OnePlus 3 aims to be 'flagship-killing' smartphone of 2016

by Tarinder Sandhu on 15 June 2016, 13:06

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Chinese manufacturer OnePlus has been on a mission to deliver a premium smartphone experience without the absolutely premium prices charged by the likes of Apple and Samsung for their flagship devices.

A fingerprint reader scanner is just below the display

Previous OnePlus phones have been launched through an invite-only system, regulating demand with manufacturing capabilities, but frustrating would-be customers. This changes with the latest phone announced yesterday, the OnePlus 3, priced at £309, or a little more than half as much as, say, the Galaxy S7 Edge or iPhone 6s.

OnePlus 3 uses the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 SoC in a quad-core Kryo CPU and Adreno 530 GPU configuration, also used in variants of the aforementioned S7 Edge, HTC 10 and Sony Experia X Performance. Backed by 6GB of memory and an impressive standard 64GB of storage, there's perhaps less of a need for the SD slot which would be otherwise conspicuous by its absence. The device's unibody anodised aluminium build enables OnePlus to keep thickness down to just 7.35mm.

Measuring 152.7mm by 74.7mm, OnePlus follows many other premium smartphones by using a large screen, 5.5in here, though with a difference; the third-generation model features an AMOLED 1080p Gorilla Glass-protected screen rather something more esoteric in terms of resolution, helping keep costs in check. A customised version of Android 6.0 Marshmallow, known as OxygenOS, is the shipping operating system.

A couple of features missing on the OnePlus 2 make an appearance here; NFC and Dash Charge, with the latter being able to charge the 3,000mAh battery to over 60 per cent capacity in 30 minutes. A front 8MP snapper is joined by a 16MP shooter on the back using a Sony IMX 298 sensor found in the Huawei Mate 8 and Asus Zenfone 3, amongst other devices.

From what we can gather perusing the specification sheet and taking a good look at the images, OnePlus is getting closer to its aim of producing a real 'flagship killer'. Sure, it doesn't have the brand appeal of Apple - whether that's a good thing or bad depends on how you view the fruity company - and looks aren't as distinctive as the Galaxy Edge range, but we reckon the OnePlus 3 will gain reasonable traction due to its considerably lower street price.

What about you, interested in this 'flagship-killing' handset for £300 or so?

HEXUS Forums :: 30 Comments

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Posted by Kanoe - Wed 15 Jun 2016 13:24
My better half has the first one plus and she has always loved it. (Still does)

She checked out the VR launch of the new phone last night and was very under whelmed by it (both the VR experience and the phone).

We just seem to be getting to the stage were all phones are roughly the same spec and there isn't much to differentiate between one flag ship phone and the next. That's not a complaint I'm leveling specifically at OnePlus as this is industry wide. The only thing that is different to others is the fact it uses OxygenOS.
Posted by Vorlon99 - Wed 15 Jun 2016 13:53
I've had a whole slew of phones over the years, but ultimately been onboard the Samsung wagon since the S2. My wife likes the Apple Handsets.
Personally I think this is certainly more than good enough to be a great phone for those that don't need to pose with the Brand such as apple. Worth saving £300 for I reckon :)
Posted by lowers93 - Wed 15 Jun 2016 13:56
I always curious as to where the price cuts come for these phones. There's got to be something missing somewhere when you have a phone like the S7 at £600 and this at half the price..

The common tech specs can't be showing the whole story and I don't believe Samsung would give themselves that much of a profit margin if there was potential to undercut the competition.
Posted by jag272 - Wed 15 Jun 2016 14:01
lowers93
I always curious as to where the price cuts come for these phones. There's got to be something missing somewhere when you have a phone like the S7 at £600 and this at half the price..

The common tech specs can't be showing the whole story and I don't believe Samsung would give themselves that much of a profit margin if there was potential to undercut the competition.

The OPO had some issues with the touch screen not working properly in warm weather on some manufacturing lots, due to cheap adhesive used. Safe to say if the specs are good and the price is cheap, build quality is what took the hit. As to whether its enough of a hit that you'll ever encounter trouble with it depends on the user though.

Anyway, a nice phone but not for me, primarily because of the lack of MicroSD. I'm gradually switching over to cloud storage for non-personal files but right now I still very much need MicroSD capability.
Posted by kalniel - Wed 15 Jun 2016 14:20
lowers93
I always curious as to where the price cuts come for these phones. There's got to be something missing somewhere when you have a phone like the S7 at £600 and this at half the price..

Mostly a Chinese company has cheaper overheads than a Korean one. But they also use cheaper sub-components - older camera models, possibly cheaper audio etc.

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