OnePlus 6 FULL REVIEW | STILL FLAGSHIP KILLER | UNBIASED REVIEW

Key Features

• Review Price: inr 34999| 39999| 44999
• 6.2-inch FHD+ screen
• Snapdragon 845
• 6/8GB RAM
• 64/128/256GB storage
• 16MP + 20MP cameras w/ OIS
• 16MP front camera
• 3300 mAh battery, Dash Charge
• Android 8.1

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What is the OnePlus 6?

It’s impressive how that in less than five years, OnePlus has gone from releasing phones barely anyone had heard of to having a glitzy launch party at the Olympic Stadium in London. The OnePlus 6 is the brand’s best phone yet, and it’s competition to the Samsung Galaxy S9, iPhone X and LG G7.

OnePlus 6 – Design

Much of what makes the OnePlus 6 feel extra special is the completely new build and design. It’s now made almost completely of glass, which curves around the rear and feels fantastic. There’s a rim of metal sandwiched between the glass to add some rigidity.

My first impression when I took it out the box was that it looked and felt like the offspring of a Samsung Galaxy S9 and iPhone X.

There’s a highly polished black version that’s gorgeous but a real fingerprint magnet, plus there’s a more conservative Midnight Black matte-finished model, and a stunning white-and-pinky-gold variation that sadly won’t arrive until after launch. OnePlus told me the latter version was made with powdered pearl dust, and while that sounds like the beginnings of a mythical witch’s brew, it does give the phone a jewel-like finish.

The Mirror Black is ridiculously shiny

There’s been a switch-up in other classic OnePlus design aspects, too. The alert slide is still present, but it sits on the opposite side, and the fingerprint sensor is now an oblong shape, perched beneath the centrally positioned dual cameras. The alert slider lets you easily jump from silent to loud mode without unlocking the phone, and I miss it a lot when using a phone that isn’t from OnePlus. I’d love to see more phones have one.

Despite being heavily rumoured in the run-up to launch, the OnePlus 6 doesn’t hold an IP-rating for water-resistance. However, the company has said that while the device holds no official rating, much work has been done to improve its protection against water. These come by way of extra seals around the ports and between the screen.

I’m still slightly confused, though, by the lack of an official IP rating. Maybe the company is trying to save some cash by not officially garnering an IP rating; similar to the way it previously lacked the necessary codecs to play HD content from Netflix and Amazon.

The bottom line is that, despite the lack of IP rating, OnePlus appears confident that if you leave your phone in the bathroom while you’re having a shower or the device is caught out in the rain, it will be fine.

On the bottom of the phone you’ll find a 3.5mm headphone jack – always nice to see and getting rarer by every phone launch – alongside the USB-C port for charging.

OnePlus 6 – Screen

The launch of the 5T in late 2017 appeared to be OnePlus’ quick response to the trend of the time, which was reducing the bezel and stretching out the display. With the OnePlus 6, the company jumps on another trend: the screen ‘notch’.

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The small cut-out at the top of the 6.3-inch display is fine, but I still can’t really understand the reason it’s here. There isn’t anything special going on inside the notch – just a regular 16-megapixel sensor, speaker and LED – and it simply feels like a device trying to imitate the iPhone X. It’s likely that most flagship phones in 2018 will sport a notch, but I still don’t really know why.

At least the notch doesn’t really interrupt anything when you’re using the phone. Apps either blank it out completely or comfortably deal with it by altering the UI, while further support and tweaks will come in Android P

thanks

Videos don’t cover the notch when they’re playing

Thankfully, the display itself is excellent, and if you really despise the notch then there’s a software update that will enable you to cover it up. The 2280 x 1080 (FHD+) OLED panel is bright, sharp and very colourful, with great viewing angles. It doesn’t seem to suffer that much with the usual shift to yellow tint that’s ruined many OLED displays over the past year either.

While the fingerprint scanner on the back is one of the fastest around, the Face Unlock function on the OnePlus 6 is almost equally as snappy. Unlike on the iPhone X where you unlock the screen and then swipe to unlock the phone, here you just tap the lock-button and if it recognises your mug it’ll jump you directly to the homescreen. There are of course some caveats to this unlocking method: as it’s not as secure as Face ID or the fingerprint scanner you can’t use it to authenticate payments from Google Play or log into banking apps. It’s not as reliable when it’s dark, so if i’m checking my phone in a dark bedroom then I tend to stick with the fingerprint sensor.

It would have been nice to see OnePlus increase the overall resolution of the screen to quad-HD, considering every OnePlus phone to date has packed a 1080p resolution. The issue with this again comes down to price, and of course whether the trade-off in battery life is worth that extra resolution.

