We have seen two Chinese flagship phones coming to India with almost similar specifications and slight difference in camera department. Yes, we are talking about OnePlus 10T 5G introduced yesterday and IQOO 9T 5G which was announced on 2nd August. Both the phones are powered by the latest Octa Core Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 Mobile Paltform and are packed with upto 12GB LPDDR5 RAM with 256GB (UFS 3.1) storage. OnePlus 10T also comes with 16GB RAM but its availability has not been announced.
Both the phones have similar pricings. IQOO 9T is priced at INR 49,999 for 8GB+128GB and INR 54,999 for the 12GB+256GB variant. OnePlus 10T is priced at INR 49,999 for 8GB + 128GB variant, INR 54,999 for the 12GB + 256GB variant and INR 55,999 for the 16GB + 256GB variant. On both the phones instant discount of INR 4000 is available on IQOO 9T and INR 5000 on OnePlus 10T if you wish to purchase via ICCI card. So pricing of both the phones work out to almost same.
Both the phones sport a 6.7 inch(2400 x 1080 pixels) FHD+ AMOLED display with 120 Hz refresh rate with HDR10+ certified support. The OnePlus 10T is packed with 4800mAh battery with 150W SUPERVOOC Endurance Edition fast charging which can charge from 1-100% in only 19 minutes whereas the IQOO 9T comes with 4700mAh battery with 120W ultra-fast flash charging technology that is claimed to charge the battery from 0 to 50 percent in around eight minutes.
The diference can be seen in imaging segment. The IQOO 9T is armed with 50MP primarty camera with f/1.75 aperture, Samsung GN5 sensor, OIS, LED flash which is supported by 13MP 120° ultra-wide Samsung sensor with f/2.2 aperture and 12MP portrait camera with Sony IMX663 sensor with features of 2x optical zoom and 20x digital zoom. The camera is equpped with Vivo inhouse V1+ imaging chip for enhancing imaging quality. For selfies, this phone has 16MP front camera with f/2.45 aperture. The OnePlus 10T also comes with a triple rear camera systey comprising of 50 MP Sony IMX766 sensor with optical image stabilization (OIS), Nightscape 2.0, which is accompanied by 8MP ultra-wide camera and 2MP macro camera. It has 16MP front-facing camera with f/2.4 aperture for selfies.
The OnePlus 10T comes pre-installed with OxygenOS 12.1 based on Android 12 and will receive three major Android updates and four years of security updates. OnePlus 10T will get OxygenOS 13 update which has enhanced features, later this year. On the other hand, IQOO 9T runs on Android 12 with Funtouch OS on top. Here lies the main difference. Oxygen OS is considered to be more smooth and easy to navigate which gives feeling of stock Android whereas Funtouch OS is not as polished to take on Oxygen OS. I have been using OnePlus phone for the last 4 years and is quite satisfied with its OS and battery performance.
In my opinion, if you are looking for a polished and smooth OS, better battery performance then OnePlus 10T can be your choice. As far as camera is concerned, both the phones are on the same level except that IQOO 9T appears to have better camera specifications and its V1+ imaging chip claims to enhance imaging quality.
We would like to make it clear that we have neither used OnePlus 10 T or IQOO 9T and have made comparisons based on specifications only. Please use your own wisdom, pros and cons before making your purchase decision!