OnePlus releases new "flagship killer", smaller X discontinued

The small Chinese smartphone maker OnePlus took the world by storm two years ago by releasing a super cheap flagship smartphone. They called it the flagship killer, and it indeed challenged the best Android smartphones without big drawbacks and with a tiny price tag. Now the company has revealed this years model.

As expected it is called the OnePlus 3. The third generation is not quite as cheap as the first, or even the second model, but it certainly is worth the flagship killer moniker. Comparing it to Samsung's number one smartphone, the Galaxy S7, OnePlus 3 only loses in screen resolution. Some would say not going QHD was a smart move from OnePlus too.

OnePlus 3 features a super thing 7,4 mm (0.29 in) thin, single-piece aluminium body which holds a 3000 milliamp battery. Performance is ensured by Snapdragon 820 and six gigs of RAM. The sixteen megapixel f2.0 camera features optical image stabilization and phase detection auto focus.

Everything seems to be in order for a good top end smartphone but it's the price what makes the deal sweet. You can buy one unlocked for only $399.

OnePlus has however revealed that the 5,5 inch smartphone will be the only option for now, and there's only the one 64 GB version. The company has discontinued the X model that was introduced last year as the cheaper and smaller option.

Written by: Matti Robinson @ 18 Jun 2016 16:11

hearme0

Now I don't own a cell phone as I gave mine up 3.5 years ago but being in IT.......work gives me one generally.

IMO, cell phones have dead-ended and are now stagnating. Nothing new, nothing innovative, nothing ground-breaking, AT ALL.

RAM increases are nothing.
Snapdragon 820 vs last year's 810 is not noticeable.
QHD screens simply use much more battery and the difference between HQD and 1080 FHD is negligible to say the most on a phone.

This is all fodder!

20.6.2016 14:52 #1

biglo30

Really disappointed that they went and made the phone thinner just to slap in a small battery and give the phone a stupid camera hump I make come on one plus, we praised your for filling out the phone with as the thickness didn't matter. I don't see why manufacturers have such an obsession with thickness anyways.Im sure the only reason they kept the 1080p panel was to keep cost down even thought I agree that it's a waste of money and battery.

20.6.2016 23:31 #2

mukhis

1080p as opposed to QHD makes sense, QHD does nothing better but kills the battery. the only problem here i see is that this doesn't have a REAL dual-SIM option; in other words, you have to use either the 2nd SIM or the microSD, which is lame. Not clear whether OTG is supported.

i agree with hearme0 that there is no more significant innovation in the mobile space, neither in hardware nor in software. i can't believe android players are still not capable of playing HEVC encoded 10 bits HD files. even 720p buffers, let alone 4K. Office apps, specially powerpoint are not good enough either.

20.6.2016 23:57 #3

Bozobub

For one, why not stop trying to play 4K on Android devices? Even the biggest tablet out there shows hardly any difference in quality from 1080p (frankly, absolutely none to my eyes).

As for 720p/1080p, HEVC (x.265) 10-bit plays fine - unconverted - on BSPlayer on most relatively recent Android devices I've seen (at least quad-core, anyhow), and MX Player does the same for most similar files I've seen. MX Player's UI, however, in my opinion is significantly better, so I use it for everything that doesn't make it lose audio sync (which generally happens with MX Player instead of stuttering).

Both apps have fully-capable free versions (small ad banners when in menus), so it'll cost nothing to check 'em out, nor do you really ever have to buy them; the ads aren't annoying at all, although YMMV.

Hope that helps! Let me know how it works out for you, if you would, either way.

As for device capability, frankly, very few apps are even remotely scratching the surface of the capability of 2 or 3-year-old devices, much less state-of-the-art modern octacore monsters. I'll worry about "innovation", when we actually start using most of what we already have, besides simple RAM/storage (which IS increasing steadily) =) .

Edit -> Additionally, I think you shouldn't ignore the recent change from 32-bit/64-bit weird hybrid structure to full 64-bit ARM processors. This is a BIG deal, and we haven't even started to see the changes that will make. For example, just as with desktop processors, the change makes addressing far more RAM possible, along with the obvious speed benefits from not having to convert between 32-bit/64-bit pointers and code (hybrid ARMs are weird - lol).

Edit 2 -> By the by, if you're finding your Android device is lagging a lot, try freeing up some device RAM by uninstalling as much as you can bear to let go. I'll bet a whole $0.25 it helps a lot =) . Another thing that will help is searching for "clear android system logs"; these logs often eat up huge amounts of storage for no particular reason (until you have a serious error, that is!) and you can at least delete the oldest.

21.6.2016 02:56 #4

mukhis

Originally posted by Bozobub: why not stop trying to play 4K on Android devices? Even the biggest tablet out there shows hardly any difference in quality from 1080p (frankly, absolutely none to my eyes).

Let me know how it works out for you, if you would, either way.
if i need to stop playing 4K on android, you will need to stop playing 1080p on android as well since either of the resolutions does not make sense in portable devices, LOL.

well, the point is that both of us are trying to get a better picture by having a higher resolution despite it may not be required (mostly). for example, a research shows if you sit at 30" from the display, and your eyesight is 20/20, more than ~ 220 ppi indistinguishable from 220 ppi. the ppi of 13.3" and 15.6" 4K laptops are normally way higher, which means it is practically waste, let alone the mobile devices! this may be one of the reasons why apple has decided to keep the macbook/pro retina display at ~ 220 ppi.

in my observation, at times, a 4K video looks better than the corresponding 1080p video on a 1080p display. taking the same result for granted, i am trying to use 4K videos on a QHD display.

I have tested all types of x264 and HEVC/x265 files in Android Marsmallow (LG G4 dual SIM) using VLC and the other popular players like MX and BS, and here are the "confirmed" results:
# HEVC/x265 8 bit SD or HD: Success all the time
# HEVC/x265 10 bit SD: Success all the time
# HEVC/x265 10 bit HD: Even 720p has occasional ghosting/stutter issue, but plays fine
# x264 8 bit 4K/UHD: Plays fine
# HEVC/x265 10 bit 4K/UHD: No luck in playback so far

5.7.2016 08:10 #5

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