The OnePlus 10 Pro is official, and it’s underwhelming as you would expect


It’s just the OnePlus 9 with some minor improvements. Nothing significant here

While OnePlus has teased the specs of the phone ahead of its Chinese launch day, the company still unveiled the phone anyway. We’re still waiting for a global release, but for now, let’s just check the Chinese version of the phone.

Although the phone did have some improvements over its fast charging rate, camera hardware, chipset, and display panel, nothing of this phone is quite significant over the OnePlus 9 Pro. The design has changed but the colours remain the same as the previous one, and of course, as a new flagship it should have some improvements over its predecessor or it will feel like a rip-off. As mentioned, indeed it has, but it’s not mindblowing or something worthy to upgrade on if you have the OnePlus 8T or 9 Pro.

The display is a 6.7in. LTPO Fluid AMOLED panel similar to its predecessor. This has a variable 120Hz refresh rate and adjusts depending on the activity of the phone. This allows saving the battery better as it is adaptive.

Obviously it would be using the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 which already has some questionable heat dissipation when playing heavy duty games. This type of abnormal heat occurs on the Snapdragon 888 5G as well, so this one is another victim of terrible heat management systems. This is paired with 8GB or 12GB LPDDR5 RAM along with 128GB or 256GB UFS 3.1 internal storage. As with all previous OnePlus phones, this one is not expandable via MicroSD card.

OnePlus 10 Pro is official with 80W fast charging and new AMOLED

OnePlus retained the Hasselblad branding for the OnePlus 10 Pro that started with the OnePlus 9 series. Reviews for the OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro for its camera were lukewarm. One review for Marques Brownlee said that the cameras for it were decent, but the Hasselblad branding was not significant. It’s just typical flagship. Just imagine the camera without this Hasselblad label and you would still get the same results. Thanks to this label, however, the phone got more expensive.

We sure hope that OnePlus has improved over the software side for the OnePlus 10 Pro, as OnePlus has departed from its original “flagship killer” goals to become a full-fledged flagship. There are three cameras, but there’s a hole that may deceive you into thinking there are more cameras than it should have. The main sensor is a 48mp Sony IMX789 with 1.12µm pixel size, 1/1.43″ sensor size, and an aperture of f/1.8. This has support for OIS, which is expected for a flagship. Alongside the main camera is the 50mp Samsung JN1 ultrawide lens with a field of view of 150° which is very wide for smartphone standards. There’s also an 8mp telephoto camera with 3.3x optical zoom. The front cam is sitting on a dot notch and has a resolution of 32mp. The sensor used here is the Sony IMX615.

The Hasselblad collaboration remains with the addition of the Natural Colour Optimisation 2.0 which promises true-to-life colours, like the one on the OnePlus 9 Pro. The “Pro mode” also has additional settings including RAW support that should simulate real-world cameras.

It runs with ColorOS 12 in China but thankfully, global users would get the better, less cluttered, less eyesore OxygenOS based on Android 12. ColorOS is simply worse and is nothing more than an iOS copy.

The event highly features the “Hyperboost” gimmick. This allows the phone to “overclock” the CPU to churn maximum performance, locking all eight cores to their highest possible maximum frequency.

As we mentioned earlier, the SD8G1 processor suffers from overheating problems and Qualcomm is not doing anything to fix that, so the OEMs have to adjust. For the OnePlus 10 Pro, the heat dissipation system has further been improved and is a little larger. According to the company, the size is about “the same as a sheet of A4 Paper”, or if we’re using non-American measurements, about 340sq. cm.

The battery gets a massive boost in terms of charging speeds. The phone is coupled with a quite typical 5000mAh battery, but the kicker here is that it supports up to 80W fast charging which the company calls “Dash Charge”. If you prefer going the wireless option, the phone charges up to 50W, which is still impressively fast.

Two colours: Black and Green. They have a sandstone finish made with premium glass for the back. In China, the phone starts at CNY4,699 for the 8/128 variant. The 8/256 variant is priced at CNY4,999 while the 12/256 variant is priced at CNY5,299. Sale starts at spring, which is around February or March in China. No hint yet about a global launch but it could be very soon after the Chinese debut.

Specs:

  • 6.7in. 2nd generation LTPO 2K AMOLED, 120Hz refresh rate
    • 1 Billion Colours, Corning Gorilla Glass Victus, HDR10+
  • Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 (4nm)
    • Heat dissipation system, 340sq. cm.
  • CAMERAS:
    • 48mp Sony IMX789 (main), f/1.8, 1/1.43″, 1.12µm, OIS, PDAF
    • 50mp Samsung JN1 (ultrawide), 150° FoV
    • 8mp (telephoto), 3.3x optical zoom, PDAF, OIS
    • FRONT: 32mp Sony IMX615
    • Hasselblad Collaboration, Natural Colour Optimisation 2.0, RAW Support
  • Android 12, ColorOS12 (China only), OxygenOS (Global)
  • 5000mAh, 80W fast charging, 50W fast wireless charging
  • In-display fingerprint sensor, Bluetooth 5.2, Wi-FI 6, 5G services
  • No 3.5mm jack, Hi-Res Audio, Stereo Speakers
  • PRICE:
    • 8/128: CNY4,699 (~Php 37.6K)
    • 8/256: CNY4,999 (~Php 40K)
    • 12/256: CNY5,299 (~Php 42.4K)

Source: OnePlus (in Chinese) via GSMArena