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OnePlus 6 is the latest device from OnePlus in 2018. It looks more like a Flagship now due to the modern Glass design and a notched display. The internals are also top of the line with Oxygen OS which means blazing fast performance at half the Flagship price. One thing that makes me really excited is the new camera setup, it surely looks promising now.
Let’s take a closer look at the OnePlus in ValueQ’s special review.
Modern Design and Premium Build Quality
OnePlus, after the 5T ditched the metal unibody for the more premium Glass design. The latest OnePlus 6 has an elegant Glass back while the frame is made out of aluminum. Sure it’s not as strong as the metal uni-body, but it makes the device look so premium that it can hold against other higher end flagships. The chassis is still about the same size to the of the 5T but OnePlus managed to introduce a bigger display by using the notch.
Talking about the feel, I can assure you that the device is quite slippery so be extra cautious while holding it. Though this issue can be solved using a case or a skin. The Glass on the back is curved on the sides which provides extra grip making the device comfortable to hold. OnePlus 6 is pretty comfortable to due to its lightweight and sleek body. It weighs around 177 grams and it’s impressively sleek at 7.8mm. There are four color options to choose from including the Mid-Night Black, Silk White, Amber Red, and Mirror Black. My daily driver is the Mirror Black one and it is a super fingerprint magnet. However, the silk white and amber red do a pretty good job at hiding those smudges.
Upfront on the OnePlus 6 is a huge display with a minimal notch. The notch houses all the sensors including the proximity, ambient light sensor, an earpiece, and the front camera. There is a chin at the button but it is pretty small unlike some device like the Moto G6. Moving along the sides, the volume keys and the SIM tray are on the left while the Power key and the convenient Alert slider are on the right. At the bottom, there is a Type-C charging port along with a single down firing speaker and a mic.
Turn the phone around and you will find the Dual camera unit placed vertically in the upper center along with a rectangular Fingerprint scanner just below it with a Flash in between. Overall, the OnePlus 6 surely look and feels like a Flagship grade device and it’s now water resistant but sadly, there is no IP rating and even water damage is not covered in the warranty.
Elegant Display with a Notch
OnePlus 6 houses a bigger display compared to the last generation 5T in a similar size footprint. How did they do that? Simple, slimming down the bottom bezel and slapping a notch on top. Now I know people might argue about the notch not being the best option and I used to think that too. However, when I bought the OnePlus 6 and turned that display on for the first time, I fell in love with it. Yeah, the notch is there but it’s pretty small and once you get a hang of it, the display looks just astonishing.
Yeah, the OnePlus is still using a FullHD panel on the 6 but the screen technology has evolved so well that it looks much better than any previous gen AMOLED panels on the OnePlus phones. It is a 6.28 inch AMOLED panel which produces inky blacks and punchy colors. Multimedia consumption on this device is just impressive.
The colors are vibrant and a little oversaturated but you can always tweak them as there are different modes available in the setting. The sunlight visibility is also solid as the screen is viewable under direct sunlight and the viewing angle are excellent. Also, if you really don’t like notch, there is an option to turn it off which put black bars around the notch and since it’s an AMOLED panel, the pixels actually shut down.
While watching a movie in Full Screen, the notch does take up some portion of the image but nothing much like the iPhone X. Also, the display is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5 which makes it resistant to some scratches. OnePlus 6 might not have the best display in a smartphone but it does have the best Full HD panel in any smartphone.
Beastly Performance and Plenty Storage
Since OnePlus phones are known as the Flagship killers, the OnePlus 6 is also not behind. It is powered by the Octa-Core Snapdragon 845 Chipset which is powering almost all the flagships except the iPhone. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 is a flagship-grade SoC which can handle even the most intense tasks like a beast. It is based on a 10nm architecture which means solid performance and less power consumption. Couple with the Adreno 630 GPU, graphics performance is no slouch.
Want to play PUBG in max graphics settings? OnePlus 6 can. Not only PUBG, but almost any game on the Play store can also run on max graphics setting without any frame drops. With that being said, the basic performance is easily imaginable. OnePlus 6 never slows down, never drops a frame, and never breaks a sweat, simply means “Never Settle”.
OnePlus 6 is available in three different configurations
- 6GB RAM / 64GB Storage
- 8GB RAM / 128GB Storage
- 8GB RAM / 256GB Storage
Sadly, there is no memory card slot on the OnePlus 6 but even the base variant has plenty of space for a power user. Also, the base 4GB RAM version hold multitasking pretty well keeping even multiple heavy games in memory. Overall, it’s a beast which outmatches devices like Samsung Galaxy S9, iPhone X in terms of speed.
Fresh Breeze of Oxygen
While the performance is just top-notch, the software is what makes the OnePlus devices stand out. Oxygen OS, the near stock Android with some extremely useful add-ons is what makes the device super responsive and fluid. Animations are sleek and the apps open and close so quickly. It makes the device feel alive with its superfluid performance and smoothness.
Oxygen OS is known for a couple of useful features like Gestures like 3 finger swipe for the screenshot, drawing an alphabet on the lock screen to open an app, using gestures for navigation and completely hiding the navigation bar. Also, you can choose between the light and dark theme. You also get the option to make parallel apps for social media apps like Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp etc. There are a plenty more features reading mode, ability to use icon pack with default launcher, extended screenshots etc.
