3 reasons to buy a OnePlus 10T over a Samsung Galaxy S22 — and 2 not to

Any Android fan will know that Samsung Galaxy devices are among the best in the world, but that’s not to say that they’re the only smartphones worth considering. A handful of the underdogs have become big players, swooping in with incredible alternatives. 

OnePlus is a prime example of that, having released a number of top-quality handsets which have proved to be some of the best phones you could buy over the last few years.

Their recent success seemed to start with the OnePlus 8 Pro and progressed further with the OnePlus 9 Pro, which brings us right up to 2022 with the release of the OnePlus 10 Pro.

Launched at an event in New York on the 3rd August 2022, the OnePlus 10T is the second smartphone in the series, but instead of being an all-around flagship like the 10 Pro, it focuses primarily on performance. 

The OnePlus 10T looks set to be tough competition for the Samsung Galaxy S22 Plus but they’re actually quite different devices. There are a few reasons why you’d buy the OnePlus 10T over the Samsung Galaxy S22, and there are also a couple of reasons why you wouldn’t. 

The OnePlus 10T is all about performance 

While both phones are powerful, the OnePlus 10T is more so. One of the reasons for that is that it’s one of the only phones in the world so far that packs the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor, the very first to have it was the Asus ROG Phone 6 which was launched in early July 2022. 

Alongside the latest CPU, you can buy it with up to 16GB of RAM which is the most OnePlus has ever put in a phone, and it has a pretty advanced cooling system under the hood as well. 

In comparison, the Samsung Galaxy S22 Plus only gets Samsung’s own Exynos 2200 chipset with a maximum of 8GB of RAM so while it will be powerful enough for most, you can’t expect it to knock you sideways with speed.

Ultimately what that means is that the OnePlus 10T should cope with everything and anything you could throw at it without lagging or heating up, which in turn means that it’ll be really good for heavier mobile gaming and for working on the go. The Samsung Galaxy S22 Plus just can’t compete with that, unfortunately.

The OnePlus 10T has lightning-fast charging  

You can charge up the OnePlus 10T from flat to full in less than 20 minutes using the 150W charger that comes with the phone for no extra cost. 

On the flip side, the Samsung Galaxy S22 Plus doesn’t even come with a charger included in the box. If you were to buy your own, you’ll be limited to 45W charging which seems pretty measly in comparison to the OnePlus. 

The OnePlus 10T has really cool always-on display options 

Okay so this might not be a particularly game-changing reason to buy this phone, but it’s a really great feature to have. The OnePlus 10T goes above and beyond when it comes to the always-on display whereas Samsung keeps things pretty simple. 

An always-on display lets you see your notifications, the time and missed calls when the screen is turned off. But the OnePlus 10T makes things a bit more interesting by letting you show your own Bitmoji or insight into your phone usage, but my favourite is the canvas sketch which draws an outline of one of your photos, and you can choose between some really cool colour options for the end result. 

The Samsung Galaxy S22 is better for photography  

Because OnePlus has put so much focus on performance, the 10T did have to make a few sacrifices here and there, and its the camera that has suffered the most, so if you’re a budding photographer then the Samsung Galaxy S22 will be a better fit. 

That’s not say that the OnePlus 10T has a bad camera, it’s still going to give you some decent snaps especially when the lighting is right but the Samsung Galaxy S22 is just better. In the review, we described the S22 Plus camera as being ‘really accomplished in terms of overall clarity, colour reproduction, not to mention ease of use’. You can expect to take some really stunning shots on it at all times of day and night. 

The Samsung Galaxy S22 has better software  

One quite significant reason to buy a Samsung phone over any other is that One UI is one of the best versions of Android there is, the only one that is better is straight Android like you get on the Google Pixel 6. 

What makes it so good is that it’s laid out clearly, it’s intuitive to use and there are rarely any annoying bugs to deal with. You get loads of customisation options as well across the whole system so you can create a uniform look across your home screen, lock screen and apps. 

OnePlus devices run on Oxygen OS which is actually pretty good as well, but personally, I think it’s not quite as good-looking as One UI and you do occasionally come across little quirks in the system like problems with notifications or app crashes. 

If you plan on buying the OnePlus 10T, you can pre-order it now and sales officially kick off on the 25th August 2022. The Samsung Galaxy S22 Plus, on the other hand, is available to buy right now. Take a look at the widgets below to see the best deals on it right now.