Ever since the first OnePlus One made it to the market, the company has made its name for releasing flagship killers.
But is the OnePlus 6 worthy of this tagline? Let’s find out!
It’s become a tradition for OnePlus flagships to be revealed in detail much before its official launch. The same was applicable for the OnePlus 6 and everything we knew about the phone before launch has come out to be true. So, there are no surprises in this article.
OnePlus 6 Design
The OnePlus 6 has joined the numerous flagships of 2018 that feature a glass body. Some might argue that metal is better than glass, but OnePlus defends this move by saying that the glass body is more malleable than a metal one and its lighter too. Plus, with Gorilla Glass 5 protection at the back (as well as front), the phone is set to take a few hits without breaking down. In fact, OnePlus claims that the OnePlus 6 is as durable as its predecessors with a metal body. Personally, I can vouch for OnePlus’ sturdy built quality as my old OnePlus 3T has slipped off my hands numerous times. The phone does features a few dents here and there, but apart from that, the device still performs flawlessly. So it’s good to hear that the GG5 back is as good as the previous OnePlus flagships.
The back features a vertically arranged dual camera setup, with a dual LED flash, pill shaped fingerprint sensor, and the OnePlus logo just below it. The company has ensured that the design is symmetrical and looks good. There’s a metal frame that goes around the glass body. The alert slider is now located on the right, above the power button. The volume buttons stay on the left like the previous OnePlus phones. The bottom features the USB Type-C port, speakers, and a headphone jack.
The OnePlus 6 is water resistant too, but the company hasn’t revealed an official IP certification. There are three color options, Mirror Black (high gloss), Midnight Black (Matte finish), and Silk White. The White color model is unfortunately a limited edition variant and will be available for sale later in June.
OnePlus 6 Hardware
You get the best hardware of 2018 inside the OnePlus 6. So love it or hate it, but the notch is here to stay. The phone features a 6.28-inch 2280 x 1080 tall 19:9 AMOLED display, with a notch on top. Of course, there’s an option to get rid of the notch inside the software, but that simply means you’ll be putting a black bar on the sides of the notch, technically wasting the available screen space.
Snapdragon 845 is inside with 6GB / 8GB RAM and 64GB/ 128GB/ 256GB ROM options. There’s dual SIM card slots and support for 40 bands across Europe and Americas. The battery size is nothing extraordinary, but with the 10nm SD845 and software optimisations, the 3300mAh battery should last an entire day.
As for the camera department, the OnePlus 6 comes with a 16MP primary sensor with f/1.7 aperture, 1.22um pixels and OIS. The larger pixel size of the main camera is said to improve the low light performance. There’s a 20MP secondary camera for depth information. The phone supports 4K videos at 60 fps which puts it in the same ranks as Galaxy S9 and iPX. Slo-mo videos can be shot at 480 fps @ 720p for up to a minute. You get a new video editor too with features such as adding filters, and music.
Unfortunately, there was no mention of wireless charging on the device.
OnePlus 6 Software
You get a familiar Oxygen OS on the OnePlus 6 with Android 8.1. Of course, you can test out the latest Android P beta on the phone too. What’s new in the OS is the gesture support. For example, swiping left or right takes you a step back or forward. Similarly swiping up from the home screen goes back home. This gives you the opportunity to free up the space taken by on screen buttons. There are the other standard features such as reading mode, gaming mode etc.
OnePlus 6 Pricing
In this age of premium smartphones costing nearly thousands of dollars, OnePlus is still fairly affordable. As expected, the company did increase the pricing of its new flagship, but as Carl Pei mentioned in the launch event, the company has always focused on fair pricing. And with the OnePlus 6, the pricing is quite fair indeed.
The OnePlus 6 starts at $529, which is a $30 increase as compared to the starting price of the OnePlus 5T.
Here are the official OnePlus 6 prices of all the variants:
6GB+64GB Mirror Black – $529
8GB+128GB Mirror Black – $579
8GB+128GB Midnight Black – $579
8GB+256GB Midnight Black – $629
8GB+128GB Silk White – $579
So the pricing starts from $529 and goes up to $629. That’s pretty aggressive for a 2018 flagship smartphone!
The only issue here is that the Silk White variant is a limited edition, so we don’t know how many units will be up for grabs. Also, the 256GB version is only available in the Midnight Black edition.
Overall, I’d say well done OnePlus!
What are your thoughts?
