice to make use of, like a telephone needs to be.
OnePlus has taken one other step within the evolution of its flagship choices, and it’s a superb one. This appears like a tool that is aware of what it’s and who it’s for, extra so than the 9 and 9 Professional. Nevertheless it’s powerful to suggest this telephone when the Pixel 6 Professional is true there, on the similar value, with full 5G help on each provider and a significantly better digital camera system. The Galaxy S22 Plus is a bit more costly, nevertheless it additionally has a greater digital camera system, broader 5G help, and can get a further 12 months of OS upgrades, in order that further $100 may be cash nicely spent in the long term.
Digicam high quality and 5G compatibility are possible main issues for somebody shopping for a premium Android telephone in 2022, so it’s a disgrace that the OnePlus doesn’t measure up in these classes. However there’s a likability issue, too. And relying in your priorities, that may be extra necessary than taking higher portrait mode images. The brand new OnePlus has some extra work to do, nevertheless it positively is aware of learn how to make a likable telephone that feels one among a sort.
Images by Allison Johnson / The Verge