Flagship killer: OnePlus 6T is next-gen in every sense

A day after the global launch of its latest flagship smartphone, the OnePlus 6T, in New York City, the Chinese brand OnePlus unveiled the much-awaited handset in India at a packed event in Delhi’s Indira Gandhi Sports Complex on 30 October. The new phone is being seen by tech experts worldwide as OnePlus’ direct challenge to veterans like Apple and Samsung who have dominated the market for decades.

There are plenty of features in the OnePlus 6T that make it a frontrunner among the current range of smartphones available in the market. With its 6.41-inch optic AMOLED display and minimum bezel, the One Plus 6T is a bigger phone than its predecessor. It also sports a sleek water-drop notch, which looks great and less intrusive than the notches on other phones.

Another update in the new handset is the in-display fingerprint sensor, which unlocks the phone in a lightning quick 0.34 seconds. The 6T is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 6, and is available in two variants—midnight black and mirror black.

Besides the design upgrades, the phone’s processing unit has also been overhauled. It is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 and has up to 8GM of RAM at its disposal. The battery, too, has been given a boost, from the previous version’s 3,300mAh to 3,700mAh. But there’s still no wireless charging and this is one area where OnePlus lags behind its competitors.

The engineers at OnePlus, however, are certainly breaking new ground when it comes to making superfast smartphones and keeping them affordable. In India, the 6T has been priced at Rs 37,999 onwards, which is a fraction of what the latest iPhones sell for.

If the price is where the 6T differs from the new range of iPhones, in one department it has come to resemble Apple’s pricey handsets quite closely. Yes, we are talking here of the headphones jack, which is missing from the new 6T. The designers say that the headphone jack was done away with to create more space for the display. But it also creates scope for selling some add-on accessories with the phone. OnePlus has just launched the C-type bullet earphones, priced at Rs 1,490.

Another feature that the brand has paid special attention to is the camera quality. While the OnePlus 6, with its 16+20MP cameras, had a lot to offer on the optics front, the 6T takes it one step further. The “Nightscape” feature in the new phone captures better images in low light. There’s also the “Studio Lighting” feature in the 6T, which auto adjusts lighting according to the surroundings. And to top it all, the 6T comes equipped with Google Lens.

Speaking at the Delhi launch, Carl Pei, Co-Founder, OnePlus, spoke about his business plans in India. “Looking ahead at the roadmap of India, we are excited. I would like to announce three of our future initiatives for India. First, we will be setting up our R&D centre in Hyderabad to be closer to our Indian community as well as our networking partners here. It will help us drive our product innovations as well as improve localisation for this market. Second, our experience stores are well received by the community, so we will be bringing such stores in Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi and Pune in the months ahead. Finally, we want to keep making our products more and more available and that is why we are partnering with Reliance Digital. Starting next week, all OnePlus products will be available at Reliance Digital.”

The OnePlus 6T is available in three variants—6/128 GB, 8/128 GB and 8/256 GB, priced at Rs 37,999, Rs 41,999 and Rs 45,999 respectively.