OnePlus 6 first impression: Gives flagships a run for their money

Flagship, top-of-the-line smartphones need not be priced over-the-top. This philosophy is what has brought a lot of acceptance and success to OnePlus that has taken this principle up a notch with the launch of OnePlus 6. The company continues its legacy of packing in the latest and optimal hardware configuration for high performance in an efficient and elegant design, at a price that usually hits a sweet spot with many. The OnePlus 6 is the first smartphone in India to boast the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor and comes in 3 variants starting with a 6GB RAM and 64GB onboard storage configuration priced at $529.

We got our hands on the second variant which costs $50 more than the base for a 8GB RAM & 128GB storage configuration. Here's what my experience has been with the handset.

Straight off the bat, dressed in an all-glass design, the OnePlus 6 looks stunning. Well rounded at the corners, a curved back, the deep dark black colour christened as 'mirror-black', the ergonomically placed fingerprint sensor, the dual camera set-up that looks like staring in the face of a vertical double-barrel, and the proprietary alert slider button all add up to this incredible design that feels like holding a cloud in your hands. But it is one slippery bugger, and thankfully, the glass body is protected by one of the toughest in the business, the Corning Gorilla Glass 5. However, OnePlus 6 missed out on the opportunity to embed wireless charging capability, which is unfortunate but not a deal breaker.

The curved design perfectly shows-off the 6.28-inch 2280X1080 resolution display with 19:9 aspect ratio, that makes the screen one of my favourites for playing videogames and watching videos. It also crowns a smaller notch on the top centre of the display, offering a slightly bigger screen than most of the devices bitten by the notch-fever. Even though OnePlus hasn't used an OLED screen, the AMOLED display with 2280x1080p resolution feels bright, punchy and offers great colour reproduction.

While the alert notification slider has now been moved to the right, just above the power button, the left side of panel houses the volume button and the SIM tray, and at the bottom rest the speaker, Type-C charging port along with a 3.5mm audio port. OnePlus had embedded some praise-worthy camera set-ups in the predecessors and expectations run high and rightly so, from this vertical dual-camera setup with a 16-megapixel Sony IMX 519 sensor, f/1.7 aperture, OIS+EIS main, and a 20-megapixel Sony IMX 376K sensor, f/1.7 aperture secondary camera.

The Oxygen OS based on Android 8.1.0 looks polished and comes with some really neat features. From all that I have experience till now, the OnePlus 6 will carve another niche for itself, further cementing the Company's presence and its fan-base in India. Expect a proper review with detailed analysis and stringent tests in a week's time.