OnePlus 10 Pro review

IMX789 remains exclusive to OnePlus

Update, 26 Aug 2022: We had the opportunity to expand on the existing samples by adding photos and videos from the usual locations around our HQ. We've added the photo samples as new batches under the respective galleries for each camera and/or mode and you'll easily spot them by the four-in-a-row configuration. The videos are in two separate playlists down on the bottom of this page (one for daylight, the other for low light). You may also notice the added thumbnails that will take you to the Photo and Video compare tools.

The OnePlus 10 Pro has a triple camera system on the back and a single camera on the front. As with last year's flagships, OnePlus claims the 10 Pro cameras have been tuned by Hasselblad.

The main wide camera on the back is the same 48-megapixel Sony Exmor IMX789 as on the OnePlus 9 Pro. It has a 23mm equivalent 7P lens with f1.8 aperture, OIS, phase detection autofocus, although the laser autofocus has been removed. It can record video up to 4K 120fps or 8K at 24fps.

The telephoto camera is an 8-megapixel OmniVision OV08A10, which has also been carried over from the OnePlus 9 Pro. It has a 76mm equivalent f2.4 lens with OIS and PDAF. It can record video up to 1080p 30fps. Switching to higher resolutions or frame rates causes the phone to switch to zooming digitally on the main wide camera.

The ultra-wide camera is new for this year. It's a Samsung ISOCELL JN1, a 50-megapixel sensor that is mated to an extremely wide-angle fixed focus lens with 150 degree field of view. This camera can record video up to 4K at 30fps.

What's missing this year is a macro camera, or any sort of macro capability. The OnePlus 9 Pro was able to shoot in macro mode using its ultra-wide camera, but the ultra-wide lens on the OnePlus 10 Pro is fixed focus. None of the cameras are capable of focusing from a close distance.

Camera app

The camera app on the OnePlus 10 Pro is lifted straight out of ColorOS 12 and similar to the one on the OnePlus 9 Pro. The camera view has tabs at the bottom to change mode with a More option at the end for additional modes. At the top of the viewfinder are additional options for the flash, HDR, AI mode, 48MP mode, timer, aspect ratio, and additional settings.

Camera app

The Pro mode lets you control the ISO, shutter speed, exposure, focus, and white balance. You can also capture in RAW on all three lenses on the back. There is also a RAW+ mode, which saves a DNG file with the same image processing as the JPEG files.

There is also a pro mode of sorts for video. Here you can manually set the ISO, shutter speed, exposure, focus, and white balance. You can shoot with all three lenses, and the videos can only be saved in 3840x1644 at 30fps with a 21:9 crop. You can enable a super steady mode, shoot in log profile, or enable HDR, which records in the HLG format. Video also gets other features, such as an ultra-steady mode, portrait mode, and AI color mode.

Other features in the camera app include a slow-motion mode, which can shoot in 720p at 480fps or 1080p at 240fps, time-lapse, panorama, dual-view video, which shoots with the front and back camera simultaneously, a long exposure mode, tilt-shift, and a 150-degree mode, that shoots with the full width of the ultra-wide lens.

OnePlus has also included the XPan mode, which shoots in 65:24 aspect ratio mimicking the old Hasselblad XPan camera. This mode was added to the OnePlus 9 Pro retroactively and is unchanged here. It can still only shoot in landscape and has a rather long shutter animation that prevents you from shooting quickly. You can switch between color and monochrome modes. Unlike the 9 Pro, the 10 Pro cannot use the XPan mode with the ultra-wide camera. The images are saved in 23-megapixel, which are just upscaled from the standard 12-megapixel images.

We miss the old OnePlus camera app. The new one is shared across OnePlus, Oppo and Realme phones, and it follows a somewhat common arrangement that doesn't always work to its advantage.

It's frustrating that the video frame rate and resolutions have been separated into two menus for some reason, even though they were much better together on older OnePlus phones. The adjustment dials for Pro mode are small with hard-to-read numbers, and if your finger misses the dial slightly, the camera just slides into a different mode. Some onscreen menus in the app can be exited by using the back button but doing so for others causes the entire app to quit.

