OnePlus has been continuously striving to bring the high-end smartphones at affordable prices and has succeeded to an extent. The company's latest offering, OnePlus 3T, is another example of how high-end innards can be loaded into a device that makes it a great value-for-money product. The company has surely learnt a hard lesson after the OnePlus 2 failed to impress the masses. But with the 3T, OnePlus planned to stick to the winning formula of the OnePlus 3 so closely that you can hardly tell the difference between the two.
The key changes include the integration of a zippy Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 processor, a 13 per cent larger battery and an enhanced front-facing camera. However, the price has been raised, and do the changes justify the price hike? Fortunately for OnePlus the answer will be a big yes, which is a plus point since the OnePlus 3 is now discontinued.
Design-wise, the smartphone hasn't changed a bit — apart from the two new colour options, a new Gunmetal finish or Soft Gold (not in India). It has the same 5.5-inch Optic AMOLED display with 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution. The black levels on the display are brilliant, and the viewing angles are pretty impressive.
The 3T runs on the company's own Oxygen OS, based on the Android 6.0 Mashmallow OS. OnePlus has also promised the Android 7.0 Nougat update for the device soon. The OnePlus 3T packs in a quad-core 2.35GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 SoC at its heart and is paired with 6GB of RAM that makes it incredibly snappy. The performance is very smooth, and we didn't notice any lag while playing high-end games or switching between the apps. The OnePlus 3T is definitely high on performance.
OnePlus hasn’t changed the rear-facing camera from the OnePlus 3. It’s the same Sony IMX 298 16-megapixel sensor with 1.12-micron size pixels. What's new is the integration of electronic image stabilisation when shooting video, which allows for up to 4K at 30fps. The front camera now uses a 16-megapixel Samsung 3P8SP sensor and an F/2.0 aperture lens.
The camera app is similar to the Google Camera with modes such as time lapse, slow motion and panorama, the only difference being the manual mode feature. The pictures come out crisp and the colour reproduction is also impressive.
Shooting modes include slow-motion video, timelapse, manual and panorama. There’s a 1080p 60fps video mode too which is good for capturing sports and action scenes. Here are few shots we have taken from the device.
However, we noticed that the pictures taken in daylight require bit of colour correction. In terms of dynamic range, the camera does have a tendency to overexpose the shot and blow out a lot of the highlights.
Original
colour corrected
OnePlus has raised the battery rating to 3400mAh from the earlier 3000mAh battery seen on the OnePlus 3. Overall, the OnePlus 3T is an excellent smartphone, building upon the likes of OnePlus 3, and continues to be the best Android phone you can buy in its price category. The OnePlus 3T is priced at Rs 29,999 for the 6GB/64GB version, and the 6GB/128GB is priced at Rs 34,999. However, the 128GB version is presently not available for the Indian market.
With zippy performance, great build quality and an improved battery life, the OnePlus 3T surely is a recommended Android smartphone for those with a budget of around 30K.
