OnePlus 8T hands-on review

Software

The OnePlus 8T is the first OnePlus phone to launch with OxygenOS 11 based on the new Android 11. This also makes it the first new non-Google phone to launch with Android 11 since it was released last month.

The build we tested is OxygenOS 11.KB05DA with September 1 security patch. This is a pre-release build and launch devices will most certainly have a newer build or at least a day one update.

OxygenOS 11 is perhaps the biggest UI overhaul in the history of the OS. Not only does this version deviate from previous versions of the OS in terms of UI design but OnePlus has also ensured no-one will ever call this "stock Android", even jokingly.

Instead, OnePlus has turned to Samsung for inspiration, with a design that is focused on accessibility by shifting UI items towards the bottom half of the display so you don't have to adjust your grip or use two hands to access the content at the top of the phone's tall display. The top half of the screen then is filled with empty space and large typography for the app title.

OxygenOS 11

A prime example of this new layout is the Settings app. The first thing you'll notice is the massive typeface for the app title in the top left corner of the display. That is followed by a considerable amount of empty space while the first menu item appears nearly two thirds down the screen. The advantage of this should be clear; the top-most item on the screen is now right underneath your thumb.

OnePlus uses this design language across several of its first-party apps, including Gallery, Calculator, Clock, Weather, and Recorder. However, some of the other apps don't receive the same treatment. The File Manager app is still the same as it was before. The Camera app is also largely unchanged. As for the Phone, Contacts, and Messages apps, we will get to those briefly as they have their own story.

OxygenOS 11 apps

Another major addition to OxygenOS 11 is an always-on display, a feature that has been a long time coming. The option is slipped into the Ambient display settings where you can now choose to have the ambient display be permanently enabled or within a certain period. You have all the new clock options that were introduced in the recent version of OxygenOS 10 along with a couple of new ones for OxygenOS 11.

One of these is called Insight, which will show you how often you unlocked and used your phone during the day, the aim being to guilt you into using your phone less.

Always-on display settings

The other one is Canvas, which creates a simple outline of portrait photos in your gallery. Because it's just an outline of the person's face or body, it doesn't consume many resources. When you wake up the phone, the outline turns into the actual photo. The last one is Bitmoji, which is made in collaboration with Snapchat, and will show an outline of your Bitmoji avatar as AOD and the avatar will change through the course of the day.

Canvas and Bitmoji won't be available at launch and will be arriving in a later update.

OnePlus has also slightly altered how dark mode works in OxygenOS 11. Instead of being part of the themes menu under Customization, it's now a straightforward dark mode option under Display settings. This also means you can now set the dark mode to be either on permanently, from sunset to sunrise, and during a custom time range.

You can also force apps that don't otherwise support dark mode to have a dark UI. This can cause apps to look weird sometimes so it's not something you'd want to enable for everything. Also, some apps have their own dark mode that doesn't sync with the option built into the OS, so may want to check for that first and use that instead of forcing it through OxygenOS.

One of the more subtle changes that we noticed is the change to the scrolling behavior. Scrolling in OxygenOS always felt a bit like ice skating. It was smooth and fast but it just glided loosely, which caused scrolls to feel vague rather than having a precise motion.

In OxygenOS 11, the scrolls have increased friction, which causes the scroll to rapidly lose energy after traveling a short distance. This causes the screen to scroll just the right amount instead of just loosely gliding away. The scrolling behavior reminds us of scrolling on iOS, which also has a similarly taught motion for scrolls. Also, like on iOS, the scrolling speed eventually builds up if you scroll a few times in a row.

Update: Looks like the new scrolling speed was unintentional as OnePlus has gone back to its ice skating animation in the day 1 patch.

Those are most of the changes we discovered in OxygenOS 11. As we mentioned before, it is based on Android 11, which means it also carries over many of the features that we discussed in our Android 11 review. This includes things like Conversations, Bubbles, Device controls, notification history, and new permission features.

At the time of writing, there's still not sufficient support for Bubbles outside of a handful of apps, and even the apps that we enabled the feature for only occasionally showed bubbles.

Finally, we have to note that OnePlus 8T comes with the Google versions of the Phone, Contacts, and Messages apps instead of OnePlus' own. We have seen OnePlus do this before on the Nord and it makes just as little sense on the OnePlus 8T as it did on the Nord. Google's versions of these apps are worse across the board and we are sure even Google would admit that. Yet, OnePlus has decided to pick them over its own superior apps.

