OnePlus 10 Pro Preview – Jubilee without jubilation

OnePlus reaches a milestone this year: the presentation of its high-end device with 10 in the name, in a series that dates back to the OnePlus One from 2014. Although it is actually only the ninth generation, as noted in the comments below this article. , that is undoubtedly caused for celebration for the manufacturer. However, it has been rumbling behind the scenes for a while. After the departure of CEO Carl Pei in 2020, it turned out in 2021 that OnePlus would become a subsidiary brand of OPPO. Whether the brand of ‘Never Settle’ can thus retain its own identity is open to question, and the signs are not really positive. The OxygenOS own skin has been one of the main advantages of a OnePlus phone for years, but starting this spring OnePlus devices actually have the same software as that of OPPO.

The OnePlus 10 Pro, as the new top model is fully called, will therefore sometimes have a hard time. The device will be available in stores in the Netherlands very soon, and we were able to preview the smartphone two weeks ago in the Hortus Botanicus in Leiden. OnePlus had organized its event there in the tropical gardens to give the opportunity to try out the ‘second generation Hasselblad camera’ of the device. Despite repeated promises, the high-end devices from OnePlus never really excelled in the camera field, not even last year, when OnePlus first partnered with the legendary camera brand Hasselblad. Whether the OnePlus 10 Pro finally has a good camera remains to be seen.

Glitter device with a nice hand feeling

Although the OnePlus 10 Pro has almost exactly the same dimensions as its predecessor – length, width and thickness are only a few tenths of a millimeter apart – the design has been completely overhauled. The OnePlus 9 Pro has a mirrored high-gloss finish that may look nice when the device is just out of the box, but then ensures that the smartphone gets dirty quickly. The 10 Pro, on the other hand, has a matte back, with a special shimmering effect in the sun. It looks slightly different from the frosted glass on some other smartphones at the moment. Somehow, the finish of the Gorilla Glass 5 reminded us a bit of the ‘Sandstone’ variant of some early OnePlus devices, especially the black OnePlus 10 Pro. The finish of the new device feels very different in practice;

With its matte housing and also matte aluminum frame, the OnePlus 10 Pro feels nice in the hand in our opinion. The weight distribution seems good. Although the new device is a few grams heavier than the OnePlus 9 Pro, it almost seems a bit lighter in the hand. The mirrored camera island is made of ceramic for better scratch resistance. That part is indeed very large and wide, but at least it does not protrude far and because of the width, the device does not wobble so much when you place it on a flat surface.

The sturdiness of the housing is perhaps a concern. As previously revealed in a video from JerryRigEverything, there is a weak point in the construction, just below the large camera island, which could make the 10 Pro easier than other devices to break in two if force is applied to the housing.

Old cameras in a new jacket

With the striking new styling of the camera island, with the three large lenses and the ring-shaped flash light arranged in a square, you might think that the cameras are also very different from the OnePlus 9 Pro. That’s a bit disappointing. The 48-megapixel main camera still has the same Sony IMX789 sensor behind an f/1.8 lens, and the telephoto camera also has the same specifications as with the previous device. The monochrome camera that was a bit for bacon and beans on the OnePlus 9 Pro is missing on the OnePlus 10 Pro.

The front camera and ultra-wide angle camera have been renewed with the OnePlus 10 Pro. The first has been given a larger sensor, the second a remarkably wide angle of view of 150 degrees, which gives a huge fisheye perspective. Although the sensor resolution of the ultra-wide-angle camera with 50 megapixels has remained the same, the sensor used is a lot smaller. In addition, the camera crops a lot in the image as standard. To use the full 150-degree angle of view, you need to activate a special camera mode. Unfortunately, we are not allowed to show you images of this camera in this preview. The same goes for the telephoto and front camera.

We did try out the primary camera of the OnePlus 10 Pro in Leiden, together with that of the OnePlus 9 Pro. The first thing that stands out compared to the old device is that shooting is a bit more pleasant. There seems to be less shutter lag when making HDR shots and the viewfinder also gives a better impression of the final photo. With the OnePlus 9 Pro, the HDR edits are only applied to the image afterwards and it takes another second when viewing the photo in the gallery before it is ready. There is no question of that delay with the OnePlus 10 Pro. When comparing the images taken, it can be seen that the OnePlus 10 Pro makes the colors less saturated, while the contrast in the entire image is also lower. If you zoom in, the photo looks just a bit more detailed,

Despite the lack of new hardware, a difference in photo quality is noticeable, thanks to new image processing. The ‘second generation Hasselblad camera’, of which OnePlus gives high marks, is also equipped with a number of new options in the interface. For example, three new color filters have been added, which were developed in collaboration with Hasselblad photographers, including the Dutchman David Peskens. Also new is the ability to save photos as a 10-bit color heic file, which in theory allows smoother grading than the usual 8-bit heic or jpg files.

