OnePlus 10 Pro – Australian Exclusive Review

8.1

OnePlus was once the de-facto option for Android enthusiasts as a maker of affordable yet powerful flagship devices. However, over the years the company’s approach shifted more towards the mainstream. 

The recent merger of OnePlus with Oppo has raised questions as to the company’s future under the BBK umbrella – a Chinese multinational that also owns Vivo and Realme. Question is, does the company’s latest release, the OnePlus 10 Pro, do enough to differentiate itself from the competition to make it a worthy contender? 

OnePlus phone in green from rear with person looking at it

Design

The OnePlus 10 Pro comes in either a ‘volcano black’ sandstone textured finish or an all metal and glass forest green, which is the variant we reviewed. It’s worth noting that while the front glass uses the latest Gorilla Glass Victus, the back of the phone uses the older and less drop resistant Gorilla Glass 5. 

OnePlus still includes a basic pre-applied screen protector on all of its flagship lines. I’m grateful for its inclusion as it deflects superficial scars and micro-abrasions that unprotected screens will suffer from over time.  

The reworked weight distribution as well as the slightly taller and narrower display allows the 10 Pro to sit more evenly in the hand than the Samsung Galaxy S22+ and Google Pixel 6 Pro. Crucially, the optical fingerprint sensor has been shifted up a bit from last year’s 9 Pro so it’s easier to unlock with your thumb. 

OnePlus’s button arrangement is unchanged. The alert slider, which still stands as the best way to silence a phone in a hurry, is on the right edge and the volume toggle on the left.

The most obvious external change is found on the rear of the phone. While the 9 Pro had a smaller, fairly contained camera module, the 10 Pro introduces a much larger arrangement. The new rear camera array draws obvious inspiration from Samsung’s contour cut camera housing found on last year’s S21 series but it puts enough of a spin on it to give the 10 Pro a distinct look to call its own. 

Improved feedback

Haptics have been improved to a noticeable degree too. Each vibration feels so much finer and responsive than before, making scrolling and typing a more tactile experience. Subtle touches such as the nuanced feedback you get when scrolling through open apps make interactions that much more enjoyable.  

The haptics are also substantially stronger. One of my issues with the 9 Pro was its weak vibration, which made it difficult to feel the buzz from incoming notifications. OnePlus claims that the 10 Pro’s vibration motor is ’40 percent stronger’ and while I have no way of measuring that, I never missed a notification during the review period. 

OnePlus 10 phone in green colour
The OnePlus 10 Pro comes in either a ‘forrest’ green or a textured black finish

Display 

The 6.7-inch OLED display is near identical to that of the 9 Pro, which means you can expect a colour accurate and smooth-scrolling display. It ticks all the boxes of what you would expect to find in a top tier screen including variable 120Hz refresh rate support for optimising battery life where the display can drop down to as low as 1Hz when viewing static content on-screen. 

One new tidbit for the 10 Pro is that OnePlus has colour calibrated the panel at both 500 and 100 nits for more consistent accuracy across brightness levels.

At 1300 nits of peak brightness, it isn’t quite as bright as the screen found on Samsung’s flagship S22 Ultra but legibility under direct sunlight is great and HDR content still pops. The 10 Pro is also one of the few phones on the market that use a native 10-bit panel for superior colour reproduction. 

OnePlus 10 Pro uses LTPO 2.0 technology allowing the refresh rate of the display to be adjusted much quicker than the competition as the company demonstrates in this video

Battery and charging 

The OnePlus 10 Pro is an endurance champ, comfortably getting me through a full day of heavy use with more than 6 hours of screen on time. More moderate usage, on the other hand, saw two days of charge life. 

Meanwhile, the OnePlus 10 Pro supports some of the fastest charging speeds on the market  with 50W wireless charging via its proprietary charging pad as well as a whopping 80W with the included wired charger. This translates to 0-100% wireless charging speeds of 47 minutes and an insane 30 minutes for wired. 

With such fast charging speeds, there’s no need to adhere to the usual ritual of overnight recharges. Instead, I found topping up the 10 Pro in the morning for 20 minutes or so as I got ready for my day was more than enough. 

80 watt charger and cable
The included 80W fast charger is able to zap the OnePlus 10 Pro from zero to full charge in a staggering 30 minutes

Cameras

Aside from software improvements to the image processing, the triple camera hardware is largely the same as its predecessor – with a couple of notable changes. 

