OnePlus 3T
The OnePlus 3, launched summer 2016, was a sublime blend of design and performance for just over £300, so it’s odd that around six months later the firm has ended production of that handset, sticking to it’s motto of ‘never settle’ and released this upgraded version of the same phone, the 3T. The company that prides itself on listening to its fans’ reaction to its products has boldly dared to update a handset that people have had for less than half a year. Will the move gain new fans while annoying existing ones, or both?
Price
The 3T is on sale SIM-free and unlocked directly from OnePlus. It costs £399 for the 64GB version and £30 more for the £439 128GB version. Both are available in the Gunmetal colour, which is slightly darker than the Graphite version of the OnePlus 3, and Soft Gold.
Design
Even the ‘s’ iterations of iPhones have an ‘s’ stamped on the back, but in this case there is absolutely no design change from the OnePlus 3 to the 3T. The only change is in the darker colour option, the grey of which on the rear is a tad darker than the old model. The Soft Gold option is exactly the same, and visually indistinguishable from the previous model.
This reinforces that OnePlus sees the 3T as a small tweak for the line, hoping as it does to not frustrate loyal fans that shelled out for a 3. The phone retains an outstanding design, with build quality to rival any premium smartphone maker in the land. It does what Apple has still failed to do and made a 5.5in screen phone slim, svelte and usable with one hand (just).
Apparently carved out of one piece of space-grade aluminium alloy the OnePlus 3T measures 152.7x74.7x7.4mm and weighs 158g. The frame of the handset houses a power/lock button on the right edge, a USB-C port, speaker, mic and 3.5mm headphone jack on the bottom and a volume rocker and OnePlus’ excellent Alert Slider on the left, leaving the top edge flat, curved and smooth. With a front-facing fingerprint scanner that relies on haptic feedback as opposed to a physical button, this is a phone that screams ‘use me’ from the second you take it out the box.
It also comes with a screen protector pre-applied, handy if you want to use it with one. The only lines that break the dark gunmetal of our review unit are the aerial lines and the OnePlus logo that sits beneath a 16Mp camera that protrudes ever so slightly from the casing. The front-facing camera sits next to the earpiece and is also an amazing 16Mp, something we’ll explore later.
At the launch event for the OnePlus 3T, co-founder Carl Pei explained that the company is always striving to do better; he used Apple’s design as a benchmark and the phone is one of the best looking handsets on the market, rivalling the matt black iPhone 7 Plus in the looks department, which is no mean feat. It does, however, remain slightly slippy, and is a phone that could be destroyed with one drop onto the pavement. We recommend one of OnePlus’ subtle but grippy cases that fit both this and the older 3.
Hardware
Much of the 3T’s spec sheet remains the same as its predecessor but there are also some important upgrades. Let’s take a look. Display The 3T has exactly the same display as the OnePlus 3. It’s a 5.5in Optic AMOLED with Full HD (1920x1080) resolution and 401ppi. By its own admission, OnePlus continues to ship a screen that recreates colours more vibrantly than most, but with the Oxygen OS skin of Android that it runs this feels right; the handset and feel of the software that the screen runs is right at home with the popping colours and bright whites.
There’s the option to calibrate the colours to your tastes though, and this is one example of the granularity of Android helping the 3T more than most become a truly personal device. Processor, memory and storage The 3T’s upgrades are mostly all internal, and while they’re all welcome, it took a few days of use to see why it’s come to be. We’ve used the OnePlus 3 for a few months, so can draw decent comparisons – straight off, you need not upgrade for fear of missing out on processor power, speed or battery life if you own the older model.
Having said that, the 3T is faster, yet only noticeably so if you are really hammering it at full pelt. It joins the Google Pixel (page 31) and Pixel XL in having Qualcomm’s top of the line Snapdragon 821 processor, the current pinnacle of smartphone chips. While only the most graphically intensive games and busiest of multitasking days will make the 820 sweat, the 821 is faster on the 3T. Going from the 3 to
the 3T, the difference is noticeable if incredibly subtle.
In a full week of use we experienced no lag, slow app changes or overheating. It is truly like using a desktop at some times, and even has more RAM than some of those computers with 6GB on board. Pair that with Adreno 530 graphics and you have an obscenely powerful smartphone in your pocket.
Our benchmarks (see above) show that the OnePlus 3T runs equal with the best smartphones out there, though remember these benchmarks don’t represent real world use. The phones in this graph are the absolute best you can get right now, and broadly all perform to the same unbeatable standards.
The handset is available with 64GB of internal storage, but bear in mind there’s no SD card slot. The fact you only need to spend £30 more to get an impressive 128GB shows you that Apple charging £100 more for that jump in storage for the iPhone 7 is unnecessarily high. For most, spending that extra money will be well worth it. Fingerprint scanner and other specifications The fingerprint scanner is on the front bottom face of the device. The button is non-moving and gives the perfect level of feedback when unlocking the device or using a compatible app such as Android Pay to verify your identity.