Talking about the concern of updates. My OnePlus 6 is already running on stable Android 9.0 Pie making it one of the few devices receiving Pie so early. OnePlus is known for providing fast updates following the 2 major Android update cycle and 3 years or security updates. Even my previous device, the OnePlus 3 will receive Android Pie later this year before many other Flagships, hence, software updates issue is not a concern for OnePlus devices.
Flagship Level Camera
“Finally, a superb camera from the OnePlus.”
OnePlus 6 has the best camera in the segment even matching the level of Flagships like Samsung S9, and iPhone X. It has a Dual Camera setup on the with similar 16 Megapixel and 20-megapixel sensor but with much wider aperture. Both the primary and secondary has the same f/1.7 aperture generating shallow depth of field. On the front, there is a 16 Megapixel sensor with f/2.0 aperture.
The Oneplus camera app is the real example of how to design a feature-rich camera app with a minimal look. It has plenty of features like Pro Mode, Slow motion, HDR, Portrait mode, Time Lapse, etc. The app also comes with the ability to capture raw images.
Using OnePlus 6 for capturing images is just a pleasing experience. The images capture have a high amount of details with damn good dynamic range and little-saturated colors. The wide aperture helps in capturing close objects well and the focus locks quite fast too. Moving to the low lights, the camera still performs really well. The images are bright and have less noise due to the OIS in the primary sensor. Colors look good overall but not on the level of devices like Pixel 2.
Portrait shots are where the second sensor comes into play. It is used to capture the depth information and with that being said, the images quality are pretty great with better than average edge detection. Also, the images aren’t cropped unline the images in iPhones or other devices. There is an option to change the shape of the blurred lights in the background to the shape of stars, hearts, and circle. The real sensor can also record videos in 4K at 60fps which even Pixel 2 can’t do. It can also record Super slow-mo videos for a full minute long.
The front sensor also performs really well capturing high details and great colors. However, there is a slight beauty effect on which can’t be turned off. Also, the front cam is capable of capturing portrait shots with good edge detection. Quality goes low during low light conditions but the images are still pretty good and usable.
With that being said, OnePlus 6 surely take a huge leap forward in terms of camera.
Surprisingly Good Battery Life
When I found that the OnePlus 6 comes with a 3300 mAh battery, it concerned me. Since the OnePlus 5T has the same battery and provide solid battery life, but the OnePlus 6 has a bigger screen now and more powerful internals. However, once I used the device, I was really surprised due to the solid battery life. With even a pretty intense day, the battery percentage was around 20% at the end of the day. Being more accurate, the screen on the way around 5–6 hours with some days of even crossing the 6.5 hours mark.
Talking about my usage, it includes frequent use of social media apps, casual camera usage, heavy web browsing, 1–2 gaming sessions of PUBG. With such usage, the phones easily manage to get through the day and with full potential can last 1.5 days but that’s too subjective. However, if your OnePlus 6 manage to run out of battery in the middle of the day, Dash Charge is there to help. It is still one of the fastest charging solutions in the market topping up from 0% to 58% in just half an hour and a full 100% charge in just 1 hour 20 minutes.
OnePlus 6 even with a Glass back doesn’t support wireless charging but I still don’t care as long as Dash Charge is by my side. Overall, it is a pretty dependable phone when it comes to battery life.
What’s More in OnePlus 6?
OnePlus supports Dual SIM and Dual standby along with Dual 4G. There is no MicroSD card slot on the device but the base storage is plenty. Other connectivity features on the device include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth v5, and A-GPS. There are plenty of sensors on the device including the Fingerprint (rear-mounted), accelerometer, gyroscope, proximity sensor, ambient sensor, and compass.
OnePlus 6 does comes with NFC but lacks the IR blaster which is used to control IR devices like TV, AC etc. Talking about the fingerprint scanner, it’s the second time when OnePlus has moved the scanner to the back and maybe the last as OnePlus 6T s coming with an under-display Fingerprint scanner. It’s rectangular in shape and still one of the fastest scanner unlocking the device in mere 0.2 sec. That’s crazy, right? Also, it never missed my finger so I can surely say that it’s a reliable one.
OnePlus 6 also comes with a Face-unlock which is again crazy fast. It unlocks the device in a mere 0.4 seconds and most of the time, I didn’t see my lock screen. Just tap on the Power button and Boom, it’s unlocked. However, it is still not secure so it cannot be used for payments but it is pretty convenient for unlocking.
The single down firing speaker on the OnePlus 6 is pretty great and doesn’t distort even on the highest level. However, it is not of the level of the modern Flagships with stereo speakers. However, what is does have is the 3.5mm Audio Jack which many companies are ditching. Although, OnePlus 6 is also the last device from OnePlus housing the audio jack.
Should You Buy?
Definitely YES!! Look this is just a genuine suggestion and not a biased review. I’ve been using the OnePlus 6 from a couple of months now and still beats the Flagships of 2018 to dust. The benchmark scores are super high and the performance is something that you can’t go wrong with a OnePlus device.
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