If you’re not satisfied with the default colours on the display, the OnePlus 6 also enables you to tweak endlessly. The default setting out of the box is a little white and saturated for my liking, while the Adaptive mode toggles between various settings depending on what you’re doing. My pick is the DCI-P3 mode, which is softer on the eyes and displays a nicer range of colours.

OnePlus 6 – Performance

Screen	6.3-inch, 2280 x 1080, Optic AMOLED
CPU	Snapdragon 845
RAM	6/8GB
Storage	64/128/256GB UFS 2.1
Rear camera	Main 16-megapixel Sony sensor f/1.7; 20-megapixel secondary sensor. Portrait mode. 480fps 720p slo-mo for a minute. 19% bigger pixels in the main sensor over the 5T
Front camera	16-megapixel sensor with portrait mode
Battery	3300mAh, USB-C, Dash Charge – 30-minute for a day of use, no Qi charging
OS	Android Oreo 8.1 with Oxygen OS skin
Features	Dual-SIM, 1.2Gbps download speeds, headphone jack

OnePlus has always jammed top-end specs inside its phones, and nothing changes here.

A Snapdragon 845 powers the OnePlus 6, alongside 6GB or 8GB of RAM and the option of 256GB of storage. The option of 8GB of RAM feels odd, with its inclusion likely because OnePlus can put it there. It’s a status symbol.

I’ve been using the 8GB model for the review period and it’s so fast that the idea of things lagging and taking time to load didn’t even cross my mind. Apps open instantly, multitasking is fluid, and every single game I tried worked flawlessly. This is comfortably up there with the fastest phones I have ever used, and when I put it side by side with the Huawei P20 Pro, the latter’s performance issues were more obvious than ever.

Still, I would say you won’t lose any of this by plumping for the cheaper 6GB RAM model, though. But, as there’s no expandable storage, you should think about your storage options wisely.

The excellent day-to-day performance I noticed during my near two weeks with the phone was also obvious when I ran it through our usual benchmarking tests and compared it to some of the competition. OnePlus has done a lot to optimise the internals and software, and that really shows both in actual usage and synthetic tests.

	Single-Core	Multi-Core	AnTuTu 7
OnePlus 6	2124	9045	267001
Huawei P20 Pro	1921	6837	209658
Huawei Mate 10 Pro	1906	6740	178091
Galaxy S9 Plus	3720	8890	251205
iPhone X	4257	10364	235607
Pixel 2	1917	6312	184336

The natty marketing tagline OnePlus is using for this phone is ‘The Speed You Need’, and that idea goes beyond basic performance. This phone is fast in other areas, too. There’s support (where available, of course) for 1.2Gbps download speeds, improved 4×4 MiMo Wi-Fi, and a camera app that is one of the quickest I have ever used. Bluetooth 5.0 is here and keeps a strong connection to attached devices – even ones that are normally finicky with Android phones, such as Apple’s AirPods.

Previous OnePlus devices have suffered with poor connectivity, especially over Wi-Fi, but I haven’t noticed that at all here. There’s also excellent call quality and the obvious benefits that come from having two 4G-capable SIM trays. The down-firing speaker, on the other hand, is poor and easily gets blocked when you’re watching something horizontally.

OnePlus 6 – Software

OnePlus is one of the few manufacturers that doesn’t diminish Android with its own customisations. Oxygen OS retains the look of vanilla Android, adding only extras that I think improve on Google’s operating system.

Customisation is available with icon packs, a system-wide dark mode, and plenty more little touches that make for a great experience. You can also ditch the on-screen navigation buttons and use a bunch of swipes to get yourself around – much like the iPhone X. This is off by default, but I turned it on almost as soon as unboxing the OnePlus 6 and it grew natural to use after a few hours. Basically a swipe up takes you home, while a swipe up and hold puts into the multitasking view.

Getting rid of the classic, and in my opinion often useless, three Android navigation buttons is something Google is actually doing in Android P. Still, I think the gesture-based version OnePlus has crafted is better and easier to learn.

Speaking of Android P, OnePlus is one of a few manufacturers who’ve partnered with Google to allow you to load an early developer version of Android P onto the OnePlus 6 right now. This should be a good indication that a snappy update to P is coming soon after it launches later in the year.

Another fantastic software addition to the OnePlus 6 is a dedicated reading mode that’ll turn the screen black and white when you’re in apps such as Kindle or Pocket. The effect this achieves is similar to an e-reader and is much softer on the eyes.

