Introduction
In just 4 years since its launch, OnePlus has managed to gather quite a loyal fan base, especially in India. The Shenzhen based smartphone manufacturer has also managed to adroitly stay away from the notorious reputation of being sub-par that plagues other Chinese manufacturers. OnePlus phones have often been referred to as flagship killers, with the OnePlus 6, the company seems like it has its hands on a killer flagship instead.
A company that prides itself on caring about its community, that has said time and again how seriously it takes feedback, OnePlus has actually put this into action by launching a bezel-less phone just 6 months after the launch of the OnePlus 5T (a great phone in its own rights). You might be wondering whether an upgrade was required this soon, maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t; but OnePlus clearly thought the former.
The biggest take away from the OnePlus 6 is its gorgeous bezel-less display, albeit with a notch and the snapdragon 845 processor that is simply the best in the business.
With a glass body that screams premium, OnePlus have definitely upped their game when it comes to design. Flagship material indeed.
The display size increases to 6.28inches (from the 6.01 inch 5T) which also adds 15g to the weight and brings in the OnePlus 6 at 177g. This might not even be a thought point for those of you who are used to the bigger form factor that is the standard now, but it is quite a deviation from my preferred form factor of the iPhone 8 (4.7 inches and 148 g).
The pixel density remains more or less the same but the extra screen real estate translates to a ratio of 19:9 instead of the 18:9 on the 5T.
The OnePlus 6 ships with Android 8.1 Oreo, but already has the Android P beta and will be one of the first handsets out there to get the Android P update upon launch.
The camera configuration on the back is now a vertical set-up mounted towards the center and while the snappers remain similar in megapixels, they do promise (and deliver) better quality and come with OIS. Video recording gains 2160p@60fps and 1080p@240fps.
Oh and since this has become such a big deal (read common joke) now that it received a special mention in the OnePlus 6 launch keynote as well, let me go ahead and say it, we still have a 3.5mm headphone jack.
Unboxing, Hardware Overview
With OnePlus upping its marketing game continuously, there are a plethora of unboxing videos out there, some with the India’s best stand-up comedians on the official OnePlus India YouTube channel as well. But to give you the gist, the white box looks as elegant as the last time and drops to reveal the phone that comes with a pre-applied screen protector. Underneath you find the dash charger with the iconic red cable. Neatly stowed away inside the tray compartment is the safety information booklet and quick start guide along with some sweet stickers and the SIM tray removal tool. We also get a plastic case that doesn’t look great but can help with grip issues till you find a better one (yes, the glass back makes the phone quite slippery).
The OnePlus 6 measures 155.7 x 75.4 x 7.8 mm which is slightly bigger than the iPhone X (143.6 x 70.9 x 7.7 mm), the Pixel 2 (145.7 x 69.7 x 7.8 mm) and the Samsung S9 (147.7 x 68.7 x 8.5 mm) technically making it the biggest of the lot, but the difference is inconsequential. When it comes to weight, the OP6 is on the heavier side of the spectrum at 177g compared to the iPhone X (174g), the S9 (163g) and the Pixel 2 (143g). None of these numbers should really make a difference though.
Visually, the bezel-less front combined with glass back design makes this the best looking phone OnePlus has ever come up with. With two color variants at launch, the Mirror Black looks gorgeous but is a fingerprint magnet with its glossy reflective finish, while the Midnight Black seems more dignified and functional. There is a third variant that’s also out now, the Silk White, with real pearl dust under the glass back which makes it standout with tasteful elegance.
The fingerprint sensor can be found below the dual camera set-up on the back and is smaller and rectangular compared to the one on the 5T. The alert slider, a feature that the OP community really loves, is present on the right side of the device. The OnePlus 6 also retains the ‘Horizon’ Line design aspect that started with the OP 5 and this does add to the beautiful design. The volume buttons on the left are extremely tactile and responsive however I would have liked a groove in the middle so that it’s easy to distinguish between the up and down without looking. I found myself making this mistake quite often when I tried using the buttons.
The front of the phone is as you would imagine primarily occupied by the bezel-less display. Providing at 83.8% screen to body ratio with just a chin and a small notch at the top. The notch on the OnePlus 6 houses the front camera and other internals and is much smaller and less obtrusive than the one found on the iPhone X. After a few days of use, the notch didn’t bother me at all, but there’s an option in the software to remove the notch (substitute it with a black bar) if it does bother you.
