OnePlus 10T launch event recap: Release date, price, features and more

Good morning and welcome to Tom's Guide's OnePlus 10T launch live blog. We'll be bringing you all the last-minute rumors in the run-up to the event, then giving you full details on the phone itself as it's revealed. So bookmark this page and check back regularly for the latest.

One area that’s worth paying attention to during today’s OnePlus 10T launch involves any battery and charging details the phone maker announces for the new device — and not just because that’s info OnePlus hasn’t revealed in advance of the event. OnePlus’ power management features are always of interest.

We’re expecting the OnePlus 10T to retain the 5,000 mAh battery found in the OnePlus 10 Pro — why fix what isn’t broken, after all. On our demanding battery test, the 10 Pro turned in a time of 11 hours, 52 minutes with its adaptive display feature turned on. Adaptive displays can put a hit on battery life, but the OnePlus 10 still earned a spot on the list of best phone battery life that we track.

As for charging speed, remember that the OnePlus 10 Pro used 80W charging, but because that feature didn’t meet U.S. charging standards, users in the States had to make do with a 65W charger. We’re curious to see if that persists with the new phone.

Let’s talk about the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 that OnePlus has confirmed will be powering the OnePlus 10T. It’s a step up in performance from the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 which you’ll find in the OnePlus 10 Pro, as well as the entire Galaxy S22 lineup. But more importantly, it’s also better at power management than that earlier Qualcomm silicon, not that the long-lasting OnePlus 10 Pro really had a problem with battery life in our testing.

We’ve tested a couple of Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1-powered phones already — the Asus ROG Phone 6 Pro and the Zenfone 9. Both got excellent marks for performance, if you’d like an idea of what we’re expecting from the OnePlus 10T.

The big question heading into today’s OnePlus 10T launch is what OnePlus is going to charge for the phone — an especially relevant piece of information in these, our times of rising costs. For the record, the OnePlus 10 Pro debuted with an $899 price tag — less than comparable flagships, but still pretty pricey so far as OnePlus devices go.

The 10T is supposed to have a better chipset in the form of the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1, but without the Hasselblad branding for its cameras, it’s possible the 10T could come in at less than the OnePlus 10 Pro. We certainly would hope for a phone that’s no more than the one OnePlus introduced earlier in the year.

If the OnePlus 10T launch today seems like the latest in a series of OnePlus phone launches, you aren’t imagining things. There have been a lot of OnePlus handsets rolled out in 2022, as OnePlus has expanded its product portfolio to include budget models as well as flagship challengers.

By my count, we’ve already seen the OnePlus Nord CE 2 Lite, the OnePlus Nord 2T, the OnePlus Nord N20 and if you want to extend the search to other markets than the U.S. and U.K., the OnePlus 10R. 

Compared to the days when OnePlus was rolling out one, maybe two phones at most, it’s quite a change. And it puts me in mind of an editorial my colleague Jordan Palmer wrote a while back wondering if OnePlus is losing its magic with all these phone releases.

Hasselblad has been a big part of the last couple OnePlus flagship launches, with the Swedish lens specialist fine-tuning the lenses on the OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 10, and improving some of the phones' photo processing. Those specific devices didn’t unseat Apple or Google from the top of the best camera phones list, but they certainly held their own against the top picture takers.

So it’s curious that Hasselblad apparently won’t be involved with the OnePlus 10T, based on OnePlus’ comments to The Verge. “[OnePlus] wanted to offer an ultimate performance flagship smartphone at the device’s chosen price point,” chief designer Hope Liu told The Verge.

That could mean anything, but it sounds like OnePlus is putting a premium on boosting the phone’s performance and is less concerned about the camera. If that is the case, it’s an odd choice, given how important digital photography is to smartphone shoppers.

We've got some last-minute info on the OnePlus 10T, and as you might expect, it comes straight from OnePlus. The company has posted another deep dive about OnePlus 10T specs, and this time, the focus is on charging speeds.

