The OnePlus 6T has something no other phone has.
Its cool under-display fingerprint sensor might be the end of the notch trend.
But even more importantly, the phone has something no OnePlus phone has ever had: a carrier partner.
The $579 6T will be sold in T-Mobile stores around the country, and it'll be sold with a monthly payment plan.
The 8GB/128GB model is $23.34 on a two-year plan, putting it in the same range as Apple's iPhone XR on a three-year plan ($20.81).
T-Mobile will further discount it with a trade-in deal lowering the price to $11.67/month, or $280 total, a tremendous value.
Honest, Objective Reviews
Daxdi.com is a leading authority on technology, delivering Labs-based, independent reviews of the latest products and services.
Our expert industry analysis and practical solutions help you make better buying decisions and get more from technology.
There's going to be a theme in this review.
As I tested the OnePlus 6T, it generally came in just a little bit behind much more expensive phones like the Google Pixel 3 and the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 on various measurements.
But that's the thing: It's just a little bit behind, often not enough to notice in real life, and it costs a lot less.
That unbeatable value makes it an Editors' Choice.
Pricing, Plans, and Sales
Flagship phones have been getting more expensive this year.
Last year's success of the iPhone X made everyone else think they can sell large phones for $1,000, and so here we are, with $1,000 phones.
In that context, the base model $549 OnePlus 6T is as radically inexpensive as the $299 OnePlus One was back when flagships cost $650.
The phone comes in four models and two finishes.
A 6GB/128GB (108GB available), unlocked, dual-SIM model costs $549.
An 8GB/128GB model, for $579, comes both in a dual-SIM model sold independently, and a single-SIM model sold by T-Mobile.
Finally, an 8GB/256GB model costs $629.
The phone doesn't have a microSD card slot for expandable memory, but 128GB should be plenty.
As for colors, you can have any color you want as long as it's black, but at least there are matte and glossy options.
The unlocked phone will work on AT&T, T-Mobile, and, for the first time, Verizon.
You can't just pop a Verizon SIM in—you have to ask customer service to activate the phone—but both Verizon and OnePlus promise, officially, it will work.
Verizon compatibility makes it a great replacement phone for folks who don't want to get attached to a new 24-month payment plan.
The vast majority of 6Ts in the US, though, will likely be sold on payment plans by T-Mobile.
Physical Form
The 6T, like most phones today, is a flat, black slab.
At 6.18 by 2.94 by 0.32 inches (HWD) and 6.42 ounces, it's a little bit wider than I prefer, but narrower than the Google Pixel 3 XL, the iPhone XR, or the Galaxy Note 9.
It's certainly the smallest phone I can think of that sports a 6.41-inch screen.
The AMOLED screen is bright and well-balanced.
At 2,340 by 1,080 pixels and 402ppi, it's lower-resolution than some of its competitors, but not so much that you notice (It's still higher density than the iPhone XR, if you're keeping score).
Perhaps responding to critiques of OLED color saturation, it asks you to set up a color space when you first start up the phone—sRGB, DCI-P3, adaptive, or custom.
The screen has a small notch at the top, because nobody's figured out how to put a front-facing camera under a display yet.
From top: The OnePlus 6T, with its mini notch, and the OnePlus 6
We're all going to mourn the consumer-unfriendly loss of the headphone jack.
Yes, this is becoming a mainstream thing now, but no, I don't know anyone who likes it.
OnePlus said that getting rid of the jack let it get the fingerprint scanner into its place, along with a larger 3,700mAh battery.
As with previous phones, the 6T has neither wireless charging nor is it waterproof.
Wireless charging, I can take or leave wireless charging, but OnePlus should really get on board with waterproofing phones like everyone else is doing.
Unboxing the phone is unusually delightful.
There are a lot of little surprises.
I don't usually see phones come with a "handwritten" letter from the CEO in the box, or with a case.
The 6T also comes with a special Dash Charger and a USB-C-to-3.5mm dongle.
Only a pair of USB-C headphones would have made the experience perfect; those sell for $20 extra.
Fingerprint Sensor
The blockbuster feature here, of course, is the in-display optical fingerprint sensor, the first we've seen on a US phone.
OnePlus said it's not using the same technology as Vivo did in its NEX S—although the sensor is still optical rather than infrared, it's faster than the Vivo's with a 0.35-second capture time.
