OnePlus 3 mobile

Quick thoughts…

• why do you ask?
• 7mm is not especially thin, but thin phones are a PITA to hold (one has to buy a suitable sleeve e.g. Nillkin)
• Android 6 on the the Qualcomm processor cannot be rooted (currently) – this is driven by US networks which like to block features like tethering
• 64GB is good, but often necessary as there is no external SD card
• dual SIM phones from others (e.g. the S7) are made for non European markets which have different frequency bands so e.g. you might not get 4G/LTE in some countries
• since everybody has access to the same technology, this phone is probably similar to the S7 but with optical stabilisation
• check the fine print e.g. does the RAW mode actually work usefully (it doesn’t on the S7)
• since it is an unusual phone, check stuff like sleeve availability
• anything in this business that is less than common as muck invites trouble and more trouble once you try to do something less than common as muck
• android OS updates are implemented via the OEM so you may get orphaned
• the battery life claims are prob90 bogus (rigged conditions)

Personally I would buy an S7. It is a bit more but is brilliant, takes an external SD card (I have 200GB), waterproof so no need to worry about getting it wet. Or an Iphone if you like that.

Arguably the best cameras out are the S7 and the latest Iphone.

Samsung tend to over-saturate colours, which most people like… The RAW mode does work but the stock camera handles it badly (storage issues, not using the ext SD card, etc) and AFAIK none of the 3rd party apps have yet been fixed to work on the S7 with image controls like saturation and sharpening (the S7 sharpens a bit too much also) working properly. That will change I am sure.

Also the S7 (not the US Qualcomm version) can be rooted, which opens up various options like removing bloatware, and more useful stuff like fooling apps to use the external SD card instead of internal flash.

However most of the “Android crap” can be sorted in minutes with a custom desktop launcher. I use Nova and it totally transforms the phone, as well as allowing the layout etc to be trivially easily backed up.

As I said, on this oddball phone, check the fine print e.g. is tethering enabled and exactly which 3G and 4G bands are supported.

I have the OnePlus One and my wife has the OnePlus Two and they are great phones and I don’t know why anyone would spend the large amount of money for the other android devices available.

I will probably move up to the OP3 soon