The popular OnePlus 3 smartphone is, like pretty much every handset these days, going gold. However, the Android upstart is hoping to outflank its competition with a different shade: a "soft gold" color that's more muted than most gold- or rose gold-colored handsets. Could this be the beginning of a trend?
Calling the color variation "a subtle texture reminiscent of holding fine, silky-soft sand," the company says the new color design option was inspired by traditional tones found in Japanese art.
But although gold has traditionally been very popular in China, according to some, the color is increasingly being seen as a tad gaudy and, according to some, associated with the country's nouveau riche. That may explain OnePlus' decision to tone down the gold color of its handset to this new hue dubbed "soft gold," which is more subtle (dare we say "elegant?") than some of the other gold-colored mobile devices available.
The new version of the handset went on sale on Tuesday in the U.S. and arriving in Europe, Hong Kong and Canada on Aug. 1 (users in India will have to wait for the company to announce availability at a later date). Apparently, the company expects the new model to be such a success that it even crafted a new video (below) to promote it.
This "soft gold" version of the handset joins the already popular graphite-colored model. Given the popularity of gold mobile devices in China, this design move from OnePlus was fairly predictable, but it's still a refreshing addition to the lineup.
To date, the OnePlus 3 appears to be the most robust iPhone challenger to emerge from China, hot on the heels of South Korea's Samsung in terms offering a winning alternative Android device paired with top-tier design aesthetics.
According to the company's announcement on its website, the color option will only be available in limited quantities.
It's always way more fun to root for the underdogs. The little guys with fewer resources. They're the guys who fight the hardest to keep the lights on because it's truly shoot for the moon or go bust.
OnePlus has been fighting an uphill battle against Apple, Samsung, LG, HTC, Xiaomi — pretty much every smartphone maker — as the company's grown since 2013.
Learning lessons is a necessary part of growing. For OnePlus, it would appear they've learned a lot of lessons in the last year.
The company's new flagship OnePlus 3 is mighty impressive on paper and even more incredible in your hand. This is Nexus-, Galaxy- and iPhone-level excellence, but with a price that destroys all of them.
The biggest lesson OnePlus learned and has finally done away with is its invite-to-buy system. That's right, you'll actually be able a OnePlus 3 without needing to receive an invite. Not only that, but it'll also be available on Amazon (in India) in addition to OnePlus's website.
Like Xiaomi, OnePlus rose to the global stage selling phones with competitive specs at a fraction of the cost of premium devices. The OnePlus One and OnePlus 2 were successes driven by their low pricing as much as they were for their excellent build quality.
This year, OnePlus has distilled its flagship phone back down to a single 64GB model that costs $399 and launches on June 14 in the U.S. and Europe (399 Euros), and on June 15 in India (27,999 INR) and China (3,098 HKD). The price is a far cry from the $299 days of the OnePlus One, but it's still less the Google Nexus 6P, which costs $549 for a 64GB model.
Besides, if you don't need the latest performance, OnePlus also sells the fantasticOnePlus X for $199 (It's great. I bought two for my parents last year to replace their old Nexus 4 phones).
Influences from everyone
The OnePlus 3 has a 5.5-inch full HD screen.
IMAGE: BRITTANY HERBERT/MASHABLE
Online leaks revealed the OnePlus 3's design from every angle weeks before the phone arrived for me to test. 3D renders give you a good idea of what a phone will look like, but not how it feels. And let me tell you, the OnePlus 3 feels amazing.
The OnePlus 3's smooth unibody metal design borrows from the HTC One M8, iPhone 6Sand Samsung Galaxy S7 that all came before it. Every phone is a lookalike. Everyone copies. Even Apple.
The antenna lines aren't nearly as ugly as the iPhone 6S's, the buttons are perfectly tactile and I don't even mind the camera hump on the back.
