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OnePlus has undergone a lot of change since we first met the brand as a plucky upstart all those years ago. Having been partially folded into sister company Oppo over the past 18 months or so, the phones that OnePlus is now releasing exist in a very different context to the company’s early handsets and the new OnePlus 10 Pro embodies this shift perfectly.
While an initial January release in China gave us our first taste of what a OnePlus flagship in 2022 looks like, the phone’s more recent expansion into new markets globally highlights the influence of the brand’s passionate fandom, while reflecting the change that the company is going through internally, all at once.
With no standard OnePlus 10 (and only rumours of a OnePlus 10 Ultra), the 10 Pro is currently the only top-tier OnePlus purpose-built to take on rivals from Samsung, Apple and beyond. But does it deliver?
DESIGN
For all the technical prowess, performance and innovation last year’s OnePlus 9 Pro touted, it came packaged in an uncharacteristically bland design for the brand. This year, OnePlus’s design team has veered in a different direction, with the 10 Pro’s form punctuated by a bold new camera housing that’s impossible to miss and unlike anything the company’s served up to date.
In a design that takes inspiration from entries like Samsung’s Galaxy S21 Ultra, the 10 Pro’s camera system is the first thing your eyes are drawn to; a sizeable, bold arrangement that curves in from the phone’s edge and extends past the mid-point of its back, housing four spaced out circular elements (consisting of three camera sensors and a dual-LED ring-shaped flash).
The sensors (and flash) are set within an expansive mirror-polished metal surround that, although blending geometrically, offers up a contrasting appearance that’s (perhaps intentionally) at odds with the rest of the phone’s finish and colour palette. It’s a design choice that helps the 10 Pro stand out against the competition while also implying the significance of the phone’s upgraded
