The OnePlus 10 Pro and 10 will have some significant changes in tow thanks to the company's Oppo-fication.
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OnePlus has come a long way from its "Never Settle" days. The company that was once known for taking on premium flagship smartphones in the market at one-third the price has revised its strategy entirely in recent years. Its phones are now almost as expensive as offerings from Samsung and Apple, and have specs to match. The OnePlus 9 series was a modest success, though it could not live up to its Hasselblad camera hype in the imaging department. For 2022 though, the company will have some major changes in tow for the OnePlus 10 series on the software front as the company is in the process of being Oppo-fied, with the hardware getting a minor refresh. Here is everything we know about the OnePlus 10 series so far.
ANDROIDPOLICE VIDEO OF THE DAYGalaxy S21-esque design for OnePlus 10 Pro
The OnePlus 10 Pro takes design cues from Samsung's Galaxy S21 series, with a camera hump that blends into the chassis. Leaked renders first revealed the phone's design in November last year. This was followed by photos of a dummy replica of the phone making its way to the internet showing how it would look in real life. OnePlus itself confirmed the design ahead of the 10 Pro's China launch in early January.
The OnePlus 10 Pro marketing materials further highlight the similarities between the phone and Samsung's flagship Galaxy phone of 2021. The front looks pretty uninspiring and is largely similar to the OnePlus 9 Pro, with the punch-hole camera located in the top-left corner. The phone is available in a new forest green color in China that should also make its way to international markets. OnePlus recently also launched an Extreme Edition of the OnePlus 10 Pro in Panda White, giving us vibes of the panda Pixel 2 XL.
A point of concern regarding the OnePlus 10 Pro's design could be its durability. The phone snapped in half in JerryRigEverything's testing which indicates it is not as durable as previous OnePlus phones. This is also not something that you'd like to see from a flagship smartphone in 2022.
OnePlus 10 Pro specs
With the OnePlus 10 Pro already official in China, there's no mystery surrounding its specs. The 10 Pro features a 6.7-inch, 1440p OLED display with a 1Hz to 120Hz adaptive refresh rate. It packs up to 12GB RAM and 256GB UFS 3.1 storage, along with a 5,000mAh battery. There's 80W wired charging — up from 65W found on the OnePlus 9 Pro — and 50W wireless AirVOOC support. OnePlus dropped the Warp Charge moniker for its charging technology and is now calling it SuperVOOC — the same as Oppo.
Ticking inside is Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset that brings a noticeable jump in AI and ML performance and a redesigned GPU to deliver better gaming performance.
The triple-rear camera specs of the OnePlus 10 Pro are relatively similar to its predecessor, with OnePlus referring to it as the "second-generation Hasselblad Camera for Mobile." This means there's a 48MP f/1.8 primary sensor with OIS and an 8MP f/2.4 3.3x telephoto sensor with OIS. The ultra-wide camera gets an interesting upgrade with an extremely wide 150-degree field of view — up from the 110 degrees of the 9 Pro. This wide field of view will open up an entirely different perspective for smartphone photographers, though it may introduce severe edge distortion. To counter the possibility, OnePlus is also offering a more traditional 110-degree mode in the camera app.
The powerful new ISP on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip should allow the company to extract better quality images from the camera sensors. The front camera is also getting a much-needed bump to 32MP resolution, which should help the OnePlus 10 Pro to up its selfie game.
OnePlus has shared some camera samples from the 10 Pro highlighting how it takes photos at 10-bit color by default. Additionally, there's an improved Hasselblad mode to capture 12-bit RAW files, a Movie mode that lets you manually control the frame rate, ISO, etc., while recording videos, LOG format support, and more. On the OnePlus 9 series, the Hasselblad improvements felt more like a marketing gimmick and did not provide any tangible real-world enhancements. So, it will be interesting to see if the OnePlus 10 Pro does anything different to change that or not.
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ColorOS-based OxygenOS
Last July, OnePlus announced that it would be merging OxygenOS with ColorOS. In the following months, it provided additional details about this merger, including highlighting a new unified OS that would run on devices from both companies. The unified operating system promised "the fast and smooth, burdenless experience of OxygenOS, and the stability and rich features of ColorOS." The OnePlus 10 series was expected to act as the launch vehicle for the new OS. Rumors, however, indicated that its development was running behind schedule and it may not be ready in time for the OnePlus 10 Pro launch.
In a twist to this story though, OnePlus called off the merger of OxygenOS and ColorOS in February 2022. Both operating systems will use a unified codebase as it would allow for "faster updates and better build quality." The company took this decision following user feedback from its community and realizing that both skins have their own user base. This news should give a sigh of relief to loyal OnePlus and OxygenOS lovers who were not too happy with the original announcement.
OnePlus has not had a good track record with its recent updates. The company completely botched the official OxygenOS 12 update for the OnePlus 9 series and the initial build was so buggy that it had to stop the rollout. While the company was relatively quick to push a revised build, it took its own time in resolving all the issues. With a clear software strategy for the foreseeable future, OnePlus should now be able to focus more on releasing stable updates for its devices.
What about the OnePlus 10?
OnePlus typically launches a non-Pro version of its flagship phone with cut-down specs at a lower price. There have not been any leaks surrounding the OnePlus 10 so far, and with the international launch of the lineup possibly a couple of months away, the leaks should start popping up soon. It's fair to expect the phone will be powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 CPU, but retain the same triple-camera setup as found on its predecessor. The charging speeds should also remain intact, with only the 80W charging speeds limited to the Pro model.
The phone is seemingly codenamed Oscar and is currently tipped for a late-spring debut. It does seem plausible that this time, the OnePlus 10 Pro would make its debut first, with the non-Pro model launching a few weeks later.
Available in China, coming to international markets by the end of March
OnePlus has been moving up the launch timeframe of its devices over the last few years. Taking advantage of the missing 'T' refresh of the OnePlus 9 series in the second half of 2021, the company launched the OnePlus 10 Pro in China in the first week of January. That's a few weeks earlier than usual. Following multiple rumors of an early global launch, OnePlus confirmed that the device would launch in India, Europe, and North America by the end of March.
This will be the first time that OnePlus will launch its flagship phone so early in the year. While not typical of the company, it does make sense when one considers its Oppo-fication. Oppo tends to launch its flagship phones in China first and then launch them in global markets in the following weeks and months. With OnePlus now under Oppo's wings, the company is following the same launch strategy for the OnePlus 10 series.
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Read NextShareTweetEmailRelated TopicsAbout The AuthorRajesh Pandey(208 Articles Published)Rajesh Pandey started following the tech field right around the time Android devices were going mainstream. He closely follows the latest development in the world of smartphones and what the tech giants are up to. He loves to tinker around with the latest gadgets to see what they are capable of.