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[The Lab] OnePlus 8T Review by manuel19 Oct 14, 2020

manuel19 · Oct 14, 2020

manuel19 , Oct 14, 2020 :

Hello and welcome to my LAB review!
Before I start, let me quickly introduce myself.

My name is Manuel, I’m from Munich, 22 years old and really enthusiastic about tech (especially mobile phones). My journey with OnePlus started when I joined the community forum almost 6 years ago, on the 27th of October 2014, to "fight" for an invite and 2 weeks later finally got my OnePlus One. The OnePlus One will probably always be the phone I’ve used the longest, with about 3 years as my daily driver. Fun Fact: It is still "alive" and pretty up-to-date running Android 10 - My most favorite smartphone, ever!

After almost 3 years with the One, I switched to the OnePlus 5, since the battery on the One got worse over the years and I really wanted to experience OnePlus’ fast charging technology. From the 5, I switched to the OnePlus 7 Pro, from what I am now switching to the OnePlus 8T. As you can see, I have a really long history with OnePlus and now that you know about it, it might be easier for you to understand why I might have certain views on some things.

If you have any questions or feedback about my review, please let me know!

Throughout the review I will always be referring to the Lunar Silver color variant with 8GB RAM and 128GB storage.

Content:

#1 Unboxing/First Impressions
#2 Display
#3 Battery and charging
#4 Performance
#5 Camera
#6 OxygenOS 11
#7 Summary

And don't forget to check out the other Lab reviews!

manuel19 · Oct 14, 2020

manuel19 , Oct 14, 2020 :

#1 Unboxing:

It's always an outstanding experience unboxing anything from OnePlus. So I was really looking forward to experience this again, with the all new OnePlus 8T. As you can probably already tell, the wait felt incredibly long and I was so nervous until I got the shipment notification.
A few days later, it was finally here: The OnePlus 8T

Featuring my review will be a 3D-printed OnePlus key chain, I’ve got from @Infinite_Power at the OnePlus 7 Series Launch. I've included it, to create somewhat of a community feeling, since that’s one of OnePlus’ key points to me.

But enough with the talking. We should check out what’s inside the box, shall we?

The first thing you'll see after opening the box, is a red cardboard box with the OnePlus logo on it. Let's take it out and see what’s inside!

Inside, you will find some information about the device, the SIM ejector tool on the back of the invitation letter and some beautiful stickers!

But we’re not here, for further information or stickers, we’re here for what was uncovered by removing the red cardboard box...

... the Lunar Silver OnePlus 8T.

But we also want to know what’s underneath, right?

So let’s check that out first, by getting the device out and removing the white tray with the help of the pull strap at the bottom.

Underneath, we find a translucent case, the new charging brick, as well as the new dual USB Type-C cable. Let’s take a closer look at these things!

One detail to notice is that the cable doesn’t have the red accent inside the type C connector anymore. I don’t really mind it, as it still looks really good!
Also, the new charging brick is about the same size as the Warp Charge 30 charging brick

And finally, there’s only one thing left to show off: The OnePlus 8T, wrapped in a smooth thin layer of plastic.

Thanks to the plastic, we know the NFC antenna is located in the top right corner on the backside. Time to get off the plastic and uncover the full beauty of this phone.

On the front, we can see the hole punch camera in the top left corner and a flat screen, with a screen protector pre-applied.

Let's flip the phone...

… and look at it's gorgeous backside!

Some more photos of the device:

First impressions:

The frosted glass finish on the back feels amazing and less slippery than the Nebula Blue variant of my OnePlus 7 Pro. Using the OnePlus 8T also feels much more comfortable than the 7 Pro, due to it being slightly smaller and less heavy. I’m also happy about being back with a flat screen, but more on that in the next part which will be all about the Display.

See you tomorrow and hope you all stay safe and healthy!

manuel19 · Oct 14, 2020

manuel19 , Oct 14, 2020 :

#2 Display:

Hello and welcome back, for Part 2 of my Lab Review.
Today, I’ll be talking all about the display on the OnePlus 8T.

Well, where do I even start? I think I’ll just throw everything into one sentence:

It is such a crisp, beautiful, super smooth, finally-flat-again display.

The display on the OnePlus 8T features a FHD+ resolution, but somehow looks super sharp. You won’t ever realize it’s not QHD (in normal use). I mean seriously, if I would hold the 8T next to the 7 Pro, at some distance and would have to take a guess without knowing, I’d say the 8T would be the one having a QHD display! I'm not quite sure why, but I love it!

Next, the colors on this screen look phenomenal. Whether you look at photos or videos you’ve taken on the device, watching your favorite Netflix show, or just scrolling through your Instagram feed. Everything is so beautiful.

Now let's talk about smoothness. The 8T’s display is super smooth in 3 different ways:

The first point is not the display itself, but rather the “border” around it. It’s really even around the whole front of the device, what makes the display super pleasing to look at.

Second, the 120Hz refresh rate you’ve probably heard about a million times already. It’s not that big of a deal coming from the OnePlus 7 Pro that already features a high refresh rate display at 90Hz, but it’s still amazing to use. Scrolling is so much fun, you absolutely don’t want to put this phone aside.