The in-display fingerprint sensor isn't actually connected to making the notch smaller, as it would be on an iPhone.
Much of the iPhone's notch size comes from its infrared structured-light sensor, used for Face ID.
An in-display fingerprint sensor, the thinking goes, would let Apple get rid of that camera and shrink its notch.
But the OnePlus 6's notch was just the front-facing camera and proximity sensor, which have been squeezed into the smaller 6T notch.
In this case, the fingerprint sensor just lets OnePlus say that it's on the cutting edge—as well as letting you wake up the phone with your fingerprint without flipping it over.
When you wake up the phone, either by tapping on it or twisting it, a green fingerprint appears on the screen.
That's the sensor area.
You have to press the pad of your finger onto the zone, and keep it there for a little bit of time.
Wet thumbs don't work, and the sensor feels more finicky than a physical sensor because it doesn't have the physical lip to guide your finger; it's easier to mis-press the sensor or press it off-center, resulting in a failed authentication.
Here's the thing, though: The sensor gets better with time.
According to OnePlus, it learns as you press it more and more often, and becomes more accurate.
The phone also has face unlock, which helps speed things up further.
With both of them turned on, the fingerprint sensor becomes more for making purchases and authenticating accounts, situations where you're more likely to be doing a thoughtful, deliberate press on the sensor anyway.
Networking and Call Quality
The 6T, like the OnePlus 6, supports gigabit LTE on all of AT&T's, T-Mobile's, and Verizon's frequency bands (It actually includes all of Sprint's bands as well, but it won't authenticate onto Sprint's network).
The phone's Qualcomm X20 modem is tuned for Cat 16, gigabit speeds, as opposed to the 1.2Gbps Cat 18 speeds in the Samsung Galaxy Note 9.
The phone supports 5x carrier aggregation and 4x4 MIMO, state-of-the-art features that will have more of an effect on the quality of an average day's reception than peak speeds will (The main difference between Cat 16 and Cat 18 is whether 4x4 MIMO can be applied to two or three bands of spectrum at once).
The phone is certified on Verizon's network, and should work with Verizon after a call to tech support.
From what I understand, OnePlus doesn't intend to sell a lot of phones to Verizon consumers—it's using the 6T as a way to learn about Verizon's certification processes, with the intent to try to get a 5G phone sold by the carrier next year.
I decided to test the unlocked, dual-SIM OnePlus 6T on T-Mobile-based virtual carrier Ting.
Ting's setup process went decently, although I hit a roadblock when I had to input arcane APN settings myself, something that doesn't happen with larger carriers.
I'm testing the 6T's signal reception now, but I think it will be on par with other Snapdragon 845-based devices—in other words, good.
Other networking stats are state of the art, of course.
There's 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5, GPS, and NFC.
Using Ting over T-Mobile's network in Manhattan, I got very good speeds on the 6T.
They weren't quite up to those of the Pixel using a T-Mobile SIM, but they were plenty good enough.
The 6T on Ting scored between 49 to 62Mbps in a good signal location in Midtown and 10Mbps in a difficult signal location, where the Pixel on T-Mobile got 64 to 80Mbps and 17Mbps respectively.
Call quality is rock-solid.
The 6T, like other Snapdragon 845-based devices, supports the EVS codec for the highest possible voice quality on T-Mobile and Verizon.
The earpiece gets quite loud without distorting.
The phone supports voice-over-LTE on T-Mobile and Verizon, but not AT&T, because AT&T reserves that feature for its branded phones.
The 6T has a single, bottom-ported speaker, unlike the dual speakers on more expensive competitors like the Pixel 3 XL and Galaxy Note 9.
Unsurprisingly, it sounds tinnier, but it's perfectly loud and good enough for conference calls.
Software and Performance
The OnePlus 6T runs Android 9.0 Pie with OnePlus' simple, tasteful OxygenOS extensions.
OnePlus has been pretty good with Android updates; it's promising Android 9 for phones all the way back to the OnePlus 3, so you should expect to get Android 10 and even Android 11 on this device eventually.
OxygenOS doesn't have an always-on display mode; it shows the time and notifications when you move the phone or tap the screen, to save battery.
Other good, hidden touches include an "app locker" to put specific apps behind a password, and "parallel apps" to let you spawn multiple social media identities for apps that don't typically allow them.
