OnePlus 6T McLaren Edition hands-on review

Introduction

OnePlus has been fond of the speed references lately. The Speed You Need - OnePlus 6. Unlock The Speed - OnePlus 6T. And now the maker has reached the apotheosis of the sixth series with the OnePlus 6T McLaren Edition - a true Salute to Speed.

Such special editions, collector's if you will, are not uncommon among the BBK's phone companies. Oppo had the R7 FC Barcelona edition, as well as Find X Lamborghini. So, we were thrilled to take the just announced McLaren Edition of the OnePlus 6T for a spin.

And it makes sense. What a better way to express this perpetual need for speed with a special edition dedicated to one of the greatest racing teams? A true salute to the speed, indeed.

The OnePlus 6T McLaren Edition is a customized version of the regular model with Speed Orange accents and upgraded with the whopping 10GB of RAM and boasting a storage capacity of 256GB. But that's not all - the McLaren Edition supports the new 30W Warp Charge, which should get 50% of the battery full in only 20min. Nice!

So, before we unbox this special OnePlus 6T, here is a quick overview of its specs.

OnePlus 6T McLaren Edition specs

• Body: 157.5 x 74.8 x 8.2 mm, 185 g. Aluminum frame, glass back, 2.5D Gorilla Glass 6 display glass. Speed Orange exclusive color.
• Display: 6.41" Optic AMOLED, 2,340x1,080px resolution, 19.5:9 aspect ratio 402ppi; sRGB/DCI-P3 color space support.
• Rear cameras: Main camera: Sony IMX 519 1/2.6" sensor, 16MP, 1.22µm pixel size, f/1.7 aperture, phase detection autofocus, OIS, EIS. Secondary camera: Sony IMX376K sensor, 20MP, 1.0µm pixel size, f/1.7 aperture. 2160p/60fps video recording, 1080p/240fps or 720p/480fps slow motion
• Front camera: Sony IMX 371 sensor, 16MP, 1.0µm pixel size, f/2.0 aperture; EIS; 1080p/30fps video recording.
• OS/Software: Android 9 Pie; OxygenOS custom overlay.
• Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 845: octa-core CPU (4x2.7 GHz Kryo 385 Gold & 4x1.7 GHz Kryo 385 Silver), Adreno 630 GPU.
• Memory: 10GB of LPDDR4X RAM; 256GB UFS 2.1 2-LANE storage.
• Battery: 3,700mAh Li-Po (sealed); 30W Warp Charge proprietary fast charging.
• Connectivity: Dual nano-SIM; 5-Band carrier aggregation, LTE Cat.16/13 (1024Mbps/150Mbps); USB Type-C (v2.0); Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac; GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo; NFC; Bluetooth 5.0, supports aptX and aptX HD.
• Misc: Under-display fingerprint reader; single speaker on the bottom; tri-position Alert Slider.

Unlike the Oppo Find X Lamborghini Edition or the Huawei Mate 20 RS Porsche Design, the OnePlus 6T McLaren Edition won't set you back $1500 or more. No, the special OnePlus 6T is priced at $699/€699, which is only a $70/€70 premium over the regular 8GB/256GB 6T model.

Unboxing the OnePlus 6T McLaren Edition

The OnePlus 6T McLaren Edition retail box is a real beauty. It has this very nice intricate texture all over, which is a pleasure to touch. The McLaren logo is seen at one of the corners, too.

The whole thing is wrapped into a Speed Orange-painted paper sleeve with the Salute to Speed inscription.

Once we opened the box there is a mini-book inside, which holds the phone within one of the pages. We did not expect this, and we almost dropped the phone on the hard floor as it's not secured at all! What were they thinking!

The book is AR-enabled and the OnePlus 6T we got had a McLaren app, which we could use to unlock the book's full content - galleries, videos, extra information.

So now that we've got the phone safely out of the book, let's move on.

Below the book there is a very special plaque with McLaren's Speedmark logo saying McLaren MCL33 Edition, Carbon Fibre 2018, Handcrafted in England. OnePlus says over six F1 cars' worth of carbon fiber were used to make those Speedmark logos on all the plaques.

The box also contains a black 30W Warp Charger with an orange accent at the bottom. There is also an orange braided USB-C cable, an absolute must for the Warp Charge to work. There are no earbuds inside the box, but OnePlus provides a USB-C-to-3.5mm orange adapter inside.

Finally, there is a carbon fiber-patterned case, for some extra protection on this fancy glass OnePlus 6T phone. It has the McLaren logo stamped on its back, so you won't lose the whole exclusivity, but we have to admit it kinda takes away from the premium looks.