The bottom of the device houses a speaker, a USB C port and yes, the 3.5mm jack is still present on the OnePlus 6. The single loudspeaker means that we don’t get stereo sound. It is however, quite loud and powerful but one can easily notice the quality drop at higher volumes.
Display, Connectivity, Battery Life
One of the biggest changes that the 6 brings over the 5T is the new bezel-less display (possibly the reason we have a new launch in just 6 months), the optic AMOLED display sports a resolution of 1080 x 2280 pixels (i.e. 19:9 ratio & ~402 ppi density). And even though the display is good and shouldn’t leave you wanting for more, it does lag behind the flagships that it hopes to compete against with the iPhone X sporting a resolution of 1125 x 2436 pixels (i.e. 19.5:9 ratio & ~458 ppi density), the Pixel 2 at 1080 x 1920 pixels (16:9 ratio & ~441 ppi density) and the S9 blazing ahead at 1440 x 2960 pixels (18.5:9 ratio & ~570 ppi density). The display on the 5T lacked when it came to brightness, peaking at 394 nits. This has been improved and the OP 6 packs a much brighter punch at 574 nits which is more than that of the Pixel 2 (~430 nits). However, it still lags behind the other competition as the S9 hits 603 nits and the iPhone X touches a whopping 680 nits at maximum brightness.
Having given you the numbers, you won’t find the OP6 display lacking at all during use (hey, the iPhone X is more than twice the price) but you might not like the color reproduction that the default mode provides. But don’t worry, you have options to change it. All in all, the display is amongst the best in class and is easily the best when it comes to value for money.
There is not much to change when it comes to connectivity. We still have a dual-SIM tray that supports 2 Nano SIMS. In addition to the communication bands supported by the 5T, we have some new LTE bands that customers in specific European or North American regions might benefit from.
The Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS internals remain unchanged and just like the 5T, support Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, WiFi Direct, DLNA, hotspot, Bluetooth 5.0, A2DP, LE, aptX HD
And GPS Ywith A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS, GALILEO.
Coming to the charging, the only option available is still just wired charging through the reversible USB-C connector. This is one area where the OP6 has been receiving a lot of backlash, with a glass body, everyone really expects it to support wireless charging but I guess you’ll have to wait for the 6T for that. OnePlus claims that the reason for the omission of wireless charging is that its dash charging is so far ahead in terms of speed. I’ll agree that dash charging is fantastic (30 mins for 60% that OnePlus claims will give you about a day’s worth of use or 75 mins for 100% are pretty great) and didn’t make me miss wireless charging. However, I haven’t fully jumped on the wireless charging brigade yet, so for those of you who have, this might just be a deal breaker.
Coming to the battery life, the battery capacity remains unchanged from the 5T as 3300 mAh. While this is larger than the iPhone X (2716 mAh) and the Pixel 2 (2700 mAh), the actual performance at the end of the day is more or less at par with the competition even though we see it lag behind the 5T slightly because of the extra display pixels that make the bezel-less experience. So even though the actual battery life isn’t really ahead of the competition and should get you through the day without a hitch, the dash charging aspect of it makes it much more powerful than the competition. You really don’t need overnight charging anymore when you have the wonders of dash charging.
User Interface, Software, Performance
The tagline for OnePlus 6 is The Speed You Need and OxygenOS (obviously combined with the Snapdragon 845 under the hood) delivers just that. OxygenOS has always been chasing the OnePlus motto of Never Settle meaning that its focus is primarily on speed and user experience. There is no change in that, it is still a super light skin, very close to the stock android experience with just a few customisations on top aimed at boosting functionality, this time coming with Android 8.1 Oreo out of the box and as confirmed during Google I/O, the OP6 will be one of the first few devices to get the Android P update as soon as it is launched.
The OP6 has a dedicated gaming mode that blocks notifications, turns off software buttons and makes sure that no background processes interrupt you, providing you a lag free experience to stomp PubG Mobile or ace races in Asphalt.
The alert slider (a fan favourite feature) comes in 3 toggles: Ring, Vibrate and Silent that you can customize providing you with exactly what you need for your best user experience.
Facial recognition to unlock is faster than ever before (and works surprisingly well in low light). The technology is much less impregnable than its Apple/iOS counterpart but it’s aimed at providing convenience and not security. For security, the OP6 still has the fingerprint sensor which is also lightning fast. Overall, unlocking your phone is so fast that if you just want to see the lock screen for notifications, it gets annoying.