See How We Test Phones
The software modifications are tuned for speed, and the 6T benchmarks better than any phone other than the Pixels or the souped-up Razer Phone 2.
We got 8651 on PCMark, as compared with 9191 on the Pixel 3 XL, but 7947 on the LG V40 and 7662 on the Samsung Galaxy Note 9.
Graphics feel extra snappy because of the 1080p screen.
Like other 1080p Snapdragon 845-based phones, the 6T got 31fps on the GFXBench Car Chase onscreen benchmark; phones with 2K screens tend to get 20 to 22fps.
I hate comparing speeds here with phones which cost $300 more.
So what else is around $550 at T-Mobile? Well, the LG G7 ThinQ and the Samsung Galaxy S8 both cost $600.
The Galaxy S8 gets 6905 on PCMark and 12fps in that onscreen graphics benchmark.
The G7 gets 7983 and 22fps.
The OnePlus 6T is significantly faster than any other phone in its price bracket.
8GB of RAM is a lot more than you get on other $600 phones—both the LG G7 and Galaxy S8 have 4GB—and that means multitasking is richer and more responsive, especially if you're switching between games and other apps.
The 6T's 3,700mAh battery powers the huge screen for a decent amount of time—8 hours, 31 minutes in our test.
The battery test results are shorter than the Galaxy Note 9's 12-plus hours, but longer than the latest iPhones.
The 6T can be fast-charged using OnePlus' proprietary 20W Dash Charge adapter, but only with that adapter.
The Camera: Good Enough
The Google Pixel 3 has the best smartphone camera around.
But the OnePlus 6T's camera is also very good, and the 6T costs a lot less.
That's the theme, right?
The 6T has a 16-megapixel f/2 front-facing camera, along with 16-megapixel and 20-megapixel f/1.7 rear-facing cameras.
Unfortunately, the dual rear-facing cameras aren't used for zoom or wide angle like they are on the iPhone XS or the LG V40; they're just combined to make better images.
The images themselves are very good, but not the best.
I compared them with a Pixel 3 and an iPhone XR.
Outdoors or in good light, the OnePlus does a little bit more sharpening than the Pixel does.
That means better-defined brickwork, for instance, but some slightly visible artifacts when photographing clouds.
From left: OnePlus 6T, Google Pixel 3
In indoor light, the 6T's slightly sharper images are actually more pleasing to me—there's a threshold around the level of living-room-at-night light where the Pixel begins to fuzz out a bit with noise, but OnePlus images remain clear.
In very low light, the Pixel's intense focus on computational photography comes to the fore, and delivers richer colors than the OnePlus (The Pixel's lead will likely extend with its upcoming Night Sight feature).
I judged the XR's photos to be the worst of the three in low light.
From left: iPhone XR, OnePlus 6T, Google Pixel 3
While the 6T's front-facing camera isn't bad by any means, both the Pixel and the iPhone deliver slightly warmer skin tones.
The Pixel's front-facing camera also does much better than the 6T's in low light, with the OnePlus camera sometimes getting very noisy as it struggled to keep up.
From left: OnePlus 6T, Google Pixel 3
The camera does hardware bokeh with the main camera, and software bokeh with the front camera.
It has a night mode, which I didn't find to make a huge difference.
It records 4K videos at up to 60 frames per second, and has super-slow-mo at up to 480 frames per second.
I love the look of Pixel camera photos.
But in testing I was never worried the OnePlus was letting me down.
It's very much a question of what's good enough, and the 6T is definitely good enough.
Conclusions
The OnePlus 6T is the best value for the money in the US phone market today.
It's easily comparable with the $799, 128GB iPhone XR; the $999, 128GB Google Pixel 3 XL; and other phones in the $900 to $1,000 range.
But it starts at only $549, and even less with T-Mobile's trade-in deal.
The phone delivers slightly less performance than the Pixel 3 all around, that's true.
But the Pixel 3 costs at least $300 more, a huge price difference for a few more features.
Of course, it's not worth upgrading from the OnePlus 6.
The OnePlus 6 is six months old.
But there's a big leap forward in speed and camera quality from the OnePlus 5 and older phones, that's for sure.
Now that the OnePlus 6T is being sold by T-Mobile and it's compatible with Verizon, it's the best buy around.
It's fast, functional, and a great value.
That makes it our Editors' Choice.
The Bottom Line
The $549 OnePlus 6T is the best value for your Android smartphone dollar today.
