Thinking About the OnePlus 6T (Premium)

I referred to the OnePlus 6T as an "S year"-type release when it was launched Monday in New York. But the firm's T-branded releases are more correctly identified as a sideways shift than an upgrade. And I'm starting to doubt the need for this kind of release.

Put another way, the OnePlus strategy mirrors that of Windows 10, with which we're provided with two upgrades a year instead of the industry norm of half that. And as with Microsoft's software, this release cadence may be doing more harm than good.

This is especially true when you consider that many of the "improvements" in the OnePlus 6T, when compared to the feature set of its predecessor, are really just different choices, a different way of doing things. And that many users might prefer the older phone to the newer one.

To understand what I mean, consider what hasn't changed between the OnePlus 6 and 6T.

The basic form factor is the same. The 6T's dimensions are 157.5 x 74.8 x 8.2 mm, and it weighs 6.5 ounces. The 6 lands at a nearly identical 155.7 x 75.4 x 7.75 mm and weighs 6.2 ounces. Even the launch colors---Mirror Black and Midnight Black---are the same. (OnePlus adds color choices over time.) As is the glass covering the entire body, which is 2.5D Corning Gorilla Glass 6.

The internals---the processor, the RAM, and the storage---are literally the same. Both are powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 with Adreno 630 graphics, 6 or 8 GB of LPDDR4X RAM, and 128 GB or 256 GB of UFS 2.1 2-LANE storage. (OK, the 6 could be had with 64 GB as well.)

The camera system? Identical from a hardware perspective, and whatever minor software changes are coming to the 6T will be ported to the 6. Because, again, they are the same. The sensors---a 16 MP Sony IMX 519 and a 20 MP Sony IMX 376K on the back and a 16 MP Sony IMX 371 on the front---are identical.

Connectivity is identical: Both support up to DL CAT16/ UL CAT13 LTE at 1 Gbps/150 Mbps (depending on carrier). Both have 2x2 MIMO, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac with both 2.4G and 5G support. Both provide Bluetooth 5.0 (with aptX and aptX HD support) and both are NFC-enabled.

When you look at what's different, you see a few major changes---most of which are debatable trade-offs---and a few minor changes.

The biggest visual change, I think, is the new and very small teardrop notch. In this age of the stupid-big notch---cough, Pixel 3 XL---shrinking the notch should be laudable. But the notch in the OnePlus 6 was non-objectionable. It's half the width of the notch in the iPhone X-series phones. And half as tall as the one on the ugly Pixel 3 XL.

But it's what we lost thanks to this smaller notch that bothers me. The notification LED, a hallmark of all previous OnePlus handsets, is gone. And because there's no upper forehead or larger notch, OnePlus was unable to add a second speaker. So the OnePlus 6T remains the only 2018 flagship to ship with a single mono speaker. Folks, that is unacceptable.

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