As one of the forerunners in value flagships, OnePlus is raising the bar yet again with the OnePlus 6, a phone that looks and feels every bit as good as phones that cost hundreds of dollars more. Retailing for £469, €519, or $529, the OnePlus 6 offers an incredible value, as it features the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 chipset as other flagship phones, but ups the ante with 8GB of RAM, and a base model that features 64GB of internal storage. Pair this with the ultra-fast OxygenOS skin from OnePlus and you’ve got the fastest phone this year, in some cases by a pretty hefty margin.
The design of the OnePlus 6 has been refined a bit this time around, featuring smaller bezels than any Android phone that has a notch in its display, as well as a new all-glass build. There’s no wireless charging or IP-rated water and dust resistance though, despite being glass, but the new design doesn’t look like a bonafide iPhone clone, as last year’s phones most certainly did in many ways. While many users fought the idea of having a notch in its display, this is still a beautiful, larger 6.28-inch OLED display with a build that’s second to none in terms of look and feel. It’s sporting the latest version of OxygenOS, running atop Android 8.1 Oreo, and even has support to run the Android P beta right out of the box.
It’s pretty surreal to see a non-Google-branded phone able to take part in the Android beta program, but OnePlus’s decision to design the phone with support for Project Treble seems to have paid off. A good sized 3,300mAh battery inside nets rather good battery life, and while it’s not the absolute best we’ve seen this year, it’s definitely better than most flagships running the Snapdragon 845 chipset inside. OnePlus is still paying heed to users who prefer a wired audio experience too by providing not only a 3.5mm audio jack on the phone, but also full support for USB Type-C audio accessories, and of course all the requisite high-quality Bluetooth codecs available, thanks to Android Oreo and Bluetooth 5.0. Check out our video review below to see how we felt the phone stacked up after more than a month’s usage, and don’t forget to subscribe to us on YouTube!