Gorgeous all around
Perfectly tactile buttons (Click to enlarge)
IMAGE: BRITTANY HERBERT//MASHABLE
Speaker, USB-C port and headphone jack (Click to enlarge)
IMAGE: BRITTANY HERBERT//MASHABLE
The glass on the 5.5-inch display melts right into a thin chamfer before spilling into the metal body. The cutouts for all the ports are all located on the bottom. The fingerprint sensor is rounder this time and still unlocks the phone quickly with just a touch (no press required) of the finger. It's faster than the iPhone 6S's Touch ID sensor, too.
Rival phones all sport a sharper and denser Quad HD-resolution screen, but to be honest, the OnePlus 3's 1080p AMOLED screen still looks great. While it's not the brightest screen, I could still see the screen fine with the brightness set to 50% to 75% outdoors.
Classic OnePlus finishes via cases
(Click to enlarge)
IMAGE: BRITTANY HERBERT/MASHABLE
(Click to enlarge)
IMAGE: BRITTANY HERBERT/MASHABLE
I'm a fan of OnePlus's signature sandstone back and it's a sad to not see such a striking texture return. OnePlus sort of makes up for it with its official OnePlus 3 cases, though, which come in sandstone ($19.95) and several wood finishes ($24.95), but those will obviously cost extra.
Pure performance
If you've read any of my flagship Android phone reviews this year (Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge, LG G5, HTC 10, Xiaomi Mi 5, etc.) you're already aware of the unstoppable performance duo: Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 processor paired with 4GB of RAM.
This winning combo is what every high-end Android phone has in common. OnePlus didn't want the OnePlus 3 to be another phone in the 820-4GB RAM club, so it went one further and included 6GB of RAM.
Apple's A-numbered processors and iOS are well known for their ability to handle powerful tasks without needing a boatload of RAM; it's why the iPhone 6S only has 2GB of RAM. Android not so much — the software and apps just eat memory like there's no tomorrow.
I never got any slowdown while testing phones with 4GB of RAM and I sure as hell didn't get any performance issues with the OnePlus 3's 6GB of RAM. I opened 50 apps and the phone just handled it all like it was NBD. Even while playing games with high-resolution 3D graphics, the OnePlus 3 never choked up. It really doesn’t get better than that.
OnePlus’s approach to Android has always been to augment it with useful features. But at the same time give users the option to disable anything they don’t want. The OnePlus 3 runs OxygenOS on top of Android 6.0 Marshmallow.
The OnePlus 3 runs OxygenOS, which is essentially stock Android with a couple of customizations (can be disabled) like this "Shelf" board.
IMAGE: BRITTANY HERBERT/MASHABLE
As with previous versions of OxygenOS, Android remains fairly stock — there’s no bloatware anywhere in sight and no duplicate apps — and features like the Shelf notification board, gestures for activating features like the flashlight (draw a "v" on the screen) and camera (draw an "o"), dark mode and proximity sensor (wave hand over the screen or take phone out of your pocket) to check for the time and notifications are useful, but can be disabled at any time.
On top of all this power, you get battery life that lasts a day and half from its 3,000 milliamp-hour (mAh) battery and Dash Charging, which charges up your phone from 0% to about 60% in 30 minutes.
Sharp pictures
The OnePlus 3 has a 16-megapixel back camera with f/2.0 aperture.
IMAGE: BRITTANY HERBERT/MASHABLE
It's getting harder and harder to find a flagship phone with a camera that sucks these days. Every major flagship Android phone has a pretty great camera and low-light performance. The Galaxy S7/S7 Edge, LG G5, HTC 10 — I've tried them all and they're all outstanding compared to a year ago.
The OnePlus 3's 16-megapixel rear camera and 8-megapixel front-facing camera won't topple any of its Android rivals if you compare their apertures (low f-stop number, which is key to better low-light performance), but that doesn't mean they're inferior.
Super crispy outdoors
You can see it says "Bryant Park" on one of the chairs in the front. (Click to enlarge)
IMAGE: RAYMOND WONG/MASHABLE
(Click to enlarge)
IMAGE: RAYMOND WONG/MASHABLE
Through a combination of Sony image sensors with phase-detection autofocus (that's the tech that allows for super-quick autofocusing in about 0.2 seconds) and OnePlus's own software ("Dynamic De-noise" for image noise reduction and "HD Mode" for sharper details and "HDR" a.k.a. High Dynamic Range for better exposed images), I was pleasantly surprised at how good the photos were, even in low-light situations.