The last aspect is the brightness. To be honest, the adaptive brightness on the 7 Pro has always been a pain point for me. Most of the time it’s been either too bright or too dim. The OnePlus 8T on the other side, is always at a decent brightness. It’s bright, but quite dim enough to not hurt your eyes, as the 7 Pro did quite often. The screen can also get brighter than the 7 Pro's, so you can see it’s content even in direct sunlight. Since it’s autumn here in Germany, I haven’t been able to test that.

One thing that’s not as good as on the 7 Pro is the lowest brightness. The 7 Pro can get much dimmer than the 8T. The morning after I received the 8T I was blinded for a second after waking up, since I was used to waking up to the super dim 7 Pro for such a long time.

Let me show you a small comparison. On the left side there’s the 8T and on the right the 7 Pro, both on their lowest brightness and night mode/vision comfort turned off.

There's a little difference already, but wait until night mode/vision comfort gets turned on, with the blue filter and further dim option, both set to their max values.

The screen of the 7 Pro is almost black now, and to be honest, it’s too dark. Even in a pitch black room, you can barely use the phone at this brightness level. Some things become barely visible at this point. But I’ve always used it somewhere in between the 7 Pro’s and 8T’s lowest brightness at night, and it’s been great.
If I remember correctly, they raised the lowest brightness on the 8 series with a software update to address some of the display issues that appeared on lower brightness levels. I kinda hope people would accept that such issues will occur when going beyond a level where a display can operate normally, so we can enjoy displays that dim again, even if that might cause unwanted behaviour. If you don’t like it, simply stay above that level.

On the topic of display issues, I think there’s a lot of people that want to know about green tint. From my experiences, the display seems totally fine. There’s like one exact brightness level where the screen gets a slight green tint, but it’s evenly spread across the whole screen, so it doesn’t matter at all. From my experiences, the screen is evenly lit and colored, in all situations.

Finally, the most important thing for me: It's flat!

I’m sorry flat-earthers, I’m not talking about that! I’m talking about the OnePlus 8T’s screen, it’s flat!

I’ve used curved edges for more than a year now, and couldn’t be more happy it’s finally over! The unnatural look of curved content on the display, the unnatural feel when touching the curved screen, the weird reflections coming from the edge: All gone! I think everybody got the message by now: I prefer flat screens over curved ones, so this is definitely a welcomed change from my perspective and I hope the OnePlus 9 Series comes with flat screens as well.

Coming from the 7 Pro, I was kinda scared to lose that insanely immersive full screen experience,because of the hole punch camera. I’ve heard quite some times that you don’t notice it, once you use a phone with it and I always thought that can't be true but what can I say? They’ve been right! After only a few minutes, you’ll actually forget that it’s there.
After over a year with a pop-up camera, I also have to confess that every time I open the front camera and don’t see any moving parts and hear no noise, my heart skips a beat. This might take some time to adapt, I guess.

Lastly, here are some screenshots of software features you can use to optimize the OnePlus 8T’s display experience to your likings:

And that’s it for today. I hope you liked it and got all your questions covered. If not, feel free to ask.

And again, see you tomorrow and hope you all stay safe and healthy!

manuel19 · Oct 14, 2020

manuel19 , Oct 14, 2020 :

#3 Battery & charging:

Hello and welcome back, to Part 3 of my OnePlus 8T Lab Review. Today’s topic: Battery and charging!

But before we start, I have a small announcement to make. For all of you that read my first part earlier, might remember Ben. Well, I’ve finally been able to ask him on Instagram, and his forum username is @Infinite_Power. Thank you again for this cute little gift!

Alright, now on to what you’re here for.

I'll start with what most of you are wondering about probably: Battery life. Battery life has been quite good for me so far. Nothing exceptional but slightly better than on my 7 Pro. Even though I had AOD enabled since I got the device, I am getting around 4-5 hours screen-on-time, sometimes even close to 6. I haven’t been able to fully test how much difference it makes when AOD is disabled, but below I have attached a screenshot of my current cycle with AOD disabled and it's going great so far! You can also see some of the battery features like optimized charging (even though I would say you will never need it, because of how fast this phone charges).

Okay, it's time to talk about the more difficult, but also more interesting part: Charging.

The OnePlus 8T, doesn’t have wireless charging, but I couldn’t care less about that, to be honest. I’ve used it a few times on my work phone but I fail to see the benefits of it. You have to put your phone in that exact spot on the table, the moment you take it, it stops charging and starts again once you lay it down.. Just imagine you unplug your phone every time you get your hands on it, and plug it back in after. Yuck. Additionally, the phone gets warm, which hurts the battery. I see wireless charging as an opportunity for quite some type of things, like laptops, that once you put them on a table, are more or less stationary. But a device that is mobile? Doesn’t really make sense to me as of now. We’ll see what the future brings I’d say.

For wired charging, OnePlus has upped their fast charging game from the previous 30W (what was quite fast already) to insane 65W! They claim the phone will charge from 0% up to 100% in only 39 minutes (in perfect conditions). In my tests, charging from below 10% up to 100% took about 40-42 minutes, so I agree with that.

