Hands On with the OnePlus N10

Specs

✓ 6GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage

✓ Qualcomm Snapdragon 690

✓ 4,300 mAh battery

✓ OxygenOS on Android 10

✓ 6.49-inch FHD+ IPS LCD display with 405 ppi

✓ Face Unlock and rear-mounted fingerprint sensor

✓ 30W fast charing

✓ Corning Gorilla Glass 3

✓ Quad camera (64 MP f/1.79 main, 8 MP f/2.25 utra wide, 2 MP f/2.4 macro, 2 MP f/2.4 monochrome)

✓ 16MP f/2.05 selfie camera

Retail Price: $299.99

Buy on OnePlus

A New Beginning

OnePlus has championed an entire brand image based off of one simple consumer aspect that dictates just about everything buyers care about: money. Less money to be exact. For years, OnePlus was the “Flagship Killer” and they rightfully competed for that title year in and year out. That is until they graduated into the premium pricing segment with the OnePlus 8. In order to try to capture that segment of the market again, OnePlus has incorporated this new N-line of phones. Here is the N10 5G, which OnePlus sells on T-Mobile for $299.99.

Initial Thoughts

Let’s take a look and see if the N10 can capture some of that “Flagship Killer” magic. Unlike past OnePlus devices with lower price tags, there is an immediate compromise with the processor on the N10. Instead of the highest Qualcomm chipset, the N10 is by all means a traditional mid-ranged device using a Snapdragon 690 5G chip. It’s backed by 6 GB of Ram and 128 GB of storage with micro SD card support. Those are fair specs for a phone that retails for $300. The display we’ll be looking at is 6.49 inches of 1080 x 2400 pixels. That’s an IPS panel good for 406 ppi. It also has a 90 hz refresh rate which isn’t as common in this price range as on the more premium segments.

So when you put that all together, I’d say it isn’t a disappointing package at all, but much in line with what you could get from competitors within this price ballpark. Don’t go into this expecting “Flagship Killer” specs of old for rock bottom prices. With that said, I’m expecting a pretty solid user experience thanks to OnePlus’ OxygenOS software mapping over Android 10. It’s one version behind, but OxygenOS is as clean of an Android experience as you’ll be able to get not from Google directly.

Rounding up the features, the N10 uses USB Type-C 2.0 to charge and transfer data. That’s always great to see on a $300 phone. There’s a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner that is familiar to many Android users. Also on the back of the phone are a whopping four camera sensors. The big one is a 65 MP f/1.8 wide sensor, followed by an 8 MP f/2.3 ultrawide, a 2 MP f/2.4 for depth and a 2 MP f/2.4 macro. While more doesn’t necessarily mean better, it is impressive to see four sensors on a budget phone. We’ll let you know in our full review how the cameras on this phone perform.

Finally, the battery powering all of this up is a 4,300 mAh one that supports 30W fast charging. The numbers look good, but we’ll have to rely on everyday use to determine if this is a battery champion. All in all, from a freshly out of the box point of view, the N10 5G seems to be a solid entry way into the 5G network. Hopefully the clean Android experience of OnePlus phones and the generous sized battery can make this phone a OnePlus consumer champ once again.

---

---