Since the first days of its existence, the Chinese company OnePlus has positioned itself as a manufacturer of smartphones for the category of people who want to get a fast, reliable, without pre-installed “garbage” applications and a more affordable flagship device than flagships from the “old-timers” of the mobile market. such as Samsung or Apple.
The company's latest model, the OnePlus 6T, is a prime example that the company remains true to this idea. The company has even set a course to release a new device every 6 months to keep up with the booming smartphone market and meet the needs of its customers. In the OnePlus 6T, the company has worked to improve some of the OnePlus 6 elements: enlarged the screen, reduced the notch at the top of the screen, added a couple of new camera features and perhaps the most important change is the addition of an in-screen fingerprint scanner.
Design
The appearance of the device has remained practically unchanged since the OnePlus 6: glass back surface, Alert slider, which is used to quickly switch between the sound modes of the device: “Silent”, “Do not disturb” and “Calls”. Do not disturb mode is customizable. In the smartphone settings, you can only allow notifications from certain contacts.
The main changes in the appearance of the smartphone include a thinner bottom bezel and a shallower drop-shaped notch. In the updated version, protection from water did not appear. But this does not mean that the 6T is not at all protected from water ingress, although it does not have the same protection as the flagships of other companies. By the way, support for wireless charging was never added, which is a pity.
If the lack of water protection can only disappoint scuba divers, and the availability of wireless charging is not so critical, then the absence of the usual headphone jack will not appeal to much more users. Alternatively, OnePlus has offered an audio headphone adapter with 3.5mm mini-jack that comes with the smartphone. You can also buy USB Type-C headphones or a wireless headset if you don't want to bother with extra wires.
It's hard to convey the frustration of OnePlus smartphone owners when it became known that the company decided to remove the headphone jack. The situation was aggravated even more due to the fact that about six months ago the company conducted a survey: “Do you like the presence of a 3.5 mm headphone jack?” According to the results of which, 88% of people among those who took the survey chose the positive answer.
It is not difficult to guess that such a decision of the company shocked the entire community of the company. What can this talk about? Apparently, when entering the world market, a company has to play by generally accepted rules. And you just need to come to terms with this.
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Fingerprint scanner
The main update in the OnePlus 6T is the in-screen fingerprint scanner. If we compare this scanner with a traditional one, then it works a little worse. Nevertheless, it cannot be said that it is bad, but you cannot call it excellent either, since the recognition level and response speed leave much to be desired. One attempt is not always enough. Usually you have to do 2 or 3 clicks. Even if everything works out, the speed is still noticeably lower compared to standard fingerprint scanners, and you need to press much harder on the screen itself.
The scanner also lights up a bright green light when you try to unlock your smartphone, which can be very stressful for your eyes, especially in the dark. Unfortunately, the brightness of this animation is not adjustable in any way.
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Screen
The screen makes a good impression. It is slightly larger than its predecessor: it measures an impressive 6.4 inches with a AMOLED – matrix. The screen has a resolution of 1080 by 2340 pixels with a pixel density of 402 ppi.
This resolution is enough to prevent you from seeing the pixels in the image. The color rendition of the smartphone is excellent, all colors are bright, saturated, do not eat away the eyes. However, there are some problems with the auto brightness mode. Users using this mode often complain of excessive dimness and darkness on the screen.
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operating system
OnePlus smartphones have always been famous for their proprietary interface – Oxygen OS on pure Android. Here you will not find pre-installed Chinese applications and other “garbage”. Most importantly, the speed Oxygen OS is really impressive. According to company representatives, a separate development team is working on Oxygen OS, who polish the interface to a shine. And judging by the work of their system, it really is. The OnePlus 6T is as fast as the Pixel phones, if not faster.
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Gesture control
The smartphone works under the control of the new Android 9 Pie, and therefore it would be strange if it did not have gesture control. For example, with a short swipe up, you will open a menu of running applications, with a swipe from the center of the screen to the home button, you activate multitasking mode, and a swipe from the vertical edges of the screen acts as a “Back” button.
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Game mode and performance
Game Mode is a performance-enhancing mode that activates when you launch a game. When the game mode is on, you will not receive notifications about received messages and incoming calls, so as not to interrupt the game process. If you wish, you can turn off all this or specify which messages and calls from which contacts should not be blocked.
