OnePlus is putting a stake in the ground with its latest smartphone, saying cutting-edge technology doesn’t need to cost the best part of £1,000.
The new OnePlus 6T, which starts at £499, has an all-screen design and large 6.41in FHD+ OLED display, but this time shrinks the notch at the top to a more bearable tiny teardrop shape, slims the chin at the bottom of the screen and fits a fingerprint scanner directly into the screen.
The rest of the metal and glass sandwich matches the OnePlus 6, released six months ago. It has Qualcomm’s top-end Snapdragon 845 processor, a choice of 6 or 8GB of RAM, a minimum of 128GB of storage up from just 64GB, dual-sim support and the latest version of Android 9 Pie.
The dual-camera system on the rear of the device is also the same, featuring one 16-megapixel and one 20-megapixel camera, both with optical stabilisation. But OnePlus said the computational photography algorithms have been tweaked for better colour balance and improved low-light performance using a new multi-frame Nightscape mode.
The OnePlus 6T has a slightly larger battery than its predecessor, but also includes the same fast-charge system, formerly known as Dash Charge before a trademark dispute, which has proven to be one of the fastest charging systems on the market.
OnePlus has made a name for itself for producing highly polished, fast and smooth high-spec smartphones at around half the price of top-end rivals.
The OnePlus 6T will be only the second mass-market phone to launch in the UK with the new in-display fingerprint scanner technology, following the £900 Huawei Mate 20 Pro, beating high-end rivals such as Samsung to what has been considered for years as the holy grail of fingerprint scanners.
OnePlus said that the 2D optical fingerprint scanner can be used 150 times a day for 10 years before failing and that it will unlock the phone in around 350ms. Both the back and front of the phone are covered in Corning Gorilla Glass 6, making the OnePlus 6T one of the first to market with the latest in hardened glass.
The phone no longer has a headphone socket, instead relying on its USB-C port and the included 3.5mm adapter for headphone support. It also has a new gaming mode that should improve performance, and new smart boost technology that speeds up game launches by between 5 and 20% compared to the OnePlus 6.
The Chinese smartphone upstart, now being carried by all the major UK mobile phone networks, said that the phone is “water resistant for every day use” but does not provide an industry standard IP rating.
The OnePlus 6T starts at £499 for 128GB of storage with 6GB of RAM and tops out at £579 with 256GB of storage and 8GB of RAM. The phone is available for pre-order in polished or frosted black and ships on 6 November.
