Four months after the launch of the OnePlus 10 Pro, OnePlus is back with a new device, the OnePlus 10T. After we beat up the OnePlus 10 earlier this year for having a high price, the OnePlus 10T looks like a decent correction: It's $649, $250 cheaper than the $899 OnePlus 10 Pro.

Let's look for the missing $250 in the spec sheet: The OnePlus 10T is slightly faster than the more expensive OnePlus 10 Pro, thanks to the Snapdragon 8+ Gen1 SoC. This has a minor 10 percent faster MHz boost over the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and turns in benchmark scores right around that amount. That 10 percent speed boost finally brings Qualcomm's 2022 CPU performance back up to the level of its 2021 chip—previously it was a bit slower.

The phone still has 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage (and a new 16GB/256GB tier for $100 more). There's still an in-screen fingerprint reader and a USB-C port. The battery is 4 percent smaller at 4800 mAh instead of 5000 mAh, and the wireless charging is gone. The phone doesn't support Wi-Fi 6E (just Wi-Fi 6), and it sounds like the cameras are all a tier lower, with the phone now sporting a 50 MP Sony IMX776, and then a just-for-fun 8 MP ultrawide and a 2 MP macro camera.

The 10T has a 6.7-inch, 120 Hz, 2412×1080 OLED display with a dynamic refresh rate that switches between 120, 90, and 60 Hz, depending on the content. The more expensive 10 Pro has a higher resolution, 3216×1440, and a more dynamic refresh rate that can scale all the way down to 1 Hz for more power savings. For the price, I'll take both of these trade-offs. We've long said phone displays have too many pixels, and the extra resolution is invisible in real life. The 10T display is still 394 ppi, and that's totally fine.

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I actually prefer the cheaper 10T display over the OnePlus 10, just because it's flat. Most flagships from Samsung, OnePlus, and Google use a display that is curved along the long edges. Years ago it was technically impressive to be able to bend an OLED display, but in real life, these displays only seem to have negatives. They distort any video or text along the edges of the phone, and they lead to more accidental screen touches. There is no benefit at all to curving the screen. OnePlus probably views it as some kind of cost-cutting measure, but in reality, the flat screen is a big improvement.

Another cost-cutting measure: OnePlus' three-position alert switch is missing from the OnePlus 10T. Previous OnePlus phones have had a physical switch on the side that would change between sound-on, vibrate-only, or no-sound/no-vibrate. OnePlus sent over a seven-paragraph PDF titled "Statement on No Alert Slider," as if the company thought it would be responding to some massive controversy. The closing paragraph even promises: "While the OnePlus 10T does not have the alert slider, this does not mean it will be removed from all future OnePlus devices." I really couldn't care less about its removal and wouldn't have noticed if OnePlus didn't say anything. Most phones don't have an alert switch because the volume keys work fine!