Welcome to November 2018, and OnePlus has just brought a ‘hidden’ technology to the UK high street. The OnePlus 6T is a 185g evolution of the speed-focused philosophy, featuring a new ‘Teardrop’ notch and a significantly larger battery. It is the first phone to be widely available in the UK with an ‘In-Display’ fingerprint sensor, a technical trick that feels like pure science fiction. Finished in ‘Mirror Black’ or the stunning matte ‘Midnight Black,’ it is a sleek, seamless device that represents the moment OnePlus truly became a mainstream premium contender.
The technical headline is ‘Screen Unlock.’ By placing an optical sensor beneath the 6.41-inch Optic AMOLED (2340 x 1080) display, OnePlus has removed the need for a rear scanner, allowing for a cleaner design and a massive 3,700 mAh battery, the largest ever in a OnePlus phone. Under the hood, it is a performance beast, powered by the Snapdragon 845 and up to 8GB of RAM. It runs ‘OxygenOS’ based on Android 9 Pie, which remains the fastest and most fluid skin in the Android world, focused on ‘meaningful’ speed rather than gimmicks. It also introduces ‘Smart Boost,’ which keeps frequently used apps in RAM for instant launching.
On the imaging front, the dual 16+20 megapixel camera system introduces ‘Nightscape,’ a technical response to Google’s Night Sight that allows for much-improved low-light cityscapes. It records 4K video at 60fps and features a 16-megapixel front camera. Connectivity is robust with 4G LTE and Wi-Fi ac, though it marks the controversial technical decision to remove the headphone jack to make room for the larger battery and in-display tech. The OnePlus 6T is a landmark device; it brought futuristic biometrics and elite performance to the market at a price that still made the big-name flagships look overpriced. It is the definitive ‘speed’ phone of late 2018.