OnePlus 10 Pro review

Not venturing too far from the template, OnePlus has done a fantastic job at chipping away the rough edges, quite literally. The 6.7in QHD+ AMOLED display is curved towards the edges and blends into a matte frosted glass black that is typical of OnePlus devices with a luxurious feel and a build quality that is hard to fault. 

Of course, what differentiates all smartphones these days is the camera module design and the 10 Pro manages to remain distinct by taking inspiration from a four-burner gas stove. The three lenses and the flash are housed in a polished metal band with prominent Hasselblad branding and look purposeful without being OTT. Good job, OnePlus! 

Flip it around and you can see that the borders have become even more dainty, keeping a high screen-to-body ratio. The punch-hole selfie cam has been given a boost to 32MP which also captures a wider FoV and gets Nightscape mode too, provided your hands and head are in perfect alignment and anchored. 

The in-screen fingerprint reader has been repositioned higher up to be more convenient and it is, in terms of location. But I had more retries than I had the patience for and resorted to the less secure, but lighting quick face unlock most of the time. 

OnePlus spends much time talking about the adaptive refresh rate AMOLED screen that can vary itself from 1Hz to 120Hz, is colour calibrated at two different brightness levels and you can even unlock Bright HDR video mode, sharpen 720p videos to super-resolution (supported by Instagram and Youtube) and so on.

But my personal favourite was part of the OxygenOS improvements and that is selectable levels of Dark Mode. It may be the preferred mode for many, but I always find reading long emails and text too high on contrast through the day in Dark Mode. To alleviate this, the 10 Pro allows you to select three levels of Dark Mode, each varying from light grey to dark grey and full black, which is absolutely brilliant depending on your sensitivity to high contrast screens. The only caveat here is that it is still app-specific and not all third-party apps support it for now, but it’s these little enhancements that still keep OxygenOS a force to reckon with in the universe of Android skins.

And…for the main event, the second generation Hasselblad Camera for Mobile system. Three rear cameras, all benefit from the Natural Colour Calibration that is applied to the 10-bit photos. You’ll have to turn this option on from the camera settings menu and while the differences might be hard to see on the phone screen itself, if you’re someone who regularly imports your pictures to a tablet or laptop for editing in Lightroom (or similar), the 10-bit option allows you great flexibility in image manipulation. 

The primary camera uses a customised Sony IMX789 sensor and gains updates to its resolution, dynamic range, noise reduction and overall colour tuning. The Ultrawide too gets a big update with a 110-degree FoV as default, but dig deeper and you can unlock a dramatic 150-degree option, even with a fish-eye circular effect. Instagram stories don’t accept this format yet, in case you’re getting ideas. 

If you really are one for details and stories though, OnePlus has collaborated with three Master photographers from Hasselblad’s community and each one of them gets to encapsulate their iconic styles as new filters baked into the camera system. Serenity, Radiance and Emerald are the new filters optimised for different scenarios as imagined by Hasselblad Ambassador Yin Chao and Hasselblad Masters winners Ben Thomas and David Peskens. While to the average user they might just be names for new filters, the effect that each of them has is really unique and if you’re keen on making your social media feed stand out from the crowd, they can go a long way in cutting through the clutter.

Leaving all the Marvel and DC jargon aside, the OnePlus 10 Pro is a genuine improvement over the 9 Pro and it’s not just to do with the Hasselblad association. Since it’s hard to attribute any specific improvement to the collab, let’s look at it as a whole. For starters, the Pro mode allows for both RAW and RAW+ captures that allows for 12-bit photos while keeping the computational elements intact. If you want the most natural colours and granular control though, Pro is the way to go because in Auto, the results are wildly inconsistent, especially with live subjects like humans and pets. 

Colour imbalance, white balance variation and the slight lag from shutter-to-capture means more often than not, you end up with blurry photos since you moved the camera away too soon. Switch it to Pro mode and things start looking a lot more “professional” with increased sharpness, accurate colour temperature and better focus times too. In fact, in the Pro mode, you can really get creative and with the RAW+ files that you import, the end result with photo editing tools can be quite jaw-dropping. 

