The self-proclaimed flagship killer is back — faster and better than ever, with fancy new tech and a reimagined notch.

TechTober is almost over and we have one more phone to tell you about: the OnePlus 6T.

It comes just five months after the launch of the OnePlus 6, so it’s no surprise that this is just an incremental update — a refinement to an already-impressive smartphone.

Side-by-side, you’ll find both phones look very similar. The frame and form factor are almost the same, albeit a bit thicker. It has the same curved back and all-glass finish.

Oh, and at least for now, the phone will only be available in black, either matte or glossy.

If you look closely you’ll find its backside fingerprint sensor is missing; that’s been replaced with an under-display fingerprint scanner, which is one of the biggest cosmetic differences on this phone.

OnePlus is calling it Screen Unlock and promises unlock speeds of 0.34 seconds. In our limited time with the device, Screen Unlock worked consistently. It felt quick and snappy.

Scroll up to the upper half of the screen, and you’ll find the other noticeable upgrade. Gone is the tub-shaped notch in favor of a much smaller one that curves around the selfie camera.

With the cutout reduced, you get even more screen space — an 86 percent screen-to-body ratio to be exact. And if the notch isn’t your thing, you also have the option to turn it off.

The rest of the improvements to the OnePlus 6T have more to do with hardware and software, like how its 6.41-inch AMOLED 1080p display is brighter and more color accurate.

You also get a nifty feature called reading mode which turns the display to black and white like you were reading off an e-reader but in high-res.

The camera of course has been improved, too. While hardware remains the same — a 16-megapixel rear camera with an f/1.7 aperture and optical image stabilization, 20-megapixel secondary camera for more accurate portrait blur, and 16-megapixel front camera — software algorithms have been tweaked to improve photo quality and performance.

Improvements have specifically been made in the area of night shots, portraits, and selfies. A new feature called Nightscape promises better low-light photos with less noise, while Studio Lighting gives your selfies a touch of professional lighting.

Take a look at some photos we took around New York:

Since its inception, OnePlus has always been known for offering flagship specs at a more affordable price point, and a close-to-pure Android experience that’s fast and snappy. The same holds true with the OnePlus 6T.

This time around, they sought to improve that experience further. The phone still runs on Qualcomm’s top-of-the-line Snapdragon 845 processor with either 6GB or 8GB of RAM.

In addition, it now has double the amount of storage as the standard configuration at 128GB and a bigger 3700mAh battery that you can top up quickly with its bundled Fast Charger. Notice it’s no longer called Dash Charging, but it’s the same tech.

In our initial tests, we were getting seven to eight hours of screen-on time and were quite impressed. But that’s just on the hardware front.

A software improvement called Smart Boost supposedly knows which apps you use the most and stores that app’s data on the phone’s RAM so these apps load faster. Currently, the technology works with games, but support for more apps is coming in future updates.

The OnePlus 6T runs on the latest version of Android, 9.0 Pie with the newest OxygenOS skin on top. For more screen real estate, you can turn off the on-screen buttons and use gestures to navigate around the phone.

Swipe up to go home, swipe up and hold for multitasking, and swipe down for the quick settings panel. You can also use three fingers to swipe down to take a screenshot. And when the display is on, you can double-tap to lock the phone.

OnePlus is promising additional features soon, like activating Google Assistant with a long press of the power button, which I think is a novel way to give users that feature without having to build in a dedicated hardware button. Speaking of extra buttons and such, the phone still has our favorite alert slider which lets you mute the phone with a quick tug.

So, is the OnePlus 6T your GadgetMatch?

You’ll find out real soon. We’re working on both our unboxing and review videos, which will be coming your way real soon.