OnePlus 10 Pro Review // One Month Later

But as we all know, over the years, the prices of their phones have increased to flagship territory. Their portfolio phones has gotten super convoluted, and then last year we had the announcement that oneplus was officially merging with oppo and when that happened, it felt as though the oneplus that we all once knew and loved was fading faster than it had arrived. But as easy as it is to latch onto those headlines and wave our fists at one plus, the real answers only come when you actually use a oneplus device, and so given that the 10 pro is oneplus first flagship device released since the merge. I think it poses some interesting questions and answers lets chat about it, as always. Well start with design, and if there are any doubts about oneplus at all, the design and build quality of their phones is definitely not something to be concerned about, because at least with the 10 pro by golly. Is this thing beautiful? It really feels, like oneplus, have now nailed this combination of visual aesthetics combined with serious comfort, because not only does this phone look really slick, but it also feels incredible in the hand seriously. The frosted matte texture, theyve used for the back of this phone is on another level, probably my favorite back of a phone today. We also now have this samsung esque super glossy camera unit on the back that flows onto the side of the phone, and i dont mind it at all.

I think it definitely has enough visual difference from samsungs version of this design and i kind of dig the look elsewhere on the phone. We have very tight and clicky buttons and, of course, that incredible alert slider that i always miss whenever im not using a oneplus phone now to go with the super tight and clicky buttons. The haptics on this phone are also very premium. Theyve got that nice clarity about them and theyre really well integrated into the software experience and whats really impressive is that you can even adjust the haptic intensity within the system settings by default. The setting is set to crisp with a fairly high intensity, but you can change the crisp setting to gentle for a more subtle experience, but i kind of wish there was a setting somewhere in between still really impressive, that we have this level of control, though moving To the fingerprint sensor and oneplus showed us all that they were really listening last year by moving the sensor back up to a much more user friendly position on the 10 pro, and this really has improved my experience with the fingerprint sensor on this phone. Its still quite fast and reliable, though you do need to hold your finger on the phone for just that fraction of a second longer than you need to with samsungs top end phones, for example, but by and large its a pretty decent scanner. And whilst were talking about fingerprint sensors and biometric related issues, one really annoying change oneplus has made with this new version of oxygen os on the temp pro is that if youve registered your face for the face unlock functionality, then anytime your phone successfully scans your face From the lock screen, the fingerprint sensor disappears and essentially becomes disabled.

This means, if youre, trying to unlock your phone with your fingerprint sensor and you dont realize your face has been scanned. Well, youre, all of a sudden standing there wondering why your phone wont unlock. This is the same thing: samsung does with their face unlock functionality, and it is annoying as heck so much so that i always end up disabling the face unlock feature as a result, oneplus, if youre watching you used to have, in my opinion, the best camera based Face unlock implementation in the game, so please fix this in a future. Software update. Okay, lets now chat about the display and im not going to spend too long on this one, because the display on this phone looks and feels almost exactly the same as the display on last years. Oneplus 9 pro, and so that means its sharp its got great colors and, more than anything, its outrageously fluid thanks not only to that 120 hertz refresh rate, but also thanks to how oneplus has maximized the fluidity of the software to make that 120hz shine. Now, before we chat about software ill, just briefly mention the battery life with this phone, which is about average compared to most other android flagships on the market. Right now. For me, it is never actually needed charging throughout the day, but it is the sort of phone id probably want to top up. If i was ever heading out at night, for example, there have been some days where its been sitting precariously low at like three percent battery left when im plugging it in at the end of the day at around 10.

10. 15 p.m. So i can absolutely see this being the sort of phone that would die on a regular basis before the end of the day if its been used really heavily throughout. And so then we come to the software and when it comes to this supposed decline of oneplus over the past few years, i think most people would probably point to the software as being evidence of that for context. The phone ships with oxygen os 12.1, based on android 12, but this is really the first time a oneplus phone has shipped with the merged color os and oxygen os software. That oneplus has been alluding to for some time now. Lets start with the good news, which is this is the most fluid and buttery version of oxygen os ive ever used. Oneplus has taken all of the great stuff we saw on the android 12 update on pixel phones, namely all of those beautiful animations throughout the entire os, and have elevated them even further, resulting in an outrageously smooth software experience, for example, in the middle of using and Reviewing this phone, i switched over to the galaxy s 22, ultra for quite an extended period of time, but after returning back to using this phone, i really must emphasize how fluid this software experience felt in comparison to the software on the s22 ultra its really really Noticeable and oh so satisfying so thats, the good news. The bad news is that the home screen launcher is now much harder to customize in comparison to previous versions of oxygen os for one it doesnt recognize, exported icon, packs from apps like icon pack, studio or icon pack mixer, which is a real shame.

