OnePlus 6 Review Part 1: Premium vibes

Ever since OnePlus first made it to the smartphone business, they have always recognized as a fitting brand for the tech enthusiasts. Flagship specs at cheaper prices with some cut corners was the recipe of their success, along with an incremental bump in the price every iteration. This year, however, might be a little bit different. Introducing the OnePlus 6, the first OnePlus phone your dad might actually want to buy. Let’s get the specs out of the way first.

Specs

SoC	Snapdragon 845
GPU	Adreno 630
RAM	6 or 8GB
Storage	64, 128, or 256GB
Display	6.28-inch 2280×1080 Optic AMOLED
Battery	3300 mAh
Water and dust resistance	Unofficial
Camera	16MP + 20MP dual rear camera (f/1.7 aperture, OIS, PDAF), 16MP front camera (f/2.0 aperture)
Software	Android 8.1 Oreo
Measurements	155.7×75.4×7.8 mm, 177g
Price	$529 USD (6GB RAM, 64GB storage) $579 USD (8GB RAM, 128GB storage) $629 USD (8GB RAM, 256GB storage)

Build and Design

One of the compromises OnePlus users recently had to settle with is the design. Don’t get me wrong, their phones were built like a tank but they looked rather predictable and boring. The OnePlus 5 particularly was a bit disappointing with its back looking awfully similar to the back of the iPhone 7 Plus. With the OnePlus 6 though, this is far from the case.

Unlike last year, OnePlus has decided to swap the rather dull metal with glass, a hallmark of a modern premium flagship device nowadays, with a few touches of its own to set it apart from the mainstream glass sandwich designs. While the Mirror Black might not look that much unique, the Midnight Black looks and feels quite different. OnePlus used a corrosion process to give the glass back a matte aesthetic, which makes it not that much of a fingerprint magnet. Unfortunately, this also makes it much more slippery than you would like. Either way, a cover is a must with that phone; it’s very unlikely to stop an incoming bullet. Luckily, a soft TPU case comes in the box like last year.

Another notable change is the movement of the Alert Slider to the right side, a change that OnePlus veterans will take some time to get used to. It’s also a change they will highly appreciate, since this way the alert slider is reachable by your thumb, instead of shuffling your hand to reach it with your index. The buttons are more tactile and clicky than ever, shout out to OnePlus for that.

One thing that has become a little of a nuisance to me is the fingerprint scanner. As a compliment to the newly positioned dual camera setup, it retains a more oval shape, decreasing the surface area of the scanner. Aside from it being slightly lower than I would desire, it sits quite flush within the glass back. I often feel like a blind man when trying to reach the fingerprint scanner with my finger while using the phone without the bundled case.

Display

OnePlus always tries to play catch up with the trends when it comes to displays even if it means putting up with some compromises, and this year is no different. The OnePlus 6 features a 2280×1080 6.3” Optic AMOLED screen with very thin bezels and, you guessed it right, a notch. Compared to the OnePlus 5T, the OnePlus 6 features a slightly less chin and top bezel, if you don’t mind the notch, while having nearly the same form factor, corresponding to a higher screen-to-body ratio.

Color accuracy is fairly on point. There are no glaring issues that I can notice. Sunlight legibility is nothing to worry about as well. Overall, I think this is one of the best 1080p screens out there. However, I think OnePlus should seriously consider a QHD+ screen next year, especially when factoring in the inevitable price bump next year, which will make such compromises unjustifiable.

Camera

It is no secret that OnePlus struggled with all its dual camera setups last year. While the telephoto lens on the OnePlus 5 was kinda useful, swapping it out for a dedicated low-light lens didn’t go well for OnePlus. Clearly, OnePlus had to think again about their camera setup for their next flagship of 2018. With the OnePlus 6, OnePlus has yet again managed to get us scratching our heads. This time, the secondary camera is only responsible for feeding depth information in Portrait mode, bearing the exact focal length as the primary sensor.

While OnePlus didn’t do that much with the secondary camera, this is far from the case when it comes to the primary one. This year’s model comes with a slightly bigger sensor, PDAF for fast autofocus capabilities and, most importantly, OIS. All of which looks very promising on paper, to say the least.

Looking at the camera app, there is not that much changed from last year. Perhaps the only notable change is the implementation of Google Lens within the camera app and the fact that you can now shoot videos in 4K at 60fps.