Experiencing Warp Charge 65 is something else, I tell you. It’s so crazy fast, I’m still blown away! At some times you see it charging like 5% in only one minute! And even though it is charging this fast, the phone itself stays really ! My 7 Pro got a little bit warmer while charging, even though it was much slower.

They also have this cute little animation when you start charging with Warp Charge 65. (I doubt it’s the correct numbers, but nevertheless it’s a nice touch)

So one might wonder, how does this work now? How do they double the charging rate, without the phone getting much warmer?

The answer is kinda simple. OnePlus calls it twin-battery charging technology. The name already reveals the magic trick: Twin Batteries. Instead of one large battery, as in regular smartphones, the OnePlus 8T has 2 batteries that charge at about 30W simultaneously. With this, you get double the charging speed, with about the same amount of heat.

That heat is further reduced due to the 8T’s improved internal cooling, but I’ll talk more about that tomorrow.

OnePlus also stated that they’ve done a lot of testing on the 8T’s battery and says the battery will still have more than 80% of its initial capacity, after 800 complete charging cycles!

Finally, let’s have a talk about the charger and cable. And I’ve got to say, I absolutely love them. Not only for bringing me Warp Charge 65, but also for making it possible that I only have to take one charger with me from now on. I can finally charge my laptop and my Nintendo Switch, with my phone's charger - that’s just awesome! Before, I still had to take another charger with me because the Warp Charge 30 charger wasn’t able to charge the other 2 devices, and with the other charger my phone wouldn’t charge at its full speed.

I’ve also found out some things about the Cable I need to share with you!

Some short introduction first, the phone will either say ‘Warp Charge 65’, when charging at Warp 65 speed, or ‘Charging rapidly’ when connected to a warp charge 30, OnePlus fast charge or any Power Delivery Adapter.

That’s why I was pretty confused when I tried my 2m Power Delivery Cable on the new power brick, and the phone showed Warp Charge 65. I’ve also tried an iPad Pro USB-C cable and the same happened. After further testing, and time measures, it took about 44 minutes to get from 5% up to 100% - what’s about the same as with the original OnePlus cable.

So in conclusion, I assume if you have a cable that can transfer high Power Delivery rates, it should also be able to charge with Warp Charge 65 speed. Which means, I can use my 2m cable and don’t have to buy one from OnePlus! Woohoo!

But, for other OnePlus charging technologies (like Warp Charge 30) to work, you need to use the OnePlus Cable!

Alright, that might be even more confusing now, so I’ll try to visualize a little bit:

(OP = OnePlus, WC = Warp Charge, PD = Power Delivery)

WC65 charger + OP cable = WC65 on OP8T, WC30(T) on OP devices that support it, OP fast charging on OP3-OP6T & PD on supported devices with their supported charging rates up to 45W

WC65 charger + any cable that supports high PD rates = WC65 on OP8T & PD on supported devices with their supported charging rates up to 45W

Power Delivery Charger + any supported cable = PD with up to 27W on OP8T & PD on supported devices with their supported charging rates

Please note that the 2nd point is just an assumption based on my short testings, it might happen that this won’t work with your cable. But if you have a cable already, you might better try using it instead of buying one from OnePlus.

Additionally, here are some photos of the charger, so you can see it’s supported output rates and also a size comparison with the Warp Charge 30 charging brick. Oh, and the new charger weighs about 50% more, even though they're almost the same size.

To be honest, I imagined this part to be quite a bit shorter, but once I started writing down all my thoughts, I haven't been able to stop the flow. I hope you still enjoyed this part and that I've been able to give you some more insights into charging with the OnePlus 8T. If you have any questions after this confusing section, please ask and I'll try my best to clear it up.

And again, see you tomorrow and hope you all stay safe and healthy!

manuel19 · Oct 14, 2020

manuel19 , Oct 14, 2020 :

#4 Performance:

Hello and welcome back, for Part 4 of my Lab Review. Today I’ll talk about my experiences with the OnePlus 8T’s performance.

If you ever owned a new OnePlus smartphone, this part probably won't be a surprise to you. As every other OnePlus Phone, the OnePlus 8T is snappy across the whole System.

Thanks to the 120Hz screen, I’ve already talked about in Part 2, scrolling and swiping feels incredibly fluid and fast.

Due to the Snapdragon 865 and UFS 3.1 storage, smaller apps open in the blink of an eye and even bigger Apps load super fast and won’t struggle with performance. Even though in direct comparison with my 7Pro, there wasn’t much of a difference when launching apps like CoD Mobile, Pokemon Go or Monument Valley.

The OnePlus 8T features an improved cooling system inside of the phone to assure the phone stays cool, even under heavy performance. From my testings, I’d say it works pretty good. Even after playing games for a while, the phone stayed at normal temperatures.

Unfortunately, even though the phone comes with 8 GB of RAM, Apps get closed more frequently in the background than you’d expect them to. Also worth a mention is that the 8T comes with LPDDR4X RAM, instead of LPDDR5 as seen in the OnePlus 8 Pro.

Some of you might probably also wonder about 5G performance, but since my provider doesn't support it yet, I haven't been able to test that, as of now.

