While Apple’s WWDC and the whole gaming industry’s E3 event may well be taking most of the limelight this week, that didn’t stop OnePlus. At long last, after many a rumor and many a leak, the OnePlus 3 was finally, officially unveiled this week in virtual reality. While the launch wasn’t quite as exciting or as smooth as some people would have liked, the OnePlus 3 doesn’t disappoint in terms of specs and affordability. With a Snapdragon 820 and 6GB of RAM at the heart of the OnePlus 3, all for $399, there’s no shortage of value for money here. While OxygenOS, now in version 3.0 is a great software option for the OnePlus 2 and OnePlus 3, users will always want a little more, and just after the launch of the OnePlus 3, the Chinese company gave users just that.
Following the launch of their latest and greatest smartphone, the firm announced that kernel sources and device trees for the OnePlus 2 and OnePlus 3 are now available on GitHub. For a lot of users, this is the sort of thing that might not seem like a big deal, but for members of the community as well as ROM developers, these are the nuts and bolts that are specific to these devices and help people create custom software and custom ROMs. For OnePlus to do this on the day that the OnePlus 3 launches – and even goes on sale – is nothing short of impressive. Whether or not they can keep up this momentum to ensure speedy updates and attention to detail further down the line remains to be seen.
Even so, the forum post that announced this is refreshing on its own as it goes on to say that “Your OnePlus phone is, well, your phone – we’re not going to tell you how to use it.” This motto is arguably something that has helped bring more users to the OnePlus brand and being able to root and unlock the bootloader without any fuss or hassle is something that used to only be available to Nexus owners, but OnePlus is once again offering users an alternative. One that’s also cheaper than a Nexus device. It will take some time for the developers out there to get custom ROMs and such built for the OnePlus 3, but at least they now have the right tools available to them.