Review: OnePlus 10 Pro

If you made me choose from the current crop of flagship Android smartphones, the new OnePlus 10 Pro wouldn't be my first or second choice. It's not my last either. At $899, it sits in an awkward spot of being pretty good for the money, but not quite as great as some of its peers. 

Before diving into the details, it's worth noting that the OnePlus 10 Pro is the only flagship offering from OnePlus this year. Usually, the company puts out a “non-Pro” variant that's a little cheaper, but the 10 Pro is flying solo (at least for now). That makes my job easier. But while the standard option has had trouble keeping up with the midrange competition, it does stink that you have one less phone to choose from at a time when the number of phone makers is dwindling. If you're really craving options, you can at least buy last year's OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro at a discounted price.

It's hard to find much fault with the hardware on the OnePlus 10 Pro. I have the Volcanic Black color, an apt name as it does somewhat resemble the glittery shine of lava rocks (it also comes in a pretty Emerald Forest). You kind of want it to have that rougher, sandstone-esque feel when you touch it, but instead, this glass back is slippery. Thankfully, it's no fingerprint magnet.

Most phone makers seem to have settled on 6.7 inches as the preferred size for a flagship smartphone, and that's the case with the new OnePlus. It's … large! Sure, it's no Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, but use it one-handed and you'll be shimmying this phone up and down your palm as you try to reach the top of the screen. It is a tiny bit narrower and shorter than competitors like the Motorola Edge+ 2022 and the Google Pixel 6 Pro, which makes the size feel more manageable.

The AMOLED screen is one of the highlights here. It's sharp, colorful, and gets very bright in sunny conditions (though it's been fairly cloudy of late in New York). There's a 120-Hz screen refresh rate, which makes moving throughout the operating system and apps feel very fluid. OnePlus says the screen can quickly adjust from 120 Hz to 1 Hz based on the type of content on the screen, which helps conserve battery life. 

Speaking of which, I haven't had to think much about the battery. That's always a good thing. I never felt like the 10 Pro's 5,000-mAh cell was going to die on me, though you shouldn't expect it to last much more than a full day. If you're spending hours filming TikToks or gaming on it, you'll likely need to top up before bed. The good news is that charging is among the fastest you'll find on a smartphone in the US. If you use OnePlus' included 65-watt charger and cable—unlike with other phones, you don't need to spend extra on a charging adapter—you can juice this phone back up to 100 percent in roughly 30 minutes. Yowza. With the (not included) 50-watt wireless charger, you can do the same in around 50 minutes. Speed like that is handy when you're about to head out but realize the phone's low on power.

The 10 Pro is powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor, just like many other flagship Android phones. My benchmark tests put the 10 Pro slightly lower than some of its peers, but it feels just as snappy, and demanding games like Genshin Impact at medium settings ran well with few stutters. After more than 45 minutes in the world of Teyvat, the phone got warm, but performance didn't feel as throttled as it did after long sessions with Samsung's Galaxy S22. OnePlus says it has some software tricks (and a larger cooling system) to stabilize performance, and it feels like it's working. 

You might have heard that OnePlus was merging with Oppo (OnePlus is an Oppo subsidiary), which would have meant that OnePlus phones would run Oppo's ColorOS instead of OnePlus' homegrown OxygenOS. That's not happening anymore, due to blowback from the OnePlus community. The OnePlus 10 Pro runs OxygenOS (over Android 12) and retains its own unique identity. There's a lot you can customize to make the software your own, and I like additions like Work Life Balance, which lets you mute personal apps during work hours and work apps when you're off the clock (though it's not nearly as powerful as the iPhone's Focus mode).

The software switch might've been called off, but there's more synergy between OnePlus and Oppo than ever. There's much overlap between the brands' research and development roadmaps, so you'll find similar tech on their respective phones. One benefit? Faster software updates. OnePlus says OxygenOS and ColorOS share the same codebase, enabling the companies to roll out Android security and software patches faster. We'll see. The OnePlus 10 Pro will get three OS upgrades and four years of security updates, which isn't as long as Pixel and Samsung phones but is still great to see. 