Specifically, OnePlus says its new phone will support 150W Supervooc Endurance Edition, the company's fastest charging technology ever. According to OnePlus, the 4,800 mAh battery in the OnePlus 10T can be fully charged in 19 minutes thanks to the 150W charging. (Oh, looks like OnePlus also revealed the 10T's battery size — and it's slightly smaller than what the OnePlus 10 Pro offers.)

Of course, in North America, our 110- and 120-volt outlets are no match for 150W Supervooc charging, so the OnePlus 10T will charge at "only" 125W. That means it will take 20 minutes to fully charge the phone, or 1 minute longer than what our European cousins will enjoy.

You'll get a 150W Supervooc charger and USB cable with your OnePlus 10T purchase, OnePlus says.

Since OnePlus is anything but reticent when it comes to discussing new phones — including phones whose launch event is less than an hour away still — you can find a lot of detail about the OnePlus 10T, pre-launch. In fact, the launch event page at OnePlus' website touts a smattering of features, many of which we've talked about.

But there's one we haven't discussed — the phone's cooling system. On its website, OnePlus touts the 10T's "3D Cooling System 2.0" and what a bonus it will be for mobile gamers. Keeping phones from overheating certainly would appeal to gamers, as a hotter phone can see performance degradation. That OnePlus would include the cooling system in its promotion efforts suggests that the 10T may be positioned as a gaming phone — or at least a phone built with gamers in mind.

The OnePlus 10T event live stream is now live on YouTube... sort of. It's in countdown mode at the moment as we get closer to the 10 a.m. ET kickoff time. But you've got a page to bookmark now. We've also updated this live blog with an embedded feed.

That OnePlus 10T packaging seems a bit bulky.

We're kidding, we're kidding...

My colleague Kate Kozuch is one hand at Gotham Hall where OnePlus is holding its 10T launch event and sends some photos of the atmosphere inside the event. This is OnePlus' first in-person launch event in two years.

With the OnePlus 10T launching in less than 10 minutes, we're going to spend a lot of time talking about the features included with the phone. But let's spend a moment reflecting on a long-time OnePlus feature you won't find on the 10T — the phone's alert slider.

The alert slider has been MIA from cheaper OnePlus phones, but the OnePlus 10T is the first flagship from the company to ship without it. The slider is quite a popular feature with users, setting OnePlus phones apart from their Android counterpart.

The reason for the omission? The big battery, a new antenna, and the fast-charging technology included in the phone took up a lot of room and sacrifices had to be made. So au revoir, alert slider, we'll think of you every time we go to silence our phone at the movie theater.

A pre-launch event history lesson from OnePlus, courtesy of Kate Kozuch in New York.

And we're underway, with OnePlus' Robin Liu welcoming us to the OnePlus 10T launch event.

Christian Anderson, VP of sales for OnePlus North America, kicks things off with a recap of OnePlus' year so far. The upshot: The OnePlus 10 Pro has been a very popular device, helping the phone maker's sales grow. And OnePlus has released a lot of phones in the last seven months.

Trust the experts.

We're getting a recap of OnePlus' Burdenless philosophy, which covers the way OnePlus designs and evolves its products. And that leads us into a video on Oxygen OS, which Anderson says will remain the software for OnePlus devices. (There had been some concerns that new owner Oppo was going to impose its software on OnePlus instead.)

And after a lot of preamble, we're diving into the OnePlus 10T. Qualcomm's Chris Patrick is out to discuss the chip maker's relationship with OnePlus. In the case of the 10T, that means the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1.

The focus of this presentation is on the performance boost the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 provides — 10% CPU boost and 30% faster graphics over the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 that came out at the start of the year. So we're really seeing an emphasis on how the 10T will perform.

With great performance comes great overheating, and OnePlus says it's going to fight that with its new 3D Cooling system.

OnePlus says the cooling area is 64% larger than what the OnePlus 10 Pro offered, with the 10T featuring advanced vapor cooling technology. The upshot is that the cooling system in the OnePlus 10T has been optimized to handle heat dissipation quickly. After an hour of gaming, the OnePlus 10T runs several degrees cooler than competing flagship phones.