The 5T came with gestures like double tap to wake up (makes unlocking super efficient when your phone is lying on its back) as well as drawing < or > or || to control music and drawing O,V etc to launch apps. The OP6 adds new gesture controls (that are quite similar to what was demoed by Google for Android P and the iPhone X) that take ease of use to the next level. From the settings, you can remove the android buttons from the bottom of the screen and choose to use the gestures (a must do according to me, to make the most of the gorgeous bezel-less display). Now you just have to swipe up from the center of the screen to go to the home screen, swipe up from the right to go back and swipe up and hold from the center to open the app switcher. After using these for a couple of days, they really are a breeze.
The shelf, notification shade and task switcher are all the same as you’ve seen before on the 5T. All in all, OxygenOS is as fast and reliable as ever with some minor tweaks here and there that you could expect in every refresh. As an android experience, the OP6 does not leave you asking for anything more.
I’m not a believer in synthetic benchmarks, but OP6 places itself comfortably among the top of the charts with an AnTuTu 7 score of 264200, a Geek-Bench 4.1 single core score of 2450 and a multi core score of 9011. These scores are at par or higher than its competitors.
When it comes down to performance during actual use, the OP6 is blazingly ahead of the competition. There are a plethora of videos of user run App Launch timing tests on YouTube in which the OP6 is consistently faster than the iPhone X, The Samsung Galaxy S9 and the Google Pixel 2. Never Settle indeed, you can trust OnePlus on that.
Camera
The camera setup on the OnePlus 6 is similar to the 5T and one that is still surprising the world. It is again a 16MP + 20MP dual lens setup, however the secondary module it not a telephoto or wide angle wide-angle lens. The main sensor (previously a Sony IMX398 1/2.6”) has been replaced by a bigger Sony IMX519 1/2.8” which means that the pixel size increases from 1.12µm to 1.22µm. The major addition that the camera setup of the OP6 brings over the 5T is the addition of optical image stabilization.
The camera app remains pretty much the same, with 3 main modes – photo, video and portrait. There are additional modes – slow motion, pro mode, time-lapse and panorama that you can reach with a simple swipe up. The basic photo mode provides you with a timer, HDR, aspect ratio and flash option. There is now a beauty option available as well in the photo and portrait modes. The pro mode provides you additional options of shooting in RAW, tweaking the ISO (100-3200), WB (2300K-7500K) and shutter speed (1/8000 to 30). The pro mode with respect to the features it provides is quite decent for a stock camera app.
You can record video in 2160p@30/60fps, 1080p@30/60fps, 720p@30fps and slow-motion in 720p@480fps and 1080p @240fps.
So even though there isn’t much change in the camera setup on the OP6, the image quality is definitely superior to the 5T (guess the pixel sizes are indeed making a difference). The overall quality is quite good with colours being rendered vividly and quality being decent in low light settings as well.
The selfie camera has been improved by a considerable amount. It is a 16MP Sony IMX376K snapper (with a 25mm lens & f/2.0 aperture) that performs very well and makes sure your selfies turn out fab. You also get a beauty mode if that’s if you care about that for your Instagram game.
Final Verdict and the competition
Is the OnePlus 6 a major step up from the OnePlus 5T? No. It has a faster processor and a slightly better camera and a bezel-less display. But should you shell out money to buy one if you already have the 5T? Only if you NEED to have the bezel-less display.
Is it going to make you shift from an iPhone and the Apple ecosystem? Only if you are highly price sensitive and want a bezel-less display without shelling out the dough for an iPhone X.
Is it better than the competition? It is faster and much more value for money than the galaxies and pixels of the world. But to give you this value (read keep the price low) it does have to omit out things like an IP rating, a proper telephoto lens, a micro SD card slot and wireless charging. So if those things are important to you then this might not be your cup of tea.
All in all, the OnePlus 6 stays true to the company’s ethos. It’s blazingly fast (Never Settle) and extremely value for money (flagship killer). Yes, it has its minor shortcomings but they should bother only the extreme nitpickers among us, it is by far the best bang for your buck smartphone out there right now and you will not be disappointed if you pick one up.
(If you’re still not convinced, you might want to wait for Xiaomi Mi8 or Mix 2S to hit the Indian subcontinent)
