After countless rumours and teases, the OnePlus 6 is official.
OnePlus announced the device today at a launch event in London, England.
The phone’s marquee feature is, without a doubt, its 6.28-inch bezel-less display with iPhone X-style display notch. It’s an AMOLED screen with 19:9 aspect ratio and 2280 x 1080 pixel resolution. Internally, the phone features Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 845 chipset and 6GB of RAM. More expensive models include 8GB of RAM and up to 256GB of internal storage.
Speaking to the addition of the notch, OnePlus says one of its goals with the OnePlus 6 was to give users as much display real-estate as possible.
For the first time, the company has gone with a glass back — both the front and back of the phone are enchased in Gorilla Glass 5. OnePlus plans to sell the OP6 in two colours to start, ‘mirror black’ and ‘midnight black’. In June, the phone will also be available in ‘silk white’. OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei said OnePlus went with a glass back partially out of a practicality. Glass allows better for better transmission of radio waves. The company used a manufacturing process that allowed it to make the glass feel like ceramic. According to Pei, the OnePlus 6 is just as durable as the company’s past phones, despite being made from glass.
With the addition of Qualcomm’s X20 LTE modem, which in the case of the OnePlus 6 supports both 4X4 MIMO and 256QAM, and the phone’s new glass body, OnePlus is promising Gigabit download speeds, a first for a OnePlus device.
The OP6 also features a 3,300mAh battery, the same capacity power source that shipped with the OnePlus 5 and 5T, as well as the company’s Dash Charge fast charging tech. Despite adding a glass back to the mix, OnePlus did not also add inductive charging. The company says it believes its Dash Charge fast charging solution is still the best overall solution for topping up one of its devices. Also missing is IP certified water and dust proofing — though the phone can survive the occasional dampness, according to the company.
To unlock the device, users can either use the back-facing fingerprint sensor or face unlock.
On the connectivity front, the OnePlus 6 also includes Wi-Fi 802.11ac, NFC and Bluetooth 5.0, with support for Qualcomm’s aptX and aptX HD wireless audio codecs. The company also announced a pair of Bluetooth wireless headphones, called the Bullets Wireless, alongside the OnePlus 6. For those who prefer to continue to using their wired headphones, the OnePlus 6 ships with a 3.5mm headphone jack.
On the camera front, the OnePlus 6 features a dual rear camera setup. The main rear camera features a 16-megapixel sensor with f/1.7 aperture lens and optical image stabilization (OIS). The sensor is also 19 percent larger than the main sensor in the OnePlus 5. Supporting the main camera is a second camera with a 20-megapixel sensor and f/1.7 lens. On the front of the device is a camera with 16-megapixel sensor and f/2.0 lens. The company is adding a variety of bokeh effects to portrait mode, allowing users to add hearts and stars to their portrait photos. In the near future, OnePlus plans to issue a software update that will bring portrait mode to the front-facing camera.
The camera will also be able to shot 480 frames per second slow-motion video at 720p and 240 frames per second slow-motion video at 1080p. There’s also support for 4K video capture at 60 frames per second.
The OnePlus 6 will ship with Android Oreo 8.1. When Google announced the Android P at I/O 2018 earlier this month, it said the OnePlus 6 is included in the open beta of its next operating system. OnePlus says users will be able to download the developer preview “in the next couple of days”.
Canadian consumers can purchase the OnePlus 6 starting on May 22nd via OnePlus.com. In Canada, the mirror black OnePlus 6, with 6GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage, starts at $699 CAD.
