OnePlus’s phones used to be really easy to understand. Now, you need some kind of decoder to figure out what's new.

Take the new OnePlus 7T(opens in a new tab). Like Apple’s “S” iPhones, OnePlus’s “T" Android(opens in a new tab) phones used to denote an improved version of the previous numbered model.

Naturally, you might think the OnePlus 7T replaces the OnePlus 7 Pro(opens in a new tab) that launched in May. But that’s not the case.

See, while the U.S. only got the OnePlus 7 Pro, there was also a OnePlus 7 released in other regions. Back to the new OnePlus 7T — it’s a successor to the OnePlus 7. But for U.S. customers, it’s technically the replacement to the OnePlus 6T(opens in a new tab). I told you it’s confusing!

So in the U.S., the OnePlus 7 Pro (starts at $669) is still being sold. And now there’s a cheaper OnePlus 7T that costs $70 less, starting at $599. But the OnePlus 7T has many of the more expensive OnePlus 7 Pro’s features, including a 90Hz display, triple-camera system, speedier in-display fingerprint sensor, and faster UFS 3.0 storage.

And as if all of that wasn’t confusing enough, the OnePlus 7T has a slightly faster Qualcomm Snapdragon 855+ chip and ships with Android 10(opens in a new tab). Oof.

Long story short: the OnePlus 7T is a really good smartphone. But it also has the same weakness that’s held all OnePlus phones back: the cameras still lag behind iPhones, Galaxy phones, and Pixels.

At this point new OnePlus phones no longer knock my socks off the way they used to. The OnePlus 7T looks and feels good for a phone made of metal and glass, but so does every other phone made of the same materials. High quality construction is something I expect from all OnePlus phones. Anything less would’ve been disappointing.

I’ve been testing the Glacier Blue, which is a nice change from the usual black, silver, and gold. The OnePlus 7T also comes in Frosted Silver. These colors are fine, but nowhere near as bold and eye-catching as the iridescent finishes Samsung and Huawei are pushing on their flagship phones.

There are a couple of design elements that caught my attention right away. The first is the massive camera bump that houses the triple cameras. It reminds me of the gigantic camera bumps on the Nokia Lumia 1020(opens in a new tab) or Moto Z series(opens in a new tab). I guess I should be grateful the cameras don’t look like a surprised emoji face.

The second is the matte glass. I prefer matte glass over glossy, but I’m now spoiled by the iPhone 11 Pro’s fingerprint-resistant matte glass and the OnePlus 7T's glass just can’t compare.

And third, the “teardrop” notch is smaller than on the OnePlus 6T and 7. OnePlus says it’s precisely 31.46 percent smaller. That’s cool, but unless you're eliminating the notch altogether like OnePlus did with the 7 Pro or rocking a hole punch like Samsung's Galaxy Note 10, I wouldn’t consider it a key selling point.

All of the buttons are reachable — they’re just a little bit lower than on the OnePlus 7 Pro — and tactile. If anything, I feel like the OnePlus 7T’s a teensy bit too tall; it’s a smidge taller than the OnePlus 7 Pro, which is a very large phone.

There’s no headphone jack on the OnePlus 7T (you weren’t hoping for it to come back were you?). There’s still no IP rating for water or dust resistance, though it is splash-proof so using it in the rain should be OK. And there’s still no wireless charging, which OnePlus seems very resistant to, but you do get a Warp 30T charger in the box, which can charge up the OnePlus 7T to about 70 percent in 30 minutes.

The OnePlus 7T’s screen is more than meets the eye. It’s a new 6.55-inch AMOLED display (2,400 x 1080 resolution) with a new 20:9 aspect ratio. Again, a little taller than on other phones, but not as long as Sony’s comical 21:9 Xperia 1 and 10 phones(opens in a new tab).

The “Fluid” AMOLED display’s big trick is, of course, its 90Hz refresh rate borrowed from the OnePlus 7 Pro. With a faster display refresh rate, text still looks great when you’re scrolling on Twitter or Instagram, and Android’s system animations truly glide.

