What we hope to see in 2022

OnePlus may have skipped the OnePlus 9T in 2021, but it certainly won’t skip its 2022 flagship series. Unless the company changes its formula, we fully expect these phones to land as the OnePlus 10 and OnePlus 10 Pro sometime in the first or second quarter.

Outside of software news, though, we don’t know much else. In this article, we’re going to tell you all about what we hope to see most from the OnePlus 10 series. To be clear, these are not leaks or rumors (of which we’ve seen a few already) — this is merely a wishlist of features we hope to see in the new line. As soon as more solid OnePlus 10 leaks start rolling in properly we’ll be adding them all right here.

Be sure to head to the bottom of the article and fill out our poll to let us know which of these features you hope for the most!

With the OnePlus 9 Pro, we finally saw OnePlus shed its reputation for offering less-than-stellar camera systems. Sure, the vanilla OnePlus 9‘s system wasn’t anything to write home about, but the top-end hardware and software of the OnePlus 9 Pro made it one of the best camera phones of the year.

Honestly, all OnePlus needs to do now is to not muck it all up with the OnePlus 10 series. The formula it has now works. By that, we mean the wide, ultra-wide, telephoto, and monochrome sensors on the OnePlus 9 Pro and that same setup (minus the telephoto) on the OnePlus 9.

See also: Our OnePlus 9 series buyer’s guide

Granted, we would love to see OnePlus ditch the monochrome sensor and instead invest more resources into improving the ultra-wide and telephoto experiences. In fact, at least one rumor suggests this could be a possibility. We’d also love to see a telephoto lens of some kind on the vanilla OnePlus 10. However, something tells us this won’t come to be. The best we can hope for is for the company to not drastically alter its new approach.

We also hope to see some more development from the Hasselblad partnership. The color accuracy of the OnePlus 9 series was pretty great thanks to Hasselblad software tweaks, but we want to see more software tweaks — and we also hope Hasselblad will put its stamp on the hardware somehow, too.

Better battery life

The battery life on the OnePlus 9 series isn’t terrible. However, it’s not great, either. This is pretty interesting when you consider OnePlus has in the past had a pretty solid reputation when it comes to battery life. We’re not sure what happened in 2021, but battery life just isn’t up to snuff.

With the OnePlus 10 series, we hope the company can rectify this problem. It might involve chipset throttling (more on that in a bit) or it simply might involve putting bigger batteries in the phones. Whatever the case, flagships such as these shouldn’t suffer from poor battery life.

Related: The Android phones with the best battery life

Ultimately, though, putting in bigger batteries might be the only real solution. The Google Pixel 6 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, for example, have batteries that are significantly bigger than the one in the OnePlus 9 Pro. The 4,500mAh battery in the OnePlus 9, however, should likely continue to be adequate in the OnePlus 10.

Speaking of battery life…

Give us a charger in the box

Apple started the new trend of not including chargers with your smartphone purchase in 2020, with the launch of the iPhone 12 series. Since then, Samsung and Google have followed suit, but OnePlus hasn’t buckled… yet.

We can only hope OnePlus doesn’t succumb to the trend in 2022 with the OnePlus 10 series if it sticks with its Warp Charge standards. We expect the phones to offer the 65W charging speeds (or better) of the OnePlus 9 series via its proprietary setup. If your phone supports charging speeds that fast but you need to specifically buy a OnePlus-made charger separately to see them, that’s just not cool.

However, OnePlus hasn’t met an industry trend it didn’t eventually adopt. Notched displays and the removal of the headphone jack both come to mind in this regard. Taking that into account, it might seem inevitable OnePlus would eventually ditch the in-box charger. We just hope it holds out as long as possible while it continues to offer speeds that open charging standards aren’t capable of hitting.

Let’s get some stronger glass

Despite initially promising a $969 model of the OnePlus 9 Pro, it later went back on that decision, leaving US buyers with only a $1,069 phone — not the highest in the flagship sphere, but still a large enough sum to leave a dent in your wallet. Yet, even with that price, the front and back of the phone are composed of Gorilla Glass 5.

The back can be Gorilla Glass 5 if needed as a cost-saving measure, but the front of the OnePlus 10 and 10 Pro at least needs to be Victus. Ideally, though, OnePlus will match the (almost $200 cheaper) Pixel 6 Pro and offer Victus on both sides.

What’s so crazy about this is that the OnePlus 7 Pro also had Gorilla Glass 5 on the front and back. That 2019 phone started at just $669! By the time the OnePlus 10 series lands, it will have been close to three years since we saw the OnePlus 7 Pro, with multiple price jumps since. It will most definitely be time to update the glass.

A controller for throttling

Of all the items on this list, this one is the most likely to materialize. OnePlus even promised it would roll out a throttling controller with Oxygen OS 12. However, we’ve yet to see the controller materialize and there’s no saying what could happen with the “hybrid OS” we expect to see in 2022.

For a little background, OnePlus found itself in hot water in 2021 when it came to light that Oxygen OS purposefully throttles the Snapdragon 888 chipset within the OnePlus 9 series. Essentially, OnePlus considers the Snapdragon 888 to be too powerful for simple tasks such as sending out a tweet. In those situations, Oxygen OS tones down the chip’s output to save on battery life.

Related: Here are the best Snapdragon 888 phones you can buy

This sounds like a good idea on paper, but OnePlus didn’t let anyone know this was happening and also didn’t give users any way to control it. With the OnePlus 10 series, the phones should have the ability to control this throttling out-of-the-box. That way, if users don’t want the throttling to happen, they can shut it off.

Granted, the Snapdragon 898 (as we expect it to be called) could be more power-efficient compared to the Snapdragon 888. If so, it’s possible no throttling would be necessary. However, if OnePlus is going to be doing any kind of throttling on the OnePlus 10 series, it had better give users total control over that throttling.

We need more storage

This is the third year in a row I’ve written one of these “what we hope to see” articles for the next OnePlus flagships. Every year, I’ve had this hope on the list and every year, OnePlus has disappointed me.

Maybe 2022 will be the big one? OnePlus has never offered a phone with an internal storage capacity higher than 256GB. However, Apple, Samsung, and even Google are now offering flagship phones with 512GB options, so maybe OnePlus will finally buckle under the pressure?

Related: How to free up storage space on Android

Now, there are lots of folks out there who don’t need 512GB of internal storage and will find this a silly request. If all you use your phone for is browsing social media and snapping a few pics here and there, 128GB is plenty. However, some people shoot a lot of videos. With the 8K shooting mode of the OnePlus 9 Pro (that will almost certainly carry over to the OnePlus 10 Pro), that 128GB can fill up fast. Even 256GB might not be enough, especially if you’re also downloading Netflix videos, music playlists, high-end mobile games, and more data-heavy media.

OnePlus has held out on this for far too long. If it wants to play in the big leagues with Apple, Samsung, etc., it needs to match what those big players offer, and they offer 512GB options. Apple even has 1TB options for the iPhone 13 Pro series! Get on the ball, OnePlus.

OnePlus 10 and OnePlus 10 Pro features: What do you hope for most?

Now’s your chance to let us know what you hope to see most from the OnePlus 10 and OnePlus 10 Pro. Hit up our poll below to vote on the item you think is most essential to the success of OnePlus’ next flagships.

If you have something else in mind you’d love to see, feel free to hit up the comments below and let us know!

That’s what we hope to see from the OnePlus 10 and OnePlus 10 Pro! Be sure to stay tuned for the inevitable rumors and leaks for this upcoming flagship phone.