OnePlus has been making some of my favorite phones

for quite awhile.

Traditionally, you get a great combination

of good specs and flagship level features,

at a price that can be hundreds of dollars

less than the competition.

That is where the OnePlus 6T comes in.

It's definitely a good phone,

but it does not revolutionize the formula.

If you're familiar with the OnePlus 6,

then you know the basics of the 6T.

Inside you'll find that same Snapdragon 845,

which has been in almost every major flagship of this year,

and that is paired with either six

or eight gigs of ram, and 128 or 256 gigs of storage.

This is as good as it gets right now,

but it is no longer a unique selling point.

Previously, OnePlus's were some of the cheapest phones

with the high end specs, such as the Snapdragon 835 or 845,

but nowadays you can pick up a Pocophone F1

that is going to be several hundred dollars cheaper

than even the OnePlus and it has that same spec.

It's good, it's great to have in a phone like this,

but it is no longer some huge revolutionary feature.

It's just kind of what everyone expects at this point.

One of the most noticeable changes is the notch.

It is significantly smaller

than not only pretty much anything else out right now,

but it is right alongside the Essential Phone,

which over a year later actually still has

one of the smallest notches that we've ever seen.

It we take a quick trip from garbage town

up the road to notch city,

we'll find an interesting evolution of OnePlus phones

over the last couple of years.

So the OnePlus 5 was the last phone

with the full size bezels,

which were significantly shrunk down on the OnePlus 5T.

Come to the OnePlus 6 and the notch is in full effect,

which thankfully is a lot smaller on the OnePlus 6T.

It's also a very slightly larger display

at 6.4 inches as opposed to 6.3.

And that applies to the entire OnePlus 6T.

It's a little bit thicker,

it's a little bit taller, and it's a little bit wider,

and it is definitely on the larger side of smart phones.

The display itself is a nice looking OLED,

in fact not only is it fairly bright,

but it is one of the most accurate OLED panels we've tried,

right up there with the iPhone XS.

You'll also find something pretty rare,

an in-display fingerprint sensor.

Now gone are the days of having a fingerprint sensor

on the back or on the home button.

Instead, it's actually inside the glass.

It properly works, too.

So this little green icon right here,

if I put my thumb on it,

it will immediately scan my fingerprint.

Now to be fair, this is not a perfect setup.

It does seems to be a little bit slower

than a traditional fingerprint sensor.

And I did notice that it is a little bit more prone

to being slowed down or tripped up,

if you have any kind of dirt or dust on the screen.

But generally speaking it does work,

and it works well.

There is a face unlock option,

but it lacks something more sophisticated

like the IR cameras on the iPhone,

as well as the OPPO Find X.

This will stabilize on the just the front facing camera.

It's quick, and it's reasonably accurate,

but it is nowhere near secure.

To me, it's just using that fingerprint sensor.

Inside you will find an upgraded battery.

Before we had a 3300 milliamp-hour cell,

whereas this year we've gone up to 3700 milliamp-hours.

Now I haven't spent enough time

to really give it a full run through,

but based on at least early impressions,

it is pretty easy to make it through

a full day of use with a 6T.

And surprisingly, OnePlus is stocked

with their very stock looking OxygenOS software,

which is based on the latest version of Android 9 Pie.

Now the good thing is

you have a lot of nice, small customizations

that doesn't totally overhaul the look.

For example, with the alert slider we all know and love

is still here to allow you to easily mute the phone.

I really don't understand why lots and lots of other people

haven't just stolen this.

It's just super useful.

What you won't find is a significantly improved camera.

Now it is slightly better,

so it's mostly in the processing and the software side,

specifically with portrait mode,

it's a little bit better

at cutting things out of the background.

And there is a improved night shot mode,

which will get you a little bit of a better

low light performance.

But generally speaking,

this is decent but nowhere near as good

as the Pixels and the Galaxies of the world.

Hey guys, this is the story

behind the internet myth Polybius,

The speaker sounds decent,

but importantly, it's just that, a single speaker.

It's 2018, and basically all other flagships

have switched over to a stereo setup,

which not only sounds a lot better,

but importantly isn't easily covered.

I mean all you have to do

is just put a single finger over the speaker,

and it totally kills the volume.

Personally I wouldn't mind a bigger notch

if it meant that I did get those stereo speakers.

Audio quality on a phone is really important to me.

Speaking of, the OnePlus 6T

finally drops the headphone jack.

Now this isn't exactly a huge surprise,

but it is a downgrade over the OnePlus 6.

To be fair, you do get a USB-C headphone dongle on the box,

and the battery is slightly larger because of this,

but rest in peace, sweet jack.

We also still don't have any official water resistance.

Now you would think that by removing the headphone jack

it would make it a little bit easier

to water-seal this guy up, but nope,

it's still completely not okay

to put this near even a single drop of water,

or else your warranty stickers will go screaming in agony.

Speaking of, while we do still have a glass back,

the 6T still completely omits any kind of wireless charging.

This is a really weird choice.

Usually when you go from metal to glass,

one of the main reasons is to get you a little bit

of an easier target for stuff like say,

I don't know, wireless charging,

something again is on almost all 2018 flagships,

and yet it is nowhere to be found on the OnePlus 6T.

The OnePlus 6T is a terrific phone,

and yet it's not really much of an upgrade

over the OnePlus 6.

In a world where the Google Pixel 3 is a true flagship,

it's really hard to call this a flagship killer.

It's a great mid-range phone,

but that's okay.

(smooth music)