We received the Indian retail unit of OnePlus 3 soon after the launch, and in this post I will be unboxing the OnePlus 3 and will give you a quick idea about how it performs in real time.

OnePlus 3 Specifications

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OnePlus 3 Unboxing

OnePlus 3 comes packed in a compact box as we have seen with earlier OnePlus handsets. It is a cuboid shaper box coloured in red and white with a 3 printed on the top of the lid. To open, you will need to pick the cover up and the box will slide sown slowly on its own. There is OnePlus 3 branding on the sides and rest of the packaging details are printed on the back side of the phone.

As always, OnePlus has packed the accessories and other contents very neatly and comes without any complications.

OnePlus 3 Box Contents

The contents found inside the OnePlus 3 box are:

OnePlus 3 HandsetUSB Type-C cable2-pin fast chargerUser GuideQuick start manualSIM ejection toolCard with message from Carl PeiNever Settle sticker

OnePlus 3 Physical Overview

OnePlus 3 comes with a totally revamped look if you look at the previous releases from the company. Where the previous generation OnePlus devices had their own sandstone look, this time the OnePlus 3 is coming with all metal built. It looks more refined, premium and fresh. It is build using anodized aluminum, which makes it very sturdy and also keeps the weight under limits. There is no plastic used on the phone, other than the good-looking antennae bands on the top and bottom of the back.

The front has a 2.5D curved display glass that runs towards the round edges and gives it a smooth finishing at the sides. It has very thin bezels which suits the AMOLED display even more, and makes it look bigger. On the bottom, there is a home button with built-in fingerprint sensor in between backlit navigation buttons.

The back has slight curve on both the sides, which makes the sides look sleeker and also gives it a better hold. There is a chrome plated OnePlus logo in the middle and the square shaped camera module is placed right above it, which has chrome linings on its sides. There is a single LED below the camera. The back has a nice metallic finishing and it will be void of fingerprints, although it makes the phone a bit slippery.

You will find the notification priority switch on the left side with a slight texture on its surface. Volume rocker is also placed under it.

Power/Sleep key is on the right hand side; also the dual SIM slot is also on the same side.

The 3.5 mm audio jack, USB Type C port, Loudspeaker grill and primary microphone is at the bottom of the phone and the top has absolutely nothing. There are 2 shiny screws on the bottom, which give it an industrial look and I personally liked it.

OnePlus 3 is stylish, durable, handy and light weight with just 158 grams. But if you are worried about the slippery back or prefer the sandstone back in place, you can opt for a sandstone finish back cover from OnePlus.

Display

OnePlus 3 comes with a 5.5 inch Optic AMOLED display with 1080p resolution, and it still makes perfect sense at this price. A Full HD display is good enough if compared to QHD display in terms of quality, you get a much better battery life and put lesser load on the CPU and GPU, as a result, it does not get heated up so easily.

As I said, it comes with an AMOLED display instead of IPS panel. So the blacks are deep and this display has amazing contrast ratios compared to the previous two generations. Sunlight legibility is amazing thanks to the built in polarizer, and I would say it is one of the best displays in its price range. The screen may not be as bright as IPS panels but the higher contrast level balances the same.

Camera Overview

OnePlus 3 comes with a 16 MP camera on the back with F/2.0 aperture, PDAF, EIS and OIS features and the sensor used is Sony IMX 298 measuring just 1.12 microns. On the front, it has an 8 MP camera with a 1.4 microns sized Sony IMX 179 sensor. The rear camera is capable of recording 4K video, slow motion videos whereas the front camera can record full HD video as 30 fps.

The picture quality from the rear camera was really impressive in natural light, autofocus speed is quick and images are processed in no time. It comes with a few modes to play with but HDR works the best among them. Colours were produced nicely and it captures great details in good light. The only cause of concern is the low light performance, I expected better rear camera results in low light but it performed just about average in such conditions. Front camera is capable of clicking some impressive pictures in almost every light condition, but you will need to keep your hand perfectly still top get a clear image. For a better idea about the camera, you can refer the camera samples below.

Camera Samples

Gaming Performance

With Snapdragon 820, Adreno 530 GPU and 6 GB of RAM, which looks very powerful on paper if you like gaming on your smartphone. No one would expect a sluggish performance from a device with such powerful hardware but I decided to put it as tests and find out if it heats up while gaming or not.

I started playing Asphalt 8 at with high visual settings by default. I continued playing for almost 45 minutes and did not notice a single reason to complain. The temperature was well under control, gameplay was smooth, and with so much of RAM you can minimize your game in between and continue it again anytime you want. I saw couple of tiny frame drops but they were because of the advertisement played inside the game. It is an amazing device for every gamer out there, it gives you everything you need to run the best Android games available till date. After 45 minutes of gaming, there was a battery drop of around 17% and the highest temperature was 39.7 degree Celsius.

Benchmark Scores

[table id=567 /] Conclusion Looking at the competition and price, OnePlus 3 is one of a kind smartphone sharing the stage with Le Max 2. At INR 27,999, OnePlus offers every possible feature from top notch processor, great display to an amazing built. Gaming on this device is a treat as you can see its benchmark scores tell the whole story. I am really impressed with the overall package, the only thing that has a scope of improvement is the camera, and I hope it will be improved with future updates.