OnePlus 3: 8 things to know before purchasing the smartphone

For a $399 flagship smartphone that has beastly specifications, OnePlus 3 would have everything you need from one the most affordable Android flagships of 2016 right? Not quite; while there are some truly amazing things about the handset, OnePlus 3 does have its flaws and we have compiled a list of 8 highly important things that you should know before purchasing the smartphone.

1. 6GB of RAM is an attractive number, but not as attractive as you would think

Featuring a Snapdragon 820 is what nearly all of us were expecting from the flagship, but what we didn’t know that the smartphone is packing 6GB of RAM. That’s more RAM than most laptops and 2-in-1 Windows 10 tablets and you’ll get a lot of stuff done with that chunky amount. Unfortunately, OnePlus knows just as well as we do that having this much RAM in a handset will consume a lot of battery life, and they have stretched their efforts into making sure that you experience a lot of battery life as possible.

Unfortunately, this little act has a huge trade-off and that comes with apps stored in the smartphone’s cache. Apps stored in the cache fire up faster, but when OnePlus 3 took on a Galaxy S7 edge, a device that features 2GB of RAM less than the affordable flagship, the results were highly disappointing. OnePlus 3 did lag behind Galaxy S7 edge when you were firing up applications but this approach was done to give you as much battery life as possible.

When criticisms started hitting the OnePlus team, they promised they would be introducing an OTA software update that will allow you to open up apps much faster, although you will not be able to experience the same battery life as before

2. There’s a noticeable camera hump at the back and that’s because the device is much thinner and has a smaller battery

OnePlus 3 is much thinner than a OnePlus 2 and also has that noticeable camera hump that’s protruding from the rear end. That’s because a device that’s thinner will obviously feature a smaller battery capacity. Last year, OnePlus 2 featured no camera bump, because the company filled that protruding space with battery, thus bringing us to a grand total of 3,300mAh. While OnePlus 3 is still able to deliver a fair amount of battery life to the user, having a 3,000mAh cell is too small for something that’s labelled as an Android flagship.

To top that, the phone’s screen size is 5.5 inches, so OnePlus did have a lot of room to play around with as long as they didn’t reduce that thickness.

3. The smartphone looks like a cross between a HTC 10 and an iPhone 6s Plus

There’s very little you can do to change the design of the smartphone so the team behind the design of OnePlus 3 did not want to take too many risks with something completely different. Because of this, the flagship smartphone does imitate the design of a HTC 10 and an iPhone 6s Plus, which isn’t bad in any way but it’s just something that we wanted to point out.

4. OnePlus 3 brings back the NFC chip

While not a drastic change, it should be noted that OnePlus 2 did not feature an NFC chip, so it is probably a nice little upgrade for those who actually participate in the daily activities of using NFC.

5. Dash Charge technology is fast, but you will still need the bundled accessories for it to kick in

Dash Charge technology is OnePlus’ proprietary fast charging technology that allows you to quickly charge the smartphone’s battery if you have very limited to time to plug it in thanks to your busy schedule. Unfortunately, the proprietary technology means that you must use the USB-C cable and the charger that comes along with the phone in order for Dash Charge to kick in. What this means is that the amount of care you must take of your OnePlus 3 should also be reciprocated for its accessories, otherwise no other aftermarket charger is going to do the trick for you as far as Dash Charge is concerned.

The impressive think to note here is that the charger itself is able to deliver an outstanding 4 amps on the 5V circuit, which is the first time we’re seeing from a smartphone charging accessory. Usually, expensive chargers are able to deliver up to 2.4 amps on the same 5V, but we’re glad to see that high amperage accessories have started to roll in.

6. OnePlus 3 does not provide support for wireless charging

Wireless charging is convenient, but at the same time, it’s unable to reduce the total amount of time it takes to charge your smartphone. Perhaps when wireless chargers are able to deliver more wattage to smartphones, OnePlus might finally include one in its packaging, but for now, you will have to take advantage of the good old fashioned power socket and the power brick that comes with the packaging.

7. The rear camera of OnePlus 3 falls short in comparison to the competition

The specs on paper might look impressive, but the fact of the matter is that OnePlus 3’s camera does come short, particularly when you’re recording video. Sure, it is effortlessly able to record 4K footage at 30 frames per second, but there are more than a few gripes, starting with the quality. Another thing that bothers us is that while recording video, there is a large amount of camera shake and no amount of keeping your hand still will produce a stabilized video, which goes to show that while OIS is included in OnePlus 3, it is not present while recording video.

Another thing that you will notice while recording video is that it has a lot of trouble autofocusing on the subject, which will result in the image being quite jittery, and might even move out of focus, dismantling your experience as a result. However, it’s not to say that OnePlus 3 camera is horrible, because for still images, it is possibly the best shooter that you can get in the $399 price bracket.

8. OnePlus 3 has an insanely fast fingerprint scanner, coming only second to Apple’s Touch ID

OnePlus 3 unlocks insanely quickly and some can say that the device’s fingerprint reader is only second to Apple’s current generation Touch ID, which is impressive for a $399 smartphone. SuperSaf TV managed to conduct a fingerprint test between OnePlus 3 and iPhone 6s so check out the test results given below.

There you have it; the 8 most important things to know before buying OnePlus 3 and while it’s not a perfect smartphone, its $399 price tag is more than what current-gen flagships are able to offer while being twice as expensive. There are negative aspects of the smartphone, but if you can get around to getting used to them, then the OnePlus 3 is definitely suited for you.