The 10R is the latest phone in the OnePlus R-series mid-range lineup. China calls the 10R the OnePlus Ace, which is essentially a Realme GT Neo 3 with a few minor differences.
A MediaTek Dimensity 8100 processor powers the OnePlus 10R. This phone has a large 120Hz display and triple cameras on the back. The device has two variants: a 5000mAh battery and 80W charger, and a 4500mAh battery, and a 150W charger.
At the moment, the OnePlus 10R is only available in India. OnePlus 10R starts at a price of $509, which is slightly less than the OnePlus 9RT. It’ll be interesting to see how the OnePlus 10R will perform in this price bracket, so we’ll just have to wait and see how it fares.
Unboxing the OnePlus 10R
OnePlus 10R comes in a standard package. A USB-C cable and a silicone case are also included. Depending on the variant you choose, either an 80W or 160W charger will be provided.
Design
The OnePlus 10R’s design is boxy and squared off. All sides are flat, and the front and back meet at right angles, giving it a slab-like appearance.
This phone has a large camera bump on the back with three lenses. It has a striped pattern along with the camera bump, and it continues down the back. On the right side of the phone, you will find the power button, and the left side will have the volume buttons. Moreover, the buttons are too flush with the surface, and it makes them hard to press.
OnePlus’ first mainline phone, since the OnePlus 2, lacks the three-position alert slider, making it even more obvious that it is not a product of the company. The back and sides of the phone are made of plastic, though the fit and finish are quite nice. With Corning Gorilla Glass 5, the front features flat edges and a cutout in the center for the camera. Forest Green and Sierra Black are the two colors available for the OnePlus 10R. Standard models with 80W chargers come in both colors; however, the endurance models come in only black.
Although relatively light, the phone feels quite chunky and large in hand. It is not only less ergonomic to hold curved edges than flat ones, but they also make the phone appear larger than it actually is. It is much easier to pick up from a desk because it has much more surface area to grab onto. Despite being mostly plastic, it feels quite nice to hold, and the build quality is decent for a phone of its class. The device does not have an ingress protection rating, although a rubber gasket protects the SIM tray.
Display
The OnePlus 10R has an AMOLED display with a resolution of 2412×1080 pixels. With a 120Hz refresh rate and 10-bit color, it offers dynamic refresh. The software allows for increased polling rates during gaming on a touchscreen up to 720Hz. Colors can be adjusted in the display settings. You have three options: Vivid, Natural, and Professional. With each preset, the white balance can also be manually adjusted. If you want the most accurate colors, then you should set the phone to Natural mode, which will allow the phone to manage the colors based on the content.
The display supports a 120Hz dynamic refresh rate. Displays set to a High refresh rate can cycle between 120Hz, 90Hz, and 60Hz. The adjustments are made based on user activity, display content, and whitelisted apps.
If you interact with the display actively, the refresh rate is set to its maximum most of the time, but eventually drops when you stop interacting. You may also notice a 60Hz display when watching videos or looking at maps. In addition, a few apps and most games are locked to 60Hz, such as YouTube, Google Maps, and most games.
Heuristics for measuring refresh rate are clumsy and poorly designed on OnePlus. To determine what refresh rate to use, the OS checks what percentage of the display is occupied by video. The display can fluctuate from 60Hz to 120Hz on the fly, so apps such as Instagram, which combines still images and videos, can make the display fluctuate rapidly as you scroll through your timeline.
In addition, it supports HDR10+ video. HDR performance was poor on the OnePlus 10R; the white point switched to a cool and inaccurate value, colors would become oversaturated, and the image was oversharpened. It is similar to watching a television calibrated by a salesperson at an electronics store.
It is still quite a good display on the OnePlus 10R, despite these niggles. As all of the issues are software-related, they can be fixed if they receive enough care and attention.
Camera
A triple-camera system is added to the back of the OnePlus 10R, and a single camera is added to the front. A 50-megapixel Sony IMX766 quad-Bayer wide-angle camera, an 8-megapixel Sony IMX355 ultra-wide-angle camera, as well as a 2-megapixel GalaxyCore GC02M1 macro camera make up the back camera system. There is a 16MP Samsung S5K3P9SP quad-Bayer camera on the front of the device.
Most Oppo and Realme phones have the same camera application. Hasselblad’s brand is obviously not here, and many features are stripped out, but the basics remain intact.
Image Quality
It has a decent camera with a decent resolution and good detail. Its white balance is inconsistently off, producing images that are overly warm. The dynamic range of the camera was also less than ideal, as the shadows were underexposed.
OnePlus 10R images are noticeably worse than those of the OnePlus 10 Pro and even the previous generation OnePlus 9RT. In terms of color reproduction and dynamic range, both of the other phones outperform the 10R.
In most cases, the ultra-wide camera has a better white balance than the standard camera. Due to the low-resolution sensor and lack of autofocus, the image quality is significantly worse, with colors occasionally looking washed out, not to mention the poor level of detail.
