The OnePlus One: Three Months In
As OnePlus continues rolling out invites and works towards ditching the invite system altogether, the OnePlus One is slated to be an incredibly competitive choice for the holiday phone shopping season. As someone who has used the OnePlus One consistently for the past three months. It’s time to revisit the One and decide if it’s truly a flagship killer.
Hardware
The hardware hasn’t slowed down one bit. The phone is still a dazzling display of manufacturing. The OnePlus One is a monstrous device with killer specs. I have gotten used to the gargantuan 5.5” screen. The Sandstone Black cover that drapes over the back of the device has worn down slightly. That in no way diminishes the feel of the back of the phone, though. As I stated in my Top Five: OnePlus One Hardware Features(Which was featured by OnePlus!), the metal band gives the device a premium feel; or so we thought. Many reports have come forth stating that the metal band around the device isn’t metal at all. After looking at the fantastic teardown done by “iFixIt” as well as perusing the forums. It is clear that the frame on the outside of the device is plastic, while the magnesium frame is actually found on the inside of the device. Some may find this disappointing, but it doesn’t detract from the experience at all. The phone is still incredibly sturdy.
Software
CyanogenMod 11S has undergone a few “bug fixes” since July. As I stated in my initial review, there were some issues with Screen-Off Gestures for me. The first OTA, 30O, fixed the Gesture issues for my OnePlus One. But it introduced a new bug that kept the Android System on. CyanogenMod, being diligent with updates and support, pushed out the 33R update soon thereafter. This fixed the Android System bug for some. Unfortunately, it did not fix the issue on my OnePlus One.
With the Android System bug persisting, battery life has taken a moderately large hit. It is immensely disappointing to see the large battery found in the OnePlus One being crippled by this bug. Other than that singular bug, CyanogenMod 11S still runs fantastically on the OnePlus One. There is still immense fluidity, snappiness, and speed to everything you do on the device.
Camera
The camera has also seen a bit of a facelift during the past 3 months. The team at OnePlus has introduced a new camera feature, dubbed “Clear Image”.
Clear Image takes a sequence of pictures and combines them for a super high resolution shot. In side by side comparisons, there is not a huge difference in clarity. Looking into the details of the photos taken on Auto and Clear Image. The variation is only roughly 100 pixels. As far as the new Clear Image shooting mode, it isn’t entirely impressive. Auto is much faster and produces virtually the same image. Other than that, the camera stll produces fantastic shots that have good color accuracy and depth. It still suffers in low light, just as I stated in my camera review.
You get to know a device after using it for three months. Is it perfect? Not at all. Is it close? As close as the big dogs like HTC and Samsung get. Is it worth the wait? If you’re still waiting for an invite, I would say that it is indeed worth the wait. The OnePlus One is an incredible device through and through.
