OnePlus 6T Review: Amazing value with an even more amazing fingerprint reader

Today, OnePlus is advertising its newest flagship smartphone and lifting the review embargo. The OnePlus 6T is a mid-cycle update to the OnePlus 6, so while the specs have not moved much, you're getting plenty of upgrades. There's a bigger picture, a bigger display, a new baseline of 128GB of storage, and a bigger 3700mAh battery. Most interestingly, there is an optical fingerprint reader, which makes the first US-bound smartphone with this new fingerprint tech.

Speaking of US sales, OnePlus is also making progress on the carrier front. This is the first OnePlus device that will land in brick-and-mortar stores in the US, thanks to a deal with T-Mobile. The phone is also certified for use on Verizon, so you will find it in a Verizon store, you can bring it to 6T and Verizon will activate it.

There is some bad news, though, and that's the removal of the headphone jack. The OnePlus 6This OnePlus 6This OnePlus 6T starts at $ 549 for the 128GB version with 6GB of RAM. The OnePlus 6 started at a lower $ 529, but that was for 64GB, so you can not call it a price increase. In fact, the higher tier of the OnePlus 6T is the same as its predecessor: an 8GB / 128GB config for $ 579 and an 8GB / 256GB version for $ 629.

OnePlus' $ 549 price point provides a comparison of flagship phones with similar specs a lot of buffer room. And after spending some time exploring its interesting new features, it's hard to argue with the value proposition of the OnePlus 6T.

Design and build quality

Groupthink is strong in the Android hardware ecosystem, with seemingly everyone building phones with edge-to-edge notched displays, all-glass bodies, and scooping out the headphone jack. If we -have to go down this design path, then the OnePlus 6T is the best execution of the idea so far.

The 6T sports a new "teardrop" notch that cutouts the space cutout, and the curves on the side look great. The center of the teardrop houses the 16MP front camera, and the brightness and proximity sensors are hiding in the left corner of the teardrop. Above the camera is an earpiece speaker that is integrated into the edge of the glass. All in all, it's a very compact setup that is much smaller than the big-notch phones that just seem to emulate the iPhone X.

If there's any tradeoff you're making here, it's the lack of stereo speakers. There's just one bottom-firing speaker on the 6T, and the top earpiece does not double-duty as a media speaker. The bottom speaker is loud enough, so I think the compactness tradeoff is worth it. Phone speakers never sound good enough to play music through anyway, so the bleeps and bloops of your notifications and ringtones, or the occasional quick YouTube video, the 6T's single speaker is fine. The earpiece is loud enough, too.

With the tiny notch and just the smallest, the 6T offers a bigger 6.41-inch AMOLED display in the same size body as the OnePlus 6. The display looks great, without any of the grainy blemishes that have plagued some OLED panels in the past. If you're picky about your color, you can pick from several color presets or set your own white point. The notch is small enough to allow for the status of four icons on the right. If you're up to date, you've got a handy "icon manager" for the status bar, so you can hide the status icons you do not care about.

You would hope to get better every year, but with the OnePlus 6, OnePlus threw in a big downgrade with a move from a metal back to a glass one. Normally this would come with the benefit of wireless charging, but that was not added to the OnePlus 6. Things have not changed much here with the OnePlus 6T. The back is still a glass, and there is still no wireless charging to justify the switch to glass.

My "midnight black" version is not just plain, glossy glass. It has a silky semi-gloss finish that does not show fingerprints or collect skin oil, which is better than the usual glass finish. It also seems pretty scratch resistant. The back has this weird property where it often reflects light in an "S" shape across the back. This was apparently on purpose. OnePlus' ad copy says the phone has an 'anti-glare coating and a thin, textured multi-layer film that creates the unique S shape.' It looks fine.

With no fingerprint reader on the back, there's a lot going on. You get the usual dual-camera setup, an LED flash, and an engraving for the OnePlus logo and "Designed by OnePlus" text at the bottom. The sides are metal, and in addition to the usual volume, power, and USB-C port, OnePlus' trademark three-position mute switch returns.

Listing image by Ron Amadeo