OnePlus 3 review: Still a flagship killer despite the newer OnePlus 3T

Display

Admittedly, the design of the phone is a rather small complaint. More worrying is its 5.5in, 1,920×1,080 Optic AMOLED display, which was just a bit too oversaturated for my liking. It still covered 100% of the sRGB colour gamut, but primary colours in particular were so rich that they almost didn’t look right.

It is possible to adjust the colour balance in the display settings, but this just made whites look pink or blue depending on whether you made it warmer or cooler, and I couldn’t find a decent setting to make it look any better. Don’t get me wrong, the OnePlus 3’s screen is nowhere near as diabolical as the AMOLED screen on the ill-fated Nexus 6, which was so oversaturated that whites were practically orange, but it’s still disappointing that OnePlus has gone for such an overly vibrant colour cast.

This is a shame, as its pitch perfect 0.00cd/m2 blacks and ultra-high contrast ratio give it much greater sense of depth and detail compared to the IPS display on the OnePlus 2, and its peak brightness of 414.87cd/m2 is actually much higher than other AMOLED-based screens I’ve tested as well, making it easier to see in direct sunlight.

Oxygen OS extra features

In fact, the OnePlus 3 probably has one of the more versatile displays I’ve seen in some time thanks to the company’s Oxygen OS, which sits on top of Android 6.0.1. Not only is there a dedicated Night mode, which filters out blue light to make it easier on the eyes when you’re looking at the phone in the dark, but you also get a system-wide Dark mode, which inverts the colour scheme in the menu settings to give you a black background and white text. This, coupled with the energy-efficient AMOLED screen, should provide even bigger savings when it comes to battery life, as it means it doesn’t need to illuminate quite so many pixels.

Camera

Of course, when the rest of the phone’s so good, you probably won’t care that the screen’s a bit off. However, it does create something of a false impression when looking at your photos, though, as I found they looked great on the phone screen, but less impressive when I looked at them again on my PC. At full resolution on my colour-calibrated monitor, each shot was significantly darker and more washed out than the phone had led me to believe.

The level of detail was still quite high overall, but it was only when I turned on the camera’s HDR mode that colours started to regain a bit of life and natural richness. I also found that shadow areas tended to be very soft and smoothed out, as all the fine detail like paving stones and brickwork tended to blur together into one homogenous lump.

^ While photos looked great when viewed on the phone, the actual image was a lot darker 

^ HDR mode helped bring back a bit more colour vibrancy, but finer details were still quite soft

Indoor shots were significantly better, though, as colours looked bright and vibrant and there was a good level of contrast on show throughout. There were a few rough edges here and there, but on the whole the OnePlus 3 produced excellent shots regardless of whether we had our studio lights turned on or off.

^ Indoor shots, however, looked great, showing high levels of detail throughout

Conclusion

In a way, it’s a shame the screen isn’t just a little bit better, as it’s the one thing holding the OnePlus 3 back from true greatness. Despite that, it’s still a fantastic smartphone and its combination of super-fast processing speeds, massive battery life and a pretty decent camera make it excellent value for money. In my eyes, the LG G5 and Nexus 5X still have the better camera sensor, but when the OnePlus 3 is almost half the price of the G5 and infinitely faster than the 5X, there’s simply no competition. It’s a Best Buy. Buy the OnePlus 3 now from OnePlus