OnePlus 10 Pro review: a feature-packed phone that rivals the best

The OnePlus 10 Pro is a very, very good smartphone from a brand with a dependable reputation. However, OnePlus's status as an Oppo sub-brand has changed recently and seen it move closer to its parent company, meaning this offering feels more 'Oppo' than ever. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but may disappoint some dyed in the wool OnePlus fans.

We got our hands on the latest offering from OnePlus to test its display, battery, features and much more. Read on for our verdict and to see if the OnePlus 10 Pro could be a good purchase for you.

Jump to:

• OnePlus 10 Pro review: summary
• What is the OnePlus 10 Pro?
• How much is the OnePlus 10 Pro?
• OnePlus 10 Pro features
• OnePlus 10 Pro display
• OnePlus 10 Pro battery
• Camera
• Design
• OnePlus 10 Pro: our verdict
• Where to buy OnePlus 10 Pro

OnePlus 10 Pro review: summary

This is OnePlus's latest flagship so, of course, it's packed with high-end specs and the company hopes it will compete with some really high-end phones — like the Samsung Galaxy S22 which starts at £769.

The phone is powered by the latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor, the same impressive chip we've seen and tested in the Xiaomi 12 Pro, which delivered an impressive flagship experience itself.

Elsewhere there is a wealth of flagship features, wrapped up in an appealing design. The Hasselblad triple-camera array on the back offers a range of settings and performs pretty well. There's also a curved display that's silky smooth to use, plus the display is made of hard-wearing Gorilla Glass Victus for added peace of mind.

Price: 8GB RAM and 128GB of storage for £799. Or, 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage for £899.

• Shop OnePlus on OnePlus.com
• Shop OnePlus on John Lewis
• Shop OnePlus on Amazon
• Shop OnePlus on Three

Key features:

• 8GB or 12GB of RAM
• 128GB or 256GB of storage
• Hasselblad triple-camera array
• 6.7-inch AMOLED HDR10+ display
• 120Hz variable refresh rate
• Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip
• Gorilla Glass Victus front
• Standard Gorilla Glass back

Pros:

• Great fast charge facility
• Solid camera
• Great display
• Feature-packed

Cons:

• Camera shutter speed could be better
• Can mark up and scratch
• Not massively better than OnePlus 9 Pro

What is the OnePlus 10 Pro?

The 10 Pro is the latest flagship phone from OnePlus and the successor to the highly-rated OnePlus 9 Pro, which bagged an impressive 4.6 stars in our full OnePlus 9 Pro review.

This new handset borrows much of its camera set-up from that successful forerunner but packs a bigger battery, fast charging and some other great features.

How much is the OnePlus 10 Pro?

There are two configurations of the OnePlus 10 Pro available, at two different price points.

Firstly, the edition with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage costs £799.

Secondly, with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, the phone costs £899.

Pre-orders are available right now from OnePlus.com and the phone will go on general sale from 5th April at the retailers listed below.

• Shop OnePlus on OnePlus.com
• Shop OnePlus on John Lewis
• Shop OnePlus on Amazon
• Shop OnePlus on Three

OnePlus 10 Pro features

The phone runs Android 12 overlaid with Oxygen OS 12.1, the latest version of OnePlus's signature operating system. This will come as a relief to some OnePlus fans as, for a while, we suspected the new OnePlus may ship with an Oppo operating system instead.

Why? Because the Chinese versions of the OnePlus 10 Pro don't have OxygenOS. Instead, the new closer union between Oppo and OnePlus means that Chinese OnePlus 10 Pros run ColourOS 12.1 — straight from Oppo.

That aside, the operating system is simple and intuitive for the most part. If you're familiar with other phones running on Android 12, you won't have any issues with this one. OnePlus has promised four years of security updates too, which gives the phone some longevity, but any peace of mind you might be tempted to derive from that is snatched away by the lack of an IP-rating, (IP ratings denote how water and dust resistant a device is).

