Since 2014, when the OnePlus name emerged, its phones have been easy to recommend. They consistently use high-end hardware and cost less than almost all rivals using the same technology. The OnePlus 6 is its latest.
OnePlus initially came to prominence through its dynamic use of social media and online teasers. Now that international diplomacy, or some strange new form of it, happens on Twitter, anything OnePlus does now online seems camomile-mild. What matters more is the rock-solid rhythm the company has established: a new phone every six months that makes whatever Samsung has at the time seem a bad deal.
There are three questions to ask of the OnePlus 6. What do we gain? What, if anything, do we lose? And is it still a value king?
See which phones WIRED Recommends in our guide to the best smartphones and Android phones
We gain quite a lot. The OnePlus 6 is the biggest re-design the series has seen since the OnePlus 3 in 2016. Its last four phones had aluminium shells. The OnePlus 6 has a glass back, a simple case of a company following current design trends. It curves smoothly, more Galaxy S9 than iPhone 8, and does not have the bold, reactive finish of the Honor 10. However, laser etching under the surface creates an S-shape pattern in reflections.
There’s an option for those who don’t like the fingerprint-ridden, shiny look of glass, too. The OnePlus 6 comes in matt black and pearlescent shades (available from June) as well as the Midnight Black seen here, for a look and feel slightly different to normal glass.
The front is changed, too. Unlike Samsung, OnePlus has embraced the notch. It lets the OnePlus 6 screen fill the front aside from a few millimetres of border. The notch can also be hidden with a black bar, making notification icons appear to float above the display. This is particularly effective in the OnePlus 6 because it has an Optic OLED display that avoids the light bleed of an LCD backlight. It’s a very large 6.28-inch screen with a clear appeal for the gamers and enthusiasts that make up the rabid core of the OnePlus online audience.
However, for the most part the screen design amounts to OnePlus reconfiguring its phone design to suit 2018. Simple widescreen displays are out, ultra-wide screens with notches are in. Characteristic OnePlus touches are few and subtle, like the Silent mode slider on the side and a custom font in the OxygenOS software that sits on top of Android 8.1.0.
OnePlus has also fixed one of the few issues of the OnePlus 5T and OnePlus 5, though. OIS was removed in these phones. It physically stabilises a phone’s camera, but also makes its housing thicker. And it is obviously not “free” to implement. OIS returns in the OnePlus 6, and should see a significant improvement in low-light shooting. It also allows stabilisation of 4K video footage, often missing in phones at the price.
Not every feature has returned, though. The OnePlus 5 had a telephoto secondary camera, the OnePlus 6 does not. There’s still a 2x zoom mode, which uses the extra resolution of the second rear camera to improve images. The OnePlus 6 has both 16-megapixel and 20-megapixel on its back. It may not offer the zoom quality of an iPhone X or Huawei P20 Pro, but we need to factor price in here.
The OnePlus 6 with 64GB storage and 6GB RAM costs £469. You’ll pay £519 for the version with 128GB and 8GB RAM. While OnePlus prices have crept up over the years, this is a minor change: £20. It is a relief when a major re-design is a good excuse to alter pricing more substantially.
This also makes the OnePlus 6 the most affordable major phone to use a Snapdragon 845 processor, the current top-end chipset in Qualcomm’s phone range. The Sony Xperia XZ2 costs around £589. Even the Xiaomi MI MIX 2S is pricier at £495. And while the Nokia 8 Scirocco is only a little more expensive at £499, it uses last year’s Snapdragon 835 CPU.
The OnePlus 6 is also an eye-opening £400 cheaper than the Samsung Galaxy S9+ and £490 cheaper than the iPhone X. We may be far off the original £229 price of the OnePlus One, but the entire market has shifted.
This comparison also shows OnePlus has closer rivals than in its early days, though. The resurrected Nokia’s approach is informed by OnePlus’s strategy, and its phones also benefit from wider distribution.
OnePlus sells phones through o2 in the UK, but Nokia phones are sold through far more networks worldwide. Honor has also become a surprisingly compelling rival.
Announced just a day before the OnePlus 6, the Honor 10 is £70 cheaper and has the supply chain benefit of an “in-house” processor maker. It uses the HiSilicon Kirin 970 CPU. And Huawei is the parent company of both HiSilicon and Honor.
Is a Honor 10 and OnePlus 6 comparison fair? The OnePlus has a significantly larger 6.28-inch screen, which for some will justify the added cost alone. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845 is also substantially more powerful than the Kirin 970.
OnePlus still has an edge over all rivals for pure value and hardware punch, however. As Carl Pei told WIRED, the OnePlus “mission has never changed, it’s still the same, it’s just that the market is different today”. Read our full interview with Pei to find out where OnePlus is headed next.
Display: 6.28-inch Full HD+ (1080 x 2280 pixels)
Rear-facing camera: 16-megapixel (f/1.2) with 20-megapixel second sensor
Front-facing camera: 16-megapixel (f/2)
Memory: 6GB DDR5
Storage: 64/128GB
Dimensions: 155.7 x 75.4 x 7.8 mm
Battery: 3,450mAh
Operating system: Android 8.1, OxygenOS 5.1.2
UK release date: May 2018
Price: £469
OnePlus has also announced a pair of Bluetooth 4.1 wireless earphones, the Bullet Wireless. They have a neckband rather than a true wireless design like the Apple AirPods, but do have a few little extra tech touches.
The water-resistant Bullet Wireless turn off when the magnetic earpieces click together, and turn on again when separated. Fast charging also provides five hours' use after a ten-minute charge. Typical of OnePlus, the price is important, too. The Bullet Wireless cost £69 (available from June 5), which is around half the amount you might expect to pay from Sennheiser or Sony.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