If you are a Pro mode user, you will also be frustrated by how often the app just resets your settings. If you enable RAW capture, it will usually switch back to JPEG after some time on its own. If you change values for ISO, shutter speed, etc., they are lost after some time or even if you simply switch between lenses or RAW modes.

We wish Oppo and ColorOS had borrowed more from OnePlus than the other way around.

10-bit images

The OnePlus 10 Pro is one of the very few phones to optionally shoot images in 10-bit color in the Photo and Night modes.

While technically, 10-bit images should have more headroom for editing, you are not likely to see much of a difference in gradation between the 8-bit and 10-bit images from this phone due to their compressed nature. Editing in 10-bit makes sense when the images come from a proper camera, but smartphones tend to process and compress their images a lot, which can cause even a 10-bit image to fall apart quickly once you start editing.

Considering their limited usability and support, we don't see much value in shooting 10-bit photos on a phone. Also, there is something about this combination of 10-bit and HEIF on these files that made the images impossible to open in any application on Windows 10 even though it does support 10-bit and HEIF separately.

Daylight shooting

The 12-megapixel images from the main camera have a good amount of detail. There is noticeable sharpening, which can seem a touch aggressive at times, but is usually tolerable. The color rendering has come a long way and is generally pleasing but not necessarily accurate, especially with things like foliage, which continues to have a yellowish appearance. The camera also has a tendency to oversaturate and clip colors on single-color flowers.

The Display P3 color gamut adds extra depth to the colors when viewed on a compatible display. White balance is usually okay, although the camera has an overall tendency to lean towards the warmer side.

The dynamic range is mediocre. The camera has good highlight retention but often darkens shadows artificially to produce an overly processed, contrasty image. This compresses the usable dynamic range to a narrow band, which is especially limiting if you like to edit your photos.

Main camera daylight samples

Main camera daylight samples

Another area of concern is focusing. On multiple occasions, we found the camera missing focus. The issue is that it usually misses by a few inches, which is impossible to detect on the viewfinder and something you can only discover while looking at the image. It's particularly unmistakable when viewed on a larger screen.

We also shot a few images in RAW. The RAW files from the IMX789 have excellent detail, dynamic range, and low noise. You can get fantastic results editing these images and can effectively bypass all of OnePlus' questionable image processing choices. The RAW files are also 12-bit, so you don't need to bother with the gimmicky 10-bit HEIFs if you want maximum post processing headroom.

The OnePlus 10 Pro also includes the RAW+ mode, which is supposed to include some computational photography elements within the RAW file. However, during our testing, the RAW and RAW+ files from the OnePlus 10 Pro were identical when viewed in an editor. The files look different on the phone, with the RAW+ file looking more like a JPEG with post-processing applied, however, that's likely just a JPEG preview that is embedded within the RAW file, not the RAW file itself.

As such, there was no advantage of shooting in RAW+ on this phone. It's possible there is some bug that's causing this, as we have seen a notable difference between the RAW and RAW+ files on the OnePlus 9RT.

The main camera does have an option to shoot in 48-megapixel, but this is just upscaled from the 12MP images, and not worth using.

Compared to the OnePlus 9 Pro, the images from the 10 Pro are nearly identical. There are some differences between shots but nothing that's a result of a systematic change.

OnePlus 9 Pro • OnePlus 10 Pro

The main camera can focus on subjects from about 9cm away. That's not too bad but there's severe fringing around the edges that is typical of a wide aperture, making it unsuitable for macro use.

Moving on to the telephoto camera, the image quality and general performance are often quite good. There is a good amount of detail in the image, and the overall look is less over sharpened and over-processed compared to the main camera. Even the shadow detail isn't as crushed as the main camera, and the contrast is more pleasing.

Telephoto camera daylight samples

Telephoto camera daylight samples

However, there is an issue with the color processing of this camera, which occasionally results in washed-out colors with heightened contrast, reminiscent of the bleach bypass effect. We are not sure exactly what causes the camera to produce images that look like this but it seems to crop up quite often.

