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- The OnePlus 10 Pro is similar to its rivals, like the Samsung Galaxy S22 Plus, but costs $100 less.
- It offers longer battery life with similar specifications to the S22 Plus and Google Pixel 6 Pro.
- I’m nonplussed by the OnePlus 10 Pro’s camera quality, though it is improved — see for yourself.
When a phone maker is up against “safe bets,” like Samsung’s Galaxy phones and Apple’s iPhones in the US, its competing phone needs to be as good, or better.
That wasn’t the case with last year’s OnePlus Pro 9, which had a bad camera, at least compared to last year’s crop of premium phones when it launched, like the Samsung Galaxy S21 series or the iPhone 12 series. It didn’t matter that it had speedy performance or a beautiful screen — Samsung Galaxies and iPhones have those already.
With the OnePlus 10 Pro, however, OnePlus has made sure to improve its camera, and it makes a stronger case for itself in 2022.
I still think the OnePlus 10 Pro’s camera could be a little better, as it’s just not quite there when compared against similarly-priced Samsung and Apple phones. But this time it offers something that the Galaxy S22 series in particular is lacking: long battery life.
OnePlus 10 Pro specifications
Design
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The OnePlus 10 Pro easily joins the ranks of other premium phones in the US, like Samsung’s Galaxy S22 series and Apple’s iPhone 13 Pro series.
The phone has similar ingredients to those other premium phones with thin bezels and a frosted texture glass back. However, the OnePlus’s frosted glass back texture just hits differently. It’s less reflective than the Galaxy S22’s and iPhone 13 Pro’s, and it results in a richer and more solid look on my review unit with the black color option. There’s also the slightest sparkling effect on the frosted glass, which is subtle and sleek.
OnePlus is still using curved screen edges, like you’d find on Samsung’s Galaxy S22 Ultra. It’s a bad design element that’s unfortunately stuck around for far too long, even if the curves are slight. It makes the screen feel narrower than it is, and videos and content spill over onto the edges. You can still clearly see videos and content on the curves, but there’s a slight distortion caused by the edges that doesn’t need to exist.
One of the best aspects of OnePlus phone designs, and their functionality, is the silent switch you find on the right edge of the phone. It lets you quickly switch between silent mode, vibration mode, and loud mode, and it’s the only Android phone I know about that has this switch.
Display
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The OnePlus 10 Pro‘s OLED (organic-light-emitting-diode) display is the closest I’ve experienced to Samsung’s superlative phone displays. That’s to say the OnePlus 10 Pro makes everything pop with rich colors and bold contrast, which is thanks to the nature of OLED displays that turn off individual pixels to produce the truest blacks possible.
It’s not to say that the iPhone 13 Pro’s OLED displays aren’t as quality-made either, but Apple tends to stick to the conservative and more accurate side of color and contrast. There’s nothing wrong with that, but the OnePlus 10 Pro’s display looks more impressive.
The OnePlus 10 Pro supports QHD+ resolution (quad-HD 1440p), but it’s set to FHD+ (full-HD 1080p) resolution by default. I’d recommend OnePlus 10 Pro owners stick to the default FHD+ setting, as it’s plenty sharp and will make for the best battery life.
As expected, the OnePlus 10 Pro’s display runs at a super-smooth 120Hz refresh rate that’s standard in premium phones these days. That’s to say that the screen can refresh itself 120 times per second compared to the 60Hz refresh rate on cheaper or older phones, or even the standard iPhone 13. As a result, animations from swiping around apps and the Android operating system look smoother, and the phone feels faster and more powerful.
OnePlus also advertises that the display’s refresh rate can reduce down to 1Hz when it’s displaying something static, like an article or a photo. Reducing to such a low refresh rate is designed to reduce the high battery consumption that comes with faster refresh rates.
Performance
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The OnePlus 10 Pro runs on the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor as Samsung’s Galaxy S22 series, and the OnePlus feels just as snappy and powerful. Apps and games run without a hitch.
In benchmarking tests using the Geekbench 5 app, the OnePlus 10 scored an average of 980 for single-core performance and 3,460 for multi-core performance. To compare, the S22 Plus scored 1,230 for single-core, and 3,429 for multi-core performance.
OnePlus tells me that its performance management on the OnePlus 10 Pro “matches each app with the most appropriate performance it needs,” which explains why it scored lower in single-core performance than the S22 Plus to some extent. However, I’d imagine that a benchmarking app that stresses performance would “need” more power, thus resulting in a comparable score to the S22 Plus. But that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Hopefully, alarm bells aren’t ringing, as there’s no perceivable difference in everyday usage between the OnePlus 10 Pro and the S22 Plus.
