So, finally, after working almost every weekend in office for the past 4 months, I thought I deserve to get a li'l treat, and decided to gift myself a new phone :) And if you know the type of person I am, then you guessed it right, it is the OnePlus 3.
*drum roll and geeky applause*
But before we get into that, I'd like to mention about the "necessities versus luxuries" factor first.
I didn't buy the OP3 just because it's the latest OnePlus flagship in the market. Jeez, I'm not an Apple fanboy buying the latest product of a brand you worship just because it's available. I didn't even look up on the OnePlus 2 when they launched last year because I was very much satisfied with my OnePlus One.
I bought the OP3 purely because my OnePlus One is now pretty much damaged (from all the dropping and crashing and rum spillover) and the microphone is screwed up, making my voice during calls almost inaudible. I have to keep it on loudspeaker whenever I talk to anyone, and it's pretty embarrassing when I do that while I'm inside a packed elevator or during a Church service.
I really needed a new phone, and as luck would have it, the OP3 had just launched. And so I bought it from Amazon, and it took 2 days to deliver once the stock was available. The cost of the phone - INR 27,999.
It definitely felt like Christmas, as I fiddled with the various parts even as I was about to sleep…
Now, what are the special features of the new OP3?
Well, for starters, it is a dual-sim phone. So I can already picture many of my friends in Mizoram drooling over it :)
For those of you who may not know, dual sim phones are quite popular back home in Mizoram, simply because of coverage issues. Unlike here in other Indian cities and urban areas, in Mizoram, cell phone connectivity is very bad, apparently due to the mountainous region. You get a cell phone reception of a particular network at one region only and another service provider at the next region. That's how things roll back home. And so, it makes a lot of sense for people to have dual sim phones consisting of two different networks.
And then there's the fingerprint scanner. I haven't tried it out yet, but based on all the reviews I've read, the OP3 fingerprint scanner is pretty slick, even quicker than the iPhone 6S fingerprint sensor. The first thought that flashed across my head was, lemme see what other "print" can it record, and it's definitely not gonna be my fingers, if you know what I mean :D
*sanitizes phone*
And then there is the whopping 6 GB RAM!
liek dis evrtym u crie wen u thynk uf ur fyrst PC wit jas 128 MB RAM!
Let's not forget its powerful processor - Snapdragon 820 Quad-core, 2.2 GHz Adreno 530 GPU. Whaaaat. The very name itself sounds very powerful :P
Regarding camera quality, moving from OPO to OP3 means I am moving from a 5MP to a 8MP front facing camera, and a 13MP to a 16MP rear camera. Better pixels and clarity, but one downside I have discovered so far is, apparently, if I use the OP3's default camera, I cannot change the resolution! And so, every damn photograph I take, even if it's of my food or a dog poo on the sidewalk, will be around 5 MB each. Yeah, a poo viewed at 4640 x 2610 pixels is still a poo.
One solution people have suggested is to install a third party camera app that can reduce the size of the photos taken. Since I have never used one before (nor do I have an Instagram account), can you suggest which is your favorite photo/cam app, and why? I have never used filters and stuff before, but I guess the OP3 will turn me into a hipster. So please do recommend me a good camera app, thank you.
Here are a few other random pics I have taken with my OP3 so far, all resized down to 720p for quicker web- load.
Other than that, like I said, it's only been a few days since I bought the OP3, so I haven't had time to fiddle around with it much. Apart from the camera resolution issue, there are also a few other problems I am facing - Bluetooth connectivity is really bad, and I am finding it very difficult to connect to my OPO. I read online that this is a common known issue. And then I'm also unable to connect the phone to my PC yet. It is not getting recognized, and again, there are many others who have faced this issue too.
So rather than trying to fix it, I guess I'll just wait a few more days. Right now, I don't have internet at home (a long rant on Reliance Broadband's extremely bad service is coming up soon), so the only way I can get net data on my PC now is to use my OP3 as a wifi hotspot, and then connect to that hotspot via wifi from my OPO, and then connect my OPO's data with my PC through USB thethering. Lolz. And that actually works!
But for now, I'm just gonna leave it at that, as there are a lot of other improvements in other departments as well.
It took me a while to transfer my data and services to my new phone, sync all my contacts etc.
After that came the long process of installing some of my essential apps, like my favorite food ordering apps :D
…my regular online shopping apps
…and my regular transportation and travel apps
So I'm definitely gonna check out this baby more in the coming days. Do let me know what is your favorite camera app and why you think that is the best. Cheers and a happy weekend! :)
