The OnePlus One has been a global sensation thanks to its unbelievably low
price and top-end feature set, earning it the nickname "flagship
killer". OnePlus is the latest Chinese manufacturer to adopt a global
brand identity and slick packaging in order to hit the big companies where it
hurts - the price tag. In India, OnePlus will go up against the likes of Xiaomi
and Huawei, which have made big splashes already.
The OnePlus One will
only be available in very limited quantities and that too, via a single online
retailer. Whether this is a marketing ploy or a genuine way to keep costs down,
there is bound to be a lot of excitement and a lot of disappointment. There's
also a new twist to the story: the device runs CyanogenMod, which is one
its headlining features, but Indian users won't be able to receive automatic
updates.
There's a lot to learn about the OnePlus One and we're eager to get started.
Look and feel
The OnePlus One is handsome when seen head-on, with a sheer black front framed within a slightly curved metal bed. The three capacitive navigation buttons below the screen are barely visible when not lit up, and the earpiece on top is similarly subtle. The multi-coloured LED notification is invisible till it lights up. There's no branding, but we did notice that the Gorilla glass protecting the screen picked up a lot of grime.
The OnePlus One is handsome when seen head-on, with a sheer black front framed within a slightly curved metal bed. The three capacitive navigation buttons below the screen are barely visible when not lit up, and the earpiece on top is similarly subtle. The multi-coloured LED notification is invisible till it lights up. There's no branding, but we did notice that the Gorilla glass protecting the screen picked up a lot of grime.
The rear and sides of this phone are a different story - on the Sandstone
Black model, which we received for review, all surfaces other than the front
are coated in what feels like a very rough felt material. It's really unusual
and frankly, not very pleasant. It feels rough in the hand, which is great for
grip, but not for comfort. It causes a lot of friction in pockets and on cloth
surfaces, and also picks up a lot of lint from pockets and bags. We can't be
sure, but it also feels as though it will begin peeling off before too long.
You'll really want to try this for yourself before you actually buy this phone.
The rear isn't swappable, but you should be able to pick up a plastic or
silicone cover if you later find you don't like it.
There's quite a bit of printing on the rear - large regulatory icons and a
giant Cyanogen logo are stencilled on near the bottom, while a more subtle
Oneplus logo is carved in relief against the textured rear surface. The camera
and dual-LED flash are centred towards the top of the rear.
The Micro-USB port on the bottom is flanked by two speaker grilles, while
the headset jack sits all alone on the top. The power button on the right and
volume rocker on the left are thin and shallow, which means they aren't very
easy to locate by touch alone thanks to the metal rim.
Perhaps our favourite design touch on this phone is that the SIM card slot
is designed to accommodate either a Micro-SIM or a Nano-SIM. You get two trays,
each with a different sized cutout, and can use whichever one you need. We
really wish more manufacturers would come up with ideas like this.
The OnePlus One's box is also quite interesting. It's flat and bright red,
with only enough space inside for the phone itself, a flattened USB cable with
a thin connector, and a SIM eject tool in its own rubber sheath. The charger is
packed in a separate box which allows for efficient production for multiple
global markets.
Specifications and software
Most of the OnePlus One's appeal lies in its hardware, and it isn't hard to see why. You'll have a very hard time finding anything else that delivers the same amount of power at this price level. It all begins with a top-tier Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 SoC, which has four CPU cores running at 2.5GHz and an Adreno 330 GPU. That's matched with 3GB of RAM and 64GB of storage space (a 16GB model is available in other markets but not in India at launch time).
Most of the OnePlus One's appeal lies in its hardware, and it isn't hard to see why. You'll have a very hard time finding anything else that delivers the same amount of power at this price level. It all begins with a top-tier Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 SoC, which has four CPU cores running at 2.5GHz and an Adreno 330 GPU. That's matched with 3GB of RAM and 64GB of storage space (a 16GB model is available in other markets but not in India at launch time).
The 5.5-inch 1080x1920-pixel display has its touch sensitive layer fused to
display panel, which OnePlus claims makes the screen far stronger than the
common OGS (one-glass solution) method of production.
There's Wi-Fi b/g/n/ac and Bluetooth 4.0 along with NFC and GPS. There are
also three microphones for noise reduction. Sadly, there's no microSD slot. The
3,100mAh battery is also sealed in.
While certainly impressive, hardware is only one part of the OnePlus One's
appeal. Another is - or should have been - its software. Since it first
debuted, the OnePlus One has proudly used CyanogenMod, one of the world's most
popular alternative Android
distributions. Based on the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), CyanogenMod
promises a whole host of features that go beyond what even stock Android
delivers, such as themes and configurable UI elements, improved privacy
controls, more flexible access to settings, root access and performance tweaks.
Essentially, it gives users much more control over their devices than most
custom Android-based interfaces and OS forks. The version on the OnePlus One is
CM 11S, which is based on Android 4.4.2.
So that's all well and good, but in a surprise move mere days before the
official OnePlus One launch, all that changed. The company will apparently not
be allowed to sell its phones with CyanogenMod in India, thanks to the
software maker's exclusive tie-up with Micromax for the forthcoming
Yu line of phones.
In a statement on its website, OnePlus stated it was just as surprised by
the news as everyone else, and as a result it will have to speed up development
on its own Android fork, which is now planned for 2015 and will be built around
the Android 5.0
codebase. This new software should be ready for wide release by February, but
It isn't entirely clear how this will affect the Ones sold between now and
then. The first batch of devices being shipped out to buyers has not been
delayed, and it seems as though these will not be re-flashed with a new OS, but
will not receive automatic updates until the in-house build is ready.
No comments:
Post a Comment