------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Update as on 3rd Oct 2016 with Oxygen OS 3.2.7 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ After several updates to Oxygen OS, which is currently on 3.2.7, whatever little annoying bugs were there are all gone. In addition to that, I'm now getting around more than 2 days of battery backup with 5 hours of SOT. Of course with no heavy gaming.I am cautiously optimistic of getting Android 7.1 pretty soon than latter, after experiencing regular updates and bug fixes to their already existing Oxygen OS. This time it seems, they have learnt their lessons in the software department of not delaying OTA updates. What is surprising to me is that, after using around 4 months by which the honeymoon period ends, I'm increasingly in love with this device with each passing day. Its smooth as butter and fast as hell, at least in android world. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- I take pride to write this delayed but long review about OnePlus 3 after using it for last 45 days. Lot of reviewer shared their views on this device. But this review is all about one user experience, especially who was using Nexus 4, then OnePlus One for last couple of years and now switching to the 3. In one line I can summarize this review like this. "iPhone 6s Plus smoothness in Android world with around half the price of it." Yes. You heard it right. The combination of super smooth Oxygen OS and advanced hardware integration has done the trick. It's very smooth and buttery. At the same time not hungry for power. Below are my long observations on this device. 1. How it is different than OnePlus One? 2. What is unique about this 3? 3. What I like the most? 4. Should you buy it? 5. What is not so good. 6. What every other OnePlus 3 owner expecting from the company in terms of future OTA to existing oxygen OS. I would separate the first point into different parts. Design: Completely opposite to its predecessor. It has a Metal aluminium uni-body construction like monocock design modern SUV, which gives solidity and premium feel to the eye and hand. Here I must say, the design is not unique but as someone said before it's an love child of iPhone 6s and HTC M8. But what a killer combo. It's just fit nice in your palm and though has the same screen size of OnePlus One, it feels a touch narrow. Though before placing order a little concern about the aluminium because of its slippery nature, but I was proved wrong after using it couple of hours. Every bit and pieces starting from home button to camera module, the placement and finish is to notch. But I have couple of suggestion to OnePlus. The alert slider and power button are placed in such a way in the opposite direction to each other that each time one try to use the alert slider, unintentionally one of your finger will press the power button. If the power button could placed in the middle of right edge, then may be out would server the purpose. The second thing is the placement of 3.5mm audio jack. It should be in the center of right most screw and the microphone. The current placement is not bringing the symmetry into right place. But overall it's look just awesome because of its thinness which is equal to iPhone 6s but with lesser antenna strip and minimalistic design. All it even does not have any FCC code or cyanogen branding like OnePlus One at the back. It's clean on the back and front except OnePlus logo at the back which is having a mirror effect. On the second bullet point, my answer is the finger print sensor. It's fast and accurate. Faster than iPhone 6s. I came to know it takes 0.3 sec to unlock. Unlocking your phone with pattern or number so many times in a day is such a tedious job, specially if you are driving and want to call or text one of your meat one. It has made my job best easy. Earlier I had to use a smart lock like moto 360 or MI band for this purpose. But now nothing required. You just place your finger and voila... You will be starring at your home screen. Every other less expensive phone now a days is having a finger print sensor. But that is not the point. It's about the best user experience. OnePlus 3 is super fast and accurate. Another unique thing is it's camera. At'28,000 it had a camera which is giving a run for their money to the best in the business now. That is iPhone 6s and Samsung Galaxy Edge 7. Except very low light situation like darkness, in every other aspect of its equal or better than the above two pioneer. The best thing about this OnePlus 3 it's, it takes best of the both the iPhone 6s and Samsung Edge 7. More on this topic later part. In brief, you will like this camera very much for still photography. The latter part of this review will come in couple of days. Stay tuned... Please share your views. Hi friends! I'm back again. The whole purpose of writing this lengthy review is to make you all know, after so many years we can really have the rich experience of iPhone in Android world. I know many of our Android users will be disappointed to hear this again and again. They don't like the comparison with iPhone 6s. But my personal experience is, till the launch of OnePlus 3 I was sort of deprived of this buttery experience sometime, though I had a OnePlus One. To make the long story short, I can now safely say that, though not better, at least it is now at par with that iOS experience. Now to coming back to where I left the review, another uniqueness is it's design. Yes, you heard it right. Though it looks very much similar to the love child of HTC and iPhone 6s, it has taken good things of both the world, like the camera. The thinness and clean minimalistic, less is more design approach of iPhone 6s. Chamfered solid built quality of HTC. Less ugly strip of antenna running at the back of the phone makes it to look stunning. Again look is a very subjective matter. But in my view, till now it has the best design among all the aluminium