With the 2MP macro camera, we’ve hit rock bottom. The quality is shocking, with desaturated colors, heavy distortion, and little detail. Due to its fixed shooting distance and lack of autofocus, it is difficult to shoot with this camera, which means that you have to physically move into the sweet spot, where it never really looks sharp, and there is no way to predict whether you will get a bad photo or not.
Things actually get worse in low light, to the surprise of absolutely no one. If there is enough light, you can use the main camera’s images, but they are quite soft. As is usual with OnePlus, enabling night mode leads to overcooked images, which result in a brighter but deeply unnatural image.
Sadly, it’s not possible to save the images from the ultra-wide camera. The images look terrible when the night mode is off and even worse when it is on.
With its primary camera, the OnePlus 10R is capable of shooting 720p, 1080p, and 4K video at 30fps and 60fps, respectively. Nevertheless, 4K footage does not have image stabilization, making it nearly impossible to use since it looks like you are falling while walking.
Compared to the 4K footage, the 1080p video is much more detailed in that regard but still lacks the clarity of the 4K footage.
Video recorded by the ultra-wide camera can only be 1080p at 30fps. Because it supports EIS, the footage appears stable but lacks dynamic range and is too soft.
The OnePlus 10R’s camera generally disappoints. Even though the previous version of the OnePlus 9RT wasn’t so great in this department, it is still better than the current version. In addition, we neglected to mention the OnePlus 10R’s front camera. It is also quite poor.
Software
The OnePlus 10R runs OxygenOS 12.1 on top of Android 12. Essentially, OxygenOS 12.1 is ColorOS 12 with a few tweaks. Once you look beyond surface-level design changes, the operating system looks exactly the same as the one on OnePlus and Realme phones.
UIs from both platforms have been muddled up in a way that looks like a car crash. It is not clear why some design elements have been carried over from OxygenOS 11, and others have been modified from ColorOS.
The notification toggles on OxygenOS 11, for example, are circular, but the launcher, which is based on ColorOS, uses square icons, matching the notification toggles on ColorOS 11. The font is unusually heavy on all the icon labels, causing the text to always run into the next line. OnePlus Sans is also the default font, even if Roboto is used for the rest of the UI.
Inconsistencies are also being spotted in the latest versions of ColorOS, but then again, ColorOS was never particularly attractive. When OxygenOS was merged with ColorOS, it lost its minimal and consistent aesthetic.
In line with other OnePlus phones, the 10R comes with an oversized default UI scaling, which reduces the space for actual content. The display setting must almost always be down one notch for people with good vision, but some UI elements appear misplaced, such as the navigation buttons that are too small and spread out too far.
In talking about navigation buttons, OxygenOS 11 has a cool feature where you can assign shortcuts to them when you double-tap them or press and hold them. This was discarded fast after ColorOS was merged with the OS.
There was also the Hidden Space feature in the app drawer, which allowed you to hide icons or just not clutter the main app drawer with unnecessary icons. Another overly complicated password-protected screen was also replaced in favor of one that was manually configured.
Long-term users are always irked by little things like these and reconsider their purchase decision due to these irritations. Instead of making OxygenOS more stable while keeping the features that its users liked, OnePlus failed on both counts.
According to OnePlus, OxygenOS 13 will be made to be more like the stock Android design, which is what most people expect of it. It will be interesting to see what OxygenOS 13 looks like.
Performance
A MediaTek Dimensity 8100-MAX chip is used on the OnePlus 10R, a chip that is exclusive to OnePlus. The company could not provide a straight answer to what makes the MAX version of the Dimensity 8100 different from the standard one. There are two options for storage: 128GB or 256GB UFS 3.1. It comes with either 8GB or 12GB of RAM.
Charging
The OnePlus 10R is available in two versions in India. A 5000mAh battery is included in the standard version, along with an 80W charger. Batteries come with a 4500mAh capacity and a 160W charger for endurance editions.
Even though the Endurance edition ships with a 160W charger, the phone itself can only charge up to 150W. For safety reasons, OnePlus says the phone has a smaller 4500mAh battery. A 4500mAh battery provides the best performance and safety features, according to their testing.
Loudspeaker
The OnePlus 10R comes with a stereo speaker system. The speakers are loud but don’t sound great. These speakers sound a little tinny and congested in higher frequencies, making them sound indistinct and muddy when compared to the OnePlus 10 Pro. In addition, the bottom speaker sounds significantly louder than the top speaker.
For the first time, Dolby Atmos audio processing is not included in the OnePlus 10R. This phone instead features Dirac audio, which is usually found on Nord phones. With Dirac, you can make simple virtualizations of sound, but you cannot decode Atmos codecs.
Conclusion
Generally speaking, the OnePlus 10R is a competent smartphone. Fast charging, a good display, and an attractive design make this phone very appealing.
However, the camera quality is downgraded even from the previous model. Aesthetically and functionally, OnePlus’ software continues to be a mess. There are a few issues with the software, so it is possible they can be fixed, but this should not influence your decision to purchase the phone.
I think the OnePlus 10R can be a good buy if OnePlus can get its software act together. If you prefer the OnePlus, look at the OnePlus 9RT or the Xiaomi 11T Pro 5G.