I hate to be a nerd, but a 90Hz display does make other phone screens look like garbage. Most phones have displays with a 60Hz refresh rate and I think, like OLED vs. LCD, most people couldn't care less. However, I’d rather have a 90Hz display on an iPhone 11 Pro or Galaxy Note 10 than increased brightness or contrast.

The OnePlus 7 Pro also has a faster in-display fingerprint reader. It’s still an optical sensor, which is not as secure as an ultrasonic in-display fingerprint reader, but it’s fast and responsive and that’s all I care about. Maybe it’s an illusion, but the sensor feels slightly more responsive than the OnePlus 7 Pro’s. I feel like the OnePlus 7T’s sensor almost never fails, which is a good thing. There’s still face unlock and it works in an instant, too, though it’s not as secure as a fingerprint.

OnePlus also claims the display filters out 40 percent of blue light. You know, the bad light that’s blamed for keeping you up at night while you zombie scroll on Instagram. I can’t say the screen made me any less addicted to staring at the phone.

There’s a pair of stereo speakers (one in the earpiece and one on the bottom). They support Dolby Atmos and they get pretty loud, but also kind of tinny at max volume. 

OnePlus built a reputation for powerful phones and the OnePlus 7T doesn’t hold back. It’s rocking a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855+ chip with 8GB of RAM. In the U.S., the phone only comes with 128GB of storage, but in India and China there’s a 256GB model. Like the OnePlus 7 Pro’s storage, the OnePlus 7T’s storage is UFS 3.0, which means it reads and writes data extremely fast, which then adds to the overall speediness of everything.

Benchmarking the OnePlus 7T with Geekbench 5(opens in a new tab), the phone’s Snapdragon 855+ chip is only marginally faster than the OnePlus 7 Pro(opens in a new tab), which is powered by the Snapdragon 855.

Based on the average of three tests, the OnePlus 7T’s CPU scored 789 on the single-core test and 2,791 on the multi-core test, making it 10 percent and 5 percent faster, respectively, than the OnePlus 7 Pro. And for you geeks out there, the OnePlus 7T’s CPU benchmarked 8 percent faster on single-core and 12 percent faster on multi-core than Samsung’s Galaxy Note 10+(opens in a new tab).

In real world use, the OnePlus 7T is just as snappy and smooth as the OnePlus 7 Pro. I didn’t see any speed advantage with the OnePlus 7T over the OnePlus 7 Pro. In fact, the OnePlus 7 Pro even has the edge sometimes when it comes to reopening apps from their suspended state if you have the model with 12GB of RAM.

Where you might see a bump in performance is for gaming or graphics-reliant apps. The Snapdragon 855+’s Adreno 640 GPU is up to 15 percent faster than the Adreno 460 GPU in the Snapdragon 855 (Qualcomm simply boosted the clock speed).

I’m no serious mobile gamer — I mostly enjoy a couple of races in Asphalt 9 and poke around with Alto’s Odyssey every other day — but if you play PUBG Mobile or Fortnite, you might see games run a little smoother. Of course, if you’re really all in on mobile gaming, you should probably get a gaming phone like Asus’s ROG II(opens in a new tab), which by all accounts seems like a specs monster.

Beyond excellent performance, the OnePlus 7T is one of the first phones to ship with Android 10. While most of Android 10’s features are under-the-hood updates, like redesigned sharing shortcuts and better privacy settings, there’s one that you can’t miss: gestures.

I know Android 8 (Oreo) introduced gestures, but they’re better on Android 10. Wait, did I say better? I meant, completely ripped off from iOS. Android 10 has the same gesture bar at the bottom of the screen as iOS does and swiping works virtually the same: swipe up to open the multitasker, swipe left and right to flip between open apps, and swipe up to return to the home screen. To go back, instead of a back button appearing, you now swipe right from the left side of the display. And to activate the Google Assistant, just swipe towards the center from either of the bottom corners.

Android 10 works well and in true OnePlus fashion, the company’s version of it, OxygenOS 10, has its own unobtrusive settings. There’s all the usual OyxgenOS stuff like the OnePlus shelf left of the main home screen and gaming mode, but there are also a few updates to features introduced with OxygenOS 9.5.2 on the OnePlus 7 Pro.