Users who like to be in control of the end result will find an improved Pro mode on the OnePlus 10 Pro that works on all cameras and not just the main camera, as with the OnePlus 9 Pro. New in this mode is the Raw+ button. With this, the device combines multiple shots into one raw file that can contain more information in shadows and highlights, just like an HDR photo in normal photo mode. For example, the raw file contains more information that you can use usefully in post-processing.

The camera software of the OnePlus 10 Pro contains the necessary nice improvements, but they are very familiar to us. Last year, the OPPO Find X3 Pro already had these functions. Now that OnePlus and OPPO collaborate more in the software field, OnePlus has apparently transferred OPPO’s camera app straight to its skin, up to and including the design of the icons. There is nothing wrong with that, but conversely, this year’s OPPO top model, the Find X5 Pro , now also bears the Hasselblad brand name. That is no longer a unique selling point for OnePlus. In addition, the OPPO top model not only has all the Hasselblad features that are also on the OnePlus 10 Pro, but also its own extras that the 10 Pro does not have, such as improved lenses and stabilization on the main camera, and a special image processing chip.

Between ColorOS and OxygenOS

Not only the camera app, but also the rest of the software on the OnePlus 10 Pro – OxygenOS 12 – seems to be a mix between OnePlus’ old skin OxygenOS and OPPO’s ColorOS. Although certain elements in the design have been retained, such as the red number 1 in the clock widget, you recognize more ColorOS than OxygenOS in other points. For example, an icon on the home screen is no longer completely round, but an iOS-like squircle.In our opinion, the whole thing looks a bit less sleek than the old OxygenOS, but we will have to spend more time with the software to really appreciate it. The version that was on our test device does not seem completely finished. For example, the letters under app icons and in the camera app are bold for some reason and also quite large – the OnePlus 9 Pro makes better use of the large screen.

OxygenOS has been one of the main reasons for choosing a OnePlus smartphone in recent years, so how the switch will fall for real fans of OnePlus’ software remains to be seen. One plus – or bright spot, if you will – is that handy functions that OPPO had already developed for its devices in recent years, are now also in the OnePlus skin. We already mentioned the extra functions in the camera app above, but also think of more extensive options to adjust the theme or layout of the launcher to your own wishes. The OSD offers the same extensive color options as ColorOS, with multiple screen modes, video enhancement functions and ‘color perception booster’. Of course, the new functionalities in Android 12, for example in the field of privacy, are also part of the new OxygenOS 12.

Looking at the hardware, it becomes clear that there are also a lot of similarities between the OnePlus 9 Pro and the OnePlus 10 Pro. That is certainly not to say that the new model is ill-equipped; the device has everything that you can expect in the top segment. Think of a 6.7″ OLED screen with super sharp wqhd resolution (3216×1440) and equipped with an ltpo backplane for a highly variable refresh rate between 1Hz and 120Hz. The side edges of the screen, which is covered with a layer of Gorilla Glass Victus, are a bit curved as usual. In sunny Leiden, we noticed that the screen does not seem to be that bright, although OnePlus promises a peak brightness above 1000cd/ ^m2.

The OnePlus 10 Pro is obviously powered by the latest and fastest Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset. In the Find X5 Pro that turned out to be quite a hothead. While shooting, we also noticed that the OnePlus 10 Pro got quite warm around the camera area, especially when using effects such as the color filters. There will be variants of the device with a maximum of 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. Internally, it has not one, but two batteries, which together have a capacity of 5000mAh. By using two cells, the device can charge faster, with a maximum of 80W. On paper, that is slightly faster than the OnePlus 9 Pro. Wireless charging with an equally fast 50W is also still possible.

Conclusion

In recent years, OnePlus has developed from a brand for the in-crowd to a manufacturer with a much broader focus. The original character has been lost a bit with that. In 2022, the first clearly visible consequences of the further cooperation between OnePlus and OPPO will come. The new OnePlus 10 Pro does not run the familiar OxygenOS, but a variant that is somewhere between OxygenOS and OPPO’s ColorOS. Whether that makes OnePlus fans happy is the question, but we will have to try the software more extensively to judge whether change on this point necessarily means going backwards.

OnePlus prefers to focus on the camera with the 10 Pro itself, and in that area the device indeed seems to take a few nice steps compared to its predecessor. Compared to the OnePlus 9 Pro, shooting is faster and the improved Pro mode is a nice addition. The image quality also seems slightly better, although the difference is not huge. A final judgment about the camera will have to wait a while and not all questions about the device have been answered yet. At the moment a sample is already on its way to us, so we hope to be able to give you a further assessment soon.