On the topic of performance I’d also like to talk about the stereo speakers and vibrations. The speakers do sound really well and a little bit more ‘full’ than those on my 7 pro. The vibration or more like haptic feedback, feels good, but typing on the keyboard makes a weird sound that almost sounds like you’d be typing the OnePlus 5.

And that’s it for today already! I hope you enjoyed it.

And again, see you tomorrow and hope you all stay safe and healthy!

manuel19 · Oct 14, 2020

manuel19 , Oct 14, 2020 :

#5 Camera:

Hello and welcome back, for my most favorite part of the Lab Review: Camera.

Unfortunately, it has been freezing cold, cloudy and rainy every day since I received the phone. So it wasn’t perfect conditions and to be honest, conditions where I usually don’t take much photos, as I prefer to stay at home these days. Nevertheless, I took on the challenge to test out the OnePlus 8T’s camera.

It did become more of a challenge than I thought it would be. The low temperatures made it really difficult to keep steady hands at times and it also got way more difficult to hit all those buttons on the screen to test different modes, cams, etc.

After I’ve spent a lot of time outside on multiple days, I started writing down my review. But exactly on the day I needed to finish it, the sky was blue, the sun was shining and it was less cold outside. Perfect day to test the camera even further! Even though that meant I had to rewrite my whole review. But I think it was worth it, since this will give you better insights into the OnePlus 8T’s camera.

Alright so, as you’ve probably already heard, the OnePlus 8T comes with a quad camera setup. That means, there’s 4 cameras (front camera excluded). I’ll be focusing on these 4 cameras, since they are the most important in my personal opinion.

The front camera operates as it should (mostly) and as it’s the same front sensor as in the whole 7, 7t and 8 series lineup, that’s just what I expected. But in some sceneries, there was an extreme halo around me, due to the HDR being way too aggressive. Additionally, I feel like the camera does make people look more pale as they naturally do. But as both can be fixed via software, and 99% of the selfies I take are taken with 3rd party apps, like snapchat, anyways, it doesn’t really matter that much to me. But I would still welcome it to be improved.

With that out of the way, let’s talk about the back cameras!

For those of you who didn’t know already, these are the 4 cameras on the back of the OnePlus 8T:

Bonus info: The ‘two flashes’ on the camera bump, aren’t two flashes. The bottom one is a dual flash (as seen on almost every phone) and the upper one is a flicker sensor. Even the Google Pixel 3 - 5 do have a flicker sensor, just a smaller one. What it does is detect displays and help with showing them correctly, as far as I understood.

Main Camera

The sensor for the main camera is the same as the main sensor in the OnePlus 7, 7 Pro, 7T, 7T Pro, 8 and Nord. The aperture is an f/1.75, as in the Nord and 8, the others have an aperture of f/1.6, if I remember correctly.

It takes really good pictures with a lot of detail. You can capture even more details, by selecting to shoot in 48 MP mode. You get a hint that the dynamic range is not as good as when shooting with 12 MP, but for some scenes this doesn’t matter and the amount of detail you get with 48 MP feels insane!

Let’s look at this example, where I shot the same photo with 12 and 48 MP and zoomed into some leaves.

Let’s be real, it’s not a big difference, but in some sceneries where you really want to get a lot of detail, this is extremely nice to have. Seeing how I’m able to zoom that far into these leaves, really amazes me.

Ultrawide Camera:

The ultrawide is the same as the ultrawide in the OnePlus 7 Pro, 7T, 7T Pro and 8. But it now features a 123° field of view, instead of the 117° before. This enables you to get even more content into one photo and creates an even more dramatic effect.

But you could quite often notice color inconsistencies between the main and ultrawide camera.

Nevertheless, the photos taken with the ultrawide camera do look amazing and I absolutely love this even wider field of view!

Night shots:

The camera now detects low light scenes inside the default mode, and captures these with nightscape, without the need to switch modes. You can still switch to nightscape manually, if you like to and the results might be slightly different. But no matter whether you take night shots with the default or nightscape mode, they look really good on the main and ultrawide camera!

Here are some of my favorite shots taken at night:

manuel19 · Oct 14, 2020

manuel19 , Oct 14, 2020 :

Macro Camera

The macro camera is.. difficult to use.

There's certain conditions that have to be met, for the result to turn out well.

First, you need to get proper lighting. Sun should be shining onto the object at best, but as the sun wasn't shining most of the recent days that was quite difficult already for me.

Second, the distance between the object and camera should never change. So either you need to have very steady hands, or better take a picture of something that’s not moving at all.

Additionally, don’t move instantly after you’ve taken the photo! If you do, you might shake up the photo! That's a really annoying thing and I hope it gets fixed in a future software update.

My best shots with the macro camera were these shots of my 7 Pro..

Also this plant turned out pretty okay

And this is what it looked like with the main cam

If you want to see amazing macros, taken on the OnePlus 8T, check out the Sample Diary from woSch.

