Gadgetory

it's time for a showdown fight for blood a battle royale well no but it is time for a comparison of all the videos we're going to be putting together here a pocket knife for the 1+3 one of the most interesting questions that we like to look at is should you upgrade for oneplus fans if you're coming from oneplus one well that makes a lot of sense this is an easy phone to recommend but what about if you're coming from a oneplus 2 we're often reluctant to recommend that one year upgrade so is the oneplus 3 a compelling enough option for us to change our tune now starting off with design and build quality I think I like the oneplus 2 a little bit better especially how it feels in the hand the review unit we got was this sandstone back cover it's a really nice grippy textured material and if you've followed any of my reviews in the past you know personally I'm a big fan of that sort of metal edge with grippy backplate combination I also like that the oneplus 2 is a little bit thicker that extra casing helps prevent the camera module from bulging up out of the back of the phone and one last personal preference I do like it when the controls for a phone are on one side we've got the power button and the volume rocker on the right side of the phone now when these buttons are properly delineated your thumb has easy reach to control the power and volume but really this is a photography thing I really like when the buttons are on one side of the phone because when the phone is mounted in a cradle or when you're trying to do a ground-level shot all of your controls are easily reached I can power the phone on or I can change the volume or use the the volume rocker as some kind of shutter or zoom control I don't have to reach under the phone or do anything funky for that and then on a ground-level shot I don't accidentally depress the volume rocker or accidentally depress the power button if I'm bracing the phone against the ground the 1+3 is certainly an attractive device and really it makes more sense to have this aluminum unibody frame than to have a removable backplate which you can't even get to the battery on this phone but it's just lacking the charm or a style and I'm not a big fan of the camera module sticking out this far from the back of the phone now oneplus is addressing this with these little clip on back plates and that's kind of fun they even have one which resembles the sandstone feel from the oneplus 2 it's just not quite as elegant to solution when it's just a part of the phone and this thing is just sort of clipped to the rear now both of these phones are very similar in the hand I do like the slightly more rounded corners on the one plus three over the sharper corners on the one plus two if you have smaller Hobbit hands like mine you've got to brace into the pad of your hand it's a little bit nicer it's a little bit more comfortable especially when you're trying to reach around on a 5.5 inch screen and that gets us into the tech on board and immediately you're going to notice that slightly more saturated OLED screen over the LCD IPS on the oneplus 2 we have had some people sharing concerns about the pentile sub pixel arrangement on the 1+3 now in daily operation I can't say it's actually impacted my usage on this phone text in fine detail still looks pretty good we're talking about a 1080p display at a 5.5 inch diagonal this is not the highest resolution or most pixel dense screen that we've used over the last couple months when used at the distances you normally keep your phone from your face I think it's going to be fine where we do have some early concerns those when we start looking at VR applications where you're using magnification on parts of the screen we already don't have the most pixel dense screen and then you're shoving this thing as close to your face as you can but once you start looking at performance it's just no contest the 1+3 just stomps all over the oneplus 2 no big surprises we're looking at a Qualcomm 820 processor over the Qualcomm 810 now I know there's been a lot of software optimizations or probably some hardware fixes that went into this version of the 810 as opposed to the earlier releases from last year but performance just still hasn't been as consistent as we hoped it would be on that chipset it's not the fault of one-plus we're really pointing this one at Qualcomm I find when using the oneplus 2 and any other Qualcomm 810 powered phone I just run into more consistent situations where the phone has to catch up to what I'm doing or it just feels like it's underperforming or it's catching up or lagging in situations where I really feel it shouldn't be this is actually most noticeable on the keyboard where there's that significant delay between entering and text and having it actually populate the field that I'm trying to use all phones can get bogged down as you're using them but I find I have fewer instances of those sort of obnoxious catch-up points when I'm using a Qualcomm 820 powered phone over a Qualcomm 810 yeah I'm going to go ahead and snap this on I really want that sandstone feel on the back of the phone and for all the optimizing we've gone through on the Qualcomm 810 the 820 just runs so in our anecdotal early testing we've been getting better battery life on the oneplus 3 it's been a nice double whammy it's more powerful and it lasts longer tastes great less filling and knowing that the one plus three is a little less compromised I looking at the future of mobility payments and having an NFC radio on board yeah I feel that was a significant misstep on the oneplus 2 especially if we're talking about future proofing a device using it for multiple years add to that some subtle but noticeable camera improvements and believe you me we've got a mega camera review planned for this bad boy coming out soon it just adds up to an overall better smartphone experience but I really have to take it back to that usability discussion those little lags those little twitches those little stutters now there's been a lot of discussion about the RAM management issues facing this phone and it is sort of odd to see a company like oneplus do the same thing that Samsung did with the galaxy s6 we've got all this RAM but we're not going to let you use it because we're going to try and preserve battery life for the audience of people who are likely interested in a phone like the oneplus we can safely assume that's probably not the best course of action even accounting for that misstep it's just those little transitions animations menus that load quicker text fields that populate faster that makes this feel like a nicer phone to use so we should probably wrap this up it really shouldn't come as any surprise that the newer phone outperforms the older phone but if you're on a 1 plus 2 should you be looking at parting with your cash to move up to a 1 plus 3 in the past for other manufacturers we've been very conservative about recommending those kinds of upgrades looking at a galaxy s6 to a galaxy s7 do we really feel enough has changed to warrant the cost of buying a brand new phone it's a much more difficult argument to make when we're talking about six hundred and fifty dollar plus devices you start cresting that $700 price point on a phone and if you're not on some kind of leasing program gets a lot more difficult to say you're really getting your money's worth you're flipping your phone every year but looking at this phone and knowing that it's only $400 it's an easier pill to swallow walking away from the branding the flagship killer the never settle slogans there are definitely compromises to be had and they're going to be trade-offs when you move from one phone to the other like maybe you like the casing material or you like the screen quality those types of things are going to be very granular and very specific personal preferences for everybody out there but when viewed as an ecosystem of products the 1+3 feels a little bit better future-proofed than the oneplus 2 if you have the means and you understand the trade-offs the the compromises at play here this one's been a little bit easier to recommend that one year jump as always thanks so much for watching be sure to subscribe to this channel for our full coverage on the oneplus 3 be on the lookout for that real camera review because it's going to be brutal and hit that thumbs up button for a little extra positive reinforcement for pocket now I'm Juan Carlos Bagnall you can chat me up on Twitter and Instagram as some gadget guy and I will catch you all on the next comparison