World enews: OnePlus 10T announced with up to 150W fast charging and $649 starting price

After not releasing a OnePlus 9T last year, OnePlus’ T-series is making a return in 2022 with the OnePlus 10T, which sees its official launch today. Many of the device’s details have already been made public, so today’s news is about pricing and availability. Head over to Allison Johnson’s full review for a rundown of what the phone is like to use in practice.

In the US, the phone will be available to preorder from Amazon, Best Buy, and OnePlus directly starting September 1st and will go on open sale on September 29th. Prices for the OnePlus 10T will start at $649 for the model with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage and increase to $749 for 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. Meanwhile, Europe gets the phone slightly earlier with preorders opening today and the phone going on open sale August 25th. UK and European pricing starts at £629 (€699) and increases to £729 (€799) for the step-up model.

The OnePlus 10T from the front.

Image: OnePlus

The OnePlus 10T ticks a lot of the typical midyear phone release boxes. While it has a similar overall design to the previous OnePlus 10 Pro with a large square camera bump on its rear, there have been numerous internal upgrades. Most interesting is charging technology. While the OnePlus 10 Pro was limited to a maximum of 80W fast charging (or 65W for North Americans), the OnePlus 10T inherits the 150W fast charging first seen in the OnePlus 10R and GT Neo 3 from fellow BBK Electronics brand Realme.

Unfortunately, the US won’t see the full 150W charging speeds (blame your lower voltage 110 and 120V power sockets). Instead, charging speeds will be limited to 125W. But that’s still capable of some really fast charging, as Allison discovered when she used the GT Neo 3 (which, for context, could charge to 46 percent in just five minutes). For the OnePlus 10T, the company promises a full charge from one to 100 percent in 20 minutes with 125W fast charging or 19 minutes with the 150W version. Take that America.

Internally, the OnePlus 10T is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1, a slight upgrade over the 8 Gen 1 seen in the 10 Pro. The maximum amount of RAM has also been boosted and now extends up to 16GB on the top-end model. It’s enough to be able to suspend 35 applications in the background at once, according to OnePlus. The company also says the phone uses its “largest and most advanced” cooling system to keep everything running smoothly.

OnePlus 10T in green. — *No alert slider in sight.*

Around front, the phone has a 6.7-inch 1080p OLED display with a refresh rate that can dynamically adjust between 90 and 120Hz. Personally, however, I’m most interested in the fact that it’s a flat display that doesn’t curve around the edges of the phone like those typically seen on OnePlus handsets. It’s arguably a less premium look, but I think it can make large phones easier to use in the hand.

There’s no Hasselblad-branded cameras this time around, but the 10T still comes with a trio of rear sensors: a 50-megapixel main; 8-megapixel ultrawide; and 2-megapixel macro. Around the front, there’s a 16-megapixel selfie camera in a hole-punch cutout in the top middle of the screen.

Another omission? The lack of OnePlus’ trademark alert slider, which the company has previously explained it needed to remove to make room for the 10T’s high-wattage charging components, big battery, and a grand total of 15 antennas (which should mean better signal while playing games in landscape, apparently).

The OnePlus 10T will ship with OxygenOS 12.1, which is based on last year’s Android 12. It should receive three major Android updates and four years of security updates. Naturally, OxygenOS 13 is coming later this year (based on Android 13) and will be available on flagship OnePlus devices going back to the OnePlus 8 and Nord devices going back to the Nord CE.

Finally, OnePlus is also announcing a new 80W car charger today, which can charge a OnePlus 10T from one to 100 percent in 29 minutes. It’ll go on sale in the US on September 1st for $39 and in the UK on August 25th for £59.99.