Since its founding in 2013, the Chinese smartphone manufacturer OnePlus has managed to attract a large number of enthusiastic customers across the world, who appreciate their high-quality devices sold at a very attractive price, community-first approach to business, and excellent customer support. Their last smartphone, the OnePlus 2, has been available for a while, which means that the third version of this excellent phone is just around the corner. Latest rumors say that the phone should launch on April 7, so it’s the best to take a closer look at what it has to offer to Android beginners.

OnePlus 3: Everything You Need to Know

OnePlus is making a departure from their characteristic sandstone back panel, and are, instead, using a brushed metal to accentuate the premium nature of the design. The entire phone is curvier than before, which makes it sleek and easy to hold in just one hand. The fingerprint scanner is missing, but there’s a new speaker grille at the top of the side, so you can expect first-class multimedia and calling experience.

The OnePlus 3 features a large 5.5-inch screen with a slim bezel around it to keep the overall size of the phone as small as possible. The display has retained the same full HD resolution as the previous model. This was most likely a good call on the part of OnePlus, since most users will find the resolution excellent and bumping it to 2K would just result in a faster battery drain.

A recently leaked benchmark test revealed that the OnePlus 3 will ship with 4 GB of RAM and a powerful Snapdragon 820 chipset coupled with an Adreno 530 GPU. The Snapdragon 820 is currently the best performing mobile processor available on the market. It brings noticeable improvements over the previous generation in just about every aspect, including LTE speeds, battery life, image signal processing, and others.

The smartphone will also include 16MP rear camera and 8MP front camera. A little is currently known about their image quality, but we expect to outperform the already amazing OnePlus 2 in every way.

Finally, the OnePlus 3 will come with the latest version of OxygenOS, a customised version of Android operating system developed OnePlus.

Overview of OxygenOS

The OxygenOS 3.0 is based on Android 6.0, and it’s already available as a public beta for OnePlus 2 owners. This custom version of Android is created with the goal to offer users a superior day-to-day experience when using the smartphone and to make the most out of the powerful hardware it runs on.

On that account, the OxygenOS 3.0 benchmarked up to 47 percent than the previous version in a series of test scenarios. Other notable improvements include settings menu readability, new wallpaper picker, and custom-made camera application designed specifically for OnePlus.

Conclusion

Whether you already own an Android device or if you are just thinking about switching from another mobile platform, you should really consider OnePlus as a great alternative to more established smartphone manufacturers and a cost-effective substitute to flagship devices that offer more or less the same features and performance but often cost more than double.