OnePlus 10T hands-on review

Camera

The OnePlus has a triple camera system on the back, consisting of a 50MP Sony IMX766 primary wide camera, an 8MP OmniVision OV08 ultrawide, and a 2MP OmniVision OV02 macro camera. Both the ultrawide and the macro cameras are fixed focus. On the front is a 16MP fixed-focus Samsung S5K3P9SP.

Unlike the OnePlus 10 Pro, the OnePlus 10T does not feature the Hasselblad branding, which suggests the camera is tuned entirely by OnePlus. In the past, we have struggled to see any difference in color performance between the OnePlus-tuned phones and those developed with Hasselblad and have always felt it was nothing more than a branding exercise so its absence here may not be a big loss.

The camera application is similar to the Hasselblad-branded OnePlus 10 Pro, minus the orange accents. The main camera view features the customizable bottom row for the different camera modes, and additional shooting options are placed at the top. Further options can be revealed by clicking on the three dot menu in the top right or simply swiping down (or right when held in landscape).

The app features a pro mode for photos and videos. The photo mode lets you adjust the usual settings like ISO, shutter speed, white balance, and focus with a toggle for focus peaking. You can save images in JPEG, JPEG+RAW, and RAW+. RAW files can only be captured from the main wide camera.

Camera app

The pro mode for video, simply titled Movie, has similar options for adjusting the ISO, shutter speed, white balance, and focus. There is no RAW capture here but you can record in log profile. Additionally, you can also record in HDR in the HLG standard. Image stabilization can be enabled or disabled. For whatever reason, the Movie mode can only record in 4K at 30fps in a 21:9 aspect ratio, which can be very limiting.

Like the OnePlus 10 Pro, the OnePlus 10T is capable of saving images in 10-bit color. These files can only be saved in the HEIF format.

We have brought this up in the 10 Pro review as well but we had no success opening these files in any application we tried on Windows. It is possible to open the 8-bit HEIF files on Windows, so it's not a format issue but there's something about the combination of 10-bit and HEIF that trips up Windows applications. The same images open just fine on macOS.

Daylight image quality

The OnePlus 10T primary camera has good image quality in daylight. The level of detail in the 12.5MP images is adequate, aided by the slightly aggressive sharpening. Image sharpness is even across the frame for landscape shots but the wide aperture and shallow depth of field can make it difficult to get the entire subject in focus in closeups without some fringing around the edges.

Daylight samples (1x)

Color reproduction is very good and OnePlus has come a long way in this department. The camera still struggles with certain shades of red, making them appear magenta, and greens tend to pop a lot more with a yellowish appearance but the overall rendition is pleasing.

If you like a bit more pop in your images, you may want to turn the AI scene enhancement on. We are not sure why you need AI to essentially oversaturate every scene regardless of the subject but sometimes the results come out better looking than with it off.

AI scene enhancement off vs on (1x)

The dynamic range is typically mediocre for a OnePlus camera. While highlight retention is good, the camera continues to suppress useful shadow details for a high contrast look. A way to get around this is manually adjusting exposure for shadows by tapping on the darker areas of the image and then letting the camera handle the rest of the scene but this may not work well if the scene is too high contrast.

If you want even finer control over the image capturing process, you may want to use the pro mode and shoot in RAW. Unfortunately, the RAW files from the IMX766 don't have a ton of dynamic range, which makes it difficult to shoot high contrast scenes.

The RAW+ mode is supposed to help with this but the extra dynamic range metadata only seems to work with some apps like Google Photos whereas all other apps including those on the desktop simply ignore it, making the RAW+ files look no different than the RAW files. Not helping matters is the OnePlus Gallery app, which still has zero support for editing RAW files.

The camera also has a 50MP mode to supposedly let you shoot in the camera's full resolution. More often than not these modes exist simply for marketing reasons as the camera is already shooting in its native resolution of 12.5MP. The 50MP mode simply upscales these 12.5MP images to 50MP, which adds no further detail and simply inflates file sizes.