At this point, big shoutout to @woSch for taking such amazing macros on moving objects, something I really wanted to, but haven’t been able to achieve. Mainly due to the cold weather that made it impossible to see any bugs or other small creatures these days, except this snail, but I haven’t been able to take a macro on it…

The downside of the macro camera? If the conditions aren't met, or you have no experience with the macro camera and just try to point & shoot, the results will probably look like these:

I’m confident that the macro cam is able to take really good photos, but it needs a lot of experience and if you just try point & shoot, your results will most likely not be good. So if you want to get good macros, stay patient, keep trying and gain experience. Once you’ve found out how it works and have the conditions met, you can take really good macros.

Filters

On all of these 3 cameras, you can apply filters, before taking a photo.

Besides the default shooting mode, there’s two more which are called matte and vivid, 7 ‘instagram-ish’ filters and 3 black and white filters & mono for the monochrome camera. I’ll be talking about my favorite thingabout the OnePlus camera, which are the default, matte and vivid shooting mode.

None, or default, takes photos as usual on OnePlus phones.

The matte takes photos with less saturation and makes pictures look more like true to life.

The vivid setting boosts colors and creates a very punchy look.

Some quick comparisons between those 3:

I do really love that you get these options. It enables you to take photos as you want and not as the phone manufacturer wants. I know it was present already in the OnePlus 8 series, but wanted to highlight it again, as it's my most favorite software feature.

Monochrome Camera

The last of the 4 cameras I'll be talking about is the monochrome camera.

The monochrome sensor does only have 2 MP but it doesn’t actually take photos itself, but rather captures data for the main sensor. So your photos will have 12 MP, not 2.

As I already said, it can be found at the end of the filter section

To be honest, I didn’t like the monochrome camera at first. There’s 3 software filters that do black & white already and the results of one of those looked almost similar to what the monochrome camera did, to me. But after using it for a while, I started to really fall in love with it.

Here are a few of my favorite shots with the monochrome camera:

Other:

Portraits do work and look really good. But as I mainly tried it on my girlfriend, I don’t want to post the results here. It also works on objects, but I only did some test shots on a bottle, so not really worth showing them.

For portrait lovers, there’s a new feature called video portrait. It did work and look really good, but the same as above applies here.

There’s also a new video nightscape feature which works really well, but I just did some testing with it and deleted the video after.

Summary

To be honest, I was kinda worried about the OnePlus 8T’s camera, after reading its specs. Coming from the OnePlus 7 Pro, I’d lose the 3x telephoto, the Main and Ultrawide stayed the same and everything new, would be a macro camera, for which the 8 and Nord got bad reviews already, and a 2 MP monochrome cam, I didn’t see any use in.

But after using it for a while, I do like it a lot! The main and ultrawide take great photos, even in low light situations. Thanks to the monochrome camera, you can shoot photos with an amazing effect. The macro camera enables you to get very close to objects to take some amazing photos, as far as there’s good lighting and you have some experience with it.

I’m already looking forward to using this cam longer and see what else I can capture. If you want to see more, check out my instagram where I will be posting more shots the coming days and weeks.

I hope you enjoyed my very long, detailed review on the OnePlus 8T’s camera.

And again, see you tomorrow and hope you all stay safe and healthy!

manuel19 · Oct 14, 2020

manuel19 , Oct 14, 2020 :

#6 OxygenOS 11:

Hello and welcome back, for Part 6 of my Lab Review. Today will be all about the OnePlus 8T’s software: OxygenOS 11.

OxygenOS 11, or OOS11, brings a fresh new design into OnePlus smartphones. According to OnePlus: “The layout has been readjusted according to the golden ratio, with the display being smartly divided to distinguish touch controls from the display area.“

The announcement of OxygenOS 11 has been quite controversial. There’s a lot of users going crazy because it seems that OnePlus is going away from it’s ‘close to stock’ approach and copying Samsung's One UI.

After using it, it doesn’t feel like One UI at all. But.. that’s not necessarily good. But I’ll talk about what’s good first.

Using it still has that ‘close to stock’ feel. It’s fast, fluid and responsive across the whole system. And the improved animations everywhere push this even further. The One UI look? Well, I can kinda see where this is coming from, but to be honest it feels more like a OnePlus look. The whole OS feels, as if they’ve put their brand identity into the user interface. And in my opinion, this looks so much better than everything OnePlus (and every other Android manufacturer) has ever done before!

Alright, I’ll start with something small but very neat. There’s 3 dynamic wallpapers that change their color scheme related to the current time. Means, every time you look at your home screen it will be slightly different. As I am a person that gets bored very easily by his wallpaper, this is 10/10 and I haven’t thought of changing the wallpaper since I got the phone. It might not seem huge, but they are absolutely beautiful so I'll show you these wallpapers, at some different time states.

There’s one that comes with OOS11 in general:

One that’s made for the aquamarine green 8T:

And one that’s made for the Lunar Silver 8T:

You also get quite some new features (yay!). Like there’s a new Always-On-Display. But, it’s not just an Always-On-Display, it comes with some personalization options, I do really like! You can choose between different clock styles that look pretty good already, but there’s also an option to give you a quick summary of your ‘digital wellbeing, by showing you how often you’ve unlocked your phone and how long you’ve used it, in a really clean way. Other than that, you can select ‘Canvas’, where you set your background to a person at best and then have white outlines of the person and it’s facial parts on your AOD. I hope that kinda makes sense to you, but it's hard to explain. I guess there'll be other places as well where you find further information about it.

