One plus 3

As far as the design is concerened, the OnePlus 3T looks exactly like its older sibling, and features the same full metal unibody construction, with a slightly curved back and rounded sides and corners. Despite being made entirely of metal, the phone is surprisingly light, and because the back tapers along the edges, it feels thinner as well, making for a device that is very comfortable to hold.

It’s also not a very tall or wide phone and is only slightly larger than the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge, allowing for a comfortable one-handed experience despite coming with a 5.5-inch display. There isn’t any 3T logo anywhere on the device that explicitly indicates that this is the upgraded flagship, and the only way to to really distinguish it from the older OnePlus 3 is by the color.

The OnePlus 3T is available in the same gold variant as the OnePlus 3, but the second color option is gunmetal instead of silver. The gunmetal version comes with both 64 and 128 GB options, while the gold iteration only comes with 64 GB of on-board storage.

As was the case with the OnePlus 3, build quality is not an issue here, and everything is very well put together. Taking a look around the device, the power button and volume rocker are on the right and left sides respectively, and the buttons feel very tactile and are easy to press. Above the volume rocker is the very useful Notification Slider, that lets you quickly toggle between silent, do not disturb, and full volume options.

At the bottom is the headphone jack, the USB Type-C port, and the single speaker unit, and up front is the home button with the integrated fingerprint scanner, flanked by capacitive back and Recent Apps keys. The back key is on the left and the Recent Apps key is on the right by default, but you can flip the orientation if you prefer in the Settings.

Things remain unchanged on the display side, with the OnePlus 3T also coming with a 5.5-inch AMOLED display with a 1080p resolution. As is expected from an AMOLED screen, you get rich and vibrant colors with a lot of contrast, and the optional dark mode that is built-in to Oxygen OS takes fanastic advantage of the deep inky blacks. If you aren’t a fan of the vibrancy though, it is also easy to switch to a sRGB color mode in the Display Settings that provides a more natural and less saturated look.

Brightness isn’t a concern and allows for comfortable outdoor visibility. Sharpness isn’t a problem either, and to the naked eye, the difference between this 1080p panel and other Quad HD screen won’t be noticeable, unless you are using the phone for VR. OnePlus feels that VR isn’t mainstream enough to justify the jump to Quad HD, and decided to stick to 1080p to aid with the battery life.

There aren’t a whole lot of differences between the OnePlus 3 and the 3T, but performance is one area that has seen an improvement. Under the hood, the OnePlus 3T comes with the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 processor, clocked at 2.35 GHz, which is faster than the one found in the Google Pixel smartphones. The 3T retains the 6 GB of RAM that is also available with the OnePlus 3.

Not surprisingly, the performance is absolutely fantastic with the OnePlus 3T, with the comparatively lower resolution display a contributing factor as well. Opening, closing, and switching between apps is smooth and snappy, the touch responsiveness is excellent, and the device also handles graphic-intensive gaming comfortably, with no dropped frames to be seen.

With 6 GB of RAM, multitasking isn’t an issue either, and you can have a lot of apps in running the background and keep them for a very long time. The OnePlus 3T features one of the quickest and smoothest Android experiences out there. Granted, it may not be as smooth as the experience available with the Pixel devices, but it is certainly up there among the best.