To illustrate, here is the same image in JPEG and RAW. The JPEG image shows that characteristic bleach bypass look with washed out colors and a silvery tone. The RAW image - which is completely unaltered other than processed into JPEG for uploading here - has perfectly natural colors and contrast that match the original scene.

JPEG vs RAW telephoto comparison

As with the main camera, the telephoto camera on the OnePlus 10 Pro is identical to that on the 9 Pro. The images from the two are mostly identical, and any differences are limited to those shots, and as a whole the camera seems unchanged.

OnePlus 9 Pro • OnePlus 10 Pro

Quality at higher zoom levels is usable, with 5x and even 10x being quite okay, even if they are achieved digitally.

5x samples

10x samples

The telephoto lens has a closest focusing distance of around 30cm. Add to that, in the standard photo mode, the moment you approach this distance the camera will automatically switch to the main lens to prevent going out of focus range. The only way to reach the minimum focusing distance on the telephoto camera is through the Pro mode and even then the minimum distance is too far away for the magnification. As such, the telephoto camera also cannot be used as a makeshift macro lens.

Lastly, there is the new ultra-wide camera. When shooting in the standard Photo mode, the camera applies a pincushion correction to straighten the lines. This produces fairly standard results optically, and the images look just like they would on most other ultra-wide cameras.

Ultra-wide daylight samples

Ultra-wide daylight samples

The image quality in this mode is decent. Images are a bit soft and lack sharpness in the micro-detail due to a lack of autofocus. Despite this, the overall level of detail is still sufficient.

The ultra-wide camera does differ in many ways from the main wide camera in terms of color rendering, with cooler tones and slightly less post processed look. The resultant images are still quite good but rarely match those from the main camera.

Compared to the OnePlus 9 Pro, the ultra-wide camera on the 10 Pro is a small step down in quality. This is especially noticeable in the level of fine detail in the image, which the 9 Pro handled better as it has autofocus. The 9 Pro ultra-wide can also focus from extremely close distance whereas the 10 Pro is only usable beyond 10cm and even then it's never quite as sharp. Still, for capturing landscape shots in daylight, the two cameras are surprisingly even.

OnePlus 10 Pro (Ultrawide)

OnePlus 9 Pro (Ultrawide)

Switching to the 150° mode lets you access the full field of view of the ultra-wide lens. This produces a wider but distorted image as the camera makes no attempt to correct the perspective. This can produce some interesting looking images depending on the subject.

150 degree samples

The camera also has a fisheye mode, which produces a digitally distorted fisheye effect with a circular crop. The image here is severely distorted to produce the intended look and as such has very limited use. We saw very little need to shoot in this mode as the results are often unappealing except in very specific scenarios.

Fisheye samples

In general, the daylight image quality from all three cameras is good, particularly from the main camera. We do however lament the loss of macro functionality. We are also not fond of the ultra-wide camera being downgraded from the previous generation model and don't think much of the gimmicky new fisheye effect.

Moreover, the Hasselblad "tuning" continues to be a sham; the color science looks nothing like anything we have seen coming out of an actual Hasselblad camera but does look remarkably similar to other OnePlus phones that supposedly aren't tuned by Hasselblad. This is either the most barefaced lie in the industry or the easiest paycheck Hasselblad has ever earned.

Low light shooting

The main wide-angle camera has very good image quality in low light. Areas with a bit of lighting come out looking great even without enabling the night mode. In fact, it's best if you don't enable night mode for these scenarios, as the result is often an overly bright and over-processed looking image.

Main camera low light samples

However, when things start to get a bit too dark, the Night mode becomes essential. Here, the standard model can no longer keep up but the Night mode produces a better exposed image with a good amount of detail and dynamic range but can still look a bit over processed.

Main camera Night mode samples

And these are the shots from some of our more usual locations.

Main camera low light samples

Main camera Night mode samples

Depending upon the light in the scene, the telephoto camera will simply not be used and instead the camera will fall back on using the main camera with digital zoom. However, when it is being used, the telephoto camera can still produce surprisingly good results, especially with Night mode enabled.

