OnePlus 6 Review

For seven generations of phones, OnePlus pursued a goal of delivering latest technology at an affordable price. Four years later, we now have OnePlus 6 which sits in between "just a yearly evolution" and "major overhaul." This new phone costs nearly double what OnePlus One did and $30 more than last November's OnePlus 5T. Competing with Samsung Galaxy S9, Apple iPhone X and LG G7, is OnePlus 6's improved cameras, faster processor, increased RAM and new slick-looking glass-covered body worth its price? Or does it hold true to a winning formula, a premium smartphone with top-end specs that costs less than half the price of an Apple iPhone X? Let's find out.

What makes OnePlus 6 feel special from previous models is a completely new design and build. Phone is now made of glass which has a curvy feel at rear and looks amazing. It is a glass and metal sandwich as both front and back is completely made of glass with a rim of metal in between to add sturdiness.

On front, there's an all new display with minimal bezel at bottom and a notched display at top. Inside notch is where you will find front facing camera, earpiece and ambiant light sensor. At back, you'll find glass all over, with a vertical dual camera setup placed in middle of device. Camera module protrudes a bit and there's an LED flash right below. Fingerprint scanner now comes in a rectangular shape which is placed below LED flash, making it very convenient to reach with your index finger. OnePlus branding can be found below fingerprint scanner and OnePlus has now added a bold statement at bottom of this phone which says, "Designed by OnePlus". Rest of this phone is kept clean and due to glass, it shines like a big piece of jewel. Phone comes in three different colors: Midnight Black, Mirror Black and Silk White. All three variants feature all glass build, however, Mirror black version reflects light and gives a mirror finish, while other two colors are rather matte. It is also much easier to get fingerprints on Mirror Black version so if you're going for that, a OnePlus case would be helpful.

On right side of phone is where you will find power button and now, alert slider as well which was previously found on left side of phone. Volume buttons are found on left side of phone now together with sim tray. Buttons are tactile, clicky and they give a satisfying feel when you press them. At bottom of this beautiful device is where you will find a single bottom-firing speaker, which is a little disappointing as it can be easily covered by your hand when phone is held in landscape orientation, and you don't get stereo benefit of a two-speaker setup. You also get USB Type-C port and yet again, a 3.5 mm headphone jack. Personally, I would like to say that it is great to see OnePlus keeping headphone jack and not submitting to trend of removing it.

For protection, OnePlus has used Gorilla Glass 5 on front and back of device, and although they claim that phone is water resistant, they have not given an IP certification for OnePlus 6. A major downer with this phone is that it still doesn't feature wireless charging, even after having a glass back now.

Overall, it is a breath of fresh air in design department by OnePlus, as now with all glass build, OnePlus 6 looks as premium and classy as an Apple iPhone X or Samsung Galaxy S9.

OnePlus 6's display is one of big new features on this phone, in fact, it's the biggest display OnePlus has ever squeezed into a phone. It is a 6.28 inch Optic AMOLED Full HD+ display with a resolution of 1080x2280p, aspect ratio of 19:9 and pixel density of 402 ppi.

Biggest change in display is a notch, similar to one seen on Apple iPhone X's display, although it is much smaller. OnePlus has continued to support now-popular 19:9 aspect ratio, giving you a taller display that offers up more on screen when you're scrolling lists such as your Twitter feed. While display may be bigger, resolution stays same at Full HD. In a world where Quad HD is fast becoming norm at top end of mobile market, screen resolution on OnePlus 6 is a key area where OnePlus has looked to cut a corner in an attempt to keep costs down.

Display itself is excellent, with an option to hide notch with a software update. Panel is bright, sharp and very colorful 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 past year either. Although, display appears bright and vibrant providing a pleasing level of detail, comparing it to Samsung Galaxy S9, you will find that display on OnePlus 6 isn't quite as excellent. There's no HDR support either, but when you consider price tag of this phone, it's not really an issue.

OnePlus 6 delivers a peak full-screen brightness of 574 nits, which is dead even with Apple iPhone X and not far off Samsung Galaxy S9's 603 nits. It's also a vast improvement over 394 nits found on last year's OnePlus 5T.

If you're not satisfied with default colors on display, OnePlus 6 also enables you to tweak endlessly. Default setting out of the box is a little white and saturated, while Adaptive mode toggles between various settings depending on what you're doing. My pick is DCI-P3 mode, which is softer on eyes and displays a nicer range of colors. Being an AMOLED panel, you can change theme setting to black and that makes entire viewing experience on this phone absolutely stunning. Deep blacks on OnePlus 6 look sharp and beautiful, making you forget about phones having a Quad HD display, and when you consider price tag on this phone, it feels like a true delight to own this phone.

There will be some users debating whether having a notch on screen is a right move or not but as it seems, OnePlus wants to follow latest trends and whether you like it or not, this is year of the notch. It will be interesting to see what OnePlus does with display in next iteration of their phone. For now, they have pretty much aced implementation of a beautiful display on their brand-new flagship device.

