While the OnePlus 10 Pro got its global launch back in March, it landed alone, with no vanilla OnePlus 10 in sight.
This led us to believe there might not be a standard OnePlus 10 - something which was seemingly confirmed by OnePlus itself, as the company said there would be no other models in the 10 range.
And yet, since then rumors of a OnePlus 10 have persisted, and have even arrived from quite credible sources, so it seems there might be a OnePlus 10 after all.
Given that OnePlus has said there won't be, we can't be at all certain of this, so we'd take this phone's very existence with a pinch of salt, but it might be in the works, and landing later this year.
Below then, we'll run you through all the rumors of this phone that might or might not exist.
OnePlus 10: cut to the chase
- What is it? A rumored cheaper alternative to the OnePlus 10 Pro
- When is it out? Probably the second half of 2022, if it ever lands at all
- How much will it cost? Likely upwards of $729 / £629
OnePlus 10 release date and price
The only release date rumor so far points to the OnePlus 10 landing in the second half of 2022, which isn't very specific.
It's possible though that it could land around September or October, in the slot where we'd historically have seen a 'T' model. Then again, that's a long way on from the Pro model's launch, which would seem strange.
However, while that could be when we'll see this phone in the US and the UK, the company doesn't sell its phones in Australia, so don't expect a OnePlus 10 release there.
With regards to price, the OnePlus 9 started at $729 / £629 (about AU$940) for the lowest-spec base model, so we might see a similar starting price for the OnePlus 10.
Of course, the new phone could shift the price up or down a little, but we wouldn't expect a big shift.
Design and display
We haven't seen what the OnePlus 10 will look like yet, but one leak suggests the design of the OnePlus 10 will be pretty similar to how the 9-series equivalents looked, just with some polish here and there. OnePlus phones don't have the most radical designs in the world, so that's no surprise.
That said, we do know what the OnePlus 10 Pro looks like, and the standard OnePlus 10 may well have a similar design. You can see how the OnePlus 10 Pro looks in the two images below.
The design includes a Hassleblad-emblazoned camera module on the rear of the phone, curving out from the aluminum frame.
The 10 Pro comes in black or green and we can see the notification slider next to the camera bump, with the power button just below it on the same side.
As for the screen, one leak points to a 6.7-inch FHD+ AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate. The same source suggests this phone won't have an alert slider.
Camera and battery
One leak has pointed to the OnePlus 10 having a 50MP main camera, a 16MP ultra-wide snapper, and a 2MP macro one, along with a 32MP front-facing camera.
That said, the OnePlus 9 had much the same cameras as the OnePlus 9 Pro, just without the telephoto lens, so the same thing might be true with the OnePlus 10 and 10 Pro, and we know what cameras the latter has.
There's a 48MP main camera, a 50MP ultra-wide one with a 150-degree field-of-view, and an 8MP telephoto one - the last of those being the snapper the OnePlus 10 is least likely to get. The front-facing camera could also be the same based on past form, which would mean a 32MP one.
We'd imagine many of the modes and features would be the same too, including a Fisheye mode, an improved Pro mode, a RAW+ format (which basically has all the editing potential of RAW format paired with OnePlus' computational photography), and Master Style mode, which lets you shoot in various visual styles tuned by pro photographers.
When it comes to the battery, one leak points to a 4,800mAh one, complete with incredibly fast 150W charging. That would actually make it faster at charging than the OnePlus 10 Pro.
Specs and features
The OnePlus 10 Pro uses the top-end Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset, as possibly will the standard OnePlus 10. This is the successor to the Snapdragon 888 and is powering many of 2022's flagship Android handsets.
That said, one leak suggests the OnePlus 10 could oddly be even more powerful, with the phone possibly getting either the upgraded Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 Plus chipset, or a MediaTek Dimensity 9000 - which outperforms the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 in most benchmarks.
This same leak also points to a choice of 8GB or 12GB of RAM, and 128GB or 256GB of storage, along with Android 12.
The phone is also bound to support 5G - that hasn't been confirmed but it's a standard feature in the range.
What we want to see
This wish-list for the OnePlus 10 series is based on what we did and didn't like about the OnePlus 9 series, and what smartphone rivals are doing.
1. A zoom photo renaissance
Some phones come with impressive zoom cameras, like the Mi 11 Ultra with its 48MP 5x zoom camera or the Huawei P50 Pro with its 64MP 3.5x zoomer.
The OnePlus 9 didn't even have a zoom camera, and the Pro's snapper was a relatively measly 8MP 3.3x offering. Sure, that's not terrible, but if you're spending lots of money you'd want a bit more than that.
We'd like to see the OnePlus 10 pack a telephoto camera, even if it's just 12MP or 2x zoom, with the OnePlus 10 Pro packing a periscope snapper with 4x or 5x zoom and a higher-res sensor. Though even that wouldn't help the Pro rival the big dogs, with the S22 Ultra likely to have super-zoom and the Xiaomi 12 possibly having a Pro sibling too, it'd at least be more worthy of its cost.
2. Expandable - or more - storage
The only 'con' that both our OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro reviews had in common was the lack of expandable storage. So if you bought a 128GB smartphone, you can't extend the space with a memory card, and instead need to rely on cloud storage if you want more.
While expandable storage isn't necessary for most users, phone power-users - the type who'd likely buy a Pro phone, for example - might want the extra space for photos, files, or loads of apps.
Alternatively, perhaps the storage space could be improved. The OnePlus 9 phones come with a max option of 256GB, which is a lot, but not much compared to 512GB or 1TB iPhone 13s. Some people just need lots of storage.
3. Faster charging
Both the OnePlus 9 phones have 65W charging, which is very fast compared to your iPhones or Samsung Galaxy devices... but not quite as speed as rivals from companies like Xiaomi or Huawei.
Granted, 65W is faster than most people will need, but some power-users would likely enjoy the ability to juice up a smartphone in even less time. For example, the recent Xiaomi 11T Pro can power up in just 17 minutes.
Perhaps OnePlus could use this kind of super-fast powering on the 10 Pro, or at least find a competitive powering speed to stay in line with the competition.
4. Better colors
If you look at the color options of the OnePlus 9 series, or in fact most devices from the company in general, you'll see the usual gamut: black, white, maybe a light blue. There's nothing really interesting there.
We'd like to see OnePlus follow suit with the iPhones, and get a little bit weird in its colors. Let's see pink. Let's see red. Let's see gold.
Sure, vibrant phones are known to sell pretty poorly compared to boring-colored ones, but in a world where most smartphones look near-identical, brands are going to have to look to color sooner or later in order to stand out.
5. Something to come from this Hasselblad co-operation
In 2021, OnePlus announced that it had partnered with Hasselblad for the 9-series cameras. Lots of phone companies partner with camera brands for their snappers, but it wasn't exactly clear what the Hasselblad partnership would bring for the OnePlus 9.
In the end, it turned out... not much. However OnePlus did suggest that this co-operating would take some time to come to fruition, with the OnePlus 9 series just the first of many handsets to benefit from the collaboration.
Hopefully, with the OnePlus 10 series we'll see the fruits of OnePlus' and Hasselblad's labor. Perhaps we'll see some new camera modes, or bespoke lenses that impress us. Months after the OnePlus 9 launch we saw a few Hasselblad-centric features brought to the phones, and it'd be great to see the OnePlus 10 launch with something like this.