Tapping the same sensor acts as a home button, and is so good that when we try phones with physical buttons, it feels wrong. The best devices change our habits for the good, and the 3T has the best fingerprint sensor/home button combo of any current smartphone on the market.
Battery life
The non-removable battery clocks in at 3400mAh, a step up from the 3000mAh of the OnePlus 3. The internals are the same dimensions but the battery is denser, hence the increase. In general use, the phone will last a full working day, which is about average. We left the house most days at 8am with 100 percent, and by the time we rolled in from work at about 6.30pm the 3T had about 30 percent left in the tank.
This was when using the device as our primary email sender and using apps such as Slack, Spotify, and WhatsApp throughout the day. The battery percentage chugs down at the expected rate, and we didn’t experience any unexpected fall-off.
On one busy Google Maps day out in Barcelona even after 12 hours on the go the battery was sitting at 15 percent, and that was with the phone used to navigate, take photos and video and more besides. Obviously, it depends what you’re doing on the device, but for all but the most intensive users, the 3T will last the whole day no questions asked and lighter users should be able to get a decent chunk into a second day with the 3T.
Included in the box is OnePlus’ Dash Charger. The brick and cable, only when used together (important to note this point) charge the phone to 60 percent in 30 minutes. This is the firm’s claim, and it rings true – Dash Charge is excellent. It means you need not charge your 3T overnight, instead giving it a quick boost when you get up in the morning. There’s also a Dash Charger for your car in the shop.
Not only does this encourage a better way to charge your phone, while allowing you to top up very quickly, but also more importantly means you won’t panic about running out of juice for all but the most phone-focused of days.
The slight downside is that this fast charging only works with the included combo of plug and cable.
Any other USB-C cable will charge it, but at a slower rate. OnePlus sells the Dash Power Bundle for £27.53.
Cameras
The 3T’s slim casing means the camera protrudes slightly. This is an acceptable pay-off for what is an excellent sensor: a 16Mp lens with f/2.0 aperture and an LED flash. It’s also capable of shooting video at 4K resolution or 1080p resolution at 60fps. We used the camera extensively in Barcelona, and the results were very impressive.
The panorama mode stitched together a mountain view exceptionally well, giving full detail to the scene. In a low-lit church the camera reproduced colour and shadow to a high quality level. The front-facing 16Mp camera is an upgrade on the 8Mp of the OnePlus 3, and is one of the highest resolution selfie cameras on the market. It’s an impressive upgrade, but one that only the most ardent of selfie fans will notice. However, it did improve the quality of video calling considerably, and will benefit those into Snapchat stories and similar services.
Software
Refreshingly the software update that the 3T ships with changes the user experience in all the right ways to represent a clean, intuitive and pleasant to use Android version that is every bit as good as Google’s own version. By basing its Android skin Oxygen OS closely to stock Android Marshmallow 6.0, OnePlus has been able to make small tweaks that don’t completely change the way we used the phone, but enough to notice positive improvements day to day.
Oxygen OS 3.5.1 is the new version, compared to the 3.2.7 we had installed on the older OnePlus 3 at the time of writing. Never mind the decimals, here are the differences. Menus, in settings for example, look cleaner with no lines between options, a neater top bar and a bluer default font from the green of the 3. To be honest, they are minor changes, like the layout of the notification bar that you pull down from the top of the screen.
The OnePlus 3T cleverly combines a physical slider with profile changes to quickly switch between modes. Here, the threeposition switch goes between Silent, Do Not Disturb and Ring. These are customisable and are useful for putting your phone into a quieter mode for meetings or when you go to bed for example. This is different to how the slider worked on the OnePlus 3, where it went between Silent, Priority Notifications and All Notifications. The functions are basically the same, but again have some software tweaks within the settings menu.
All in all, the alert slider is a great idea, improving on Apple iPhone silencer switch, and is a button you’ll miss if you use other phones afterwards.
The best thing about these tweaks is the way they simply blend into the OS and are intuitive, thoughtful upgrades. At the time of writing, both the 3 and the 3T were due to receive updates to Android Nougat 7.0 in December 2016. We hope there is more of the same incremental updates rather than a full overhaul, because Oxygen OS 3.5.1 is very good indeed. Nor would it make sense for OnePlus to work so hard on an upgrade that most users would only see for one month.
Verdict
The OnePlus 3T will be unfairly compared, for now at least, to the phone that came before it. So let’s ignore it. On its own, the 3T is everything a modern smartphone should be – slim, fast, and responsive, with above average battery life and cameras that produce stunning images. And then there’s the price. OnePlus may not like being known for it, but £399 remains an amazing price point for the phone on offer. As long as you don’t want an iPhone, this Android handset stands side by side with the Samsung Galaxy S7 as the best example of a smartphone on the market today.