OnePlus 8T review

Our Verdict

The OnePlus 8T could have been a new flagship phone-killer, with its potent specs, excellent display, and super fast charging. But the cameras don't quite measure up to other leading phones.

For

Bright and smooth 120Hz display
Super fast charging
Slick and unobtrusive software
Solid performance
Premium pattern

Against

Disappointing camera performance
No wireless charging

Tom's Guide Verdict

The OnePlus 8T could take been a new flagship phone-killer, with its stiff specs, excellent display, and super fast charging. Simply the cameras don't quite measure out up to other leading phones.

Pros

+
Bright and smooth 120Hz display
+
Super fast charging
+
Slick and unobtrusive software
+
Solid operation
+
Premium design

Cons

-
Disappointing camera performance
-
No wireless charging

OnePlus 8T: Specs

Price: $749
Os: Android 11 with OxygenOS 11
Display: six.55-inch AMOLED (2400 x 1080), 120Hz
CPU: Snapdragon 865
RAM: 12GB
Storage: 256GB
Rear cameras: 48MP main (f/1.7), 16MP ultra wide angle (f/2.2), 5MP macro camera, 2MP monochrome camera
Front photographic camera: 16MP (f/2.4)
Battery size: four,500 mAh
Charging speed: 65 watts (included charger)
Size: half dozen.32 ten 2.91 x 0.33 inches
Weight: half dozen.six ounces

Update: While the OnePlus 8T is a expert phone and can be institute at a discount, nosotros recommend the newer OnePlus nine series because of its improved Hasselbad camera organisation. Come across our total OnePlus ix review and OnePlus ix Pro review.

The OnePlus 8T, despite having an amazing foundation, never quite made it to the best Android phones. If y'all want a OnePlus telephone that gets our seal or blessing, and so bank check out our review of the OnePlus 9.

Simply the OnePlus 8T is far from a bad phone, in fact it'south rather expert, equally a successor to the OnePlus viii. It gets a super-shine 120Hz display and four rear cameras, as well as a smart dual battery fast-charging system.

OnePlus 8T review: Price and release engagement

At that place'south only one version of the OnePlus 8T available in the U.S. and it's the model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. It's been available to buy since Oct 23 2020.

The beefy U.S. spec, which is variable in Aquamarine Light-green and Luna Silver colors, will ready yous back $749. That makes the 8T $50 more than expensive than the OnePlus 8, which started at $699 but had less RAM and storage.

In the U.K. the Lunar Argent model is but available with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, just costs £549. The Aquamarine Green only comes with the higher spec and costs £649. Both went on auction on October 20.

At this price, though, the higher-spec OnePlus 8T even so pushes the upper terminate of the mid-range telephone arena. That'due south both a good and bad place to be in. As many phones have hit or surpassed the $1,000 marker, there aren't a smashing bargain that offer a suite of flagship specs or standout features for a sub-$800 price. Even so, the competition that's at that place is stiff indeed.

The $699 Samsung Milky way S20 Iron offers a serious mix of flagship specs, with simply a few compromises in the form of a plastic dorsum and less RAM than the 8T. The $699 Google Pixel 5 also undercuts the 8T, but compromises on both refresh rate and processing power, though it offers stellar photography functioning instead.

Over in the U.M., the entry-level OnePlus 8T offers superior specs to both the £599 Pixel 5 and Galaxy S20 FE. then information technology'south arguably a more competitive handset on U.k.'s side of the Atlantic. But this was in one case a price betoken where OnePlus mostly stood alone; now it'south got to face up downwards two phones that have very appealing features.

So the OnePlus 8T has its work cutting out if it wants to beat similarly priced phones. And it's worth noting that the OnePlus Nord offers a lot of phone for £379, roughly $490, even if it'southward non every bit powerful on paper, and isn't bachelor in places similar the U.S.

