The Oneplus 3 is the third from the Chinese manufacturer OnePlus. A company with claims of making flagship killers and a tagline that says “Never Settle”. However, the fist two phones have been compromised in one way or another, even though the OnePlus One was an impact maker, the Oneplus Two failed to deliver on promises. The OnePlus 3 is being projected as a true flagship killer, and while there are many reasons why this statement may be true, Let’s Find out in our Review if this stands True!
Design :
The OnePlus 3 holds the best build quality of the Oneplus line of phones. An all metal shell that reflects a lot upon design and materials from the lineup of HTC phones and it is no way a bad thing. HTC has been one of our favorite manufacturers, and their build quality is a primary reason.
The front of the phone houses Gorilla Glass 4. However, you will only get a protection lip if you buy one of their covers. The included screen protector gets scratched easily and it is recommended that you replace your layer quickly.
We have no complaints with the OnePlus 3 design, in fact, we appreciate it a lot and it speaks a lot about what the company has learnt in the past three years. That being said we are still waiting for the gold color. The fact that the phone is metal, means that dents will be easy to get and so will be scratches.
Performance :
With the latest update just about a month from the launch, OnePlus took care of a lot of the initial snags faced by the handset. Memory management is a whole lot improved, even though we didn’t really face any issues initially.
Scoring upwards of 140,000 in Antutu benchmark, the OnePlus 3 proves that you don’t need an expensive handset to get the power you desire. In fact, it scores the 1st place at the moment on Antutu with a score of 143532 without any mods.
6 GB of RAM is an overkill and OnePlus basically did it to draw attention towards the phone, with no real use of so much standby memory, it just makes the memory hungry apps last out longer. It does give a free buffer to multitask and allow for games to utilise this memory. At any time, however, there is usually awards of 3 GB of RAM free.
OnePlus may launch a 4 GB variant of the OnePlus 3 much like the LeMax 2, which would make more sense for an ordinary consumer and would also bring down the price by about Us $ 60.
Usual bits of daily use are good after one month of use, and especially good after the software update which tends to smooth things out. Switching between apps is easy and quick and the phone plays well when you push it to the limit.
Battery Life :
The OnePlus 3 will take in two nano SIM cards and will work with essentially LTE and 4G networks in the region it is designed for. The Snapdragon 820 chip is quite versatile and a wide array of bands are well supported with the OnePlus 3.
The Network strength is good and so is phone call capability with little effect on the battery life. The earpiece is a tad bit low in volume, but not enough to be bothersome. The microphone is sensitive and noise cancellation good. Overall phone capability stands in the good to excellent region.
Battery life is average on the OnePlus 3, with just a 3000 mAh battery and a lot going on, the OnePlus 3 will require frequent recharges, and its recommended that you carry the Dash Charger. We find the charging living up to its name and claim. After a month the OnePlus 3 still charges quickly and crosses 60% in about 30 minutes.
Talk Time : 4.5 Hours
Browsing : 3-4 Hours
Music Playback : 14 Hours
Video : 5 Hours
CAMERA :
The AMOLED display is excellent and really puts vibrancy into the OnePlus 3. When compared to the dull display on the OnePlus 2 the OnePlus 3 really shines in this department. Media consumption is excellent on the handset which offers good viewing angles and bucket loads of brightness indoors and outdoors.There is only one speaker on the phone and its sharp but sounds tinny. The audio levels are also average and not the best we have seen. You will find yourself looking for portable speakers or headphones to use this handset. Audio through the headphone jack is good and punchy. Also worth noting is the fact that this phone does, in fact, have a 3.5mm headphone jack. Something the Chinese siblings are missing in anticipation of Apple getting rid of it.
HDR and HD mode you will find yourself capturing some great outdoor shots. The usual OnePlus filters are also available and appreciated in the camera app. The camera is genrally faster, sharper and more detailed in capturing images and video.
A full manual mode allows you to customize and set up your shot if you are a photography nerd. The ability to store RAW lets you get a lot more from the images, and removing the processing engine from the smartphone and shifting it to you PC.
Colors and Contrast is on point and saturation is just right. Mostly outdoor images are excellent with the indoor images coming out good to average.
The OnePlus 3 fixes all its earlier nags, it looks great and performs better. The OnePlus 3 does have NFC and a brilliant AMOLED display. The metal build is appreciated and so are the material covers that allow you to go back to sandstone or even the wood finish that everyone wanted on the original OnePlus One. The OnePlus 3 is probably the only phone in this price bracket that is worthy of a recommendation over handsets like the S7 Edge and HTC 10, however, there is a big catch.
PRODUCT LINK : OnePlus 3
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