OnePlus smartphones have earned their reputation for “More performance, less money”. The OnePlus 6T is no exception. The smartphone is equipped with a powerful Snapdragon 845 processor with 6 / 8GB of RAM on board.
It is worth noting that, according to tradition, OnePlus smartphones lack a microSD card slot. You will not find other ways to expand the internal storage, so you have to come to terms with what you have. The smartphone comes with 64/128 / 256GB of internal storage.
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Camera
Many people call OnePlus smartphones the best devices without a good camera. Does this definition fit 6T? A dual camera is responsible for photography: the main module is 16 megapixels with an aperture of F / 1.7; additional camera – 20 megapixels, designed for portrait mode and no more. It's worth noting that the second camera lacks a telephoto lens.
The OnePlus 6T captures excellent, detailed images during the daytime, with a wide dynamic range and natural colors. See examples of photos below.
As for the portrait mode, it's worth noting the automatic depth-of-field adjustment, which works quite well during the daytime. But a noticeable drawback is the lack of the ability to adjust the depth of field after you have taken a photo, although this possibility is present on many modern phones.
The front camera takes good pictures in daylight, but the detail on the front camera is somewhat lame, and there is still a lack of wider dynamic range compared to the best smartphones to date.
When we compare the quality of shooting in low light conditions, the OnePlus 6T is noticeably inferior to many flagship devices, whose cameras are considered to be among the best. At night, photos are blurry and less detailed. A new mode, Nightscape, saves the situation a little. This mode helps you take long exposure photos. When shooting with this mode, you are required to hold the smartphone in one position without any twitching, otherwise you will not see any difference.
The OnePlus 6T supports 4K video at 30/60 fps. It is worth noting the improvement in color rendering in low light.
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Sound
One speaker located at the bottom of the device is responsible for the sound of the smartphone. And if the camera does not produce a wah effect, then the sound is exactly the opposite. It is very loud, clean and moderately bass.
As for the sound when talking on the phone, there were no complaints about its quality. The voices are loud and easy to read. During testing, there were no complaints from our interlocutors on the other end of the line. At the output, they received high-quality sound.
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Battery
The company managed to increase the battery capacity by removing the standard headphone jack. The battery capacity is now 3700 mAh, thanks to which the life of the smartphone from a single charge has significantly increased. With moderate use, the smartphone should be enough for two days of battery life. We also tested the battery of the smartphone, and with an overall result of almost 10 hours of battery life, this is one of the best results among devices released in 2018.
As with many devices, the OnePlus 6T's fast charging only works with the proprietary charging cable.
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Worldwide availability of OnePlus 6T
The main news timed to coincide with the launch of the OnePlus 6T was not the characteristics of the device, not the appearance, and not even the fingerprint scanner built into the screen, but the news about the possibility of the official purchase of OnePlus 6T in the United States for the first time in the entire existence of the company. Если вы проживаете в Соединённых Штатах, то можете приобрести этот гаджет в салонах оператора T-Mobile, AT&T и Verizon. This is an extremely important event for the company, since the US market is one of the largest, and it is possible to gain a foothold in it only in close cooperation with the largest mobile operators.
The model is not yet so widespread in the European and Russian markets. And the operators of the Big Three are in no hurry to conclude contracts for the supply of OnePlus smartphones to Russia.
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Let's sum up
The OnePlus 6T is a big step for OnePlus. And this is not due to the filling or hardware chips of the device, but to the beginning of official cooperation with mobile operators in the United States and some European countries. This phone is definitely worth your attention. The minimum price for the OnePlus 6T is 37,800 rubles, which is very cheap compared to flagships from well-known companies. For this price, you get a smartphone with the best components that deliver maximum performance with a fast interface. In addition, the 6T will amaze you with its battery life. The only things that might disappoint you are the camera, fingerprint scanner performance and the lack of a headphone jack.
Summarizing all of the above, we can conclude that the OnePlus 6T cannot be called the best smartphone you can buy in 2018. But does he really need this title? After all, this smartphone fulfills its cost one hundred percent, in comparison with gadgets of similar price.