OnePlus 8T review: Design

Speaking of the OnePlus Nord, the OnePlus 8T looks a lot like OnePlus' budget device. Both phones sport a swell rounded rectangular design with displays that are flat, not curved like the edges on the OnePlus 8's display. This makes the 8T a lot easier to grip, if not equally aesthetically pleasing.

The OnePlus 8T is a trivial larger than the Nord and the OnePlus 8, measuring 6.32 x two.91 x 0.33 inches and weighing 6.6 ounces. With its glass dorsum and premium finish the 8T feels more like a flagship telephone than the Pixel five with its aluminium back.

This has long been a strong role of OnePlus phones and while you might non be getting a true flagship phone, the 8T certainly has that loftier-level of build quality and finish that feel more in line with $ane,000 handsets. And whatever treatment OnePlus has given the 8T, its back is pretty resistant to fingerprints, which makes a pleasant dissimilarity to some phones.

There'due south no IP68 water and dust resistance rating here, something that'due south expected in a lot of flagship phones but a feature that OnePlus has shunned for years. In applied terms, that doesn't matter a great deal as OnePlus has used various seals to keep water out of its handsets, meaning that they'll survive a quick drop into a sink or a drenching from a sudden downpour. That doesn't mean I'd advocate dropping a OnePlus 8T into a pint on a regular footing.

The biggest change the OnePlus 8T brings to the table is its rather prominent rear camera module that houses iv cameras and a flash in a rounded rectangle unit positioned in the top correct-hand side. That's a significant change from the OnePlus viii'southward pill-shaped trio of cameras that sat in the top middle section of the handset.

I prefer the older pattern for its neatness. But chunky rear camera modules are en vogue in 2020, and the OnePlus 8T's module is hardly the most offensive. And it's positioned in a spot that means you're less likely to hit it with your fingers when snapping a photograph in haste.

With only silver and greenish for color options, the OnePlus 8 doesn't exactly have a broad range of finishes to choose from. While I'd have liked to have seen the striking blue hues of the OnePlus 7T return, I retrieve both the Aquamarine Dark-green and Lunar Silver colors are rather attractive.

OnePlus 8T review: Display

Recent OnePlus phones have offered impressive displays, and the OnePlus 8T keeps upwards with that tradition. It'due south a half-dozen.55-inch brandish with 2400 x 1080 resolution. More than importantly, information technology features a super-smooth 120Hz refresh rate, which makes the OnePlus 8T a joy to utilize.

High refresh-rate displays are becoming more prolific, fifty-fifty if phones similar the Pixel v stick with 90Hz rather than 120Hz. Use such phones for whatsoever length of time and you could find it very difficult to get back to a conventional 60Hz screen. I switched the OnePlus 8T out of its 120Hz mode and immediately regretted it, every bit scrolling through menus and webpages felt rather jarring after the smoothness of 120Hz.

I'm less convinced by a jump from 90Hz to 120Hz. Comparison the OnePlus 8T to the OnePlus 7T Pro's 90hz display, the divergence in smoothness wasn't vast, so don't expect it to experience like a huge upgrade.

At 1080p the OnePlus 8T's display isn't equally sharp as other phones with 6.five-inch displays and higher up. Simply you lot'll just really observe the difference between a 1080p and 1440p console if you really zoom into photos. And with a pixel per inch density of 402, the departure in sharpness between the 8T'due south panel and those of flagship phones is negligible.

With an OLED panel that supports HDR, the OnePlus 8T handles colors and contrast rather well. In our tests, its default "bright" manner covered 169.ix% of the sRGB color gamut and 120.two% of the DCI-P3 color infinite. That beats the results we got for the OnePlus 8 Pro, just lagged a little backside the Milky way S20 FE in DCI-P3 coverage, with Samsung'south phone hitting 133.3%.

As for color accuracy, the OnePlus 8T managed a Delta-E score of 0.29 in our lab tests (the lower the score the better), which beats the S20 FE'south score of 0.3. Drop the OnePlus 8T into its "natural" screen calibration and colors become more authentic delivering a Delta-E score of 0.22, at the expense of bottom color gamut coverage.