OnePlus's motto has always been to provide top performance at a lower price and that's exactly what you get with OnePlus 6. Phone is packed with top of the line specs and nothing you would not find on an Android flagship device in 2018. It is powered by Snapdragon 845 Processor and Adreno 630 GPU, coupled with either 6 GB of RAM with 64 GB on-board storage or 8 GB of RAM with 128 GB of on-board storage.

OnePlus 6 is up there with year's fastest phones. In Geekbench 4, which measures overall system performance, 8GB RAM variant of OnePlus 6 turned in a score of 9,098, well beyond LG G7 (8,566) or Samsung Galaxy S9+ (8,295), both of which feature less RAM. In fact, OnePlus 6 gets closer to A11 Bionic-powered Apple iPhone X's 10,357 score than any other handset tested so far. 3D Mark's Sling Shot Extreme OpenGL ES 3.1 graphics test produced similarly impressive results, with OnePlus 6 reaching 5,124. Again, that's higher than both LG G7 at 4,201 and Samsung Galaxy S9+ at 4,634.

OnePlus 6 rarely wavered in its performance, no matter how I pushed its limits. Whether it was highly demanding multiplayer games like PUBG Mobile or crushing a succession of tasks in split-window mode, phone handled almost everything without breaking a single lag or stutter. How can OnePlus 6 be so much faster with almost identical hardware? It might have something to do with clever under-the-hood tweaks. OnePlus tells us its latest phone renders on-screen content differently than most Android devices, by neglecting to draw layers that aren't visible to user. Because of this, the company has cited gains of up to 10 percent faster app- loading times. That may explain why OnePlus 6 not only tests but feels a bit quicker than nearly every phone out there.

A downside to hardware department of OnePlus 6 is lack of stereo speakers as seen on Apple iPhone X, but we might be getting that in OnePlus 6T.

In my opinion, with every Android phone out there I have tested, I have not seen a faster performance than this and it's safe to say that OnePlus 6 has taken the crown of fastest Android smartphone in 2018.

Despite all that's changed in OnePlus 6, 3,300-mAh battery and Dash Charge technology used in OnePlus 5 and 5T appear exactly same here. OnePlus 5T was crowned fastest charging smartphone last year and with similar battery capacity and Dash Charge tech, same can be said about OnePlus 6.

On average use, phone lasts around 10 hours on full charge which is a step back from OnePlus 5T, but is good enough for most smartphone users. However, as phone is using a much bigger display, other phones like Huawei Mate 10 Pro and Pixel 2 XL last longer, but that can also be credited to the fact that they both have bigger battery capacity. Even for heavy users, this shouldn't be a problem as Dash Charge is fastest charging tech out there and it can charge OnePlus 6 from 0 to30 percent in 15 minutes, 60 percent in 30 minutes and 93 percent in an hour with stock adapter.

There's one down side to OnePlus 6 that it still doesn't support wireless charging and while that may be a huge concern for wireless charging fans, most users wouldn't have any problem with this phone as it has fast charging tech that is yet to beaten by any smartphone in market.

In just about every area, OnePlus 6 outshines its price tag. When it comes to camera, there's still a noticeable gap between this and $800+ phones like Apple iPhone X, Google Pixel 2 XL and Samsung Galaxy S9. Phone comes with a dual camera setup having a 16 MP lens and 20 MP lens, both having an f/1.7 aperture. What's bizarre about this camera is how phones usually implement two different camera sensors in a dual camera setup, where one lens is usually a telephoto lens or monochrome.

On OnePlus 6 though, there's no difference between two lenses except for Mega Pixel count but don't let that mislead you in thinking that this camera setup is no different than one found on OnePlus 5T. OnePlus has increased size of sensor on main 16MP camera by 19%, and it now has a 1.22um pixel size (up from 1.12um), enabling it to pull in more light and thus perform better in low-light conditions. That's not all though, as OnePlus 6 features OIS (optical image stabilization) and EIS (electronic image stabilization) on rear 16MP snapper, further improving low-light shots by reducing camera shake and consequent blurring. Neither OnePlus 5 nor OnePlus 5T featured OIS on their rear cameras, due to their location in top corner of phone not allowing enough space, but on OnePlus 6, cameras have been shifted to middle, so there is room here.

Main camera performs fairly better, reliably snapping well-exposed and detailed shots in varying outdoor conditions. Auto-HDR mode would have been better if it was slightly more aggressive to offset average dynamic range, as by default pictures lack contrast and pop you would get from pricier phones. There is a nice Pro mode built into camera app and I found myself using it slightly more than usual here, as results are noticeably better with it. Unlike most flagship phones in 2018, there's no AI stuff going on inside this camera, so it doesn't automatically switch modes depending on subject in photos. That's no big deal, as that whole area is still a bit hit-and-miss right now, and 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 OIS and bigger pixels does make it noticeably better than before, it still lacks flagship touch. Skies in photos taken when it is dark often have an odd, false color and light sources overblow easily. Not every shot is as bad though, as if light is even and not all focused in one spot then wide f/1.7 aperture does help get some nice photos. Portrait shots still need work though, as when you compare them with shots from Google Pixel 2, they appear quite inferior.

