OnePlus 3 Featuring 5.5-inch FHD Display, Snapdragon 820 SoC, 6GB RAM Launched at $400

Chinese startup OnePlus is only three years old, but you will be surprised with just how much importance and traction it receives from the Android community. Its well-built, high-end Android smartphones are priced fairly aggressively, allowing it to compete with the likes of Samsung, HTC, and LG among others in the cut-throat smartphone market. The company today unveiled its third flagship smartphone, the OnePlus 3. Priced at $399 (for the unlocked version), the OnePlus 3 sports a 5.5-inch AMOLED display (the company is reluctant on moving to QHD display, insisting that higher resolution will unnecessarily drain the battery faster). It is powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 SoC, coupled with 6GB of RAM, a 16-megapixel rear camera with OIS, an 8-megapixel front-facing shooter, a fingerprint scanner, and 64GB of built-in storage. The dual-SIM capable smartphone houses a 3,000mAh battery, which the company says can go from 0 to 60 percent in just 30 minutes. In its review (the media received the device a week ahead of the launch), CNET finds the OnePlus 3 to be an "excellent performer", and its nearly stock Android operating system a refreshing change. The publication concludes that at $400 price point, OnePlus 3 is a great purchase.

Comments

QHD

[mrchaotica]

the company is reluctant on moving to QHD display, insisting that higher resolution will only drain the battery faster

The voice of reason! Thank goodness some manufacturer is finally being sensible instead of blindly following the "more pixels = better" mantra even when the pixels are too small to see.

How are they a startup?

[schwit1]

This isn't their first phone.
This isn't their second phone.

Re:"Nearly" stock Android.

[Yvan256]

I don't mind since I only use english and the Chinese cannot understand that.

Re: What's the deal with wireless charging..

[DigitAl56K]

I used to be a fan of wireless charging, but when I last used it it out around 1A, which is a slow charge these days, and made my phones very hot, which is bad for battery life. USB-C ports seem to hold up better than older formats, so I'm less concerned about plugging in these days.

Is this what they've determined we want?

[CastrTroy]

Do we really need 6 GB of RAM on a phone? Until Android gets something like Continuum on Windows phone, where you can dock the phone and use it like a desktop, there seems little reason to have that much RAM. I guess they've just run out of things to upgrade to justify the high price. Personally, I won't spend much more than $200 on a phone at this point. Things are changing too fast on the software side, and updates to operating systems are often not available. You basically have to get a new phone every year or two to be guaranteed having the latest OS, and spending $400+ on a new phone every year or two is a little rich for my tastes.

Re:Is this what they've determined we want?

[amicusNYCL]

I guess they've just run out of things to upgrade to justify the high price.

It's a low price, actually. You own the phone, you are buying it outright, you are not renting it from your carrier and paying monthly. An unlocked Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge, for example, costs $790. That's what the Oneplus Three competes against, so it's $400 versus $790. I own my Oneplus outright, I don't rent it from my carrier, so my cell phone bill is lower. You're still paying for your phone, just not all at once. If you cancel your contract early you'll notice that your carrier bills you for the remainder of the phone price.

spending $400+ on a new phone every year or two is a little rich for my tastes.

Yeah, I thought that paying $400 for my Oneplus One 2 years ago was a little much, but it's the best phone I've ever owned. It has great hardware, and the OS has received regular updates. In fact, the reason why I don't feel the need to upgrade to the Oneplus Three is because my phone still works fine. And, in those 2 years, my cell phone bill has been less every month because my carrier didn't subsidize my phone. It also didn't come pre-loaded with a bunch of crap software, the only thing on it was the OS with the default apps.

A top of the line phone, unlocked, which you own, with no crap on it, which you can move between carriers (or even use 2 carriers at the same time if you need to), for half the price of the competing phones. That's what you're getting, but if that's not what you're looking for then feel free to continue renting.

Re:Is this what they've determined we want?

[Ichijo]

Do we really need 6 GB of RAM on a phone?

My Nexus 5 has 2 GB, and I often run out of RAM which slows down the phone. Right now it's using all but 382M. If I force close apps or reboot, I can reclaim some of that free RAM. So it would be nice to have at least double the RAM in order to keep the phone running smoothly without requiring regular maintenance on my part.

Do I need 6GB instead of 4GB? Maybe not, but it couldn't hurt, especially when it's so cheap. Someone once said 640KB ought to be enough for anybody, and we all know how that turned out!

Re:"Nearly" stock Android.

[amicusNYCL]

OxygenOS was developed by OnePlus, not the Chinese government. Unless you care to cite a source which shows otherwise, of course. The OxygenOS kernel is here if you'd like to go through it:

https://github.com/OnePlusOSS/...

Will they fuck it up like the OnePlusX?

[Lumpy]

it had better be an octoband covering ALL bands possible. Their stupidity of not covering the 700mhz band on the X made a perfect phone into a pile of poo.

Re:What's the deal with wireless charging..

[losfromla]

They pushed through standardization on micro-usb, so yes, why not? Governments are good for lots of standardization type directives. Only morons think that government can't get anything right.

Re:No SD slot?

[CastrTroy]

I'm kind of with you. I'm not sure what the reason is for not including an SD card slot. 64 GB is probably big enough that I wouldn't need one, but it would also be tempting to spend $20 and get another 64 GB of storage. I'm sure that if the phone had something like 512GB of storage that I wouldn't feel the need for it, and any complaints would be unfounded, but it's almost the principle of the matter. Why wouldn't you take minimal steps to have expandable storage on a phone.