Everything on Netflix, from The Witcher'due south varied color pallet to the vivid hues of comedy spy animation Archer, looks excellent on the OnePlus 8T's display. And then do YouTube videos with the frenetic action of the James Bail No Fourth dimension To Die trailer showing how well the brandish can pick out detail in both dimly lit scenes and those saturated with color. It'southward up there with some of the best smartphone displays, perhaps only being edged out by the stellar displays on phones similar the Oppo Find X2 Pro.

It helps that brandish gets rather bright, striking a meridian of 678 nits with the adaptive brightness on. That'south upward at that place with the S20 Fe and other 2020 Samsung phones, simply it'due south browbeaten by the iPhone 11 Pro's 752 nits. However, the OnePlus 8T'due south brandish is an upgrade over the OnePlus 8's panel, just not a huge 1.

OnePlus 8T review: Cameras

For its rear photographic camera array the OnePlus 8T takes the 48MP main and 16MP ultra broad-bending cameras of the OnePlus 8 and adds in a 5MP macro photographic camera and 2MP monochrome camera. There'due south no telephoto lens in the mix, like the one you find on the OnePlus eight Pro or Galaxy S20 Fe. The omission is also a little odd given last year's OnePlus 7T came with a 12MP 3x telephoto camera.

Still, with four cameras on offer and OnePlus having shown information technology can produce a smartphone with flagship-grade cameras with the OnePlus 8 Pro, my expectations were rather high for the 8T. Sadly, they weren't met.

Photos taken with the primary camera were in the same ballpark as those of other Android flagships. But the functioning of the other lenses fell flat.

It's worth noting that since we first reviewed the 8T, OnePlus has put out a suite of updates that have improved the camera performance, Only sadly, the shots we option through beneath are yet representative of the phone's photography skills. Overall, information technology'southward decent but tin't quite justify it high cost in the face of strong rivals.

Compared to the new Pixel five, the 8T'southward 48MP principal camera holds its own. It snaps shots that are then resolved down to 12MP photos using a tried-and-tested pixel binning technique. In the below shot of a damp London park and cloud-studded heaven, you can run across the 8T offers a brighter and more vibrant shot than the Pixel 5. Just Google's new phone captures more truthful-to-life colors with more dynamic range. Zoom in to the tower blocks or Canary Wharf in the background, and y'all can see the Pixel 5 offers a little more item.

Like the recent OnePlus phones with 48MP main cameras, in that location'southward the option to capture pure 48MP photos. Unsurprisingly, the 48MP mode produces shots with more detail when you lot zoom into them, just the departure isn't profound. There are differences in color and effulgence, simply neither shot is particularly true to life.

Given the OnePlus 8T has the same Sony IMX586 sensor in the 48MP camera as the OnePlus 7T Pro, it's worth seeing if the 8T offers a decent upgrade over the older phone. There'southward not a corking deal of deviation on display in standard point-and-shoot shots. The 8T offers brighter and more vibrant compositions, with more dynamic range and a petty more particular when zoomed in.

Despite having a defended macro camera, the lack of a telephoto lens on the OnePlus 8T means getting very close to a subject to use the super macro mode on the 8T is a fleck tricky. Whereas the 3x optical zoom on the 7T Pro makes information technology a lot easier to go a tighter shot, trying to become a good close up photo with the 8T was an exercise in frustration for me. Just zooming into the macro shots, such every bit the one of the pewter knight below, you tin see that the 8T better captures the texture in the knight's helmet.

The lack of a telephoto camera rears its ugly head again with the 8T's 10x zoom, which uses a hybrid mix of optical and electronic epitome stabilisation. Zooming into signs revealed an ugly distorted mess with the 8T. The OnePlus 7T Pro and the Pixel 5 — which as well lacks a telephoto lens — produce much clearer images.