The excellent 50MP Sony ultra-wide unit from the 9 Pro has been swapped out for a smaller Samsung sensor, which produces softer results. On the upside, the new ultra-wide sensor increases the field of view to an expansive 150 degrees and you can push it even further with the dedicated fisheye lens mode. 

The ultra-wide sensor switch means that the stellar macro mode from the 9 Pro has been omitted from the 10 Pro.  

Thankfully, OnePlus has finally ditched the woefully gimmicky 2MP monochrome camera in the 10 Pro while also doubling the front-facing camera resolution to 32MP. However, video recording for the selfie camera is still capped to 1080p. 

Ultra-wide details

The ultra-wide change is the most meaningful update. The 150-degree field of view (FOV) is incredibly useful for when you want to fit everything into a shot, making for some dramatic looking landscape shots. As a point of comparison, most phones such as the Pixel 6 Pro, iPhone 13 and S22 Ultra top out at 120 degrees. 

Having such a super expansive field of view at your disposal opens the door to some intriguing creative possibilities. Colour consistency is really good between the primary sensor and the ultra-wide as well. We mostly defaulted to using the ultra-wide and could always crop in later if needed.

Wide angle photo of stadium
The OnePlus 10 Pro ultrawide lens boasts a super expansive 150-degree FOV, enabling you to fit everything in frame

The custom lens handles the distortion caused by the wide FOV well. However, ultra-wide mode doesn’t have autofocus and is exclusive to photos only. The ultra wide angle of 150-degrees effectively matches the FOV you get with a GoPro so it’s a real shame you can’t record video with it. 

Main camera details

The main camera uses the custom built 48MP Sony IMX789 sensor which first debuted on the 9 Pro and remains exclusive to OnePlus devices. It’s a technically impressive sensor that captures remarkably detailed images even in low light and has a shallow depth of field for that natural bokeh effect. 

The main camera is also capable of recording in 4K at 120fps, which is something other phones don’t offer, allowing you to capture incredibly detailed slow motion videos. Unfortunately, you can’t play or edit 4K slow motion directly in the camera app so you’ll need to rely on a separate third party app. 

Regardless of whether you’re using the primary shooter, ultra-wide or the telephoto, photos will be captured in full 10-bit colour. Aside from producing more pleasing colours, there should be smoother transitions between colours in images resulting in less colour banding.  

The OnePlus 10 Pro also brings its Hasselblad Pro mode to all three rear cameras, which allows users to adjust settings, including ISO and white balance. You can capture images in up to 12-bit RAW (DNG format) with a new feature called RAW+, which retains the OnePlus 10 Pro’s computational photography elements, such as dynamic range and noise reduction, while still providing users with plenty of post-processing control.

Comparing images side by side with the Pixel 6 Pro and the S22 Ultra, the 10 Pro at times produced more favourable shots particularly when it comes to colour accuracy in more dimly lit environments. Night mode was also more enjoyable to use since it processed the shot in a fraction of the time it takes on the competition. 

However, the 10 Pro’s camera still has a tendency to overexpose scenes and the portrait mode often falters with things like glasses. 

With all of OnePlus’ efforts to nail the colour science of photos, it’s a shame that the same care hasn’t been applied to skin colour. The likes of Google and Apple have done a lot of work in recent years to ensure different shades of skin tones are captured accurately and it shows in the Google Pixel 6 series and iPhones. Unfortunately, it’s still an area where many Chinese brands such as OnePlus lag behind and that trend continues with the OnePlus 10 Pro. The camera regularly over brightened my brown complexion, making selfies look unnatural. 

Meanwhile, the 3.3x telephoto zoom, while decent, doesn’t hold up to scrutiny beyond that range and falls well behind the likes of the Pixel 6 which can produce solid results at up to 20x zoom. 

Asian woman being photographed on phone
OnePlus cameras still struggle to capture different skin complexions accurately

Software 

OxygenOS has been one of the prominent features of OnePlus. Its sleek design, speed of operation and near-stock Android experience made it a hit among OnePlus users. However, after formally merging with stablemate Oppo last year, the common fear was that OxygenOS would turn into ColorOS ‘Lite’. 

The significant ColorOS influence means the days of OnePlus running very similar software builds to Google’s own Pixel phones are gone and this is likely to upset longtime OnePlus fans. If you don’t like Oppo’s ColorOS, particularly the visual design which draws clear inspiration from Apple’s iOS, then you will not like the latest version of OxygenOS. 

The good news is that despite the clear influence of ColorOS, the integrity of OxygenOS hasn’t been compromised. This means that you won’t find any ads or bloatware on version 12.1, which powers the 10 Pro. The emphasis on speed and performance has also been maintained. 

