Finally OnePlus has launched its highly anticipated flagship of the year 2016. It is called OnePlus 3 and is available at Rs. 27,999 in India exclusively on Amazon.in. This is for the time in the history of OnePlus, that the OP3 would be available for purchase without any invitation code. This means that you buy your OnePlus phone whenever you want without worrying about the expiry of the invitation code.
So without wasting much time let’s talk about the phone. This article is my first impression about the phone and is not a review, but it should be sufficient to help you make up your mind about the phone i.e. should buy it right now or wait for the detailed reviews.
Design and Form Factor
The OnePlus 3 weighs 158 grams and has a thickness of 7.35 mm. In sharp contrast to OnePlus One and OnePlus 2, this phone has done away with the sand paper finish and welcomes a unibody aluminum design.
This not only imparts premium feel to the phone but also makes it look sturdy while giving it a good grip in the hands, thanks to its thickness.
Performance
It is powered by the latest and the fastest Snapdragon SoC till date, the Snapdragon 820. The SD 820 is a quad-core 64-bit chip packing Adreno 530 GPU for handling high-end graphics. This is the same chip that powers the latest generation of Android flagship phones like Samsung Galaxy S7 lineup, LG G5, HTC 10, etc.
It is also equipped with 6 GB RAM which will practically handle all the apps that you throw it at. This is more than enough RAM than is required in the smartphone these days. Theoretically speaking, if you buy a phone with 6 GB RAM now, then you needn’t worry about its multi-tasking abilities for the next few years.
Talking about the storage, it doesn’t have support for microSD card as usual, but what it does have should be more than sufficient for you. Unlike its predecessors, the OnePlus 3 comes only in 1 memory variant (64 GB) and not in 2 models (16 GB and 64 GB).
It packs a UFS 2.0 64 GB NAND storage unlike others phones in its price bracket which have eMMC storage. This gives the phone a sufficient edge over its competitors.
Display
The OnePlus 3 retains the same display size of 5.5 inch of full HD resolution as its predecessors but has changed is the display technology.
Instead of an IPS display, the OnePlus 3 sports a PenTile Optic AMOLED (night mode) display protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 4. We don’t know for sure how this display would be in terms of its colour calibration and outdoor legibility but one thing is for sure, it would offer a great contrast ratio with good saturation and slightly better battery backup while using dark (black) themes and wallpapers.
Camera
OnePlus boasts a Sony IMX 298 sensor complimenting its rear 16 MP camera having a pixel size of 1.12 micron and an f/2.0 aperture. It has OIS (Optical Image Stabilization), single LED flash, and supports 4K 30 fps video recording too. However, this time around the phone comes with a camera bump due to its thin profile.
OP3 has an 8 MP front shooter which is based on a Sony IMX179 sensor again having an aperture of f/2.0.
Also according to these OnePlus 3 camera samples revealed just now, the rear camera on the phone looks pretty promising and can compete head-on with the likes of Samsung Galaxy S7, LG G5, and the HTC 10.
However, we would advise you to consider these samples as genuine with a pinch of salt. Many a times these sample shots are clicked by professionals using various hi-end equipment which are often not available to the general public.
Battery Backup
The OnePlus 3 runs on the latest Android OS 6.0 aka Marshmallow which is skinned with OnePlus’ own Android version- OxygenOS.
Comparing it to the previous generation OnePlus 2, the battery has shrunk in size by 10%. It is now 3000 mAh, down from 3300 mAh last year. I am hoping that OnePlus had made improvements in the battery and power consumption in the phone and has not just reduced the battery size to make the phone slimmer.
People want better battery backup and would even trade off a little bit of aesthetics for it. I just hope that OnePlus has kept this mind while making this choice.
Talking about battery backup, OnePlus maintains the same size full HD display (although it is AMOLED) and is powered by a much more efficient Snapdragon 820 chip. As it runs on Android Marshmallow out-of-the-box it can take advantage of the doze mode (which results in lesser battery drain when the device is not in use).
The OnePlus 3 seems like a good buy to me. It is an all-rounder phone that can compete with the current flagships provided it holds up to the expectations generated by its spec sheet.
Just bookmark this OnePlus 3 page on Amazon in case you want to postpone your buying decision.