Image ane of three

Image 2 of 3

Image three of three

Speaking of distorting, the 16MP ultra wide angle photographic camera offers a 123-degree field of view, only despite capturing extensive landscapes, there'southward some poor image processing going on. Take the photograph of the geese below: the standard camera shot presents a perfectly fine shot. Just switching to the wide bending mode ended upward with very dirty images, as if someone had smudged the shot. The torso of the tree looks strangely smooth and the leaves of copse in the background look worse than a hastily painted watercolor.

By default, the 8T handles night fourth dimension photography reasonably well, albeit slightly blowing out some light sources. Activate the Nightscape fashion and it'll pick out a lot more than detail in the highlights and illuminate previously dark areas.

Compared to the Pixel 5, the 8T produces brighter dark time shots, though it adds a fleck of yellow hue to photos and over-saturates colors. Take a expect at the scene below: The 8T'due south shot is brighter but the red gate has been given a candy red color, when it's actually more muted and closer to the Pixel five's rendition. And zoom into the red machine on the right and you'll see the Pixel 5 displays the number plate a lot clearer, whereas the 8T has a lot more than noise; the smoothing in dimly lit photos seems to take been abased in the Nightscape style.

Ane area that the Pixel 5 crushed the OnePlus 8T is in portrait photos. Every bit you lot can see in the photos of my friend Claire, the Pixel v produces a detailed and well-composed portrait shot. Whereas the 8T gets the colors and white remainder all wrong, making Claire look rather done out. And aggressive smoothing has taken out all the texture of her hair. This is one of the most disappointing shots the 8T has produced, especially when the OnePlus eight Pro delivered potent profile photos.

What'southward both interesting and irritating here, is the OnePlus 8T produces decent profile photos of people without the portrait mode enabled. There's a little more than smoothing going on compared to the Pixel 5, and skin tones look less natural. But otherwise photos of people captured using the 8T'south principal photographic camera are thoroughly decent, though far from fantabulous.

Completing the rear cameras is the 2MP monochrome camera. It shoots decent monochrome photos, which is dainty to have only I feel like it's a chip of a gimmick; I'd much rather a telephoto lens instead.

Flip the OnePlus 8T effectually and you've got the same standard 16MP selfie camera of the OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro. And much like those phones, the 8T does a good chore of selfies.

From the selfie my colleague Adam Ismail snapped, the 8T produces a sharper image than the Pixel 5. Just Google's phone delivers more than natural colors, with the 8T adding a red tinge to Adam's face. And information technology's pretty much the same story for the front end-facing camera's portrait way.

Video on the OnePlus 8T starts at 1080p and thirty frames per 2d and tops out at 4K 60fps, much like the previous OnePlus 8 phones. And there'south a Super Slow Motion style that can capture 720p videos at 480fps or 1080p videos at 240fps. There's also Nightscape and portrait bokeh modes for video capture; I'one thousand not convinced by the latter which feels a bit contemporary.

Notwithstanding, I exercise like the Super Stable mode that fuses optical and electronic stabilization to accept the wobble out of shaky camera work. Overall, the video operation of the OnePlus 8T is decent simply nothing well-nigh it peculiarly wowed me.

I suspect the issues I experienced with the OnePlus 8T's cameras are down to poor paradigm processing rather than hardware. This is something that'due south blighted OnePlus phones at launch before, and subsequent software updates have drastically improved rear camera performance. But I feel OnePlus should take figured this out past now and information technology's annoying to see such bug in a phone that's facing ever stiffer competition.

OnePlus 8T review: Performance

I had been expecting the OnePlus 8T to come up with the Snapdragon 865 Plus, every bit 'T' OnePlus phones tend to employ Qualcomm'due south very latest organization-on-a-flake. But the OnePlus 8T has the Snapdragon 865, the same as the OnePlus viii models released six months ago.

