OnePlus 6T review: Blurring lines between midrange and premium smartphones

With a price starting Rs 37,999 the OnePlus 6T represents another step by the company in its transition from a midrange flagship maker to a premium brand.

Chinese smartphone manufacturer OnePlus has in the past few years emerged as one of the most successful premium mobile phone brands. Known for its flagship devices with top-of-the-line specifications at competitive pricing, the smartphone maker seems to have lived up to the name with the recent launch of the OnePlus 6T.

A successor to the OnePlus 6 (review), launched earlier this year, the T-edition has got several upgrades. Most of the newer changes – a higher battery capacity, a new screen format and an in-display fingerprint sensor – are useful. However, the phone might have cut corners on a few flagship features, such as ingress protection (IP) rating for water and dust resistance, stereo speakers, HDR display and wireless charging. The OnePlus 6T has also done away with the 3.5mm audio output jack which might not go well with users accustomed to wired headsets.

Design

The OnePlus 6T might look almost identical to its predecessor, but it has a bigger screen, no fingerprint sensor on the back, and no 3.5mm audio jack at the bottom. These three are the most noticeable differences between the OnePlus 6 and OnePlus 6T. Though the latter has a bigger 6.4-inch screen – compared with the predecessor’s 6.28-inch – the dimension and overall form factor change is incremental, thanks to the new format display stretching from edge to edge, leaving no bezels except a thin one at the bottom chin. The removal of the fingerprint sensor from the back for an in-display fingerprint sensor makes the back uniform. The bottom, without a 3.5 audio jack, now has five-holes grilles on either side of the USB type-C data transfer, charging and audio output port.

The newer phone otherwise looks and feels similar to the older one. It continues with a glass-metal-glass design language, which is slick but premium nonetheless.

Display and fingerprint sensor

The OnePlus 6T has a 6.4-inch optic AMOLED screen of a fullHD+ (2340 x 1080 pixels) resolution, stretched in a 19.5:9 aspect ratio. Unlike the OnePlus 6, the screen of the ‘T’ edition has a tiny notch (waterdrop) at the top to accommodate just the front camera. The earpiece and sensors have moved to the thin bezel above the screen. The screen also houses the optical fingerprint sensor, which sits beneath the display panel and turns a part of it as a biometric recognition module. Though the sensor is not flawlessly fast and accurate, unlike conventional sensors, it is better than the previous iteration of the in-display fingerprint sensor seen in Vivo smartphones

The screen is bright and vivid. Apart from the default mode, it also supports three pre-set calibration modes – sRGB, DCI-P3 and adaptive mode – and a custom mode to switch between warm and cool colour tones. In most cases, the adaptive mode works well to automatically tune the screen tone based on ambience light conditions. However, the addition of sRGB and DCI-P3 modes makes the screen even for perfectionists... Read More

Business Standard