Over the past few months we'd heard plenty of rumors that OnePlus was angling for a carrier partnership with the OnePlus 6T, and that's finally paid off. When the OnePlus 6T launches at its exceedingly expensive $549 price tag you'll be able to walk into a T-Mobile store and pick one up. That means new potential customers will be able to actually play with the phone before committing to it, and you'll be able to finance it and take advantage of any T-Mobile promos. That's a big perk.
But perhaps the biggest surprise during the announcement was OnePlus revealing their newest phone will work on Verizon's network. Up until now OnePlus devices have been exclusively GSM-only, and that trend has been pretty constant for most unlocked devices for years. Motorola started to really shake things up by making their cheaper Moto models work on both standard GSM networks but also Verizon and Sprint's oddball CDMA networks.
Since then we've seen that support also come to some of Samsung's unlocked phones and even a couple Sony models, so it only makes sense for OnePlus to take advantage of that broader network compatibility.
So what are your plans if you're buying a OnePlus 6T? Still getting it straight through OnePlus, or are you going to make the purchase on a T-Mobile account?
So is the TMO version of this phone unlocked or locked?
There seems to be a distinction between the ‘unlocked’ version and the T-Mobile variant which is a unique SKU with 8GB/128GB and single SIM. For the moment, I would err on the side of caution and say it’s locked to T-Mobile. If I find a definitive answer I’ll update this reply.