Daylight

Just like the camera app, there haven’t been any notable differences from last year’s OnePlus 5T when it comes to shooting stills in daylight, checking all the boxes for a high-quality photo taken by a modern flagship smartphone. My only gripe is how it tends to slightly over-sharpen the photo, often smudging some fine details. This makes things like foliage look like as if they were painted with watercolors. It is not as drastic as last year’s OnePlus 5T though, so it shouldn’t stand out like a sore thumb unless you zoom in.

Moving on to slightly more challenging lighting conditions like shooting the sunrise early in the morning, OnePlus’ endeavors to improve the camera hardware become more evident. Dynamic range is on point. HDR processing is far more effective on the OnePlus 6 than any of the previous models as well, an improvement I can not appreciate enough. The phone manages to preserve more details as well. Overall, it was a very pleasing experience to shoot stills of marvelous landscapes with this phone.

Low Light

One of the areas where OnePlus’ cost savings were usually noticeable is low light photography. Even with a dedicated low-light eyeball, the OnePlus 5T from last year simply couldn’t keep up with the top dogs. A lot of people has put the blame on OnePlus for skimping on OIS whereas nearly every other manufacturer had it on board. This year, OnePlus has heard all the complaints loud and clear and brought back OIS, along with a 19% larger sensor to capture more light.

With that said, I am delighted to say low-light is no longer a hoop OnePlus struggles to pass through. My only complaint would be that the phone struggles a little bit with backlit objects and in extremely low light conditions. Despite having OIS on board, the phone still doesn’t prefer using slow shutter speeds. However, I think this is the first time you can have an acceptable low light photo shot by a OnePlus device. True, a Galaxy S9 or an HTC U12+ or a Google Pixel 2 from last year will remain superior. This year, OnePlus has made the gap much narrower than before.

Portraits and Selfies

The OnePlus 6 features a secondary 20MP sensor with an aperture of f/1.7 that only has one job to do: depth sensing. This is one of the weirdest use cases of a secondary camera on a smartphone. Nonetheless, having the same focal length as the primary camera has its advantage. Portrait shots will have the same wide field of view as regular ones, which is far more appealing.

As expected, the OnePlus 6 fares very similarly to last year’s outgoing model, which is not bad at all. Edge detection is fairly on point with no major concerns. Only when it comes to the more challenging bushes where you see slight bleeding, as the phone struggles to identify the back part of the bushes as part of the foreground.

What’s new this year is that now you can get the same bokeh effect when shooting selfies. Nope, you won’t be looking at the back of the phone while stretching your arm. In a later software update, shooting portraits has made it to the front camera as well, which works very decently. It may struggle a bit if you have a slightly more complicated hairstyle or, in my case, your hair is a little bit too thin. My hair often gets blurred along with the background. Oh well, I’m getting bald anyways…

Selfie portraits aside, I think this is one of the finest selfie cameras on the market, just like last year. In fact, it might be slightly better courtesy of the slightly increased focal length, making selfies look sharp enough at an arm’s length, whereas last year you had to slightly bend your arm to pull the phone slightly nearer to get sharp selfie shots.

Video Recording

When it comes to video recording, the OnePlus 6 manages to make a case for itself as a different breed. Thanks to the new chipset from Qualcomm, there is now an option to record footage in 4K resolution at 60fps, where the OnePlus 5T maxed out at just 30fps. As far as slow motion video goes, you can now record 720p slo-mo videos at 480fps for up to a whole minute, which is then stretched to a whopping 10-minute clip. This is one of the very few instances where OnePlus doesn’t play catch up with the trends and paves its own way. In my not-so-humble opinion, this is far more practical than recording slo-mo videos at 960fps for only 0.2s—it will be very hard to time it perfectly with such a small time limit.

Much to the relief of a lot of people, OIS makes its return to the primary sensor, which means that your 60fps recordings (4K and 1080p) will now be stabilized. However, for 30fps recordings, the phone will still rely on the software-based EIS, making the field of view slightly narrower. Don’t worry though, you won’t have to do any guesswork to frame your footage properly. This time, the viewfinder will actually show the field of view after the stabilization, which is a very welcome change a lot will appreciate. I wish if we were given the option to switch it off in the camera app though. Rather expectedly, the OnePlus 6 performed quite well with respect to stabilization no matter what frame rate you choose.

You can view all my sample photos I captured for this review in full resolution here. Stay tuned for the next part where I extensively review the OnePlus 6’s performance. Sound off in the comments section down below and let us know what you think of the OnePlus 6’s camera.

Featured-Image: The Verge