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00:00This is the new OnePlus 6 and it's seriously impressive.
00:04It has the same flagship specs as the Samsung Galaxy S9,
00:08yet it costs a third less.
00:10It's just 469 pounds or $520 for the base model,
00:15which considering what you get
00:17makes it incredible value for money.
00:19Seriously, this is the fastest phone I've ever used.
00:22It's stunning to look at.
00:23And I think most surprisingly,
00:24because I don't think I've ever said this
00:26about a OnePlus phone before,
00:28but the camera is very, very good.
00:30Like as good as the most expensive phones out there,
00:33they can cost up to twice as much.
00:36So yeah, this is pretty exciting.
00:40So the OnePlus 6 sports a tall 6.3 inch AMOLED screen
00:44with super thin bezels.
00:45And as is the trend, it seems a notch.
00:48They've swapped out the metal body of previous phones
00:50for Gorilla Glass 5 on the front and the back.
00:53Picking it up, you definitely get the sense
00:55this is a premium phone,
00:57but it's also quite slippery to hold.
00:58So I would definitely put a case on it.
01:00Now I've got it in mirror black,
01:02which looks great for about 10 seconds
01:05after you first get it out of the box,
01:06but it's a massive fingerprint and dust and smudge magnet.
01:10So unless you're carrying a dust cloth with you
01:13or putting a case on it,
01:14I think I'd probably go for the midnight black model,
01:17which is still Gorilla Glass, but it has a matte texture
01:20or the beautiful silk white version of the OnePlus 6,
01:24which is coming out just after launch
01:26and is a bit more of a limited edition model.
01:28The most obvious change aside from the thinner bezels
01:30and the notch is the new vertical camera placement
01:33on the back and the redesigned fingerprint reader below it,
01:35which I think overall makes it look a lot like
01:38the Porsche design Huawei Mate RS,
01:40which is a 1500 pound phone.
01:43Holding it though,
01:43it feels pretty much just like last year's OnePlus 5T,
01:46albeit with even slimmer bezels.
01:48There's a few little extras I really like
01:50about the OnePlus 6 as well.
01:51You've got the alert slider on the right hand side,
01:54so you can quickly go from a ring to vibrate to silent mode,
01:58really easy if you're going to bed
01:59and you just want to put it in silent mode.
02:01You've also got a headphone jack,
02:02even though OnePlus are also launching
02:04a pair of wireless bullet headphones
02:06and tease that the OnePlus 6
02:08may not therefore have a headphone jack,
02:10we do have one, which is great to see.
02:12And also it's a dual SIM phone,
02:14which is really handy as I travel quite a lot.
02:16It's the little touches too,
02:17like having a screen protector already on the phone
02:19and you get a case bundle with it in the box.
02:22Specs wise, it runs the latest Snapdragon 845 processor
02:25and comes with six or eight gigs of RAM
02:28and 64, 128 or 256 gigabytes of storage.
02:32I've got the one with eight gigs of RAM and 128 storage,
02:35but honestly, I think you'd be absolutely fine
02:37going with the cheapest one,
02:38which still has the same specs as the Galaxy S9.
02:41So I think it's a great looking phone,
02:43but it's not until you start using it
02:45that you really start appreciating
02:46what makes the OnePlus 6 so special.
02:49As I say, this is the fastest phone I've ever used.
02:52It's the combination of the latest hardware,
02:54but also the super lightweight OxygenOS software
02:57on top of Android 8.1.
02:59This thing just breezes through everything.
03:02It's fast, it's reliable,
03:03and of course handles even the most
03:04graphically intensive games without a hitch.
03:07And in the settings,
03:08you can do things like hide the notch if you prefer,
03:10you can adjust the screen's color profile
03:12with sRGB and DCI-P3 options.
03:15But I think my favorite software trick is using gestures
03:18instead of the standard Android nav buttons.
03:21A swipe up from the bottom takes you home,
03:22hold it to bring up recently used apps,
03:24or swipe up from the left or right side of the bottom
03:26to go back.
03:28It feels a lot like the iPhone X
03:29or the upcoming gestures in Android P.
03:32It's really intuitive, I use it all the time,
03:34and it means you do get some extra space back on the screen
03:36now that you've hidden the Android keys.
03:38When it comes to unlocking the phone,
03:40I've registered both my fingerprint and my face,
03:42but usually what I do is just double tap the screen
03:45and it unlocks almost instantly.
03:47Well, in 0.4 seconds to be exact,
03:49using the front camera's face unlock feature.
03:51So I pretty much never see the lock screen.
03:53So far so good then, but of course no phone is perfect.
03:57The OnePlus 6 does have a couple of flaws
03:59and it misses out on some more premium features
04:01compared to its more expensive rivals.
04:04For example, the screen doesn't support high dynamic range,
04:07so no HDR Netflix movies, I'm afraid.
04:09The speaker is, well, pretty bad if I'm honest.
04:12It's tinny, there's obviously no stereo sound
04:14since it's a single speaker,
04:15and it's probably one of the worst I've heard in a while,
04:18which is a bit of a shame.
04:19There's also no wireless charging,
04:21although personally that's not really a big deal,
04:23and it's also missing an official IP rating
04:25for water resistance, which is a bit weird,
04:27but having tested it myself,
04:29it did survive a quick dunk in a bowl of water,
04:31and OnePlus do assure me
04:32it's still fairly water and dust resistant,
04:35but you probably shouldn't go swimming with it.
