Despite being only as old as a human toddler, OnePlus has come a long way in a very short time. It’s generated enough buzz the world over to make it one of the most eagerly tracked smartphone makers in the world. And it’s done all of this with a roster that now has a total of four smartphones. How has OnePlus done all of this, you ask? By striking at your value-for-money chords. The company offers its trademark flagship smartphone experience at prices that are decidedly nowhere near flagship-level.
Although its phones have managed to attract the attention of many smartphonebuyers in the last two years, they haven’t been quite the’flagship killers’ that they were touted to be. The OnePlus One(Review) offered great performance but fell short in the design, battery and camera departments. With the OnePlus 2(Review), there were bugs in the software and fingerprint sensor, amongst other quirks. The OnePlus X(Review) is still the company’s most affordable phone, but we had some issues with build quality and the camera. And above all, the cursed invite system made it difficult to buy any OnePlus device until well after all hype around these phones had died down.It turns out OnePlus has been listening to us. The company recently announced the end of its highly-criticised invite system, and has now launched the phone that it hopes will take it into a new future of easy availability of its affordable flagships, the Rs. 27, 999 OnePlus 3. On paper, this phone is an absolute beast, and appears to have what it takes to challenge the set conventions of flagship pricing. However, it faces tough competition from another smartphone that has already succeeded in defying those conventions: the Xiaomi Mi 5(Review). Does the OnePlus 3 have what it takes to succeed? Find out in our review.Look and feel
The OnePlus 3 implements one big change that makes all the difference in lending an air of quality to the phone; the plastic rear panel with sandstone finishing is gone; replaced by cold, hard aluminium. Furthermore, it’s a unibody with a dull metallic finish, and reminds us a little bit of the HTC One M9 thanks to its antenna lines and bulging rear camera. It’s beautiful, well-built, and finally brings OnePlus into the big leagues of design.The front gains a bit of style too, thanks to the use of Corning Gorilla Glass 4 which curves at the edges of the screen and offers a fair bit of protection against accidental scratches and damage. Also at the front is a capacitive home key with a fingerprint sensor built in, along with two more capacitive buttons on either side. These are usually invisible but a small backlight is activated when the buttons are touched. The software allows you to deactivate them and switch to on-screen keys if you prefer. Our review unit came with a preinstalled screen protector film, but it doesn’t completely cover the front and got scratched rather easily. We would have preferred to receive the phone without it.
Specifications
The Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 SoC is finally picking up some steam, and is now on a handful of devices available in India. With the exception of the LG G5(Review), all models are priced under Rs. 30, 000, including the recently launched Rs. 22, 999 LeEco Le Max 2. Not only does the OnePlus 3 have this SoC clocked at 2.2GHz for two cores and 1.6GHz for the other two cores, but it also sports a colossal 6GB of LPDDR4 RAMand 64GB of internal storage(non-expandable).
Apart from this, there’s also dual-SIM 4G connectivity with support for both FDD-Band 3 and TDD-Band 40, Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.2, and NFC. The phone has a 3000mAh non-removable battery, and is the company’s first device to feature some kind of fast charging technology. It comes bundled with a 20W Dash Charger, which charges the phone up to 60 percent in 30 minutes. About an hour’s charging should fully top up your phone even from near zero.The technology shifts power management from the device to the charger, which ensures that the phone doesn’t heat up too much while charging. We tried it, and it worked like a charm. This also means that it’s possible to keep using the phone while it’s charging without slowing down the charging process too much. Charging and connectivity are through a USB 2.0 Type-C port, and the cable included in the box allows for ordinary connectivity with most computers and chargers thanks to one end being a standard USB Type-A plug.Software
On the software front, the OnePlus 3 is powered by OxygenOS 3.1.1, based on Android 6.0.1. OxygenOS is visually and functionally very similar to stock Android Marshmallow, with a few useful additions. Despite not being quite as light as stock Android, it still retains the same level of ease and snappiness across the system. Additions come in the form of customisation options, while most of Marshmallow’s standout features have been maintained. This includes the revamped app permissions system, Now On Tap, and Doze Mode. OxygenOS also lets you quickly unlock the bootloader, which will then allow you to root your device or flash new firmware if you choose to.
Camera
The primary camera of the OnePlus 3 is a 16-megapixel Sony IMX 298 sensor, while the front camera has an 8-megapixel sensor with 1.4-micron pixels. The rear camera can shoot video at up to 4K and can also shoot slow motion video at 120fps, while the front camera can shoot video at up to 1080p at 30fps. Additionally, the rear camera features optical image stabilisation, phase detection autofocus and RAW image format support.Performance
As has been the case with the two Snapdragon 820-powered smartphones that we’ve reviewed so far this year, the OnePlus 3 is an absolute powerhouse. From playing games to loading Web pages; from starting up apps to taking pictures; everything just works well. It’s helped along no doubt by the generous 6GB of RAM. There’s practically no delay or loading times, and we found it hard to go back to a lower performing smartphone after our time with the OnePlus 3. Furthermore, heat issues and performance throttling are practically non-existent, with the phone running smoothly even under heavy use.When it came to benchmark scores, the OnePlus 3 broke a few of our records, thereby underlining its superior performance. AnTuTu produced the highest score we’ve seen yet from an Android device, with 142, 674, while the Quadrant score was a respectable 44, 490. GFXBench and 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited produced scores of 30, 276(again, the highest we’ve seen) and 59fps. Essentially, this is hands-down the most powerful Android smartphone we’ve used so far.