And, you also get a third option: BITMOJ I!!! Your Bitmoji, on your Always-on-display!

Unfortunately, the Bitmoji Always-On-Display is not available as of now.

But there’s other nice additions to OOS11 you can enjoy already! Such as Zen Mode 2.0 that provides new themes, more duration options and the ability to use Zen Mode together with friends or family! It’s fully explained here and I am absolutely in love with this Zen Mode 2.0. I’m also really excited to see what else they come up with for Zen Mode in future iterations.

Alright, but there’s also bad things about OOS11. It’s starting with minor bugs and glitches and ending with things like the annoying scrolling in the gallery.
Normally the top bar doesn’t extend, unless you’re at the top scrolling position. In the gallery, it's kinda different. The top bar extends, as soon as you scroll up, leaving you only half of the screen to scroll. The top bar also behaves weird when you try to ‘flick scroll', which makes it impossible to scroll like this. So the scrolling experience in the gallery is terrible as of now from my point of view and I hope this gets fixed soon.

Other than that, the ‘one-handed-design’ is not really true at all. This style is only on the main screen of every app applied. As soon as you go one step deeper, there’s nothing left of that anymore. Like look at the bluetooth menu for example, or taking notes. Basically everywhere, I just picked 2 random examples.

And yes, this is not that important and really nitpicking. But, if you market this new design as if you’ve designed it to make it more accessible for one-handed usage, then either you do exactly that, or you just say it’s a new design. Or at least add a one-handed mode, so these screens can also be more accessible, and third party apps as well. I was kinda hoping that everything will be better useable in one-handed usage with OOS11, but it's not any different from OOS10.

The OnePlus 8T also comes with Google Phone, Contacts and Messages, instead of their respective OnePlus app. It feels kinda weird, now that the whole system has this new design, that 3 of the core apps don't have this new style applied. I also do think the OnePlus apps are easier to use. But that might be just me. I liked the OnePlus apps and I am kinda sad to see them gone.

Another thing I dislike is that the shelf in the launcher got replaced by Google now and shelf is only accessible by a swipe down now. This is a really stupid decision in my opinion, as I prefer the shelf on the left and swipe down to pull down the notification shade. I really hope this gets changed as well.

So after all, OxygenOS 11 is a very welcomed update, with a refreshing and beautiful new look. But it needs some things to be ironed out. I would really welcome some changes and the addition of a one-handed mode to further improve the experience, but it's pretty good already and I think OOS is heading in the right direction with this.

As always, I hope you enjoyed today's review.

And for a last time, see you tomorrow and hope you all stay safe and healthy!

manuel19 · Oct 14, 2020

manuel19 , Oct 14, 2020 :

#7 Summary & overall evaluation:

Hello and welcome back to the last part of my Lab Review.

Yes, you’ve read that right. As all good things must come to an end, so does my time being a reviewer for The Lab. I will talk a bit about the Lab experience itself, but first, I will summarize my opinions about the OnePlus 8T. Because some of you will probably care more about the device. But make sure to scroll down, as I will link the other Lab reviews at the bottom as well!

With that out of the way, let’s start with my opinions about the OnePlus 8T.

As you may already be able to tell, I’m super satisfied with the OnePlus 8T! This device is just absolutely gorgeous and I totally fell in love with it’s design over the last few days!

As I already said in Part 1 and 2, I do love that the 8T is so much easier to use than the 7 Pro. It weighs much less, it's a little bit smaller and the flat screen helps even more. When I grab my 7 Pro sometimes again, I wonder how I managed to use that big chunk for so long, to be honest. It kinda feels like a brick now.

I also started to really like the cameras! I was worried about that first, because of the loss of the 3x telephoto camera, but the cool effect of the monochrome camera makes up for that already and the macro camera can indeed work pretty well in good conditions. I also kinda like that it challenges you to find out how to use it! I think I am finally confident with it and will continue to improve my skills!

Take a look at this cute jumping spider and (not so cute) stink bug, I managed to get good macros of!

(cropped)

Now that the sun came out, I’ve also been able to see the maximum brightness of the display and oh boy is it bright! You can see what’s on your screen without any problems, even in direct sunlight, and no weird reflections coming from a screen curve, absolutely beautiful!

The battery is a big upgrade. Now with the AOD disabled, I am able to get around 24 hours of battery life with about 6-7 hours screen on time! That’s more than 50% more than what I got on the 7 Pro. The battery life has always been kinda mediocre for me on the 7 Pro but I didn’t expect such a big jump, upgrading from a 4000 mAh to a 4500 mAh battery. I really don’t remember the last time a battery charge lasted me for 24 hours.

Charging, needless to say I think, but a huuuuge upgrade! It takes less than half of the time to charge my battery now and the charger doubles as my laptop and Nintendo Switch charger! Finally, USB-C being the one standard for everything, seems to become reality.

Haptics and Audio are pretty solid, nothing extraordinary, coming from the 7 Pro. The haptics are quite different, but not better or worse, just ‘refined’.

But.. What are the downsides of this phone?