unibody design. Now the third part. What I like the most? Dash charging. Powerful than latest third generation fast charging from Qualcomm. It's faster, cooler and more useful. How? Well! We can play heavy games like asphalt 8 without delaying the charging. Add many reviewers have already said, it's charged the battery from 5% to 100% in just 55 minutes and to 70% in just 32 minutes. Isn't that quick? It does this, without making your device even warming. I think, every other manufacture should do this including Apple. It is just so very convenient. I'm now, no more carrying my OnePlus power bank with me. Now to the fifth point of, what is not so good? I'll start with the physical design. Yes, the same design, which I admire a couple of paragraph before. It's the camera bump. Why OnePlus? Why you did that? Only to achieve thinness like iPhone 6s. Every time, I put the phone on a flat surface like a glass, I hear some noise of dust in contact with my camera housing glass. it would have been much better, if OnePlus can just fill the rest of its space with extra battery to fill up the gap of camera bump. Then we can also use the full potentiality of 6 GB RAM. They have clearly missed the point here only to achieve thinness over practicality. I do like design excellence but not at the expense over usability. That's why I don't like products from Apple though I like their design philosophy. Then the second point is aggressive RAM management issue. To those, who are unaware of this issue, what oxygen OS is currently doing is closing down heavy RAM consuming apps in the backgrounds to save battery causing to consume not more than 50% of availability.OnePlus is going to push another OTA very soon to it's users with this RAM management issues fixed. The third thing capturing video. Where as the still picture quality captured with 3 is absolutely stunning, except some very low light conditions, I can't say the same about its video taking capability. The OIS though doing a very decent job, it's their slow motion videos and focusing capability, which is letting them down. Taking selfies with a smile seems to be little gimmicky. Restricting 4k videos to ten minutes only with no pause and resume feature while shooting it's an absolute no from my side. It's not a deal breaker though, Samsung Edge 7 is a champion here. Taking low light images with their camera is just making them king and with laser auto focus, you can take macros like you have never seen them with DSLR cameras. I admire Samsung in this department. Now coming to the fourth point, should you buy 3. If you can afford, and you don't mind on relying a relatively new company, then absolutely you should go for it. You'll forget the lagging issue of Android as an OS. The killer combination of powerful hardware and fine tuning of the Oxygen OS makes it possible. Now it's almost more close to twenty days, I'm using this device. Not once I had experience any issues of apps not responding or apps getting hanged. You tap a app and it opens instantly. No shudder... No lag. Even those, who are proud owner of OnePlus One, if they can afford then I would say buy this 3. You will forget cyanogen 13 OS, though it has more features attached to it. Buy it to experience the best of Google own Android. You can't even feel this smooth and pure Android experience even in Edge 7 or HTC 10. Not even on Nexus 6p. Now the concluding part. What we as users of their flagship device are expecting from them? First is, please push this latest 3.1. 2 oxygen OS to OnePlus One. Those users are your most loyal ones. You should respect their feelings and enrich them with the latest and smoothest OS. Secondly, fix this RAM management issue ASAP. I know, we can unroot and fix by ourselves. But I won't. I want to keep it stock. No rooting and no flashing of ROMs. That experiment ended with my favourite OnePlus One and Nexus 4. Thanks to them, I learnt a lot about Android as a OS. Thirdly, let us give options to alter the alert slider behaviour. I want exactly opposite setting with it, with the top position for all notification. Fourth point is, give us a pause and resume feature during video shooting. Also 120 and 240 frames per second slow motion recording facility. Snapdragon 820 is capable of doing this. So why can't we use it? It will drain this battery. But then we have dash charge. And lastly, sound from its bottom speaker is not audible. It has having a very pathetic volume. OnePlus One is audible so very loud here. I can hear One, even in a moving train. The same it's not true about the 3. It is difficult to hear even in my closed car. Please do something to make it louder with your next OTA. With this, I should now conclude. But within couple of days, I'll back with image gallery to enlighten you all, who have spent so many valuable time in reading this post. As always, you all are very much welcome to share your thoughts and comments. In writing this post, I might made few mistakes. It's natural. I'm not pro in this. Please point out those points. At the end, my only purpose in writing this post is to make my surrounding know, that this is a incredibly nice phone with all the ingredients to become iPhone in Android world. It has the potentiality, provided they fix those issues described above. They have already fixed the color accuracy issue pointed by Anandtech. [...] If this post can help anyone in deciding to choose, OnePlus 3 as their next phone, then my effort will be truly rewarded. Who ever is reading this post till now, should know that, I'm not an expert in making in depth reviews on any smart phone taking into account, how complex engineering goes behind this simple looking devices. Lastly, few important points. Battery is more than enough for one day of use. I am not a Gamer. But then I play, Asphalt 8 a lot. The oxygen 3.2.2 is very smooth and a lot light on the battery. And did I say that this whole review was written with OnePlus 3 keyboard?