Our hands-on experience – OnePlus 8T CyberPunk Edition

The OnePlus 8T CyberPunk Edition is here. The famous flagship killer, OnePlus, has joined forces with the most anticipated gaming title, CyberPunk 2077. We need to mention that CyberPunk 2077, is a much delayed and very awaited title that has been in development for years until now when it was released publicly. It’s an open world, first-person shooter type of title that lets gamers experience very immersive gameplay. Already the One Plus is a very unique smartphone brand. It provides a top tear performance that quickly blasts off any flagship device out there.

Unboxing experience

As expected, for a limited-edition smartphone, the unboxing experience is reasonably lavish. The entire packaging and design completely changed and catered to exhibit the CyberPunk 2077 theme. It comes in an oversized display packaging where the phone box itself is entirely yellow. Or, cyberpunk yellow and a side packet with various stickers themed around different cities in the game. Along with stickers, we have badges as well. Once the back cover is slid open, the phone box can be separated. Once the yellow sleeve is taken off, we are presented with the black box with cyberpunk branding in shimmering yellow. Which gives a sort of 3D effect. We find a map of the entire city (night city) laid out on the inner sleeve. Moving on, after lifting the lid, we are greeted with a pamphlet that holds a sim ejection tool, a certificate of authenticity, and some yellow-colored One Plus stickers. Underneath that, we have the One Plus 8t wrapped in frosted plastic, along with a fast charger, and what’s so depressing is that One Plus has gone so far as to incorporate this yellow-themed fade everywhere. Still, the charging cable is very typically red and white as with any other One Plus smartphone. Overall, the unboxing experience is unique and involving.

Product description

The One Plus 8T cyberpunk edition is pretty much identical to a regular One Plus 8T in terms of physical dimension and design language. This is quite obvious as the primary platform for this exclusive edition is an 8T. Upfront, we a vast 6.5 inches super AMOLED display panel with a screen-to-body ratio of about 87%, which is quite decent. The bezels are close to none. With that tall 20: 9 aspect ratio, it is a very appealing panel for consuming media content. By far, the most attractive aspect of this panel is the higher refresh rate of 120 Hz.

On top of that, we also have the protection of corning gorilla glass 5, and being an OLED panel, it supports an always-on display as well. It’s powered by the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 processor. It’s an octa-core chip. We have 1 dedicated performance core clocked at 2.84 GHz, 3 multi-tasking cores coming in at 2.42 GHz, and 4 dedicated low power cores for daily tasks clocked at a reasonable 1.8 GHz. All this computing power is backed up by an Adreno 650 GPU.

Moreover, with a monstrous 12 GB of RAM, it truly delivers some top tear and buttery smooth performance. It nearly checks all marks in terms of performance and crushes benchmark scores. The soft and high refresh rate OLED panel adds to that performance and makes the experience very immersive. As we all know that hardware is only one side of the picture. Well, to be honest, One Plus nails the other side of the photograph as well. It runs on Android 11 and has an Oxygen OS 11.0.4 skin, which is primarily a version of stock android with almost no blot ware at all. The camera section on this device is pretty strong as well. On the back, we have a quad-camera setup. Unlike the regular One Plus 8T, the camera module on CyberPunk edition extends the phone’s entire width, with 2077 printed under glass casing on one end, which gives it sort of a 3D effect. We appreciate this design both in terms of practicality as well as design aesthetics. A 48 megapixel, wide-open lens with f/1.7 aperture serves as a primary shooter alongside a 16-megapixel ultra-wide lens, a 5-megapixel macro lens for those close-ups, and finally, a 2-megapixel depth sensor to aid in capturing those crisp portraits with blurred backgrounds. It also supports 4k video recording at 60 frames per second. A 16-megapixel wide-angle lens serves as the selfie camera. Overall, the camera performance is pretty decent. Still, a google pixel 5 or an iPhone 12 Pro is a far better option if your prime purpose is extensive smartphone photography. A decently sized 4500 mAH battery pack provides the power for the One Plus 8T. It’s a pretty smart battery pack and optimizes application through a clever battery management system to provide consumers with 1.5 days of battery life on medium to heavy usage.

On top of that, the included 65-watt charger can juice it up to 80% from dead in about 30 minutes. The major design perks are at the back. With a lot going on its back, we have a pretty mixed feeling about it. Some love it, and some think it’s controversial and termed it as too busy. It has around 3 different materials providing 3 different textures on are back of the device. Up top, the glass camera module is followed by a matt glass back that has sort of a marble or granite effect to it. At the very bottom, we have a gloss back with a purple lava design that depicts some sort of alien life form. Accented by yellow borders all around, the back of this device is a true show grabber. Another accessory that is included In the box is a special case. This case is very precisely designed and boosts the lava glass back and camera module while protecting the phone’s back. Overall, we think that this phone is more of an art piece than a smartphone. It delivers the true essence of exclusivity and a premium gadget.

Our verdict

With this smartphone being only available in the Chinese market, the launch numbers are limited. Surprisingly, being sold at the regular price of about $550, it got out of stock right away. So, it’s pretty rare to find now. Under its skin, it’s a basic one plus 8T, which already is a great device that has a killer specification. Being that exclusive and still being launched at the regular price, we highly recommend such a smartphone.

Our Scores

1. Design 9.0/10
2. Unboxing experience 8.5/10
3. Built quality 8.5/10
4. Battery life 8.0/10
5. Price justification 9.0/10