A OnePlus spokesperson told me that the company feels the Snapdragon 865 is more than capable of handling anything that can exist thrown at information technology, so an upgrade wasn't worthwhile. My suspicion here is OnePlus has decided non to fork out for the latest Qualcomm SoC in order to salve money and thus keep the toll of the 8T competitive.

As such, the OnePlus 8T performs pretty much the same equally other phones from this year with the Snapdragon 865. In Geekbench five, the 8T managed a single-core score of 887 and got 3,203 in the multi-core test. Both the OnePlus viii and 8 Pro scored a picayune higher, but that could be downwards to the potential actress demand of the new software features of Android 11 and OxygenOS eleven.

The OnePlus 8T beats the S20 FE'due south multicore score of ii,928, but the Samsung handset comes with 6GB of RAM compared to the 8T's 12GB. So that could explain the performance deviation.

On the graphics side, the OnePlus 8T took on the GFXBench Aztec Ruins Vulcan test and kicked out a score of 1,375 frames (21 frames per second). Again, this performance is on par with the OnePlus eight phones and the S20 FE, which managed 1,325 frames. Phones with the Snapdragon 865 Plus, likewise as the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, will beat the OnePlus 8T in benchmarks. But otherwise, the 8T has flagship performance that shows in real-world apply.

The OnePlus 8T chews through games like Call of Duty Mobile, which runs particularly smoothly as it's optimized to brand use of the 120Hz refresh rate. At that place'south a new vapor chamber cooling arrangement in the phone, which is a feature you're most likely to observe in gaming handsets. Supposedly this should aid go along the 8T cooler when conveying out demanding tasks like gaming, but I establish it yet got pretty warm even subsequently a short bout of Phone call of Duty.

In general employ, OnePlus phones have always felt fast thanks to the lightweight nature of OxygenOS not bogging Android down. The same is true of the OnePlus 8T, as information technology's very responsive, firing up apps and bouncing from Gmail into Whatsapp and then to YouTube is very slick. The lack of a Snapdragon 865 Plus might exist a disappointment for some diehard OnePlus fans, simply that doesn't mean the 8T isn't one of the fastest feeling phones around.

OnePlus 8T review: Battery life and charging

You lot tin can expect the OnePlus 8T to become you through a twenty-four hours'south worth of apply before gasping for electric juice, thanks to its iv,500 mAh battery. In our test, which involves continuous web surfing with the brandish fix at 150 nits of screen brightness, the 8T managed 9 hours and 58 minutes with its screen running at 120Hz.

That's not the 11 hours plus needed to make it onto our best phone battery life list. But information technology's on par with other phones with loftier-refresh rate displays, outlasting the OnePlus 8 Pro, despite its 120 mAh larger battery, by 56 minutes. And information technology trounced the endurance of the S20 Iron's 4,500 mAh battery, which simply managed 8 hours and 58 minutes.

Drib the brandish down to 60Hz and you'll get 10 hours and 49 minutes of battery life, which is better than the average time for smartphones. But since going back to 60Hz isn't an like shooting fish in a barrel thing, I'd rather accept the hit in bombardment life. And that's thanks to OnePlus' new Warp Accuse 65.

Very fast charging has ever been one of the best features of OnePlus phones. And ramping upwardly the speed of Warp Charge from 30W to 65W has further boosted OnePlus' charging tech. The OnePlus 8T will now charge from zippo to 55 percentage battery capacity in a mere 15 minutes. Wait for 30 minutes and you'll take a battery that's 93 percent full.

That should actually be 'batteries' as OnePlus has used two smaller batteries rather than i large bombardment pack in the 8T. Doing this somewhat circumnavigates the limitations of electrical resistance and estrus when upping charger wattage and allows the 8T to charge very fast. Expect this tech to be adopted by other phone makers next twelvemonth.

In applied terms, Warp Charge 65 ways battery anxiety is pretty much eliminated if you're almost a wall socket. This charging comes at a price though, equally there'southward no wireless charging support with the OnePlus 8T.

