What Do The Reviews Have To Say About The OnePlus 3?
Since it dropped the OnePlus One in 2014, upstart phone maker OnePlus has billed its devices as "flagship killers" — phones that offered the features of a iPhone or a high-end Samsung device, without the $600+ price tag.
After the OnePlus One made a big splash, 2015's OnePlus 2 was seen as a solid, if uninspiring, follow up. But according to the reviews for the OnePlus 3, the company seems to be back to breaking boundaries, with a $400 device that competes pretty damn closely with the top tier of mobile devices.
OnePlus Finally Has A Bona Fide 'Flagship Killer'
Despite OnePlus's "flagship killer" claims, its prior high-end handsets didn't really kill anything at all. Instead, they were fantastic options for true Android fans looking for something a little different at a great price. The OnePlus 3 is an entirely different beast. On paper and in the hand, the new OnePlus 3 is a true "flagship" phone in every sense of the word.
[BGR]
The OnePlus One was a mic drop and the OnePlus 2 a successful sophomore follow-up, but the new 3 silences the haters—the OnePlus 3 is a "Flagship Killer" and at $400, with no more dumb invite system, it's not just the best OnePlus phone ever, but one of the best cheap phones too.
[Gizmodo]
It's Wonderfully Built
There's no denying that last year's OnePlus 2 was a well-constructed device, but it now looks like the days of sandstone polycarbonate are over. This year's version is milled from a single block of "space-grade" aluminum, and the 5.5-inch 1080p AMOLED display up front is swathed in a very slightly curved pane of Gorilla Glass 4. It's beautiful. More than that, its trim waistline — 7.35 mm — makes the OnePlus 3 feel sleeker and more elegant than you might expect from a phone with this big a screen.
[Engadget]
The OnePlus 3 isn't breaking any barriers in design, or trying anything that's particularly new — but the one thing you can say about the way OnePlus has done it is just how precisely it nailed the manufacturing. You can't pick out a single place where it isn't absolutely spot on. Every edge, every join of materials, every cutout, every transition from curve to flat — every placement is perfect.
The new handset isn't a device steeped in novelty or one willing to sacrifice some interesting feature for the sake of build quality. It's a phone that's very serious about getting as much right as possible — and doing so while coming in way under budget.
A Custom Android Skin As It Should Be
OxygenOS — a forked version of Android that OnePlus built — hews blessedly close to stock Android 6.0. That means it has handy features like Doze, which helps preserve battery life during long stretches of inactivity, and Google Now on Tap, which still isn't as handy as it first seemed. Any differences from Android are innocuous or for the better. Most notable is the array of customization options. You can switch to a "dark mode," which places settings and such against a black background, and get granular with status bar icons and LED notification colors.
[WIRED]
Although being not-quite-stock has its drawbacks:
Although it looks like stock Android, it definitely isn't, which means you'll be waiting for Android N for months, like the rest of the non-Nexus world.
[Gizmodo]
The Screen Isn't Crazy Sharp, But It More Than Gets The Job Done
[OnePlus founder Carl] Pei says it was a "conscious choice" to use a 1080p screen in place of a higher-resolution option, as it provides better performance and heat management than more pixel-dense screens. I'm inclined to agree: the AMOLED screen on the OnePlus 3 is bright, vibrant, easy to see outdoors, and at 401ppi, plenty sharp enough for human eyes. You might want something more pixel-dense for virtual reality, but for everything else you use a smartphone for, the OnePlus 3's screen is more than sufficient.
And The Battery Is Solid, But Not Extraordinary
The phone has a 3,000mAh non-removable battery that easily lasts the workday with mild to high usage. During our lab test for continuous video playback (on Airplane mode), it lasted an average of 14 hours and 17 minutes, which is much longer than nearly all its competitors (though it doesn't beat the Galaxy S7's time of 16 hours). In addition, the device has Dash Charging, which is a charging technology trademarked by OnePlus (and is different than the Qualcomm QuickCharge 3.0 technology you hear from other marquee handsets). It basically means that the battery charges super quick, but doesn't overheat.
[CNET]
The Camera Is A Big Improvement
The OnePlus 3 easily has the best camera the company has shipped, and it's even considerably better than the OnePlus 2, which for the money was very capable. Images are captured and processed quickly, and I was very happy with the quality — the resulting images leaned toward natural rather than overly punchy colors, and had the right balance of light for the scene. My only real complaint is that the OnePlus 3 sometimes focused a bit on the soft side, clearly missing the right point of emphasis in the photo.
Although it still struggles somewhat in low light:
Although its built-in de-noise function helps reduce the graininess and splotchy backgrounds you see in a lot of low-light photos, the f/2.0 lens on the OnePlus 3's rear camera lets in a lot less light than the S7 Edge's f/1.7 lens. As a result, the OnePlus 3's photos looked pretty underexposed next to shots from the S7 Edge.