Before I get into the results, let’s take a look at the specs. On the back there are two cameras: a main 16-megapixel f/1.7 one that’ll take the majority of photos, and a secondary 20-megapixel sensor for helping with the portrait mode. A big update this time around is the introduction of optical image stabilisation (OIS), which has been missing since the OnePlus 3T.

OnePlus has been altering how the secondary camera functions since it introduced the feature with the OnePlus 5. Originally it acted as a fairly poor telephoto lens for 2x zoom, with the 5T switching that to a dedicated low-light camera. Neither were overly successful, and again it doesn’t work so well here. The Portrait shots I took were relatively weak, with poor detailing around hair and a blur that was far too forced.

The main sensor fares a lot better, though, reliably snapping well-exposed and detailed shots in varying outdoor conditions. I’d like the auto-HDR mode to be slightly more aggressive to offset the average dynamic range I ran into, as by default pictures lack the contrast and pop you’d get from pricier phones. There is a nice Pro mode built into the camera app and I found myself using it slightly more than usual here, as the results are noticeably better.

Unlike a lot of the flagship phones in 2018, there’s no AI stuff going on inside this camera, so it doesn’t automatically switch modes depending on what you’re shooting. That’s no big deal, as that whole area is still a bit hit-and-miss at the minute, and the results are never that obvious. Still, even without dedicated things like a Landscape mode, I still captured some nice city shots with plenty of depth and detail.

Low-light performance has always been an issue for OnePlus phones and while the OIS  and the bigger pixels inside the sensor (OnePlus said these are 19% bigger than the 5T) does make it noticeably better than before, it still lacks the flagship touch. Skies in photos taken when it getting dark often have an odd, false colour and light sources overblow easily. Not every shot is a dud, and if light is even and not all focused in one spot then the wide f/1.7 aperture does help get some nice photos.

On the front you’ve got a 16-megapixel camera that will, after an upcoming software update, also offer a Portrait mode. It’s an okay selfie camera that’s pretty much the same as on the last two OnePlus devices.
Video can be recorded up to 4K 60fps and uses a form of electronic image stabilisation to keep it steady, Footage is good, but it does struggle to accurately represent colours in some environments. For some video samples, check out the video review. Super-slow-motion support is here too, although unlike the Galaxy S9 or Xperia XZ2 it’s capped at 480fps. Unlike those two phones, however, you can record a whole minute of 480fps footage, rather than just a few seconds.

Like the prospect of an IP rating, there were many rumours before launch that the OnePlus 6 would be the first in the series to enable wireless charging.

Considering there’s now a glass rear, and wireless charging is becoming more common, its addition felt obvious. Sadly, this isn’t the case. I was told the decision to leave it out came down to cost, and the fact that Dash Charge is quicker. Nevertheless, it’s a feature I’ve come to appreciate for quick top-ups at my desk.

It’s a good thing that Dash Charge is pretty swift, mind. The charging method hasn’t changed much here and you’ll still get what OnePlus calls ‘a day of use’ from 30 minutes of charging. It is important to note that you only get these fast speeds with a Dash Charge cable and plug – use anything else and the charging time doubles.

The battery life of the OnePlus 6 is neither great nor poor – in fact it’s very similar to both the OnePlus 5 and 5T. Considering the battery size is the same (3300mAh), that shouldn’t be too much of a surprise.

Throughout much of my time using it, the OnePlus 6 managed to just about make it through a busy working day and would normally require a short top-up around 9pm. Coming from the Huawei P20 Pro that’s massively disappointing, but it’s on par with the iPhone X and Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus.

Why buy a OnePlus 6?

Up until the moment it was announced on stage, my biggest question about the OnePlus 6 revolved around price. It was clear this was going to be the most expensive OnePlus phone yet, but by how much? I was convinced it would be interested inr 40000, though really considering what’s on offer here inr 45000 probably would have seemed fair.

At inr 35000 though, this is an absolute steal. It’s the best-value phone you can buy right now, without a doubt.

Even when you take price out of the equation it’s still impressive. This is one of the fastest, best-looking Android phones at any price, with a lovely screen and perfectly optimised software.

Of course, for OnePlus to sell it at this price, not every component is from the top drawer. The camera is good, but it’s not going to compete with those on the Huawei P20 Pro or Pixel 2. Also, the battery is just okay and there’s no official IP rating or Qi wireless charging.

Verdict

You won’t find a better phone for inr 34999

Score in detail

• Performance10
• Camera7
• Design9
• Battery Life7
• Value9
• Software9
• Calls & Sound8
• Screen Quality9