As it tends to do every year, OnePlus has launched its second "T" flagship phone of 2018 to take on the best mobiles of 2018. The headline features of the OnePlus 6T are an in-screen fingerprint scanner, some smart camera improvements, and enough power to maintain performance for years to come.
The OnePlus 6 arrived less than six months ago and the OnePlus 6T builds on that phone. As well as moving the fingerprint sensor from the back to the front of the device again, it has a slightly larger 6.41-inch, 1,080 x 2,340 OLED screen (402 pixels per inch), and a smaller teardrop-style notch on the front display. The bottom chin has shrunk from the previous model too.
Inside the phone, the specs largely match the OnePlus 6: a Snapdragon 845 processor, 6 GB or 8 GB of RAM, and 128 GB or 256 GB of internal storage. You'll struggle to beat those specs on an Android phone this year, instantly making the OnePlus 6T one of the premium handsets of 2018.
OnePlus says it had in-screen fingerprint technology ready to go for the OnePlus 5T, but wasn't happy with its responsiveness. Apparently the scanner built into the OnePlus 6T is the fastest in-screen one on the market today, unlocking your handset in just 0.34 seconds.
OnePlus is also keen to talk up the capabilities of the rear dual-lens 20 MP + 16 MP camera, which matches the model on the OnePlus 6 in terms of raw specs. However, this time around OnePlus says low-light photography has been boosted with some smart behind-the-scenes software algorithms called Nightscape.
Nightscape essentially matches what Apple is doing with the iPhones and Google is doing with the Pixels – capturing multiple shots quickly, then using the variations between them to calculate the best-looking image. Each company has its own image processing algorithms, but they're essentially all doing similar jobs.
And because the Nightscape improvements are software-based, the feature is rolling out to the OnePlus 6 as well in the next few days.
OnePlus is also following the same path as many of its rivals by improving portrait shots – particularly in accentuating the darker and lighter areas of a portrait.
This is the first OnePlus phone to ditch the 3.5 mm headphone jack, though you do get a headphone adapter in the box. Unfortunately there's still no IP68 waterproofing and dustproofing, so be careful what you do with your new handset.
A customized OnePlus OxygenOS version of Android 9 Pie is on board right out of the box, and the battery size has been upped to 3,700 mAh (from 3,300 mAh on the OnePlus 6), so in theory it should be able to go longer between charges. The traditional OnePlus fast-charging tech is here again, but no wireless charging yet.
OnePlus is once again undercutting the big names on price. You can pick up the OnePlus 6T for US$549 and up unlocked, on sale from November 1. What's more, for the first time it's partnering with a US carrier – T-Mobile – to give you another way of buying the phone.
Product page: OnePlus 6T