Elsewhere, there's the obvious triple camera array, a 120Hz variable refresh rate and either face recognition or a fingerprint scanner for security. That scanner is placed a little higher on the screen than it was on the OnePlus 9 Pro, which is a change we liked. The scanner on the 10 Pro is more versatile and at a good height to use with your thumb, making one-handed use easier.

The phone also offers an interesting 'RAM extender' feature, which allows you to use storage gigabytes as RAM gigabytes — this can allow the phone to run more tasks simultaneously and cope with more complex tasks. However, you'll also lose some storage space. There's also a 'RAM boost' feature, which uses AI to learn your usage patterns and predict what apps to launch and what data to load. This can speed things up but you'll have to dig around in the settings to find it as it wasn't offered upfront.

There's a 'work-life balance' mode too, to help you manage your notifications and not take work everywhere with you.

OnePlus 10 Pro display

The OnePlus 10 Pro packs a stylish curved display that renders colour, images and video wonderfully. While the curve in the panel gives this phone a premium feel, we found that the panel wasn't immune to marking up a little bit during use. This is a minor irritation though and will concern some users more than others.

With a 120Hz variable refresh rate that can slow right down to 1Hz to save battery, the phone has kept up with industry standards and we found the display was always smooth and easy to operate. This move to a 1-120 variable refresh rate is becoming the must-have upgrade for new phones, striking a nice balance between a silky smooth user experience and longer battery life. OnePlus claims this phone can vary its refresh rate quicker than much of the competition, thanks to its LTPO 2.0 display.

There are two resolution options to choose between — FHD+ or the even sharper QHD+. You can allow the phone to auto-select depending on the content you're viewing too, which is probably the best option for most users.

Also, OnePlus tells us this is "one of the first phones in the industry to be calibrated at two brightness levels". That means that, as the brightness automatically adjusts, (presuming you use that setting,) the display still renders colours accurately at different levels of brightness. It's a slightly niche concern, but it reflects an attention to detail that OnePlus has shown throughout the handset.

OnePlus 10 Pro battery

The OnePlus 10 Pro features a 5000mAh battery, which is a good size and the largest you're likely to find amongst competitors. However, during some periods of extended, intensive use, we found that the battery could run down relatively quickly. Once after a day of using the phone for word processing, video and music streaming and photography, the battery ran out at around 9.30pm after an overnight charge. It's easy to improve this considerably though, just flick the display settings to 60Hz max refresh rate if you know you're going to serve up a demanding day of use, we found the battery ran down much slower on this setting, even while streaming content. Of course, menus and scrolling are a little less smooth, but the 120Hz option is always there when you need it.

That said, any small frustrations you have with the battery life will likely be allayed by the phone's fast charging capabilities. OnePlus says the 80W fast charger provided in the box will power up the 10 Pro from 1% to 100% in just 32 minutes. This rate is the absolute best-case scenario and manufacturers often opt to present the most complimentary figures they can, that said the rate suggested more or less adds up. During our testing, it took just 18 minutes to give the charge a 40% battery boost, from 60% to 100%.

The charger has also changed from the signature OnePlus 'Warp Charger' to an Oppo 'Super Vooc Charger'. That's not too significant, but the charging block now comes with a USB-A cable, instead of a USB-C one, which seems a little odd as the industry at large is moving towards USB-C and away from USB-A connections.

OnePlus 10 Pro camera

The main camera of the OnePlus 10 Pro is a 48MP wide-angle lens. It's supported, within the phone's triple-camera array, by a 50MP ultrawide snapper and an 8MP telephoto camera. Plus, that fourth ring on the back is a dual-tone flash. The array shoots video in 8K quality at 30fps and we found it fairly easy to film with.

For the most part, this is the same as the OnePlus 9 Pro, despite wearing a different skin. The 150 degree ultrawide is new but other than that this is basically what OnePlus was already offering.

The main camera takes good quality photos, but colours don't quite pop like they do on the Samsung Galaxy S22 Plus — a key competitor for this phone. You can see some examples of photos taken on the OnePlus 10 Pro below. Unfortunately, these have had to be slightly compressed to be displayed in this format, but they give you a general idea of the colour and detail offered by the OnePlus 10 Pro.