Telephoto: Standard • Night mode

Telephoto: Standard • Night mode

The ultra-wide camera is where things go a bit pear shaped in low light. Without Night mode, the ultra-wide camera is simply incapable of producing good results at night unless the scene is well lit. The edges tend to get quite dark and the image turns very soft to hide the noise. With Night mode enabled, the results are much more usable but still far from ideal.

Ultra-wide: Standard • Night mode

Ultra-wide: Standard • Night mode

While the daylight images don't show much of a difference, in low light the difference between the new ultra-wide camera on the OnePlus 10 Pro becomes obvious compared to the 9 Pro. The IMX766 was a superior quality sensor, and it shows as it outperforms the Samsung JN1 on the 10 Pro.

OnePlus 9 Pro • OnePlus 10 Pro

Overall, the low light performance is good on the main camera but the new ultra-wide camera is an unequivocal downgrade.

Once you're done with the real world samples, head over to our Photo compare tool to see how the OnePlus 10 Pro stacks up against the competition.

OnePlus 10 Pro against the Galaxy S22+ and the iPhone 13 Pro Max in our Photo compare tool

Portrait

The portrait mode on the OnePlus 10 Pro only works on the main wide-angle camera. It has two modes, one for a single person that applies a digital crop and the other that uses the full width of the lens for a group shot.

The quality of the background blur effect is decent with a relatively high success rate. It handles most subject hair and clothing edges well enough but things like glasses can still trip it occasionally. You can adjust the blur effect using the aperture slider and a lower blur strength can mask issues with edges while also making the subject look less like a cardboard cutout.

Portrait mode samples

The portrait mode on the rear camera lacks the crazy amount of beauty filters available for the front camera and includes a simple retouching slider that can be adjusted for strength (and is off by default).

The OnePlus 10 Pro moves to a higher resolution 32-megapixel f2.2 camera on the front. This is a Quad-Bayer sensor, so its practical resolution is 8-megapixel, which the software then upscales back to 32-megapixel. This is why the images look fuzzy when viewed at 100 percent zoom. We would have been okay with 8-megapixel images but for some reason OnePlus felt the need to upscale them back to 32-megapixel.

Front camera daylight samples

The image quality from the camera is otherwise good, with adequate levels of detail in the shot. The dynamic range is also well-handled with backlit scenes.

Low light image quality is usable in most cases. In extremely dark scenarios, there may be some benefit to using the Night mode. However, even though this mode may brighten the image a bit, it comes at a major loss to the image quality at times, as the image looks extremely compressed and blocky.

Standard • Night mode

The portrait mode effect works okay with the front camera. As with the back camera, the front camera often falters with spectacles. It also tends to give your beard a bit of a trim as it clips stray hairs. Still, the results are quite acceptable.

Front camera portrait mode

The front camera also has a dizzying array of beautification modes, including being able to adjust your skin texture, cheeks, eye size, nose, chin, head, retouching, and a 3D option whose functionality we aren't sure of. You can adjust each of these to your heart's content till you look like a completely different person or just turn them all off and face the reality.

Video

As with any modern flagship smartphone, the OnePlus 10 Pro has a wide variety of resolutions, frame rates, and camera permutations and combinations to go through when it comes to video recording. You can shoot video through all three rear cameras and depending upon the camera you have a choice of recording in 720p, 1080p, 4K (2160p), and 8K (4320p). You also have multiple frame rate options, including 24p, 30p, 60p, 120p, although not all are available at any given moment. Videos can be saved by default in AVC (H.264) or optionally in HEVC (H.265) to save some space without any difference in quality.

Let's start with the main wide-angle camera, which supports the maximum number of resolution and frame rate combos, along with all the other modes and features.

At the top of the resolution list for this camera is 8K, which we have to say is downgraded from last year's OnePlus 9 Pro. While the 9 Pro could record 8K videos at 30fps, the 10 Pro can only do so at 24fps. While we get the rationale behind this particular frame rate, having it be the only option for 8K is beyond our understanding.

The quality of the 8K video is also abysmal. The video is obviously shot from a lower resolution - most likely 4K - and then upscaled and over sharpened to 8K. It's painful to look at still images from these videos due to the incredible amount of stippling artifacts that make it look like a pencil drawing from up close. We wouldn't want this footage anywhere near our 8K TV, even if we had one.