Turning to multitasking, we're keeping more apps open and those apps are taking up more memory. In response, OnePlus is going to make a 16GB RAM option available with the 10T. There's an Always Alive feature for the phone that works with the 16GB of memory, which can keep nearly three dozen apps running in the background at the same time.

Some OnePlus 10T specs that may be relevant to your interests...

There's a new version of the Hyperboost gaming engine on the OnePlus 10T, with an emphasis on increasing frame stability and touch responsiveness. In an hour-long session of PUBG Mobile, for example, the frame rate only drops slightly.

Meanwhile, a 1000Hz touch response via OnePlus' LSTouch technology, you've got a phone that won't falter when you're rapidly tapping the phone's screen.

As OnePlus promised, the 10T will feature 150W charging (at least outside of North America). That should be a new speed record that places the OnePlus 10T among the fastest charging phones.

Specifically, those charging speeds can deliver a full day charge in about 10 minutes, according to the 10T presentation.

There's also a Battery Health Engine on the OnePlus 10T, meant to extend the life of the battery. Among its features is the ability to charge even in extreme cold. OnePlus says the battery is good for 1,600 charging cycles, which should minimize degradation over several years.

It's time to talk the display, which is a 6.7-inch screen with a 120Hz refresh rate. The refresh rate can adjust between 60Hz, 90Hz and 120Hz, though it's not an LTPO screen so you won't see the refresh rate scale down like it does on the OnePlus 10 Pro.

OnePlus hasn't forgotten about the cameras on the 10T, which features a 50MP wide angle camera, augmented by an 8MP ultrawide angle lens with a 120-degree field of view. There's a 2MP macro sensor on the back of the phone, too.

You won't see a telephoto lens like you did on the OnePlus 10 Pro apparently.

The camera presentation was very brief, in case you were unclear as to where OnePlus is putting its focus with this phone.

Some behind the scenes details from the OnePlus 10T launch event.

There's some design talk about the look and feel of the OnePlus 10T, which to my untrained eye, looks a lot like the OnePlus 10 Pro. The phone features a unibody design so that the camera array is a part of the phone, not just a bump jutting out. Your color options are Jade Green and Moonstone Black.

We're getting a look at OxygenOS 13, with OnePlus' goals touching on smoothness and consistency of experience. the new OS features an Aquamorphic design, a new visual language which OnePlus says is inspired by nature. From a video that OnePlus aired showcasing OxygenOS 13, I take it to mean that's a new color scheme with icon shapes that are reminiscent of droplets.

OxygenOS 13 is built on Android 13, by the way, and with that software update not coming until September, I'd imagine that this new version of OxygenOS is coming later, too.

Some of the highlights for OxygenOS 13 — besides that aquamorphic design — includes a personalized smart launcher, new always-on-displays layouts and spatial audio. A lot of the features also draw on what Google's adding to Android 13.

OxygenOS is an appropriate name, by the way, because this segment has gone on so long, I feel like all the oxygen has been sucked out of the room.

OxygenOS 13 is coming to the OnePlus 10 Pro first, interestingly enough. 

OnePlus says it's working closely with Google — "especially the Android team" — to provide the best experience for OnePlus users. 

Finally, some OnePlus 10T pricing, and it was worth the wait. The OnePlus 10T costs $649, which is $250 cheaper than the OnePlus 10 Pro's starting price. That gets you the 8GB/128GB version. You can get the phone with 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage for $749.

In Europe, OnePlus 10T pricing starts at €699, with our U.K. friends paying £629.

Europe gets the phone first — the OnePlus 10T goes on sale August 25 there. Preorders in the U.S. don't start until Sept. 1, with the phone going on sale Sept. 29.

And that, as they say, is that. With OnePlus wrapping up its 10T presentation, you can now find out just what we think of these features in our OnePlus 10T review.

Having reviewed the OnePlus 10T, we've added the phone to our rankings of the best Android phones and best gaming phones.

@tomsguide

♬ оригинальный звук - sdhqo,но лайф

As mentioned, Kate Kozuch was at today's OnePlus 10T launch event, and she shares this video of a multitasking demo featuring the new OnePlus phone and its Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset.