Overall and Final Verdict
Normally I am taking a look at the latest and greatest hardware and frankly when OnePlus sent over the 6T it still was. But the 6T has now been passed up by the OnePlus 7 and phones like the new Samsung S10. But just because the 6T isn’t the flagship phone anymore doesn’t mean it isn’t a great phone. More importantly, the pricing has dropped as well and I’m really interested in seeing if the 6T is a good value, especially for those of you who prefer to buy their phones outright to keep an older plan or to avoid paying monthly. So today I’ve been checking out the 6T compared with the Samsung S9+ and Samsung Note 9. They both have the same Snapdragon 845 Oct-Core CPU and Adreno 630 GPU so right away I knew performance would be close. But I was surprised to figure out that OnePlus is handling heat better with the 6T and because of that, the 6T outperformed the other two phones in a lot of situations due to not having as much thermal throttling. In the end, any of the three phones are extremely fast but the 6T has that performance edge. That combined with fast read and write performance on the storage makes the 6T feel snappy.
It ended up being the little things that really helped the OnePlus 6T stand out for me. You get a screen protector and a phone case with the phone for free and while I do like to pick out a unique case for my phone not having to rush and get those things the day you buy your phone is really nice and it helps add a little value, saving you from buying a case or screen protector. Then small details in the packaging show that OnePlus is still community focused and has that small company feel while you get the performance and features of the big companies. The edge to edge screen is amazing, there were almost no bezels at all with the exception of the notch for the front-facing camera. The 6T did really well on the cameras as well with a 16MP front-facing camera for those selfie lovers and dual rear cameras for people like me who have replaced their day to day camera use with their phone. The only thing missing to me would be a small optical zoom like both the Note 8 and S9+ had, but even when carrying both I favored the 6T for most situations.
Now OnePlus did drop the headphone jack which was a big bummer for me. I use my headphones when doing lawn work and have multiple higher end pairs of earbuds that I have picked up over the years. I’m eventually just going to have to get a wireless pair but this is an area that Samsung is still impressing me with them continuing to include a headphone jack on their phones. The under glass fingerprint sensor on the 6T was exciting, this was the first phone I had a chance to try that out on. Initially, I wasn’t happy at all with it, OnePlus fingerprint sensors have been extremely fast and the 6T’s sensor wasn’t quick at all. In fact, early on the fingerprint sensor had a lot of trouble working at all. I added my thumb in multiple times and over time it did improve. Once worked out though the performance did improve except outside in bright sunlight. The battery life on the 6T was also a big feature, it having to run home and charge your phone after 8 hours of work is no longer a concern and even if it was charge time wasn’t much longer than fixing and eating dinner.
With the OnePlus 6T’s performance not in question, really the main question is what it is selling for. The Galaxy S9+ that I tested against the 6T has dropped down in price to $599.99 and you can even find the Note 9 for $575. The 6T, on the other hand, can be found for $509 right now. It was cheaper a few weeks ago but even at the $509 price point on Amazon, it isn’t looking like a bad option. Compared directly with the competition it is cheaper and frankly when you compare its price to the new S10 which is $659 or the S10+ which is $784 it is a lot closer to that price range that people can afford to buy outright rather than finance. Now $509 isn’t cheap like past OnePlus phones, but if you are looking for a high-end phone that isn’t going to break the bank like the recently introduced Galaxy S10 the OnePlus 6T is still a great option. With OnePlus only offering the 7 Pro in the US, not the 6T based OnePlus 7 this is still near the top of their product lineup as well. Keep an eye out for deals, this could be a solid phone that isn’t priced like the other flagship phones.
Live Pricing: HERE