Lack of wireless charging? Doesn’t matter at all to me. As I said in the battery & charging part, not very practicable in my opinion and also not needed at all when you can charge this fast.

Lack of IP-certification? Doesn’t matter to me either. Why? Let me explain.

First, an IP certification doesn’t mean water-proof and as IP-certified devices don’t come with a warranty against water damage, I would never ever get my device in water anyways. If just one of those rubber bands doesn’t sit perfectly, or anything else is not in perfect condition, your device is dead. Electronic devices and water just don’t go well together and you should never take the risk. Think of it as just some sort of protection. You shouldn’t try to shoot your best friend just because he’s wearing a bulletproof vest either.

Second, since the OnePlus 5, OnePlus claims their devices offer enough water-resistance for anything that could happen in your day-to-day life. Such as rain, spilling a drink over your device, or whatever. I’ve also seen quite some people dropping their OnePlus phones in water on Youtube, and remember most of them, even the 7 Pro with it’s popup camera, going through them just fine.

Last but not least, the OnePlus 8T is IP certified when you buy it from a US carrier like T-Mobile. The same was the case with the OnePlus 8 and as far as I remember, from a hardware point of view, these devices were identical. So my guess is that OnePlus did the same again and the 8T would actually be IP-certified, but they just didn’t want to pay for it. What I really welcome, since the phone would be more expensive otherwise.

But also, as good as the 8T is, as unspectacular it is. Besides the charging, there’s nothing really new or special on this device.

But this is not bad at all! That just means, it's a super solid device, without you having to pay for any unnecessary gimmicks.

I can really recommend this device for anyone who uses the OnePlus 7 or lower, as it’s a nice upgrade in every aspect, at a really competitive price! If you have a OnePlus 7 Pro or newer, it depends on what you want and what you dislike on your current device. For me, the switch from the OnePlus 7 Pro was absolutely worth it. But if you’re happy with the curved screen on the 7 Pro or want wireless charging, you might not like the 8T as much.

Also a notice, my recommendation is based on the european pricing.

I’m not too sure on the indian pricing and can’t really make a statement on that.

For US pricing.. I’m not sure if I can recommend this device. As it comes only at 750$, it’s in direct competition with the Pixel 5 and iPhone 12. I mean, if you want a recent OnePlus device, with a flat screen, as I would, it’s still the go-to choice.

Alright, after everything has been said about the OnePlus 8T, special thanks to @Zach X. @dsmonteiro @Leo X. and @Loren Z. for managing The Lab and letting me be a part of this amazing experience. It was so cool being among the first to get their hands on a new device, before launch.

I did realy enjoy reviewing the OnePlus 8T, writing about my experiences and opinions. Even though it was a lot more work than I expected it to be!

I really hope you enjoyed this part again and got all your questions about the device answered.
If not, feel free to ask me!
And remember to stay safe and healthy!

manuel19 · Oct 14, 2020

manuel19 , Oct 14, 2020 :

#Bonus! More Lab reviews:

[The Lab] OnePlus 8T Review by Tamia76

[The LAB] OnePlus 8T Review: Through The Lenses of Rbagdai

[The Lab] OnePlus 8T Review by Shevon Salmon

[The Lab] OnePlus 8T Review by Josh Kannenberg

[The Lab] OnePlus 8T Review by Melih Gungor

The Lab OnePlus 8T Review by trackstarMKVIII

[The Lab] TheGadgetGirl's Experiments with the OnePlus 8T 5G

[THE LAB] OnePlus 8T Review by Kunal Singh

[The LAB] OnePlus 8T Review - Game of Hertz | by Kirat Alreja

Rajnish_Dhull · Oct 14, 2020

Rajnish_Dhull , via OnePlus Nord Blue Marble , Oct 14, 2020 :

Wow.
Post other things soon buddy.
Waiting.

jocxFIN · Oct 14, 2020

jocxFIN , Oct 14, 2020 :

I'm so amazed by your skill of writing. It's been pleasure to read your writings. Thank you so much dude. It means the world for me.

rushilandrews · Oct 14, 2020

rushilandrews , Oct 14, 2020 :

Well written. Great clicks
Old logo in keyring btw

Vny Singh · Oct 14, 2020

Vny Singh , via OnePlus Nord , Oct 14, 2020 :

Nice one from Oneplus
I am just waiting for the date when we are able to pre-order this magic phone
Great job from the Oneplus team.
A best deal of 2020
Thank you OnePlus

john.awad · Oct 14, 2020

john.awad , Oct 14, 2020 :

Well done mate! Looking forward to the next sections!!

manuel19 · Oct 14, 2020

manuel19 , Oct 14, 2020 :

Rajnish_Dhull said: ↑

Wow.
Post other things soon buddy.
Waiting.
Click to expand...

I'll keep updating the thread daily. Stay tuned

jocxFIN said: ↑

I'm so amazed by your skill of writing. It's been pleasure to read your writings. Thank you so much dude. It means the world for me.
Click to expand...

Wow thank you, I am so amazed by your skill of commenting. It's been a pleasure reading your comment
Much wow

rushilandrews said: ↑

Well written. Great clicks
Old logo in keyring btw
Click to expand...

