The OnePlus One, one of the most anticipated, very much hyped device of this year. Flagship Killer, Never Settle, Smash the Past – what not did the company use to promote the device initially, but the only issue was the delays in launching and making it available for the public. Limited number of devices available right now, the OnePlus One can be shipped only to China or US for now. We still got one, and have already started loving it. At least for me, the OnePlus One with this big screen size, is a beauty in the hand.
The design is where OnePlus has put all its efforts, taking care of each detail. We haven’t got the Black one, thus cannot judge but the White variant looks premium. The metallic rim on the front all around the body, and the best part – the OnePlus branding on the back which makes the phone look beautiful. The polycarbonate build does not give you the feel that you are holding a device that cost just $300. To the side of the device there is the power button on the right, and you can find the volume rockers on the left. At the bottom you can find the USB slot and speaker grills on either sides of it along with the primary microphone and the secondary micro phone (noise cancellation mic) can is on the back of the device beside the camera. The good thing about the physical buttons, is that they are placed well and they are very thin and not disturbing aesthetically.
The SIM slot is on the left of the device just above the volume rockers, and on the top you can find the 3.5 mm audio jack with the a third microphone which you won’t be seeing regularly. Below the camera, the dual LED flash and the company’s branding add to the beauty. OnePlus has used the area below the display for the capacitive touch buttons, although there’s an option for the users to use them or to activate onscreen buttons for navigation.
The OnePlus One is like a beast with a 5.5 inch display that is just 152.9 mm tall and 8.9 mm in thickness. Its a 1080p IPS LCD display with a pixel density of 401 PPI. and it also gives good viewing angles standing out alongside other flagship devices. This screen is protected with the Corning Gorilla Glass 3. It’s not yet done! The OnePlus One gives you the customizable Android experience as the company (OnePlus) has tied up with CyanogenMod and it is the first phone that runs the CyanogenMod 11S built in, based on Android 4.4.2 KitKat.
If you are new to CyanogenMod then let me explain you that it is a custom firmware based on AOSP (Android Open Source Project) that gives its users the luxury of customization and play with the settings of the device that Android OS does not give you. In short you can make your device look like the way you want it to be by all the customization.
Coming to the specs, it has a quad core Snapdragon 801 processor coupled with 3 GB of RAM and Adreno 330 GPU. The primary camera used on OnePlus One is a 13 MP Sony sensor that come with six element lens and f/2.0 aperture for low light shots and it is accompanied with 5 MP camera on the front. The 13 MP sensor look very interesting and gave out some natural colours. We will be coming out with the complete camera review of device that will let you know the quality of it. The battery used here is at 3100 mAh that is non-removable.
For the initial impressions, this is a brilliant smartphone. A good design, an interesting OS and a good camera. The review would come up soon, and we are sure to find some issues but there was nothing bad noticeable initially.
[Inputs from Pavan Kumar]