There is a perceivable impact in battery life, however, which I get to below. Spoiler alert: it’s better than the S22 Plus, and even the S22 Ultra’s battery life.
You can enable the OnePlus 10 Pro’s “performance mode” if you want a more traditional performance experience where you get maximum performance all the time, or when you want to play a taxing game. Enabling performance mode bumps up the single-core performance to 1,250, and it means that battery life is affected, but more on that below in the battery section.
Battery life
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In our battery life test, where I stream a YouTube video continuously over WiFi at the phone’s default 1080p resolution on its 6.7-inch display at full brightness, the OnePlus 10 Pro lasted a good 14 hours and 51 minutes.
The OnePlus 10 Pro has the best battery life I’ve tested on 2022’s crop of US-based Android phones so far. I only say it’s “good” because the iPhone 13 Pro Max’s battery life makes everything else seem lackluster, as it lasted an incredible 20 hours and 18 minutes.
The OnePlus 10 Pro’s good battery life validates OnePlus’ power management, where the OnePlus 10 Pro in default mode throttles down performance. It results in longer battery life while maintaining perceivably comparable performance to the S22 Plus.
When I enabled performance mode on the OnePlus 10 Pro that ramps up performance to match the S22 Plus’ power, the battery lasted a shorter 12 hours and 21 minutes. I honestly didn’t sense that the OnePlus 10 Pro feels more powerful with performance mode enabled.
The OnePlus 10 Pro supports up to 65-watt (W) charging, which isn’t the 80W charging advertised for the Indian and European markets. That’s not a huge deal or a deal-breaker, especially considering that other phones have much lower charging speeds.
The S22 series maxes out at 45W charging, and even that’s questionable, as it’s been found by 9to5Google.com that there isn’t much difference in charging speed between 25W and 45W charging with the S22 series. The Pixel 6 Pro maxes out around 20W, and the iPhone 13 series at around 20W.
Another plus for the OnePlus 10 Pro’s battery is that the phone comes with a 65W charger in the box, which is a rare treat these days. Samsung and Apple aren’t including chargers with their phones, let alone those that can make full use of their fast-charging abilities.
Cameras
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Last year’s OnePlus 9 had an utterly underwhelming camera with flat and dull colors. OnePlus made amends with the OnePlus 10 Pro by adding some color and life to photos. Still, the OnePlus 10 Pro wouldn’t be my phone of choice for taking photos, at least when I know that I prefer photos taken with other phones, like the S22 Plus, iPhone 13 Pro, and Pixel 6 Pro.
Here’s a quick look at some photos taken with those phones.
Here’s a photo of a barn taken with the OnePlus 10 Pro.
Click on the image for a larger version. Antonio Villas-Boas/Insider
Here’s the same photo taken with the Galaxy S22 Plus.
Click on the image for a larger version. Antonio Villas-Boas/Insider
Here’s the barn photo taken with the iPhone 13 Pro.
Click on the image for a larger version. Antonio Villas-Boas/Insider
And here’s the barn photo taken with the Pixel 6 Pro.
Click on the image for a larger version. Antonio Villas-Boas/Insider
OnePlus added 10-bit support in the OnePlus 10 Pro’s cameras. Unfortunately, the phone’s 10-bit photos are only viewable on Macs at the moment, which is somewhat limiting. I haven’t added 10-bit photos here, as 10-bit photos wouldn’t translate over the web on an article like this one.
To be honest, I was hard-pressed to find much of a difference between normal 8-bit photos and 10-bit photos.
And if you’re wondering what the “P2D 50T” stands for, it’s short for “Phone 2nd-gen Hasselblad for mobile. 50MP triple camera on rear.”
What are your alternatives?
Starting at $900, and with a 6.7-inch screen size, the OnePlus 10 Pro takes aim at the $1,000 Samsung Galaxy S22 Plus, the $900 Pixel 6 Pro, and the $1,100 iPhone 13 Pro Max.
You can read my reviews of the S22 Plus and iPhone 13 Pro Max here. I haven’t specifically reviewed the Pixel 6 Pro, but my Pixel 6 review can give you a good idea of how it performs.
The bottom line
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For Android users in the US, the OnePlus 10 Pro offers relief from the Galaxy S22 Plus’s comparably poor battery life.
With that said, the S22 series’ cameras take more universally pleasing photos than the OnePlus 10 Pro’s cameras. If photo quality matters to you, I’d take a good long look at the photo taken with different phones.
Pros: Powerful, 120Hz screen, long battery life, improved camera, fast 65W charger included
Cons: Camera still could be better