With just a few more weeks into the year, a Chinese smartphone manufacturing company, which has been gaining some serious ground this year, surprises the tech world. The new OnePlus 3T comes with impressive specs, a beautiful design and still a hint of the OnePlus branding. The race is close, but the new handset might just take it for the best value smartphone of the year.
As C|Net points out, the move is a little unprecedented because the OnePlus 3 only released in June of this year. Nevertheless, the new OnePlus 3T offers a larger battery, a better camera and a faster processor. With all these updates, the new flagship is slightly more expensive than its predecessor -- US$439 for the 64GB model and US$479 for the 128GB variant. A new "gunmetal" coat of paint was also included.
The OnePlus 3T will sport the company's Dash Charging technology for its 3400 mAh battery, which packs more life than its predecessor despite being the same physical side. The upcoming device also has a 2.35GHz Snapdragon 821 processor, which is arguably the fastest one in the current market and can be found in the Google Pixel and Google Pixel XL handsets. OnePlus promises that the new processor will not drain the battery by much more.
OnePlus also provided an upgrade to both the front and rear cameras. The OnePlus 3T will sport a whopping 16 megapixel front camera, which should take better low-light photos. Meanwhile, the 16 megapixel rear camera will have a sturdier lens. An image stabilization algorithm was also incorporated on the handset, which should allow for more stable videos and images.
As The Verge notes, the rest of the changes are found within the OnePlus 3T's software. The upcoming unit will run on the latest OxygenOS, which is a customized version of Android 6.0 Marshmallow. The new OS makes some design tweaks and a few additional applications.
As explained by Kyle Kiang, the 3T is an "evolution of the 3," since OnePlus did not want to wait another year before making improvements it was ready to roll out already. So despite the scheduled release, the Chinese company decided to release another iteration of the already-well received OnePlus 3, which will experience an upgrade in software soon.
While there is already talk arguing that it was not a good move from OnePlus to release a better handheld just months away from its latest flagship, Kiang confirmed that this will not be common practice from the company. He also justified the price increase by stating that the power and battery upgrades were the cause of it. Whether or not the OnePlus 3T proves to be as popular than the OnePlus 3 cannot be said as of this writing, but the upcoming device is a great device on its own.
The OnePlus 3T will begin rolling out in the United States on November 22nd. European areas will follow on November 28th. It will be available in a dark coat called gunmetal and a gold variant as well. However, the gold model will only be available for the 64GB model.