We do think OxygenOS 11 is a good update overall to an excellent operating system. Sure, it's not stock Android UI anymore - some may argue that it hasn't been for a long time now - but it looks great nonetheless. And even though OnePlus may have taken a bit too much inspiration from Samsung's OneUI, the change is for the better as the new apps are better looking and easier to use. It even looks better than OneUI, so OnePlus was careful to borrow just the good parts. We also like the new font.

Performance

The OnePlus 8T is powered by the same Snapdragon 865 chipset as the OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro. It also offers the same two memory options, 8GB or 12GB of fast LPDDR4X. For storage, however, OnePlus has upgraded to the newer and faster UFS 3.1 from the UFS 3.0 used on the OnePlus 8 series. You get that in a choice of 128GB or 256GB.

UI performance on the OnePlus 8T is excellent across the board. The combination of a powerful chipset, fast storage and memory, and a high refresh rate display is a marriage made in heaven and the phone is an absolute blast to operate.

A lot of credit also goes to the software. OnePlus has always had excellent software optimization but the company keeps finding ways to shave milliseconds from every nook and cranny it can find. The final result is an OS that has lightning-quick animations and transitions. Not once does it feel like the phone is slowing you down or getting in the way of whatever it is you want to do. The only thing that can potentially do that is a badly developed third-party application.

GeekBench 5.1 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• OnePlus 8
  3399
• OnePlus 8 Pro (120Hz, 1440p)
  3374
• Xiaomi Mi 10 5G
  3322
• Asus Zenfone 7 Pro
  3302
• Samsung Galaxy S20 FE
  3296
• Motorola Edge+
  3295
• Huawei P40 Pro
  3197
• OnePlus 8T
  3126
• Galaxy S20+ (120Hz, 1080p)
  2703
• LG Velvet
  1905

GeekBench 5.1 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Asus Zenfone 7 Pro
  996
• OnePlus 8
  919
• Motorola Edge+
  910
• Samsung Galaxy S20 FE
  906
• OnePlus 8 Pro (120Hz, 1440p)
  902
• Xiaomi Mi 10 5G
  895
• OnePlus 8T
  893
• Galaxy S20+ (120Hz, 1080p)
  886
• Huawei P40 Pro
  780
• LG Velvet
  586

AnTuTu 8

Higher is better

• Asus Zenfone 7 Pro
  602934
• OnePlus 8T
  586000
• Xiaomi Mi 10 5G
  578056
• Motorola Edge+
  574155
• OnePlus 8 Pro (120Hz, 1440p)
  573276
• OnePlus 8
  564708
• Samsung Galaxy S20 FE
  543986
• Galaxy S20+ (120Hz, 1080p)
  500114
• Huawei P40 Pro
  496356
• LG Velvet
  297372

GFX 3.1 Car scene (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Asus Zenfone 7 Pro
  54
• OnePlus 8T
  53
• OnePlus 8
  52
• Samsung Galaxy S20 FE
  52
• Motorola Edge+
  52
• OnePlus 8 Pro (120Hz, 1440p)
  51
• Xiaomi Mi 10 5G
  50
• Galaxy S20+ (120Hz, 1080p)
  50
• Huawei P40 Pro
  44
• LG Velvet
  19

GFX 3.1 Car scene (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Motorola Edge+
  48
• OnePlus 8
  46
• OnePlus 8T
  46
• Asus Zenfone 7 Pro
  46
• Samsung Galaxy S20 FE
  45
• Xiaomi Mi 10 5G
  42
• Galaxy S20+ (120Hz, 1080p)
  42
• Huawei P40 Pro
  31
• OnePlus 8 Pro (120Hz, 1440p)
  24
• LG Velvet
  16

3DMark SSE OpenGL ES 3.1 1440p

Higher is better

• Asus Zenfone 7 Pro
  7687
• Motorola Edge+
  7409
• OnePlus 8
  7290
• Samsung Galaxy S20 FE
  7215
• OnePlus 8T
  7194
• Xiaomi Mi 10 5G
  7132
• OnePlus 8 Pro (120Hz, 1440p)
  7127
• Galaxy S20+ (120Hz, 1080p)
  6819
• Huawei P40 Pro
  6062
• LG Velvet
  2987