You also cant edit individual icons anymore and the hidden apps functionality has been completely changed now to where youve got to open up the dialer and enter an access code to see them ridiculous. Oh and you cant disable app labels on your home screen without also disabling. For the app drawer huh, so even though on the surface it may appear to have all the same sort of customization options. We had on previous versions of oxygen os in reality, theyre all very much inferior versions, so much so that i actually decided to root my oneplus 10 pro and replace the stock launcher with launcher 12, which works an absolute tree. But if youre a fan of customization and youre not keen on rooting your phone like i did, then i would actually say: dont get this phone its that bad. So, look that was a pretty big disappointment to see, but at the very least like pixel phones, it wasnt outrageously hard to root the phone which kind of redeems things just that little bit. But one really big issue ive had with the software almost deal breaking level is in relation to notifications and that for some unknown reason they will always disappear from the lock screen. As soon as you unlock your phone so lets say you have a reminder to do some sort of important task in the next half hour, thats sitting on your lock screen. But then you get a message that you absolutely need to respond to.

If you then unlock your phone to respond to that message and then lock the phone again, the reminder notification is nowhere to be seen. Youll still be able to see the icon on the always on display and itll show right on up in the status bar as soon as you unlock the phone but for some mind boggling reason, itll be completely hidden on the lock screen and ive searched the internet. High and low ive dug deep into the system settings trying every different combination of notification, setting and lock screen setting. I could find, but nothing was able to fix the issue. The funny thing is, i also had the same issue with the xiaomi 12, and so part of me thinks this might be a bug related to some software skins running android 12, but its really really annoying so oneplus. If youre watching this, please fix it as soon as possible. Now, aside from the notification issue and the issues i mentioned regarding home screen customization pretty much every other aspect of this phone software is very much the same or better compared to previous iterations of oxygen os. I kind of wish they would improve their always on display implementation and match what google and samsung have been doing for years with their always on displays. But aside from that, it really seems to me, like all oneplus needs, to do to really restore this software back to being one of the best versions of android once again is obviously fix the notification issue and then bring back the old oneplus launcher.

That would pretty much be it and it doesnt seem like it would be too hard to do now. Last of all, we need to chat about these cameras and on paper we have pretty much the exact same set of cameras that we had on the oneplus 9. Pro and even though weve still got the hasselblad branding on the back as far as im concerned, the cameras are largely underwhelming like dont. Get me wrong. They can take a really nice image in the right conditions, but if youre taking images or videos in even the slightest of tricky conditions like indoors or in low light, then things can get pretty average pretty quickly. And whilst it is nice to have the 3.3 times telephoto lens, i really do struggle to capture a decent image or video with it. Unless the conditions are super bright and sunny. I dont hate the cameras on this phone, its just coming from the galaxy s. 22. Ultra or even the regular pixel 6 before that, as i said, i just find myself being underwhelmed with the results i get so, unfortunately, after years of really trying everything with their cameras for me, theres still a lot of room for improvement Music. Now i know that my last two points regarding cameras and software seem to skew things towards the negative, but in reality, ive largely enjoyed my experience using this phone, and i think that mainly comes down to how impressive the build quality and design is, but also how Damn fluid the software experience is the issue is at this price point.

The competition is just so dang stiff. This phone is actually now more expensive than the pixel 6 pro and the regular galaxy s22, and in all honesty, that makes this phone a pretty tough sell. Its got some fantastic elements that make it a true joy to use, but then also enough concerns to suggest being slightly cautious before purchasing if youve been considering buying this phone for yourself, hopefully theres enough in this review. To give you the confidence to make the decision. One way or another, but as for the ultimate question of whether oneplus has lost its way well, at least in regards to the oneplus 10 pro i actually dont – think they have just yet. Oneplus did recently announced that theyre going to revert back to a non merged version of oxygen os when android 13 launches later this year, and even the fact that the launch price of this phone was lower than that of the nine pro last year. Gives me enough confidence to suggest that they havent fully lost their way just yet to be honest, im rooting for oneplus and im excited to see how not only the 10 pro evolves with software updates down the line, but also how their future devices evolve as well.