Dubbing itself the Flagship Killer, the OnePlus One smartphone brings unbelievable value for money with specs that match Google’s Nexus and Samsung’s Galaxy flagships at less than half the price. Starting at $299 for the 16GB version, OnePlus One has a sleek, high-end look, with excellent internals.
Body
It sports a matte plastic shell that curves nicely without looking awkward. And although it looks a bit chunky at 8.9mm thickness with the Gorilla Glass 3 display slightly raised from the body, it should feel nice and secure to hold. The button placement will make you wish you grew longer fingers in order to use this one handed though – but this isn’t that big an issue since smartphones this size almost always require two-handed operation anyway.
What makes it special?
Build quality isn’t the reason why it’s cheap, that’s for sure. Under the hood, its got Qualcomm’s 801 Snapdragon and 3GB EMMC RAM, which they’re proud to say, is best in class when it comes to memory. Its imaging is 13mp SONY Exmor with 6 lens optics. Granted, they might have saved a few pennies by going OpenSource with the Cyanogen Mod instead of developing their own software, but it seems more of a smart move than a cheap one.
Display
OnePlus really took the display to new heights – it has a 1080p IPS LCD panel with a pixel density of 401ppi and viewing angles that beat the Galaxy S5 and the Nexus. It may not compete against the brightness and vivid colors of the S5, but again this is minor considering the huge difference in price.
Software
One also cannot overlook the fact that it has the Cyanogen mod built in. OnePlus actually worked with Cyanogen developers in optimizing the mod specifically for the product, which can’t be seen anywhere else. As you’d expect, the mod paired with the abovementioned specs results in smooth, crisp navigation. People who love to tweak will have fun with the mod’s renowned customization features, from UI to power management.
OnePlus already has one leg up on the competition by slashing their prices down. Hopefully for them the rewards will more than make up for it because we consumers definitely want to have more affordable high-spec smartphone options.
That looks like a great option. At only half the cost of the Samsung Galaxy S5 but all the performance, I could disregard the slight clunky feel this phone has. Hopefully, more manufacturese will follow suit and start providing a higher spec for a lower price.
Impressive! I never would have predicted a phone company would deliberately go and have the open source cyanogen mod installed on their phones by default. Developers are finally opening their eyes to the fact that users are tired of locked-down phones. Why bother paying for licensed software when you know most of your users will just install cyanogen anyway? I have the LG G3. If I wasn’t so enamored with the camera, I would seriously think about switching to this phone.
I’m glad more and more phones of this price and quality are being sold. I like where this is going, with more competition, either other companies must lower the prices of their phones or their phones have to have even more features. That being said I would much prefer a cheaper phone like this one or one with a much better battery life…
There’s basically nothing to dislike about this phone. The looks are fairly standard but what’s under the hood is just amazing for the price. You get a quad core CPU, 3GB RAM and 13MP camera. The camera can even record videos at 2k resolution. It’s right up there with the big boys in everything, except the price.
Wow, I never knew this phone existed until today. Gotta admit, for those specs, that price is an absolute bargain. I have a few buddies considering getting the S5 or the new iPhone 6 who I think should know about this.
A flagship phone sold at an affordable price is a very rare thing indeed. What interests me more though is the fully integrated Cyanogen Mod. I’ve always liked the feel of this particular software since its earlier iterations. I can’t wait to see it functioning with a fully integrated device. I hope this means that we won’t be seeing any major bloatware form Google or Samsung on this one.
Cyanogen Mod is FANTASTIC. You can tweak it any way you want and it’s constantly being updated. And YEAH no bloatware, that’s cool as well
I’ve never heard of this phone but it looks and seems to be high quality. At a price that’s cheaper than most high end smart phones, this will become popular very soon. The display, price, software, and size of this, makes it very competitive. Watch out Galaxy and IPhone.
I’ve seen a couple of sleek, thin smartphone that looks so mean. I’m not sure if thin smartphones are the right ones for me. What I have read and heard about thin smartphones is that they need very adaptive phone casings, and some even come with a bent smartphone casing for when the smartphone is bent.
Oh, this is just pretty. And it is so refreshing to see a device ‘officially’ support Cyanogen!
This will definitely be something to look in to. Dat camera tho. 😉
There will always be a market for cheap phones. People buy Samsung and Apple products more as a status symbol, hence many similarly priced smartphones like Nokia and Sony have been flops.
I think so long as the OnePlus keeps its sale price rock bottom people looking to save money would gladly snap up their phones.
Yeah, a lot people like to follow the trends, even if those phones aren’t as good as the cheaper ones. It’s all about going with the flow nowadays, and I’m pretty sure those big companies know it and often use that to benefit themselves.
This one looks like a great phone if you can’t afford the Nexus one. I’d really consider it if I didn’t have a Moto G, might get a similar phone once this phone kicks the bucket tho. I don’t think I’ll ever invest on a Samsung or an iPhone. Might consider this phone as a gift for my SO tho 🙂 Sounds better than his actual phone.
The OnePlus One is an amazing phone. It’s amazingly priced for the specs that it offers. The only gripe I have with it is the customer support, but that’s going to improve for sure since it’s a new company.
I’m eagerly waiting for the OnePlus Two and I hope it’s going to be priced similarly.
What makes the OnePlus so special is just how much you get for the price. The value of this phone is amazing because it offers everything that a regular flagship can while being close to half the price. Unfortunately, I already bought a phone when I got the invite to buy a OnePlus, but if not I would have seriously considered the phone.
It’s actually a pretty good price for this one, I really love the design of it, I actually wish that more phones were released with this design, when it comes to me, it seems to be a really comfortable feature, I guess that regular phones are kind of slippery for an easily distracted person, lol. I actually just googled it and the 16GB version, it’s now about $249 dollars, it’s still a pretty fair price.