OnePlus 3 launched ($399) Updated: reviews out

[Lehti]

7 minutes ago, ShadowCaptain said:

Yaeh thats why my daily driver is an iPhone 6

 

I plan on getting an OP3 or something similar as a secondary device, for fucking around with, but I cant deal with android as something to rely on

I don't really mind Android. It's a decent operating system. What I do mind is how shitty some manufacturers are when it comes to software updates. I had a Samsung Galaxy S II before and the manufacturer said "you know, this handset is 2 years old, so we'll stop pushing updates for it", even though it still was selling well. Now, I'm aware of how expensive supporting smartphone updates are, but if a manufacturer is willing to leave its flagship to die, I don't want to be their customer.

The main attraction of Oneplus was their promise of constant updates, but they didn't deliver and are starting to become Samsung's hipster little brother, which is why my next Android phone will be a Nexus device.

[suicidalfranco]

3 hours ago, Lehti said:

I don't really mind Android. It's a decent operating system. What I do mind is how shitty some manufacturers are when it comes to software updates. I had a Samsung Galaxy S II before and the manufacturer said "you know, this handset is 2 years old, so we'll stop pushing updates for it", even though it still was selling well. Now, I'm aware of how expensive supporting smartphone updates are, but if a manufacturer is willing to leave its flagship to die, I don't want to be their customer.

The main attraction of Oneplus was their promise of constant updates, but they didn't deliver and are starting to become Samsung's hipster little brother, which is why my next Android phone will be a Nexus device.

If only Nexus devices had removable batteries and mSD, i'd be all over that band wagon

[dizmo]

On 2016-06-15 at 7:51 PM, djdwosk97 said:

Considering 4gb is still enough for the average users DESKTOP, 4gb should be way more than enough for a phone. 

 

Also, just look at the gaming market. Devs are ahead of GPUs, yet everything still works out.

True, but the RAM is shared with the GPU, is it not? Therefore they are not directly comparable.

[Bouzoo]

Now this is interesting? Buyer claims new OnePlus 3 handset came pre-loaded with porn.

[Arctiheat]

I'm going to receive mine today so ill give my opinions later (cant wait)

[atrash]

On 16 June 2016 at 0:26 PM, djdwosk97 said:

My point still stands regardless of how you look at it. 

 

Either theyre developing for hardware that isn't available yet or GPU makers push out capable hardware which just leads to shitty coding. I personally think it's a little of both. 

So this happened.. http://phandroid.com/2016/06/16/oneplus-3s-fails-memory-speedtest/

 

 

 

[Trixanity]

2 hours ago, atrash said:

So this happened.. http://phandroid.com/2016/06/16/oneplus-3s-fails-memory-speedtest/

 

 

 

Yup, I've read all about it. Apparently it's a feature...

They claim it's for battery reasons. That killing apps saves battery... Wat...

 

>Puts 6 GB of RAM in phone

>Allows 3 GB maximum use

>Apparently 50% unused RAM is good

 

It's easily fixable by editing build.prop and changing the maximum number of apps running. It's at 20 by default. 20 sounds like a lot but it's basically ALL apps including system apps and other background stuff, so it's not as in you can launch 20 apps and keep them all in memory. Many users suggest 36 or 42 as a change. HTC 10 has 60 (some say it's the maximum value) set meaning it doesn't kill apps unless it's running low.

Changing that value stops the needless killing and makes everything work fine.

 

And of course the battery saving thing is bullshit. It probably uses more battery to constantly kill apps and relaunch them. Android automatically suspends unused apps even if they are loaded in memory. It doesn't really affect power consumption if it's stored in memory. It's CPU cycles that causes increased power consumption and since Android automatically handles running apps and suspension of these, it's useless. It's the whole task killing thing (and debunking of the myths surrounding it) and all the apps doing it we've been through before - it's like we're moving in a circle here. It hurts battery life to kill apps needlessly. That's why HTC also got flak for pre-installing a task killer as a battery feature on the 10.

 

Yes, the one point where killing an app is good if it takes up CPU cycles when it shouldn't (rogue apps) or if it's unresponsive but reducing the amount of apps kept in memory or killing apps after being inactive for X amount of time doesn't really solve the rogue app issue. 

[atrash]

42 minutes ago, Trixanity said:

Yup, I've read all about it. Apparently it's a feature...

They claim it's for battery reasons. That killing apps saves battery... Wat...