04:39Another area where I'm not exactly blown away
04:41by the OnePlus 6 is the battery life.
04:43It's the same size battery as the OnePlus 5 and the 5T,
04:47but they say it should last 10% longer
04:49thanks to the more efficient processor,
04:51and that's despite offering a bigger screen.
04:53In practice, though, it only just lasts me
04:55through a full day, if I'm honest.
04:57I usually have around 15 to 20% of the battery left
05:00by about 11 o'clock at night, and with heavier use,
05:02I found I did need to give it a quick top up
05:04before I went out in the evening.
05:06Coming from the P20 Pro, it's a little disappointing,
05:09but I'd say it's about on par with the Galaxy S9,
05:11although the good news is it supports super fast charging.
05:15You'll get around 75% of your battery
05:16from flat in about 30 minutes.
05:19It's really useful.
05:20But there's one area where I've always felt
05:21OnePlus phones have kind of fallen behind
05:23their more expensive flagship rivals,
05:26and that's in the camera department.
05:28They've always been good, but not great.
05:30That is, until now.
05:36We get two lenses, a 16 megapixel F1.7 main lens,
05:40which now has a 19% larger sensor than last year's 5T,
05:44along with a 20 megapixel F1.7 telephoto lens
05:47for two times optical zoom
05:48and providing depth information for the portrait mode.
05:51The main lens also now supports both OIS and EIS
05:54for more stable shots, particularly in low light,
05:57and of course, when shooting video.
05:59Photos look stunning, both in good light
06:01and crucially in darker low light settings,
06:04where OnePlus phones have traditionally
06:05fallen behind rivals.
06:07Honestly, I was not expecting the camera
06:09on the OnePlus 6 to be this good.
06:12Versus the Galaxy S9+, it's almost impossible
06:15to tell them apart,
06:16even in really tricky lighting conditions.
06:19And that's with the S9 using its fancy
06:20F1.5 variable aperture camera.
06:23Photos from the OnePlus 6 are bright,
06:25detailed, and color accurate.
06:27My only criticism would be the camera app itself,
06:29which is fairly basic and lacks the variety of modes
06:32you'd find on, say, the P20 Pro.
06:34The 16 megapixel F2 selfie camera is impressive as well.
06:38It doesn't suffer from the overly smooth beauty modes
06:40that are almost impossible to turn off on the P20 Pro,
06:43and takes a great selfie.
06:45Shame about the face, though.
06:46Portrait mode is good, too,
06:48although the bokeh effect can sometimes come out
06:50a bit too strong for me.
06:51But overall, it works well,
06:52and you can really make your subject stand out.
06:55As for video, you can now shoot 4K
06:57at 60 frames per second on the OnePlus 6,
06:59something even the P20 Pro can't do,
07:02although you do lose the stabilization
07:03you get shooting at 4K30,
07:05although that's the same for all phones that can do this.
07:08Even walking down the street, it's impressively smooth,
07:11although you do get a slightly artificial look
07:13to the movements,
07:14thanks to the electronic image stabilization.
07:16But overall, video looks great,
07:18and the OIS and EIS make it ridiculously smooth,
07:21almost like it's on a gimbal.
07:25And of course, we also have slow motion video.
07:27It is limited to 240 FPS at full HD on the OnePlus 6,
07:31whereas other phones like the S9, Sony XZ2,
07:35and P20 Pro can shoot super slow-mo at 960 FPS.
07:39But to be brutally honest,
07:40I think super slow motion is mostly pretty rubbish.
07:44Even in the best light, the quality is fairly ropey,
07:47and it can be really difficult to actually capture
07:49what you want in slow motion,
07:50especially when it's only taking
07:510.2 seconds of video each time.
07:54For me, being able to capture a full minute of slow-mo
07:57at 240 FPS on the OnePlus 6 is exactly what I want.
08:00Quality is actually pretty decent,
08:02and that works out to give you six minutes
08:04of real-time playback,
08:05so you're never gonna miss the thing you wanna capture.
08:09So all of that for 470 pounds.
08:12Now, I know most people buy their phones on contract,
08:15so the difference between this and, say, the S9 Plus,
08:19maybe 10 or 15 pounds a month.
08:22But save your money.
08:24It's a decent upgrade over the 5T with a new processor,
08:26refreshed design, and upgraded camera
08:29that's now just every bit as good
08:30as the most expensive phones out there.
08:33The speaker's a bit rubbish.
08:34The phone doesn't support HDR,
08:36and coming from the P20 Pro,
08:38the battery life is average at best.
08:41But that's about it.
08:42That's pretty much all I can criticize the OnePlus 6 for.
08:45And considering that this is nearly 300 pounds
08:48more than this, well, it's just incredible value for money.
08:52So if you are looking for a new phone,
08:55I would definitely, definitely recommend
08:57checking out the OnePlus 6,
08:58and I've put links to it in the description below
09:00if you wanna find out more.
09:01Make sure you do subscribe,
09:02as I'll be making more in-depth battery and camera videos
09:05about the OnePlus 6 very soon.
09:07And of course, let me know
09:08what you think of it in the comments.
09:09Is it a decent upgrade, and would you consider buying one?
09:12Thank you very much for watching,
09:13and I'll see you next time right here on the Tech Chat.