With about 90 minutes still left on the countdown clock on the OnePlus landing page the announcement of one of the most hyped phones in a long long time was presented to the world. And barely a ripple was caused. The hype surrounding this phone was built up over the past few months saying that they had managed to put a 5.5″ screen into a 5″ body, it would fit underneath a Sony Xperia Z1, it would sport the best specs available, and it would be a stunningly beautiful device.
The countdown on the landing pages seems to have been pointing at the OnePlus One page going live itself. Much confusion. When the countdown did finish on OnePlus.net the web page was stuck on a 10 day countdown. At the time of this writing it was still stuck there.
So what did we find out about the OnePlus One? Most we knew already but now much of it has been put together, like a jigsaw puzzle being completed. Some of the following is rehashed from my post from this morning but here goes:
- OnePlus focussed on an elegant design, beautiful contours
- They wanted metal borders but due to signal and weight issues had to go without (remember Iphone4 attennagate?)
- Available in Two colours and Textures- Sandstone Black and Silk White
- Back cover finish is made of cashew!
- Personalised textures available for the back cover (bamboo, denim, kevlar, wood)
- Dimensions are 152.9×75.9×8.9mm with it being only 4.6mm thick at the edges
- Weight is 162gm
- The leaked images were real (I was wrong)
- Bottom facing stereo speakers made by and fine-tuned by JBL
- 13MPx IMX214 Sensor with 6 lenses and f/2/0 aperture and dual LED flash
- 5.5in 1080p LCD display with Gorilla Glass 3
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 (MSM8974AC)
- 3GB LP-DDR3 RAM
- 16GB or 64GB eMMC 5.0 variants
- GSM and LTE (compatible with Australian frequencies)
- 3100mAh non-removable battery
- Tri-microphone with noise cancellation
- Multicoloured LED notification light – RGB
- Bluetooth 4.1
- Wifi – 2.4G/5G 802.11 a/b/g/n
- No, repeat NO Qi charging
- CyanogenMod 11S based on Android 4.4
- CyanogenMod will have a “newly designed minimal flat UI”
- NFC
- $299US 16gb
- $349US 64gb
- Available starting Q2 although Android Police have posted it will be available mid-May
“By paying attention to the smallest details, taking a holistic approach to product design, and working with the best partners such as Cyanogen Inc. and Qualcomm Technologies, we have been able to create the greatest day to day user experience in a smartphone without compromise,” said Pete Lau, CEO of OnePlus. Pretty much what you would expect him to say to be honest. In my opinion it is a very good looking device but it is also a big device. It is certainly in the phablet territory, being bigger in some dimensions than the Samsung Note 2 and 3.
Steve Kondik, aka Cyanogen, also had this to say “I am incredibly proud of the effort our team has put in to the CyanogenMod build for the OnePlus One. We’ve brought out the full potential of the hardware and complemented it with innovative new features to give users a fresh new experience and the tools to tailor the One to their personal style,” said Kondik. “We will continue to expand this effort to provide a genuinely enjoyable and powerful operating system for the user.” This is something I alluded to this morning. The device has software optimised to the hardware resulting in a user experience hopefully second to none.
Interestingly, in China the phone will be released with ColorOS, Oppo’s proprietary firmware which in my opinion is disgraceful. This lends weight to the theory that OnePlus is NOT a separate company from Oppo and is actually owned by the same people.
They have also posted a video to YouTube that shows the design process.
The rest was just the usual marketing fluff. I just summarised it into the points listed above. How do I feel about the phone? There is no point telling you all about a device without adding my interpretation to it. When OnePlus said they were going to put a 5.5inch screen into the body of a 5inch screen phone I was surprised. Surely that wasn’t possible. Turns out it wasn’t. Not sure what 5inch screen they were thinking about, probably the Sony Xperia Z1 but the OnePlus One has dimensions bigger than the Note 3 which has a bigger screen. I admit I am a little disappointed regarding the size of the phone. I am not sure I could handle using a phone that big every day. Will it stop me getting one? Probably not. I want to try out the new CyanogenMod. I want to try this top of the line hardware on software designed for it. I am definitely not disappointed regarding the hardware, the camera, nor the software.
But how will I get one? By invite? I have heard that OnePlus deeply regret the invite system and the issues it has caused. It is likely to be scrapped within two days and this is when ordering will commence. Sanity has prevailed. The invite system still may have worked but not without giving a lot more information on how the invites were going to work. Maybe next time they should just say that they would be sending out 10,000 invites to the first 10,000 members of their forums and then each person who takes them up on the invite will have two more invites to give out and so on.
So there you have it. Those who have used a Note and didn’t mind the size will not have an issue with the OnePlus One. Now to work out how to get one in Australia.
Are you impressed with the OnePlus One? Did it live up to the hype for you? Will you be buying one?
