The OnePlus 10T is OnePlus’ latest flagship smartphone. It’s proudly marketed with a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset, 120Hz display, and 125W wired charging. But for fans of OnePlus’s iconic alert slider, there’s some bad news.
All OnePlus flagships come with an alert slider that lets you switch between Sound, Vibrate, and Mute modes. Personally, I use it a lot when I’m using a OnePlus phone. It’s easy and intuitive. While the feature isn’t a necessary addition, it helps give identity to OnePlus phones. The company stands out from a sea of other slab smartphones by providing the Alert Slider. But with the OnePlus 10T, the Chinese phone manufacturer has made a surprising decision.
The OnePlus 10T does not have an alert slider. In fact, it’s the first global flagship device from OnePlus to ship without the famed mute switch. The company says that it wasn’t an easy decision and a lot of thought process went into designing their upcoming T flagship, which represents a “holistic performance upgrade for users,” as per OnePlus. But with the OnePlus 10T, the company has evolved the device’s upgrades beyond improvements to speed alone. To achieve this goal, removing the alert slider was a necessary trade-off.
Why there’s no alert slider on the OnePlus 10T
The decision to remove the alert slider on the OnePlus 10T was three-fold. As per the company, the removal of the alert slider on the OnePlus 10T resulted in OnePlus providing high-wattage charging, a large battery capacity, and a better antenna signal. “To excel in each of these three areas, the space inside the OnePlus 10T needs to be occupied by new technology,” wrote OnePlus in a blog post.
The OnePlus 10T packs fast charging that requires the device to have two charging pumps. For context, the OnePlus 10 Pro is equipped with a single charging pump. Hence, OnePlus is doubling the space required for the 10T’s charging pumps, which limits the space inside the device to include an alert slider. OnePlus admits that if it had kept the alert slider, the maximum battery capacity on the OnePlus 10T would have been 4,500 mAh. But by removing the alert slider, OnePlus was able to equip the 10T with a 4,800 mAh battery.
Next up is gaming, which is said to be an integral part of the performance of the OnePlus 10T. OnePlus has added an improved antenna for gaming that delivers better signal performance when holding the device horizontally. This new antenna system is comprised of 15 separate antennas around the 10T’s body, which was only made possible by the removal of the alert slider.
These technologies resulted in the increased layout utilization rate of the OnePlus 10T’s motherboard to 78%, which is up from OnePlus’ typical standard of 74%. The alert slider might appear to be a very small component, but “it actually has a relatively large impact on the device’s motherboard area – taking up 30mm,” says OnePlus.
OnePlus goes on to say, “While retaining the alert slider, we would have had to stack the device’s motherboard, which would have made the device thicker. Therefore, we decided to remove our signature alert slider this time so we could deliver these technologies while retaining a first-class hand feel.”
In conclusion, the OnePlus 10T doesn’t have an alert slider because OnePlus wanted to deliver better antenna signals, high-wattage charging, and a larger battery capacity while maintaining the slim in-hand feel. At least that’s what OnePlus says. Could the company have made an alert slider fit into the 10T if it really wanted to? Probably! But, at least for this particular OnePlus device, the alert slider has been axed.
