OnePlus 6 Review - Top Notch!
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2019-05-06
·
1,529 words · ~7 min read
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my favorite phone right now is the samsung galaxy s9 plus
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but you can almost buy three next tier phones for the price of two
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flagships and with how slowly Android handset makers provide operating system
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updates including gigantic companies like samsung this uh cost of staying
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current metric becomes an important one to consider so
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is the s9 plus really three hundred dollars better than the
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oneplus 6 let's figure that out shall we brought
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to you by pia private internet access
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features fast multi-gigabit vpn tunnel gateways worldwide so if you're looking
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for a vpn you can learn more about pia at the link in the video description
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i already covered the specs of the oneplus 6 and my recent sponsored
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hands-on video so rather than listing a bunch of part numbers i'm gonna just
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make this pc analogy when it comes to performance oneplus
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compromise is nothing generation after generation they've crammed the latest
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enthusiast grade CPU RAM graphics card
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and storage device into an enclosure then saved a few bucks by going for a
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mainstream level motherboard a good if
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not exceptional display and then some less flashy peripherals
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so my demo unit here is an 8 gig RAM 128
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gig storage affair and i could easily use all the same words as any top tier
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phone to describe the experience of using it snappy
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fluid lightning fast but every phone is fast when it's new
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and you're all tired of hearing that stuff so i'm not going to do that
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instead i'm going to talk about software
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because that's where oneplus seems to be trying to set themselves apart
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it wasn't a perfect rollout but the oneplus 3 and the 3t were among the
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first older Android phones to get Android 8.0
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oreo in november of 2017. that's four
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months before the galaxy s8 and six months before the s7 another 2016 phone
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this kind of investment in software is what keeps older phones secure
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and running smoothly and it's something that i want to encourage them to keep up
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especially because i really like their oxygen os variant of Android it manages
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to not screw up the light stock Android
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experience while adding features and customization toggles that improve ease
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of use rather than adding frustration and the display notch believe it or not
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is a great example of this it's there on the phone
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but you have to actually go out of your way to make it do anything stupid like
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take a bite out of a full screen video in landscape mode you have to not only
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enable the notch in the first place but you also have to specifically allow that
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app like youtube to use that space
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and oneplus also says that they'll be adding an option post launch to switch
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the top pixels of their amoled display off completely so you will never have to
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look at it at all another big software feature this time is gesture based
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navigation now i wasn't a huge fan of apple's removal
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of the home button on the iphone 10 and i still prefer buttons be they physical
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or software that i can click or push on
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but i'm also all about user choice especially when it comes to things that
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there's just no good reason to lock down like the ability to switch the back and
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recents buttons google so you swipe up the middle for home then
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you swipe and hold for recents and when you're inside an app you just swipe up
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on the left side or the right side for back it works really well and in spite
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of my worries that back would interfere with
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scrolling on long web pages the detection for where the swipe needs to
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start in order to register the gesture is good enough that after 10 minutes i
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never accidentally triggered it again my only real complaint is that i would like
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to see a configurable delay on the recent gesture and while we're at it
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maybe edge to edge coverage for the included screen protector the ridge here
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is a little too sharp for comfort but i can't say the same for the camera we're
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long past megapixel counts meaning anything so i spent some time in our
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studio and on the streets of london to gather some test images
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now i'm no photography buff like brandon so i'm sure my composition is amateur
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hour but there's a lot of information that we can glean here compared to the
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galaxy s9 almost anything else pales
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when it comes to low light performance and samsung was the only one to handle
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this extremely challenging high contrast shot correctly so you see how the inner
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part of the pedals have some orange to them not one of the other phones i tested
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including the oneplus 6 managed to pick this up though to oneplus credit they
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avoid the awful over sharpening artifacts that destroyed pretty much
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everything the mate 10 pro spat out this brick right here looks like a painting
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if you zoom in enough and subjectively the 6 does as good a job as any other
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device that i tested of capturing the scene in front of me as my eye saw it
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with true ish to life colors and not a
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ton of noise in the image now i'm not into
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focus post-processing background blurring techniques but it
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does have that if you're into it and thanks to the nice wide f 1.7 aperture
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and larger main sensor i found myself getting a touch more real
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background blur in my shots compared to other smartphones though in fairness to
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the s9 in this one it is sharper across
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the board we've reached the point with oneplus where the camera launches so
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fast snaps so quickly and looks so good that as someone who
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finds stuff like a fraction of a second 960 FPS slow motion mode pretty
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impractical i don't feel like i'm giving anything up here even the selfie camera
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seems adequately suitable
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with a background blur update coming shortly after launch which brings us to
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the part where we are giving something up
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there is a reason that samsung moves more than twice as many phones as their
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closest Android competitor and many times more than
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scrappy upstart oneplus with a little bit of tweaking you can get pretty
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screen off notifications like ambient mode and you can get quick access to the
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time but that is not as good as an always
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always-on display the oneplus 6's water resistance is
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unofficial rather than ip rated
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the six lacks wireless charging altogether an awesome feature these days
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oneplus face unlock is shockingly fast
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and works in a wide variety of conditions check this out
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boom but it isn't as secure as iris scanning
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you give up gimmicky extra camera modes like the s9's cool panorama selfie the
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six's earphone speaker isn't amplified for stereo sound and landscape mode
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which is a huge bomber for me and while dual sim is good a secondary
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combo slot for a second sim or a microsd
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card is much better the oneplus 6 has no
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expandable storage so yeah
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that is a pretty significant list
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but none of these things have a devastating effect on day-to-day use for
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me like the removal of the headphone jack on recent generation iphones and
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the pixel 2 xl so oneplus gets mad kudos
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both for keeping the headphone jack and for making a great value high
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performance device once again
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now i'm going to switch back to the s9 plus
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but that's only because i already have one if it was my money today the oneplus
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6 with a d brand skin of course because
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even the matte version is pretty darn slippery
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looks like a better bang for the buck
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there we go that's a little better now i can actually like hold on to this thing
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dbrand skins are available in a wide variety of different colors and finishes
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and feature unrivaled precision they measure many times to ensure a factory
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fit for your product and not only do they look great but they protect against
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incidental damage and they make it easier to hold on to your phone in the
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first place their customer service robots are easy to work with and
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wonderful and their products are affordable and ship worldwide check out
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dbrand at the link in the video description
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so thanks for watching guys if this video sucked you know what to do but if it was awesome get subscribed hit that
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like button or check out the link to where to buy the stuff we featured in
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the video description also down there is our merch storage has cool shirts like
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this one and our community forum which you should totally join