The OnePlus 6 Review: Among The Best Of 2018

Conclusion & End Remarks

The OnePlus 6 is a device that generally impressed me a lot. I was going into the review without any expectations or preconceptions as it was my first OnePlus device to more thoroughly review.

Design-wise, the OnePlus 6 marks a major change for the company as it employed a new industrial design. Most notably, this is visible in the back of the phone as the new glass cover marks a replacement for the previous metal chassis. The review unit which I’ve got had the new matte “Midnight black” variant which offers a sanded glass finish. I’ve actually really liked the finish as it feels very unique and is less of a fingerprint magnet than the usual glass back. Some people have noted that they didn’t like that it’s more slippery than the shiny glass  variants – I can’t really comment on that other than saying that I personally didn’t have an issue with it.

The front of the phone also attracted a lot of attention due to the fact that OnePlus adopted a display notch in the OP6. As I’ve stated in past reviews such as Huawei’s P20’ pieces, I’ve actually had no issue at all with the notch. In practical terms it actually does offer more screen real-estate by having the notification icons and status icons where there usually would be phone bezel. You can black out the “ears” via a software option if you wish to and this works very well with the AMOLED screen, with only the occasional screen reflection reminding you that there’s actually a notch there.

The display of the OnePlus 6 is very good and has accurate colour profiles if that’s a requirement for you. Viewing angles are excellent, as is usual for an OLED display. The only two drawbacks here is that OnePlus by default doesn’t enable the high-brightness mode of which the hardware is capable of, and this comes at a detriment of legibility in bright scenarios such as direct sunlight. Also the screen resolution, while for most people might be sufficient, is for me personally too stretched out over the large screen and I would have really preferred the phone to come with a 1440p panel.

Performance of the OnePlus 6 is its absolute shining point as not only does it offer the same outstanding system performance that I’ve described in our Mi MIX 2S review, naming that one of the fastest devices I’ve ever experienced, but actually the OP6 also manages to distinguish itself from other Snapdragon 845 devices by having vastly superior sustained 3D performance. This latter, while I’m not exactly certain on the facts, is something that I want to attribute to a seemingly better thermal dissipation design on the OnePlus 6.

The camera on the OnePlus 6 also impressed me a lot in daylight shots. It was among one of the best cameras in terms of exposure, colour reproduction and resulting natural high dynamic range images. The 16MP shooter also was able to very much obtain some of the most detailed shots among current generation devices, although it was visible that OnePlus pushed quite hard in terms of the optics and the f/1.7 aperture, as we can discern some defects in the lens.

In night-time the OP6 did also well and is more than adequate as a shooter, although it’s hitting hardware boundaries as it just doesn’t have the same light capture abilities of other flagships.

The second sensor on the OP6 is one of very limited value as its only use-case is the depth perception within the portrait mode. Given that the bokeh blur is actually a computational effect applied in software, adding a second module just for depth perception is an expensive endeavour which doesn’t benefit the camera in any other capturing modes. I wish OnePlus had invested the resources into a wide-angle or telephoto lens instead.

Speaker wise, it’s probably one of the weaker phones out there as the sound quality is below other flagships. However the OnePlus 6 has a 3.5mm headphone jack – which can be make or break decision for a lot of buyers, so congratulations on OnePlus for keeping the option for the consumer.

The battery life of the phone is also excellent. It doesn’t top out the charts as it does only have a 3300mAh battery, but the SoC and screen are power efficient enough to make up for it.

Overall I think the OnePlus 6 is an excellent device, and while it’s not perfect, it offers incredible value at its price range and easily beats out any other contender. The Galaxy S9, in particular the Snapdragon variants, are still probably overall better devices, but also come at a price premium.

Generally I’ll easily recommend the OnePlus 6 to any buyer as I just don’t see any deal-breaking negatives that would make anybody regret purchasing the phone.