Performance
At £309 SIM-free, the OnePlus 3 is up against a number of strong rivals. There’s the Nexus 5X, which retails at £299; the Nexus 6P, £379; the £169 Motorola Moto G4 ( see p70); and the good-old OnePlus 2, now £249.
However, the OnePlus 3 batters them all in terms of performance. Just check out the graphs ( see opposite). The OnePlus 3 delivers average frame rates double that of its nearest competitors in the graphics-heavy GFXBench tests, with equally fine Geekbench results. Its Snapdragon 820 processor, backed by 6GB of RAM, kills the competition stone-dead. You have to move up to the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S7 and iPhone 6s Plus before you find a handset that can compete. As you might expect, the phone feels ultra-responsive.
The big question is: how does all this power affect battery life? The answer – so long as you’re not playing hard-core 3D games all day – is not at all.
In our video-rundown battery-life tests, the OnePlus 3 outlasted every one of its mid-price rivals once again, sailing past the Moto G4’s time of 13hrs 39mins by an impressive 3hrs 17mins. It will comfortably last a day of moderate use and a day and a half if you’re careful.
OnePlus’ new Dash Charge quick-charging technology is almost as impressive. Using the charger in the box, the OnePlus 3 reached 50% in 23 minutes, 75% in 35 minutes and 100% in 1hr 14mins. So even when you do run out of juice, you’ll be up and running in short order.
Super screen?
The screen uses a Super AMOLED panel with a bunch of software and colour “optimisations” by OnePlus, but performance was mixed in our tests. Brightness is respectable. In fact, it’s brighter than most AMOLED screens, reaching 415cd/m2 with the brightness slider adjusted to the far right. I’ve only seen Samsung’s AMOLEDequipped phones reach higher. Put simply, you should be able to read the screen comfortably in