Front-facing camera also gets a boost, with a 16MP sensor having an f/2.0 aperture, capable of shooting portrait mode pictures, although, this will be enabled via a software update at a later date. An amazing addition is gyro-EIS and Auto HDR which is now found on this front facing camera. Front-facing portrait mode on OnePlus 6 will work out what to blur with software and this means you'll still get best portrait shots from rear setup, as two cameras can gather more accurate depth data. You can shoot videos at 1080p with front facing camera and selfies come out having good amount of detail, thanks to huge 16 MP sensor.

A feature new to OnePlus 6 is slow-motion video recording, with phone able to capture footage at up to 480fps. That's not quite as super slow-mo we've seen from Samsung Galaxy S9 or Sony Xperia XZ2, but it's a welcome addition to a handset that's comfortably cheaper than either of those rivals. In good lighting conditions, slow-motion capture can produce some eye-catching results, but step inside under artificial light, or in low-light conditions, quality drops quite significantly, with footage becoming rather noisy. If you're more into traditional video recording, OnePlus 6 can also capture videos up to 4K at 60fps which is quite impressive for a phone prices under $600.

Camera app on OnePlus 6 is simple to use as well. There's quick access to portrait and video modes from main screen, with a sideways swipe switching you between modes. Swipe up and you will get more options including pro mode, time-lapse and panorama, while 2x zoom toggle is present in viewfinder, enabling you to get closer to your subject without having to physically move. Zooming in will result in a picture with less clarity, but phone is still capable of capturing good photos at this level.

In the end, I would like to say that it is a good camera setup, but certainly not the best. You cannot compare quality of photos and videos captured with Google Pixel 2 or Apple iPhone X with OnePlus 6's cameras but at this price tag, you're getting a better camera than you will get from other phones in same price range.

OnePlus is one of the few manufacturers who don't overwhelm Android experience with their skin on top and that is one reason why their phones have been great at performance. With OnePlus 6, you're getting Android 8.1 Oreo and top of that, a minimalistic skin by OnePlus called Oxygen OS as it retains look of stock Android, adding only extras that I think improve on Google's operating system.

OnePlus's Oxygen OS lets you tweak your phone according to your needs. Customization is available with icon packs, a system-wide dark mode, and plenty more little touches that make for a great experience. You can also swap on-screen navigation buttons with a bunch of gestures to navigate around, much like Apple iPhone X. Gestures are turned off by default, but it will be hard not to turn it on as it gives user experience a modern look and feel. Basically, a swipe up takes you home, while a swipe up and hold puts into the multitasking view. Android P will introduce these gestures to all android phones later this year in a few pleasant ways. For starters, OnePlus' scheme doesn't require any sort of bar to house controls at the bottom of the screen. This is one of major oversights of current solution in the Android P beta, as it shows Google has missed the point why gestures might be preferable to buttons in first place, to allow content to fill more of the display. 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 OnePlus 6 right now. This should be a good indication that a snappy update to Android P is coming soon after it launches later this year.

A great software addition to OnePlus 6 is a dedicated reading mode that will turn display black and white when you're in apps such as Kindle or Pocket. Effect this achieves is similar to an e-reader and is much softer on your eyes.

Fingerprint scanner on back of this phone is one of the fastest around, and now, Face Unlock function on OnePlus 6 is almost equally as snappy. Unlike on Apple iPhone X where you unlock screen and then swipe to unlock phone, here you just need to press lock-button and if it recognizes your face, it'll jump you directly to home-screen. There are of course some reservations to this unlocking method: as it's not as secure as Face ID or fingerprint scanner and you can't use it to authenticate payments from Google Play or log into banking apps. It's also not as reliable when it is dark, so if you're checking your phone in a dark bedroom then it'll be better to stick with fingerprint sensor. But when in decent to good lighting conditions, this is the fastest face unlocking software I have seen on any smartphone out right now.

Phone also comes with Bluetooth 5.0, A2DP, LE, and aptX HD which improves wireless music experience which you can enjoy using brand new Bullet wireless earphones by OnePlus.

If I had to choose the best software experience after Google Pixel 2, it would be Oxygen OS and that makes OnePlus 6 a great phone for all those people who love vanilla Android experience and some extra handy features.

OnePlus 6 is available in market for $529 for 6GB/64GB RAM variant and $579 for 8GB/128GB variant. It is slightly more expensive than previous OnePlus 5T, however, an all-new premium glass design and edge to edge display comes at a price. It is OnePlus's most well-rounded phone to date. Placed alongside the likes of the Apple iPhone X, Samsung Galaxy S9 and Sony Xperia XZ2, it certainly doesn't look or feel out of place.

It may not be quite as accomplished as Samsung Galaxy S9, or carry same cool appeal as Apple iPhone X, but when you consider price of this device, it's difficult not to be impressed by what it offers. Performance is fluid, screen is bright and colorful, design is appealing and modern, and there's a decent camera experience.

If you can overlook screen resolution and lack of expandable storage, an official IP rating and stereo speakers, OnePlus 6 is a fantastic Android flagship at a pretty good price.