For years, the tagline of phone manufacturer OnePlus has demanded that its customers “never settle” for less than anything but the best. But since earlier this year, customers with its flagship OnePlus 10 Pro model phone have had to settle for an older wireless standard if they had service through AT&T.
Not anymore.
This week, a spokesperson for OnePlus confirmed that the OnePlus 10 Pro model now supports some, if not all, of AT&T’s fifth-generation (5G) wireless network, which promises better connections and speeds compared to its older, fourth-generation (4G LTE) network.
“The OnePlus 10 Pro is now officially certified on AT&T’s 5G network,” the spokesperson for OnePlus confirmed on Monday, adding that its other high-end phone, the OnePlus 10 T, also supports AT&T’s 5G network.
Both phones have worked on T-Mobile and Verizon’s 5G networks since they were introduced, with the OnePlus 10 Pro model unveiled in January. The OnePlus 10 Pro was unveiled in January; the OnePlus 10 T debuted last month.
It isn’t clear why the top-of-the-line OnePlus 5G phones weren’t immediately ready to use on AT&T’s 5G network. The wireless phone company has a complex certification process for 5G-enabled devices; Apple, Samsung and some other manufacturers have managed to get their devices pre-certified before they launch to consumers.
AT&T’s fifth-generation network is consider somewhat behind T-Mobile and Verizon. While phones and other devices are generally available to take advantage of the full scope of T-Mobile and Verizon’s 5G networks, AT&T recently admitted that some devices won’t connect to certain frequencies that the company is rolling out as part of its mid-band 5G network, which offers slightly faster speeds than its older, 4G LTE network and at farther distances.
The unlocked version of the OnePlus 10 Pro comes in two colors — black and green — at a cost of around $780 when purchased on Amazon. The device features a triple-camera array engineered in development with Hasselblad, a Sweden-based image technology company, powered in part by a high-end Sony image processor. The phone sports a 120 Hertz (Hz) OLED display, 8GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage in the base model; for about $100 more, customers can upgrade to 12 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage space.
The OnePlus 10 T loses the Hasselblad certification but keeps many of the same features as the OnePlus 10 Pro, including the triple-camera array, 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage space. Unlike the OnePlus 10 Pro, the OnePlus 10 T also comes with an option to upgrade to 16 GB of RAM. The OnePlus 10 T starts at around $650.