But not everyone is predisposed to manually adjusting shutter, EV or ISO levels and the OnePlus 10 Pro in Auto mode is far from perfect. Perhaps the most baffling omission is that of the macro lens or even a macro mode, so getting closer to anything within the range of 2-10cms will result in blurry, out of focus mood shots. Not the award winning close up of the bee’s sting you were hoping for. Why, OnePlus?

For indoor shots, it does well with flooding the darker areas with more light, but then again, it also adds dollops of sharpness, almost to the extent of ghosting in certain conditions. The 48MP sensor captures enough details to challenge other flagships, but it’s prone to overexposure and slow focusing, bringing the hit rate of great pictures down dramatically. 

Switch to XPAN mode and it proves to be phenomenal for landscape or wide-angle shots where an ultrawide would cause distortion otherwise, the XPAN just offers a wider aspect ratio with a much higher resolution instead. If you want to commit to full ultrawide, there is a choice of going fisheye within a sphere, or a regular 150-degree ultrawide that is cool no doubt, but more creative than practical given the curved edges.

The selfie cam is littered with filters, retouching options but also does a great job at portrait selfies sans any of the toppings. Sure, the final result is much brighter than reality but even then, it manages to resolve highlights and texture well without giving you a virtual cosmetic surgery. Being able to show your palm and activate the timer is another handy feature that is usable everyday and you may never need a selfie stick again. Remember those?

Video OIS still trails behind the segment leaders with more shake than you’d like during pan shots or POV style footage during a walk. Ultra steady is available only in 1080/60fps mode, even though the device supports 4K/120 and up to 8K/24! I guess it’s tuned more for tripod use and higher resolution then, but it certainly won’t be setting any new benchmarks for video stability.

Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and 12GB of RAM means that you won’t be able to throw a task at it that causes stuttering and OxygenOS also has the option of using some amount of storage space as RAM, if you’re serious about running a broadcast channel from your pocket. Playing Asphalt 9 or working on Lightroom to edit out the post lockdown weight, the 10 Pro cruises along without running into any roadblocks. Minor improvements like more tactile haptics and O-Sync for better responsiveness just make gaming that much more immersive without you realising it.

Then, there are some significant changes to OxygenOS in the form of Shelf and Scout which is OnePlus’ take on widgets with an integrated search bar for contacts, music, documents and more. The core experience of using a OnePlus handset luckily hasn’t changed in the 10 years of upsizing and tweaking with the Android kernel. It’s still a delectable experience navigating around the 10 Pro, everything working like a well-oiled machine. There are occasional instances where the 120Hz screen doesn’t quite catch up with your synapses or the Dark mode doesn’t revert to a mild setting like you want it to, but OnePlus has always been quick with updates and fixes so these niggles aren’t deal breakers.

Smartly, OnePlus has also split the massive 5,000mAh battery into a dual cell design for faster charging and better thermal management. The result is a 30 minute time for a full 0-100% charge if you go wired and 47 minutes on a wireless charger. The 80W power brick is bundled in the box and is now branded SuperVooc, a sign of the Oppo merger. Branding aside, it’s good to see the charger included and the battery not suffering adversely due to the rapid charge. Not in the couple of weeks that I’ve had the device at least.

To sum it up, the OnePlus 10 Pro is a great Android phone and the best OnePlus phone ever made, but is it the best smartphone out there? If ultimate photographic glory isn’t what you’re living for, then it comes close. It has a lot of OnePlus strengths built into its core like blazing performance, superfast charging, superb build quality and finish, neat little OxygenOS tricks that help improve efficiency and productivity and a fantastic display too. 

But, expecting it to rise to the top of the camera charts because of its Hasselblad association might be jumping to conclusions. It is an evolution and certainly a huge improvement over the earlier-generation, but the lack of a dedicated macro mode, average video OIS and general colour inconsistencies keep it from greatness.