In addition to “mono” black and white, Reading Mode (my favorite OxygenOS feature) now displays muted colors in a new “chromatic” setting so it’s not entirely grayscale. And Zen Mode, which previously locked your OnePlus phone for 20 minutes, now lets you set it to between 20-60 minutes. Not groundbreaking updates, but nice to have nonetheless.

The OnePlus 7T has a 3,800 mAh battery, which is less than the 4,000 mAh in the OnePlus 7 Pro. OnePlus phones tend to get through a full day with ease and the OnePlus 7T is the same. Even with lots of Slack, Twitter, Feedly, YouTube, Google Maps, Reddit, Gmail, and shooting photos, I always ended the day with at least 15 percent power left.

I still wish OnePlus would get onboard with wireless charging, but the Warp 30T charging with the included charger is really fast at topping off the phone. I can confirm the Warp 30T charger does indeed charge the OnePlus 7T from 0-70 percent battery in about 30 minutes.

The OnePlus 7T's biggest weakness is its cameras. This is not news if you've ever used any OnePlus phones.

On the rear, there's a triple-lens camera system: 48-megapixel main camera (f/1.6) with optical image stabilization (OIS), 12-megapixel 2x telephoto (f/2.2), and 16-megapixel ultra wide (f/2.2) with 117-degree field of view. And on the front, there's a 16-megapixel (f/2.0) camera.

These are OK cameras — the improved telephoto lens takes slightly better images than the OnePlus 7 Pro — but they're hampered by the same shortcoming on other OnePlus phones, which is average image processing.

I like that photos aren't too saturated like on Samsung phones, but contrast could use a boost. They can't top images from the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro(opens in a new tab), though. Pics look fine on the OnePlus 7T's screen, and as I've said a thousand times: on Instagram or Twitter, nobody's pixel peeping.

However, blow up OnePlus 7T shots on a 27-inch iMac and compare them with the best smartphone cameras (iPhone 11 Pro(opens in a new tab), Galaxy Note 10(opens in a new tab), Pixel 3(opens in a new tab), and Huawei P30 Pro(opens in a new tab)) and the details and dynamic range aren't on the same level. Everything is just a touch softer in OnePlus 7T photos than on iPhone or Galaxy.

One new camera the OnePlus 7T has that the OnePlus 7 Pro doesn't is a Super Macro Mode. When turned on, all three rear cameras can focus on subjects at 2.5-8 centimeters to get ultra close-up shots. It works, but you need to hold the phone very, very steady or use a tripod because focusing at distances that close is harder than it sounds.

As you can see in the below photos, it works, but you need to put in the work to hold still. Otherwise you'll end up with a lot of blurry close-ups.

Rather than dumping mostly repetitive camera comparisons, I recommend checking out our iPhone 11 Pro(opens in a new tab), Galaxy Note 10+(opens in a new tab), and OnePlus 7 Pro(opens in a new tab) reviews to get a good sense of how the OnePlus 7T's cameras compare (especially for low-light and nighttime pics) because images are pretty damn similar to the OnePlus 7 Pro.

I will, however, leave a gallery of shots taken in a variety of scenes. And of course, hit me up on Instagram @sourlemons(opens in a new tab) or Twitter @raywongy(opens in a new tab) if you want to go deep on phone photography. I've been really loving the conversations with you guys.

I wondered(opens in a new tab) if OnePlus was moving too fast when it teased the OnePlus 7T on Twitter. But then I was reminded that bringing premium innovations, as soon as they're ready, and pushing prices down so more people can get them is what OnePlus does best.

Less than five months ago, you had to pay at least $670 for the OnePlus 7 Pro(opens in a new tab) to get a 90Hz display and triple-lens camera. Now, you can get it for $600 if you don't mind a small notch and slightly smaller battery.

I realize that saving $70 isn't a whole lot for people like me who are used to paying top dollar for iPhones or Samsung Galaxies. For most people, though, it's money better spent on something else, like wireless headphones.

The OnePlus 7T mostly hits all the right notes. It has quality design, ultra-fast performance, a super smooth display, and a long-lasting battery with ridiculously fast charging. And while the cameras aren't quite flagship level, they're more than good enough.

Ultimately, the OnePlus 7T is all about value — another core tenet of OnePlus — and it does deliver.