When the OnePlus 3 was launched in Soft Gold back in late July, the company had promised it will not be “your typical gaudy gold smartphone”. OnePlus had also said that the device will come with a toned down “light, elegant look” and for the most part, it got a pretty decent reception from the buying public. While the Soft Gold option was initially made available only in limited quantities, it has since become more widely available alongside the Graphite version. Both have identical hardware and come with the exact same price-tag, but most importantly for buyers, the company scrapped its controversial invite system with the release of OnePlus 3, allowing users to buy the device without having to go through the hoops.
Now, the company has posted an elaborate pictograph on its official forum, detailing some of the work that goes behind bringing the Soft Gold hue to its latest flagship smartphone. In a post titled “Ever Wondered Why Soft Gold?” the company says that while designing the device, it tried to incorporate “visual artistry that takes inspiration from the Land of the Rising Sun, Japan”. It also says that the phone’s “Burnished craftsmanship is one of a kind – subtle, sophisticated and suave”. The post also informs readers that the manufacturing process for the Soft Gold OnePlus 3 takes as much as 180 days in total, from the point of sourcing the material to the completion which includes cutting, polishing, sandblasting and anodizing the metal. Finally, OnePlus also makes it a point to remind potential buyers that the antenna lines on the OnePlus 3 “takes the hue of ‘Soft Gold’ as the rest of the smartphone for an undiminished look”.
To be honest, all of that doesn’t really answer the original question of “Why Soft Gold”. However, it does give a little insight into the design language of the OnePlus 3. The smartphone, as mentioned already, is the current flagship from Chinese smartphone brand OnePlus, and Soft Gold is just one of the two colors that it’s offered in. The device is not only aesthetically pleasing, but it also packs some pretty heavy-duty hardware, including the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 SoC, 6GB of RAM, 64GB of internal storage, a 5.5-inch Full HD AMOLED display, a 16-megapixel primary camera and an 8-megapixel secondary camera. All in all, the OnePlus 3 comes with top-notch hardware wrapped in a nice and elegant package, making it a rather compelling buy at the price it’s asking for.