For instance, the OxygenOS of old stripped animations to bare essentials and, as such, could feel too utilitarian. In OxygenOS 12.1 on the 10 Pro, app transition animations feel more fluid and finished.

Some key features from ColorOS have also been ported across that can make for a more well rounded experience. The Private Safe feature for example allows you to easily store documents, videos, apps and files behind a password or fingerprint protected virtual lockbox. 

The updated ‘Shelf’ feature can now be accessed by swiping down from the top right hand screen similar to the control centre from iOS. It functions mostly like it does on ColorOS but is further enhanced here with the ability to easily customise with widget cards of different sizes. OnePlus’ universal search feature called ‘Scout’ has also been integrated into the Shelf screen, so you can quickly find any content on your device including contacts, documents and music tracks. 

The shelf is a useful feature but the gesture used to access it isn’t, particularly for Android users who have become accustomed to using the same gesture to bring up the notification shade. I would’ve liked OnePlus to go a step further and provide users with another option of accessing Shelf such as switching out Google’s Discover Feed in favour of it. 

Despite the level of customisation being paired back in certain areas compared to previous versions, OxygenOS 12.1 still offers a number of user customisation options you won’t find anywhere else. Whether it’s tweaking the intensity of the haptics or changing the look of interface elements, various aspects of the software experience can be personalised to your liking. 

OnePlus has boosted its support policy to provide three major OS updates and four years of security updates for the 10 Pro. That’s not as good as what Samsung and Google offer, but it’s getting closer. 

Different phone interfaces
OnePlus’ OxygenOS is almost identical in appearance and features with Oppo’s ColorOS

Performance

OnePlus’ new beefy custom cooling system on the 10 Pro does a great job of keeping Qualcomm’s hot and power hungry Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip in check. In synthetic benchmarks, the 10 Pro delivered better sustained performance than the S22 Ultra and blew past the Pixel 6 Pro. 

This translated to actual real world performance with demanding gaming titles such as Genshin Impact delivering rock solid performance with no sudden dips or stuttering after extended play. The phone rarely gets warm even after longer gaming sessions as well. Crucially, the OnePlus 10 Pro never felt like it was slow or lagging in use.

The caveat to the gaming experience is that – similar to some other high end Android handsets – games that are known to support 120fps gameplay remained capped at 60fps on the OnePlus 10 Pro, even when manually selecting higher refresh rates and enabling High Performance Mode in the battery settings.

Game playing on phone
The custom cooling solution on the OnePlus 10 Pro delivers excellent sustained performance while gaming

Where can I buy the OnePlus 10 Pro in Australia? 

Australians looking to buy a OnePlus 10 Pro will have to import one from overseas as the handset isn’t officially sold here. Prices start at $US899 for the 128GB/8GB RAM variant, which after shipping, taxes and current exchange rates, will set you back $1350.

Note that if you are looking to import from overseas, be sure to opt for the global model as the USA variant doesn’t support the necessary 5G network bands used by carriers in Australia. The global model also supports dual SIM whereas the USA model does not. Other regional differences include a downgrade in wired charging speeds from 80W found on the global model to 65W for the USA model. The global model also lacks IP68 water and dust resistance rating. 

GadgetGuy’s take 

At $US899 or around $1300 at current conversion rates, the OnePlus 10 Pro hits a price point that is below the likes of Samsung’s Galaxy S22 Ultra and S22+ while falling directly in line with the base model S22 and Google’s Pixel 6 Pro. But is it worth the hassle of importing one for Australians? 

It certainly offers quite a bit for the money particularly when it comes to raw performance, charging speeds and display. It’s narrower design and balanced weight distribution means it also feels much more comfortable to hold in the hand. There’s also no manufacturer or carrier bloatware, making it a solid alternative to Samsung’s S22 line. 

However, there’s no denying that the Pixel 6 Pro is still a better all round phone with a unique and stellar software experience and superior camera quality. 

OnePlus 10 Pro
The sum of the OnePlus 10 Pro’s parts adds up to a good smartphone, just not a great one.
Features
8.5
Value for money
8
Performance
8
Ease of use
8
Design
8
Positives
Fast, fluid and colour accurate display
Excellent battery life
Best in class wired and wireless charging speeds
No manufacturer or carrier bloatware
Fast charger included in the box
Negatives
New look OxygenOS software lacks identity
Camera a step behind the flagship competition
No official IP rating
Can't shoot video with the 150-degree ultrawide lens
8.1