Here's the thing about the OnePlus camera app: I actually like using it. It rivals Samsung phones in terms of camera features and modes (including a new RAW+ mode that lets you tinker with settings and still get some computational photography benefits), but I find the interface more intuitive and responsive and some of the modes more fun to use. 

Take XPan, for example. You might have seen the giant Hasselblad logo on the ceramic rear camera module (hard not to). This is the second year of OnePlus and Hasselblad working together to impart Hasselblad's color tuning and imaging expertise into the OnePlus camera system. XPan mode tries to mimic Hasselblad cameras of old by delivering a unique aspect ratio in color or black and white. It's pretty neat.  

Then there's the 150-degree mode, which expands the 50-megapixel ultrawide camera's capabilities to shoot at a wider 150-degree field of view (the ultrawide shoots at 110 degrees by default) to take in more of a scene, or you can switch to a fisheye if you want that look. Another new addition is Master Style, which is like a filter but more expertly crafted by Hasselblad photographers. You can choose from three (very much like the iPhone's new Photographic Styles). Some of these features can feel gimmicky, but they're fun! 

What brings all of this down is the image quality. OnePlus hasn't changed the main 48-megapixel main camera from last year but says it improved the noise reduction, resolution, and dynamic range. In a vacuum, yes, the results from this OnePlus phone can look very good—and I see some improvements. But it can fall spectacularly short, especially in low-light scenes with Nightscape mode (see the skyline photo comparison above). Too many photos just look fuzzy and not as tack-sharp as those from the likes of the Pixel 6 Pro and Galaxy S22+, or even the OnePlus 9 Pro. Details can be lost to shadows in high-contrast scenes too.

The OnePlus 10 Pro now shoots in 10 bit, which means it can process more colors than ever before, but the caveat is that these photos are stored in the HEIF format. I didn't run into too many issues with this, but HEIF isn't supported universally, like JPEG. Using Google Photos in a web browser, for example, I couldn't view the 10 Pro's photos, even though they loaded just fine in the mobile app. 

Unfortunately, the color science varies quite a bit, which is confounding since the Hasselblad partnership places an emphasis on “true-to-life colors.” I've taken Portrait mode photos where my fiancée's skin tone is far too red and the buildings and sky behind her are unnaturally saturated. In the photo of the church in the gallery above, the spire is light brown and quite accurate on the Pixel 6 Pro, but it's a different shade on the OnePlus. 

Results from the 8-megapixel telephoto (3x zoom) and 50-megapixel ultrawide cameras also don't generally measure up to competitors. Where the 10 Pro does do well is with selfies, thanks to the 32-megapixel front camera, the blur effect in Portrait mode, and video capture. But even then, it's a rung lower than the likes of the Galaxy S22. 

I've only run into two bugs on my OnePlus 10 Pro review unit. Sometimes, the camera app freezes and it requires a full phone restart to get things back to normal. Also, I wasn't able to make contactless payments twice … which also required a restart for it to work again. OnePlus says it hasn't seen these problems and that the team is looking into it. 

Outside of that, I've had a pretty enjoyable time with the 10 Pro. I'm nitpicky about the camera, but you have to be when that's the area of biggest focus and improvement on smartphones nowadays. The 10 Pro also has a pretty reliable fingerprint sensor; I love the haptic vibrations that rumble out of it; and I've grown to like the physical mute switch on the side (like on iPhones). 

You should know that this phone does not support millimeter-wave 5G, meaning if you happen to run into one of the rare areas with super-fast 5G coverage, you won't be able to take advantage of it. Initially, there was no 5G support on AT&T as well, but that's now been remedied. There's also no official IP rating on the unlocked version (the T-Mobile variant is IP67-rated); it should be fine in some water, but it'd be nice to have confirmation. 

If you're not sold on Google's Pixel phones or Samsung's latest S22 lineup, this new OnePlus is a good alternative. It just doesn't bring much new to the table.