This is a little disappointing, as we've waited for ages for OnePlus to finally adopt wireless charging with the 8 Pro, only to see the OnePlus 8T driblet it. I was told that OnePlus boss Pete Lau tried out a image with a wireless charging coil and decided information technology gave the phone too much bulk, so asked for it to be removed. I'thousand an advocate for wireless charging and feel information technology should now be a feature for mid-range phones, besides as flagship handsets, given the Pixel v has a wireless charging curlicue.

OnePlus 8T review: Software

Out of the box the OnePlus 8T comes with Android 11, which brings features such every bit media controls embedded into the drop-down menu and new screenshot controls. Information technology also ways the 8T has the latest security and privacy controls for Android.

But the most interesting matter here is the debut of OxygenOS 11. The lightweight skin OnePlus adds on summit of Android remains relatively fuss-free, but brings in a few improvements. These include gestures optimized for one-handed use. For example, there's a gap between the main settings heading and the bill of fare options, meaning things like Wi-Fi and display controls are positioned toward the lower two-thirds of the screen making them easier to reach.

There is also a fresh dark fashion that adjusts color tones and menu layers to make content easier to read. And generally the overall feel of using OxygenOS feels a footling neater and cleaner, not that it was too messy to begin with compared to some other Android skins.

OxygenOS 11 as well brings in an e'er-on brandish that can be configured to display a mix of notifications and clock styles; but keep in listen that this characteristic likes to chew on bombardment life. The most notable clock style is the new Insight AOD, which shows a type of temperature bar that goes from nighttime to light to nighttime to signify the passing off the twenty-four hours and is segmented with dark gaps to show when and how many times you accept unlocked the 8T. That should entreatment to people into digital wellbeing, as should the Zen style that tin lockdown the phone for twenty minutes to encourage you to stop checking it.

The under-brandish fingerprint scanner on the OnePlus 8T remains as responsive as ever. And Face Unlock is a solid alternative to finger-based biometrics, though y'all should bear in mind that information technology's withal not as secure as Apple tree'southward Face ID.

OnePlus 8T review: Verdict

When I outset got my hands on the OnePlus 8T, I really wanted to love information technology. I thought OnePlus was going to have the best parts of the high-end OnePlus 8 Pro and return to its roots by making a serious flagship-killer, peculiarly later on the underwhelming OnePlus 8. Simply the $749 price tag is too much, given the competition, and disappointing camera performance has made the OnePlus 8T a letdown.

Build quality, performance, and 120Hz display are serious high points for the OnePlus 8T. But I don't think it really marks a major upgrade over the OnePlus 7T from terminal year. It's a bit faster in benchmarks, just in real-world utilise that doesn't brand a huge divergence. And I don't recollect a jump from a 90Hz display to 120Hz is worth the cost of an upgrade.

If you're looking to upgrade from a non-OnePlus phone, then the 8T is nevertheless difficult to recommend at the moment. Information technology might beat the Galaxy S20 FE on paper, just Samsung'south phone is cheaper n the U.S. and delivers impressive performance; it can besides match the OnePlus 8T's 120Hz brandish while taking amend pictures. And if you tin brand do with a less powerful bit and a 90Hz display, which I recall is fine, so the Pixel 5 crushes the 8T on phone photography.

You'll note I said "at the moment." That's because if OnePlus improves the 8T's cameras with a software update, then the telephone could be a contender over again, especially if its toll then drops below $700. Afterward all, the OnePlus 8T is a joy to apply if you're not snapping photos, thanks to OxygenOS 11 and super-fast charging, information technology'due south just a shame OnePlus has dropped the ball with the cameras in one case over again.

More than: OnePlus Nord vs OnePlus 8: What's different?

Roland Moore-Colyer is U.K. Editor at Tom's Guide with a focus on news, features and opinion manufactures. He frequently writes virtually gaming, phones, laptops and other bits of hardware; he's besides got an interest in cars. When not at his desk Roland tin be found wandering around London, often with a look of curiosity on his face.