 

>Puts 6 GB of RAM in phone

>Allows 3 GB maximum use

>Apparently 50% unused RAM is good

 

It's easily fixable by editing build.prop and changing the maximum number of apps running. It's at 20 by default. 20 sounds like a lot but it's basically ALL apps including system apps and other background stuff, so it's not as in you can launch 20 apps and keep them all in memory. Many users suggest 36 or 42 as a change. HTC 10 has 60 (some say it's the maximum value) set meaning it doesn't kill apps unless it's running low.

Changing that value stops the needless killing and makes everything work fine.

 

And of course the battery saving thing is bullshit. It probably uses more battery to constantly kill apps and relaunch them. Android automatically suspends unused apps even if they are loaded in memory. It doesn't really affect power consumption if it's stored in memory. It's CPU cycles that causes increased power consumption and since Android automatically handles running apps and suspension of these, it's useless. It's the whole task killing (and debunking of the myths surrounding it) and all the apps doing it we've been through before. It hurts battery life to kill apps needlessly. That's why HTC also got flak for pre-installing a task killer as a battery feature on the 10.

 

Yes, the one point where killing an app is good if it takes up CPU cycles when it shouldn't (rogue apps) or if it's unresponsive but reducing the amount of apps kept in memory or killing apps after being inactive for X amount of time doesn't really solve the rogue app issue. 

Yeah being and android, thankfully there's a fix to it but i doubt many would even bother doing it anyway. This thing should be the standard or OPO should've just put larger battery in the first place. I know people will justify the 'slowness' with its price but I will personally disagree with that. 

[Trixanity]

Anandtech just published their review and particularly the display deserves note.

Not because it's good but because it's awful.

Quote

right now the display accuracy you get on the OnePlus 3 reminds me a great deal of early AMOLED devices from 2010

Average brightness, incredibly cold display which means heavy on the blue side, highly inaccurate, gamut aimed at NTSC instead of sRGB just about sums it up.

They even contacted OnePlus about why the fuck they'd use the NTSC spec and I guess this was their initial reaction when sRGB was mentioned: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

They said they'd update the device with an sRGB profile later but it's uncertain how much they can fix as normally you'd calibrate the display at the factory. Maybe they can adjust things somewhat with an OTA update but later production models might be significantly better (if they'll try to improve their practices going forward - kinda doubt it).

 

@LAwLz I'm guessing you'd be interested in this.

[LAwLz]

23 hours ago, Trixanity said:

Anandtech just published their review and particularly the display deserves note.

Not because it's good but because it's awful.

Average brightness, incredibly cold display which means heavy on the blue side, highly inaccurate, gamut aimed at NTSC instead of sRGB just about sums it up.

They even contacted OnePlus about why the fuck they'd use the NTSC spec and I guess this was their initial reaction when sRGB was mentioned: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

They said they'd update the device with an sRGB profile later but it's uncertain how much they can fix as normally you'd calibrate the display at the factory. Maybe they can adjust things somewhat with an OTA update but later production models might be significantly better (if they'll try to improve their practices going forward - kinda doubt it).

 

@LAwLz I'm guessing you'd be interested in this.

So my fears came true. The screen is absolutely appalling. It's kind of surprising to see just how bad it is, despite other reviewers like @LinusTech saying that it is good.

 

Quote

The three gets this wonderfully high contrast, non-reflective and miraculously not oversaturated AMOLED panel with white point adjustments built right into the operating system.

Ehm yeah... Not oversaturated?

The saturation is quite literally off the charts.

 

 

But if I've learned anything from following the mobile market it's that people don't care about accurate displays, so this might not be that big of a deal to most people. People just don't know what colors are suppose to look like so they don't miss it when it's completely wrong. It's a shame that it probably won't be fix-able in a software update either.

 

 

It's nice to see that the rest of the phone (minus video recording) is very solid though. The flash memory in particular is fantastic. I really don't get why other manufacturers are so far behind. It's like the only three manufacturers that care are Apple, Samsung and OnePlus.

[Trixanity]

6 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

So my fears came true. The screen is absolutely appalling. It's kind of surprising to see just how bad it is, despite other reviewers like @LinusTech saying that it is good.

 

Ehm yeah... Not oversaturated?

The saturation is quite literally off the charts.

 

 

But if I've learned anything from following the mobile market it's that people don't care about accurate displays, so this might not be that big of a deal to most people. People just don't know what colors are suppose to look like so they don't miss it when it's completely wrong. It's a shame that it probably won't be fix-able in a software update either.

 

 

It's nice to see that the rest of the phone (minus video recording) is very solid though. The flash memory in particular is fantastic. I really don't get why other manufacturers are so far behind. It's like the only three manufacturers that care are Apple, Samsung and OnePlus.

