Introduction
OnePlus has never shied away from bold
marketing: known for its “flagship killers” that “never settle”, and for
throwing marketing cliches and ‘firsts’ at customers salivating at the
prospect of a phone selling for half the price of Samsung Galaxies and
Apple iPhones, yet with similar performance.
For a brand that was
starting from (almost) zero, though, that kind of noise was necessary.
Living through its rebellious teenage years, OnePlus had to deny
everything and try it all before finally settling for a product that
does away with a lot of the immaturity of earlier launches: the OnePlus 3.
Gone
is the extremely annoying invite system that resulted in weeks of
waiting and a lot of broken hopes, gone are the bold, but also
outrageous marketing claims. Is it time to start taking OnePlus
seriously? With a massive launch on day one with availability in 31
countries across the globe and fast shipping, the OnePlus 3 means
business. Let’s see what it’s all about.
In the box:
OnePlus 3
Wall charger (5V - 4A)
USB-C to USB cable
User manual
Sim ejector
Design
A grown-up, solid design with a comfortable, ergonomic in-hand feel.
The
OnePlus 3 is a grown-up, solid design: with a body carved out of a
single piece of aluminum, it has that substantial feel that you get from
high-end devices. The design is not something new or original per se:
the body looks a lot like that of an HTC phone, the camera hump seems to
be very similar to that of many Huawei phones, but we don’t get a feel
that OnePlus tried to clone a particular device, and it all comes
together well.
First,
let’s talk physical size. The OnePlus 3 is a 5.5-inch phone, and while
it’s not as thin and compact as a Galaxy S7 Edge, it still feels fairly
thin and compact for its size. The OnePlus 3 sits in your palm very
comfortably and ergonomically with its nicely curved back. The device is
also remarkably thin at 7.3mm, and at 158 g (5.57oz) – it feels
relatively lightweight for a phone this size.
It’s worth saying
that the OnePlus 3 team spared no effort and even the buttons on this
phone feel well made. The rather large physical keys (a power/lock key
on the right and a volume rocker on the left) are easy to press and
respond with a pleasant click. And yes, there is a mute switch! Located
right above the volume keys on the left, the three-step mute switch is a
great time saver and comes particularly handy when you need to quickly
mute your phone. We wish more Android phone makers would incorporate
such a handy switch in their phones.
Up
front, there is what appears like a physical home key. It’s not a
button that you can press, though, but just a touch-sensitive area that
you can tap on to go back to your home screen or to unlock the OnePlus 3
with your fingerprint. There are two invisible capacitive keys around
the home key: you can actually customize them (you can set which of them
to be the back and which - the multitasking key). We love that freedom
of choice: we know plenty of people who are allergic to phones where the
right key serves as a multitasking button, but we also know a ton of
people who prefer it that way. Then, you can even disable those two keys
completely and rely instead on on-screen buttons a la Nexus. The
OnePlus 3 satisfies all those different tastes in a very elegant way.
There is no water resistance or any other protection from the elements, just in case you’re wondering.
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