The OnePlus 3T Review
by Brandon Chester on November 28, 2016 10:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- OnePlus
- OnePlus 3T
GPU Performance
Along with the 10% increase in peak CPU clock speeds, the version of Snapdragon 821 in the OnePlus 3T also increases the peak GPU frequency to 653MHz, up from 624MHz in the OnePlus 3. This is a relatively modest improvement, so the corresponding increase in performance will also be rather modest as well. In the interest of merely verifying that performance has improved as expected, I've run 3DMark Sling Shot and GFXBench Car Chase on the OnePlus 3T.
The 3DMark graphics test actually doesn't see much of an improvement on the OnePlus 3T. It may be that I simply got an exceptionally good score on the OnePlus 3, but it is interesting to see such a large gap in the physics test, which should favor the OnePlus 3T with its higher-clocked CPU cores.
In GFXBench Car Chase the OnePlus 3T shows a performance uplift of around 10% compared to the OnePlus 3. This is slightly higher than expected, but due to the truncation of results in the latest GFXBench this may be slightly exaggerated, which tends to happen when comparing devices that differ in performance by only one or two frames per second.
NAND Performance
In our recent review of the Pixel XL one of the problems we ran into was that AndroBench had been broken by the adoption of file-based encryption (FBE) in Android Nougat. AndroBench is the benchmark we use to measure storage performance, and since that time it has been updated with a new version that works on devices that use FBE. However, the results are not comparable to results from AndroBench 4, so going forward we will be using the AndroBench 5 test with a new data set for device results.
As always, our storage test examines the performance for random reads and writes using a 4KB transfer size, and sequential reads and writes using a 256KB transfer size. These settings are chosen to match what actually occurs when an application performs IO operations. Only one IO thread is used, which again mirrors how applications are actually designed in order to reflect the performance that will be seen in real usage instead of reflecting potentially higher speeds that the hardware may be capable of, but that will almost never be encountered in an actual use case.
In Androbench 5 the OnePlus 3T tops the charts. However, it's important to recognize why this is, particularly where write speeds are concerned. Most smartphones we review have either 16GB or 32GB of internal memory. The OnePlus 3 has 64GB, and this OnePlus 3T unit is the flagship 128GB model. With flash memory, assuming that you have some density for a chip, increasing capacity is accomplished by increasing the number of chips. Because SSDs and other flash memory devices utilize parallel writes to improve performance, increasing the number of dies can allow for greater performance by increasing the number of writes that can happen in parallel.
In addition to the larger amount of internal storage, OnePlus has also adopted F2FS for the filesystem, which is another source of performance improvements, particularly in the case of random write speeds.
With that in mind, the results from AndroBench actually aren't that shocking. In the write tests the 128GB model of the OnePlus 3T is well ahead of every other device, including the 64GB OnePlus 3. Read performance is also improved compared to the OnePlus 3, but not to the same extent.
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jaspreet - Tuesday, November 29, 2016 - link
My office collegue got a pixel xl and has been showing off as to how good it is . I will be sending him this article which clearly shows that pixel xl is a much much poorer phone than a almost half priced One Plus 3T . Time to shut him up :)amdwilliam1985 - Tuesday, November 29, 2016 - link
Yeah, for some reason Pixel XL does poorer on benchmarks, but in real life(where it actually matters) Pixel XL rules. Too bad we can't read about UI/UX in reviews, you have to use the phone to actually get/know the experience.jaspreet - Tuesday, November 29, 2016 - link
Not sure what you mean , but real life and all are up in the air things . You need to back it up with numbers to convince people to go for the phone . I dont see anyone sane going for pixel which performs poorly as shown here, compared to the very good one plus 3T as an android phone priced half . To me it is funny that despite being such a poor phone some sites have raved about it which was irritating . I think Anandtech has show Pixel its rightful place ie at the bottom . Well Done.ithehappy - Tuesday, November 29, 2016 - link
You do realise that the camera is pretty bad on the OP3 right?arayoflight - Tuesday, November 29, 2016 - link
The read and write speeds are increased due to F2FS file system instead of EXT4. Oneplus 3 with Oxygen OS 3.5.6 posts the same numbers.Here are the results from my Oneplus 3 using F2FS instead of EXT4( 1 thread, 4KB random, 256KB seq)
https://goo.gl/photos/Mm8xjr5pMkwsRJuR8
UtilityMax - Tuesday, November 29, 2016 - link
Oneplus 3T still performs like a flagship killer phone while undercutting everyone else in price. However, I feel like Oneplus no longer offers the killer value it had when it introduced Oneplus One for only 300USD (for 16GB version) two years ago. Sure, the specs have improved since then, but aren't memory storage and cores supposed to get cheaper with time? We see a 50% price hike over the original Oneplus One, and the 3T no longer feels like a steal. It's still has a very good value though.Meteor2 - Tuesday, November 29, 2016 - link
Why give away your products when you don't have to. Intel found that out with cheap Atoms for tablets. Sad times for us though.Lolimaster - Tuesday, November 29, 2016 - link
We really need 1440 and 1080p RGB AMOLED.mkhadi1 - Tuesday, November 29, 2016 - link
Is there a LG V20 review in the works?BenSkywalker - Tuesday, November 29, 2016 - link
Are you actively trying to lose credibility on your display analysis?Why not argue that LCDs have superior contrast to OLEDs- you will find that outside of yourself, it has as much support as your stance on off angle viewing issues. The point is measurable- go ahead, try it. Your dE results will tell you what every other person in the world can easily see- this is *NOT* debatable. For the record- the OnePlusOne becomes washed out to the point of being unreadable before the color shift on the OnePlusThree is close to severe- while still being usable. That isn't hypothetical, they are sitting here side by side.
You can measure it for yourself. If you find something other then what I am saying it would be groundbreaking and shake up display analysis and observations around the world, so why won't you do it?