Thank you! And oh, didn't even notice 😁

obol2 · Oct 14, 2020

obol2 , Oct 14, 2020 :

Thanks for the first impressions

derLenno · Oct 14, 2020

derLenno , via OnePlus 8 Pro , Oct 14, 2020 :

USB C to C looks so sexy I can't believe it lol

manuel19 · Oct 14, 2020

manuel19 , Oct 14, 2020 :

john.awad said: ↑

Well done mate! Looking forward to the next sections!!
Click to expand...

Thank you!!

obol2 said: ↑

Thanks for the first impressions
Click to expand...

welcome

derLenno said: ↑

USB C to C looks so sexy I can't believe it lol
Click to expand...

It's breathtaking! :O

rkks27 · Oct 14, 2020

rkks27 , via OnePlus 7T , Oct 14, 2020 :

Please let me know do OnePlus 8t comes with Google dialer or OnePlus dialer nd is there call recording or not

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manuel19 The Lab - OnePlus 8T Reviewer Oct 14, 2020

manuel19 , Oct 14, 2020 :

manuel19 The Lab - OnePlus 8T Reviewer Oct 14, 2020

manuel19 , Oct 14, 2020 :

manuel19 The Lab - OnePlus 8T Reviewer Oct 14, 2020

manuel19 , Oct 14, 2020 :

manuel19 The Lab - OnePlus 8T Reviewer Oct 14, 2020

manuel19 , Oct 14, 2020 :

manuel19 The Lab - OnePlus 8T Reviewer Oct 14, 2020

manuel19 , Oct 14, 2020 :

manuel19 The Lab - OnePlus 8T Reviewer Oct 14, 2020

manuel19 , Oct 14, 2020 :

manuel19 The Lab - OnePlus 8T Reviewer Oct 14, 2020

manuel19 , Oct 14, 2020 :

manuel19 The Lab - OnePlus 8T Reviewer Oct 14, 2020

manuel19 , Oct 14, 2020 :

manuel19 The Lab - OnePlus 8T Reviewer Oct 14, 2020

manuel19 , Oct 14, 2020 :

Rajnish_Dhull Ice Cream Sandwich Oct 14, 2020 via OnePlus Nord Blue Marble

Rajnish_Dhull , via OnePlus Nord Blue Marble , Oct 14, 2020 :

jocxFIN Froyo Oct 14, 2020

jocxFIN , Oct 14, 2020 :

rushilandrews Gingerbread Oct 14, 2020

rushilandrews , Oct 14, 2020 :

Vny Singh Eclair Oct 14, 2020 via OnePlus Nord

Vny Singh , via OnePlus Nord , Oct 14, 2020 :

john.awad OnePlus Accessory Tester Oct 14, 2020

john.awad , Oct 14, 2020 :

manuel19 The Lab - OnePlus 8T Reviewer Oct 14, 2020

manuel19 , Oct 14, 2020 :

obol2 Ice Cream Sandwich Oct 14, 2020

obol2 , Oct 14, 2020 :

derLenno The Lab - OnePlus 6 Reviewer Oct 14, 2020 via OnePlus 8 Pro

derLenno , via OnePlus 8 Pro , Oct 14, 2020 :

manuel19 The Lab - OnePlus 8T Reviewer Oct 14, 2020

manuel19 , Oct 14, 2020 :

rkks27 Cupcake Oct 14, 2020 via OnePlus 7T

rkks27 , via OnePlus 7T , Oct 14, 2020 :

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[The Lab] OnePlus 8T Review by manuel19 Oct 14, 2020

manuel19
The Lab - OnePlus 8T Reviewer Oct 14, 2020

manuel19
The Lab - OnePlus 8T Reviewer Oct 14, 2020

manuel19
The Lab - OnePlus 8T Reviewer Oct 14, 2020

manuel19
The Lab - OnePlus 8T Reviewer Oct 14, 2020

manuel19
The Lab - OnePlus 8T Reviewer Oct 14, 2020

manuel19
The Lab - OnePlus 8T Reviewer Oct 14, 2020

manuel19
The Lab - OnePlus 8T Reviewer Oct 14, 2020

manuel19
The Lab - OnePlus 8T Reviewer Oct 14, 2020

manuel19
The Lab - OnePlus 8T Reviewer Oct 14, 2020

manuel19
The Lab - OnePlus 8T Reviewer Oct 14, 2020

Rajnish_Dhull
Ice Cream Sandwich Oct 14, 2020

via OnePlus Nord Blue Marble

jocxFIN
Froyo Oct 14, 2020

rushilandrews
Gingerbread Oct 14, 2020

Vny Singh
Eclair Oct 14, 2020

via OnePlus Nord

john.awad
OnePlus Accessory Tester Oct 14, 2020

manuel19
The Lab - OnePlus 8T Reviewer Oct 14, 2020

obol2
Ice Cream Sandwich Oct 14, 2020

derLenno
The Lab - OnePlus 6 Reviewer Oct 14, 2020

via OnePlus 8 Pro

manuel19
The Lab - OnePlus 8T Reviewer Oct 14, 2020

rkks27
Cupcake Oct 14, 2020

via OnePlus 7T