Yeah, the chart on the right is funny. Not a single dot within a box. I mean holy shit. When you view other similar display charts, usually at least some or most of them hit within their marks somewhat. I do trust Anandtech when they say this is like a display from six years ago (except that it's full HD*). And as mentioned previously, I don't think an OTA update can fix it because even the same display batches will have variances just like a chip will have differing qualities within the same batch. So it's impossible to get a good calibration from that. At best they can limit the display's natural characteristics (OLEDs natively has a wide gamut) and keep it within the sRGB spec could reduce the horrible inaccuracy somewhat and also try to roughly adjust the white point towards 6500 K but an actual calibration from the factory could probably make it perform at least like an average 2015-2016 AMOLED display. I mean I doubt it can rival the best Samsung has to offer, so middling results (which is fine for the price) is what I'd expect. 

 

Lately I've been very adamant about checking storage benchmarks on devices; I'll actually refuse to buy a phone with slow storage now. All my current devices have utter shite NAND performance and it's obvious even without benchmarks.

LG G5 actually has UFS storage but it's not like UFS automatically means fast (in the same way an NVMe SSD can also be slow) and I think it's actually slower than the HTC 10 that has eMMC (why, HTC, why?). Samsung still has room for improvements compared to Apple, especially considering they're top dog in storage and do all the R&D, manufacturing etc all on their own. They can do much better.

 

I don't think there is any excuse for a >$400 device to have anything but UFS storage (or NVMe when the industry comes up with a standard that fits into a phone). I'd actually say all devices should ditch eMMC but that's perhaps a bit harsh.

[patrick3027]

Welp, that's horrible. I don't care too much about displays so I don't regret buying it but it definitely is something people should take into account. Glad the battery performed adequately though, something along the lines of the LG G5.

 

And yeah UFS should become the norm. I feel like better performing processors don't improve the user experience too much at this point. Meanwhile faster storage does.

[LAwLz]

@Trixanity

OnePlus has sent out an update to reviewers. Brandon on Anandtech has published another article about it.

 

It makes the RAM management less aggressive when it comes to expunging apps from RAM and also introduces an sRGB display mode.

 

Surprisingly enough, the sRGB mode is really, really, really, REALLY good. Like, amazingly good.

OnePlus might actually have employed some wizards to fix this with dark magic.

 

Grayscale:

Spoiler

 

Saturation:

Spoiler

 

GretagMacbeth test:

Spoiler

 

I am so glad that OnePlus not only fixed the issue, but also did it extremely well and in a very quick manner. Two huge thumbs up to OnePlus, and I hope they will continue this trend moving forward.

It also makes me happy to see that there are some reviewers out there who take the time to thoroughly test products, and that some manufacturers listens to them.

 

Maybe @LinusTech should update his OnePlus 3 to see what an accurate display actually looks like.

*shots fired*

[Trixanity]

40 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

@Trixanity

OnePlus has sent out an update to reviewers. Brandon on Anandtech has published another article about it.

 

It makes the RAM management less aggressive when it comes to expunging apps from RAM and also introduces an sRGB display mode.

 

Surprisingly enough, the sRGB mode is really, really, really, REALLY good. Like, amazingly good.

OnePlus might actually have employed some wizards to fix this with dark magic.

 

Grayscale:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Saturation:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

GretagMacbeth test:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

I am so glad that OnePlus not only fixed the issue, but also did it extremely well and in a very quick manner. Two huge thumbs up to OnePlus, and I hope they will continue this trend moving forward.

It also makes me happy to see that there are some reviewers out there who take the time to thoroughly test products, and that some manufacturers listens to them.

 

Maybe @LinusTech should update his OnePlus 3 to see what an accurate display actually looks like.

*shots fired*

Yeah, I saw it earlier. I did think to inform you but figured given your interest, you'd see it on your own

 

It's quite impressive that an OTA update can fix that. I wonder how benchmarks would be if they had more than one sample. They might just have a good sample that mixes well with the new update. I know that's pessimistic but it just seems strange that an OTA update could change a display and do it so well. Normally a factory calibration of the display is needed to achieve results like that (and sometimes even that gives worse results).

 

I'm also surprised at the backlash there have been to Anandtech's review. They seem to be the only one's with a widely published review that has used equipment to test the display thoroughly. Everyone else has praised it. Almost all consumers have torn Anandtech a new one for criticizing the display and argued that accuracy is not important and that they're happy with the display.

 

Accuracy is extremely important if everyone are to see the content as it should be seen. I mean orange shouldn't appear red because your display is bad (exaggeration of course). An accurate display is more important than a wide gamut.