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On the front, there's a new 32MP selfie camera that can shoot video in 1080P. This also performed well and was easy to use but didn't pull up any trees in terms of quality. It's perfectly serviceable.

The ultrawide lens is a great tool but delivers less detailed images than the main camera. That said, we liked using it and it adds another layer of versatility to the OnePlus 10 Pro's camera setup.

Overall, during our testing of the camera, we thought it performed well, without obviously besting its key competitors. One frustration was the shutter speed, which seemed a little on the slow side. Photos need to be taken in a very, very static position for best results and taking pictures of pets, or other moving subjects can prove tricky.

OnePlus 10 Pro design

The interesting framing of the camera array, on the rear of the phone, is one of the stand-out design decisions of the OnePlus 10 Pro. It's also a departure from its predecessor, the OnePlus 9 Pro, which had an altogether more conventional camera array. This one is housed in a sort of metallic rectangle, but the metallic finish ends with a seam on the side of the phone and rather feels like it should carry on round the side — this would give the phone a slightly more premium feel.

The back of the phone has a lovely matte finish and a pleasantly tactile texture to its outer shell. However, that nice tactile surface does scratch quite easily.

The surfaces don't mark up awfully easily, like cheaper alternatives, but compared to Samsung's latest phones and the Xiaomi 12 Pro, the OnePlus 10 Pro has more of a tendency to pick up fingerprints, scratches and marks on its surfaces. This is another small concern, but small irritations can add up over day-to-day use and the OnePlus goes up against some tough competition here. (If this is a pet hate of yours, the Xiaomi 12 Pro really stands out for having mark-resistant surfaces.)

While overall the phone feels more like an Oppo phone than ever, thanks to the new closer union between the two brands, it has retained plenty of its OnePlus uniqueness. For example, the notifications slider on the side. This still takes the form of a physical sliding button, used to enable silent or vibrate modes. It's nice in that it's easy and quick to use, but it's also possible to accidentally turn your phone off silent when sliding it into your pocket. We managed to do so once or twice during testing.

It's also worth noting that the OnePlus 10 Pro suffered a well-documented breakage when tech YouTuber JerryRigEverything saw the phone break clean in half during one of his infamous durability tests. It's not really anything for an everyday user to worry about though, unless you plan on trying to snap your phone in half regularly.

Our verdict: should you buy the OnePlus 10 Pro?

The OnePlus 10 Pro is a pretty impressive smartphone with some fantastic features and stand-out fast charging capabilities. We didn't particularly find the Hasselblad endorsed camera set-up stood out amongst its rivals, but it still takes good photos.

The move towards a closer union with Oppo does mean that this OnePlus phone feels more 'Oppo' than ever, but this has its pros and cons. OnePlus tells us it benefits from more research and development, but the brand also loses some of that unique draw that got people talking.

While the OnePlus 10 Pro performs well across the board, it doesn't feel quite as premium when compared to the Samsung Galaxy S22 Series, the Xiaomi 12 Pro, or the iPhone 13 — all of which hover around similar price points, depending on the exact model chosen.

That said, if you're a OnePlus fan, this is still likely to be the choice for you, just be aware of that move towards Oppo and the fact that — despite the huge design changes — this isn't a revolutionary improvement on the OnePlus 9 Pro.

Where to buy OnePlus 10 Pro

The £799 handset with 8GB of RAM and 126GB of storage is available from Amazon, John Lewis, Three and OnePlus using the links below.

The £899 higher spec model, with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage is available from Amazon, John Lewis and direct from OnePlus. Check out the links below for the latest buying info and deals.

Pre-orders are available right now from OnePlus.com and the phone will go on general sale from 5th April at the retailers listed below.

• Shop OnePlus on OnePlus.com
• Shop OnePlus on John Lewis
• Shop OnePlus on Amazon
• Shop OnePlus on Three

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