Daylight samples, 50MP (1x)

The OnePlus 10T does not have a telephoto camera, so all zooming is done digitally on the primary camera. 2x zoomed images are of reasonable quality and perfectly usable. You can also use 5x in certain scenarios but beyond that image quality falls apart completely.

Daylight samples (2x)

Next is the 8MP ultrawide camera. This camera performed better than we expected and generally produced perfectly usable results when used in good lighting.

Daylight samples (ultrawide)

The level of detail in the images is on the lower side as could be expected from an ultrawide lens, relatively low resolution sensor, and lack of autofocus but still adequate for most use cases. Colors were less saturated compared to the main camera and had a slight magenta tint to them but looked good nonetheless and can be boosted further using the AI scene detection mode. Dynamic range was also good other than the occasional shadow crushing.

AI scene enhancement off vs on (ultrawide)

Lastly, there's the 2MP macro camera and the less said about it the better. Other than inflating the spec sheet it achieves very little else.

Macro samples

Low light image quality

The primary wide camera produces good results in low light conditions. Images are well exposed with good color rendition, dynamic range, and low noise.

Low light samples (1x)

The reason for this good performance is that the standard photo mode basically acts as night mode in low light conditions. Based on the available light, the camera will automatically adjust the intensity of the night mode processing it will apply. This means in dark enough conditions, the results from the standard photo mode look essentially identical to those from the night mode.

Low light samples, night mode (1x)

In most of our samples, we had to look much closer than we usually need to see if the night mode was bringing anything extra to the table. In reasonably lit environments, the dedicated night mode images had slightly better dynamic range and detail but as light levels worsened the two looked nearly identical.

Low light samples (ultrawide)

The only real advantage the night mode has is the tripod mode, which can be manually engaged when you have the phone stabilized. This starts an extra long timer, which produces cleaner, brighter images. This is only available in the dedicated night mode.

Low light samples, night mode (ultrawide)

Shooting with the ultrawide camera we saw similar results sometimes. Other times, the standard photo mode inexplicably chose to not enable night mode processing, which allowed us to see just how bad these images can get. If you are shooting in low light with the ultrawide, you absolutely need the night mode processing.

Portrait mode

The portrait mode on the OnePlus 10T shoots using the primary wide angle camera on the back. You can shoot using the full width of the sensor for a group photo or a cropped mode more suitable for a single subject.

Portrait mode

The camera can simulate an adjustable bokeh using a slider and a pseudo aperture. By default it is set to f2.8 for the full width and f4.5 for the cropped mode but you can set it to anything from f1.4 to f16. A variety of face alteration effects are also available but they are off by default.

Portrait mode works reasonably well on the OnePlus 10T and the edge detection is generally quite good. The default background blur is a bit on the stronger side but you can always reduce it to taste.

Selfies

The 16MP camera on the front is technically a tetrapixel sensor that natively captures 4MP images, which are then upscaled to 16MP. The result of this is that images don't have as much native resolution as the 16MP number would suggest.

Selfies

Raw pixels aside, the image quality is still quite good with good color reproduction and dynamic range. The background blur effect works okay most of the time but expect a slight trim to your hair and beard as it can't quite capture stray hair tips within the blur.

Video recording

The primary camera on the OnePlus 10T can record in 720p, 1080p, and 4K at 30fps and 60fps. Engaging any of the specialized modes such as AI scene enhancement, ultra steady, or portrait mode locks the resolution to 1080p.

The 4K video quality from the main camera is very good, with good levels of detail, good color performance, and dynamic range. You also get image stabilization for both frame rates, which works well and was sorely missing on the Nord 2T that has the same camera.

The 1080p performance is okay but aside from saving some storage space, we don't see any good reason to record in 1080p when 4K works well and looks a lot better.

The ultrawide camera unfortunately only records in 1080p at 30fps. Quality is good nonetheless but a 4K option would have been appreciated.