By far the best resolution to shoot on the OnePlus 10 Pro is 4K, which can be shot in 30fps, 60fps, and 120fps on the main camera. All three resolutions have excellent levels of detail and the color and dynamic range performance is similar to still images.

The 120fps mode is similar to the one on the OnePlus 9 Pro. The camera captures and saves a native 120fps file, which as-is isn't very useful unless you just like having very smooth and lifelike video. You can, however, slow down this video 4x or 5x in a video editor to get excellent quality 30p or 24p slow-motion video. You can do this on the phone itself, but the results aren't very good as it only saves the video in 1080p at an odd 25fps, so we recommend using a desktop video editor. Also worth noting that the 4K 120fps mode has no digital stabilization, so it's a much wider shot but also unstabilized.

Since YouTube does not yet support 120fps video, we can only show the 30fps and 60fps videos here.

The main camera can also shoot in 1080p and 720p resolutions. However, the resolution and detail is very poor in these and we do not recommend using them. The 4K option is the best way to shoot on this phone.

As on the OnePlus 9 Pro, the telephoto camera can natively only shoot up to 1080p resolution at 30fps and the results are decent. However, because this camera can only shoot up to 1080p, any time you switch to a higher frame rate or resolution will result in a digitally zoomed in image on the main camera. The quality of this video is notably worse, as even the 4K 2x or 4K 3.3x digitally zoomed in videos look worse than the 1080p native video from the telephoto camera.

Lastly, there is the ultra-wide camera, which can shoot up to 4K at 30fps. This camera can record good quality video in daylight, with a reasonable amount of detail and good color and dynamic range.

The OnePlus 10 Pro also has a Film mode (called Movie mode in the US), which is like a Pro mode for video. Aside from being able to dial in your settings manually, you can also shoot in Log profile as well aslys HLG.

The HLG clips didn't look quite right on our HDR monitor and often had blown highlights. It's possible we need a higher grade mastering monitor to see the complete dynamic range in these videos but most people shooting on a phone wouldn't have that. The clips look fine on the phone itself but they also just look like SDR videos.

Finally, there is also a Dual Video mode, which shoots a 1080p 30fps video using both the front as well as the main camera on the back. You can adjust the layout, with either a side by side (as seen below) or have the front camera view be a smaller circle or rectangle in the corner.

Overall, the video recording experience on the OnePlus 10 Pro was frustrating. There is a maddening amount of resolution and frame rate combos, all scattered throughout two different menus that close when you open the other. But it's not the options that are the problem, it's how they are all specific to which camera you're using and not at all consistent throughout the three lenses.

For example, the main camera supports all resolution and frame rate combos, which at the time of writing is eight. This doesn't even include features like slow motion, ultra steady mode, AI mode, or portrait mode, which also only work on the main camera. The ultra-wide camera can do five of those combos while the telephoto camera can only do three. This means if you switch lenses, you'll either be locked out of using a particular resolution or frame rate or it will just be faked on some other camera.

The only way to avoid this is to just set the camera to 1080p 30fps and forget about it because that resolution and frame rate is available across all three cameras natively. But it's not the best quality option, and if you choose 4K 30fps (which we recommend), then you only get it on two out of three cameras and will be faked on the third.

This is far from ideal and only caused because of the wide disparity in quality and feature set between the three cameras on the back. OnePlus even downgraded the ultra-wide camera this year from the OnePlus 9 Pro, so it can no longer do 4K 60fps or 8K video. Not that you need 8K video but that's besides the point.

And we haven't even mentioned the front camera video, which for some reason is still 1080p 30fps in 2022.

Update, 26 Aug 2022: Once we got our hands on a OnePlus 10 Pro unit over at headquarters, we also shot some videos from the usual locations. You can find them in the playlists below - one's for daylight, the other has the low-light samples.

Here's a glimpse of how the OnePlus 10 Pro compares to rivals in our Video compare tool. Head over there for the complete picture.

OnePlus 10 Pro against the Galaxy S22+ and the iPhone 13 Pro Max in our Video compare tool