The cameras, while better than previous OnePlus phones, aren't best-in-class — many photos came out blurry because the autofocus missed a bunch of times and it's not great at freezing moving objects — but it's still pretty good if you know good photography practices. Even if you don't, the cameras still do a good job, especially if you're only looking at them on your phone's screen.
All in the details
Can you see the little fibers on each strand? (Click to enlarge)
IMAGE: RAYMOND WONG/MASHABLE
(Click to enlarge)
IMAGE: RAYMOND WONG/MASHABLE
Pretty good in dim places. (Click to enlarge)
IMAGE: RAYMOND WONG/MASHABLE
Shines in low-light
The New York State Pavilion observation towers lit up for the first time in 50 years on June 9, 2016. (Click to enlarge)
IMAGE: RAYMOND WONG/MASHABLE
Look at how sharp the dirt is in the light from the go kart. (Click to enlarge)
IMAGE: RAYMOND WONG/MASHABLE
Not bad for a selfie. (Click to enlarge)
IMAGE: RAYMOND WONG/MASHABLE
The back camera can take pretty crisp photos thanks to the optical image stabilization. For shooting video, the electronic image stabilization helps smooth out shaky footage.
Manual controls are nice!
IMAGE: BRITTANY HERBERT/MASHABLE
More serious photographers will also love the manual controls and RAW image support.
Practically perfect
OnePlus 2 (left) and OnePlus 3 (right).
IMAGE: BRITTANY HERBERT//MASHABLE
I liked the OnePlus 2, but I didn't love it the way I do the Nexus 6P and Galaxy S7/S7 Edge. But I can now say I love the OnePlus 3, too.
It's arguable the screen isn't on par with the those two phones, which means using it for VR isn't quite as crispy, but as a phone the OnePlus 3 is off-the-charts spectacular for its price.
Whereas the OnePlus 2 wasn't very future-proof, the OnePlus 3 is. The powerful processor and insane amount of RAM ensures it won't be obsolete by next year, the second nano SIM card slot is useful if you travel a lot and NFC means you can use Android Pay and connect with NFC-compatible speakers and other devices.
Including a microSD card slot for adding more storage would have made the OnePlus 3 even closer to perfect.
The OnePlus 3 is practically perfect, save for expandable storage, waterproofing, fast wireless charging and a QuadHD display. To be honest, I could live without any of these.
OnePlus has really outdone itself and its competitors this year. I dare you to find a better Android phone for $400.
Known leaker of all things smartphone-related, Evan Blass, has posted a press render of what he claims is the new OnePlus flagship, the OnePlus 3.
According to Blass, the new device will have a 3,000 milliamp-hour (mAh) battery and an AMOLED screen, which are OK if not exactly groundbreaking.
But if Blass' photo is the real deal, it means OnePlus now pretty much looks like every other major Android device outside of Samsung's Galaxy phones: Antenna lines on the back, a metallic body, rounded edges, a speaker grill next to a headphone jack and a USB Type-C port on the bottom.
We can't complain about this too much; after all, you could describe the HTC 10, Huawei P9 or the Meizu Pro 6 with those exact same words. But OnePlus was the company that did try to be a little different when it comes to design, be that with its monolithic OnePlus X or the customizable OnePlus 2.
Rumors have it the OnePlus 3 will have a full HD screen, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor, 4GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, a 16-megapixel rear camera and an 8-megapixel selfie cam.
The 3,000mAh battery is nothing to write home about (although the device in the photos above does look very thin, so at least we get that), but the AMOLED screen is likely to be one or two notches better than the IPS LCD screen on the OnePlus 2, especially in sunny conditions.
There's no official date for the OnePlus 3 launch, but if the press photo above is genuine, we can expect to learn more about the phone soon.
BONUS: OnePlus 2 review
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