The OnePlus 6 Review: Among The Best Of 2018
by Andrei Frumusanu on July 27, 2018 8:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Mobile
- Smartphones
- OnePlus
- OnePlus 6
Video Recording
Video recording on the OnePlus 6 is done on 720P, 1080P 30 or 60fps, and 4K 30 or 60fps. The camera has OIS in all modes, but on top of that uses EIS in 720P and the other 30fps modes. Unfortunately there’s no software switch for the EIS so you’re getting what OnePlus is giving you- which comes at a cost of reduced field-of-view.
EIS stabilisation works extremely well and results in a very stable and detailed video. Unfortunately because you can’t turn it off you can’t independently compare the EIS in the same capture mode to see how the detail retention works.
One thing to note was that the 1080p60 footage was extremely disappointing as it was very blurry. Looking at the encoding the 1080p30 is done on AVC on High Profile 4.0 at 20Mbps while the 1080p60 footage is encoded at High 4.2 at 40Mbps, so there must be something wrong in terms of the ISP part of the video pipeline that results in the much reduced image quality. It’s also notable that I found it to focus slower in 60fps mode than in the 30fps modes.
The 4K footage doesn’t suffer from the same degradation when going to the higher frame-rate. Here in both modes there’s great amount of detail retention. The 4K30 footage is encoded in a High@5.1 profile at 42Mbps, while the 4K60 footage is encoded at High@5.2 at a dazzling 120Mbps which is actually the limit of the Snapdragon 845’s video encoder. Here the sample video of 1m29s length came in at a hefty 1.24GB. While I applaud OnePlus for the high quality encode settings, the fact that the device lacks HEVC encoding options means that you’ll have to really be careful in terms of storage management when using 4K60 footage.
Audio recording in the video was very good.
Speaker Evaluation
I’ve first introduced speaker evaluation back in our Xiaomi Mi MIX 2S review a couple of weeks ago and we’re going to apply the same methodology to the OnePlus 6.
We’re using a calibrated flat response measurement microphone for the measurements and are using REW as the supporting software suite.
For speaker loudness measurements, we’re using a pink noise source, with the measurement microphone at head level 40cm away from the phone. We measure once the perceived volume when the phone is held in portrait one-handed mode, and once while holding the phone in landscape mode with both hands, cupping the sides.
One-handed and in portrait mode, the phone gets reasonably loud at up to 77.6dB(A). Holding the phone two-handed and cupping it however results in redirecting a lot of the sound towards the listener again, attaining a very loud 86.3db(A). In an optimally designed phone, we actually don’t want this much of a difference as it means a lot of the audio is firing away from the phone. The OnePlus 6 is one of the less optimal phones in terms of its speaker design as the sound pressure is very directional and bottom-firing out of its main and only speaker. This means you’ll have to pay more attention on how you hold the phone as it can make a large difference to volume and audio quality, and also it’s very easy to muffle the sound when the speaker holes are covered up.
We use a logarithmic measurement sweep within REW to measure the frequency response of the phone’s speaker. To get a more accurate comparison between phones, the volume is calibrated via pink noise to 75dB(A) and the measurement is done in landscape two-handed mode. The graph is represented with a psychoacoustic smoothing filter for better representation.
Unfortunately the OnePlus 6’s frequency response represents what we can also clearly hear when playing back media: It lacks depth as well as clarity. In the low frequency and lower mid-ranges ranges the OP6 fared among the worst, and this results in a very hollow-ish sound.
The OP6 is actually the loudest in the mid-ranges in its sound profile.
While a lot of mobile phones have an evident peak in the treble frequencies, the OP6 actually remains quite flat, which will affect sounds such as ringtones and represent them quieter than other phones.
Finally, the OP6 also doesn’t fare well in the high frequencies and has a very steep drop-off after 12KHz. Here it’ll depend on the user’s age and his sound profile, but most will still be able to hear these frequencies and interpret them as the “brilliance” in music.
Overall, the OP6’s speaker is average at best and can’t really compete with some other flagship phones.
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Icehawk - Saturday, July 28, 2018 - link
Ahhhhh. That’s why phones aren’t USB3, ok I always wondered why not but never actually researched why.jcc5169 - Friday, July 27, 2018 - link
Is One-Plus even available in the US market?PeachNCream - Friday, July 27, 2018 - link
That's a nice phone! I'd prefer the addition of a microSD slot by maybe adding the capability to one of the SIM slots (I've seen a few dual SIM phones offer up that option) since removable storage is nice to have if you're moving from one phone to another. In this case, there's the potential to lose quite a bit of data if the OP6 dies suddenly. The price increase for storage capacity is VERY reasonable as well. It's way outside of my price range for something I carry with me on a daily basis though. There's just too many day-to-day bumps and knocks around along with the risk of loss or theft that have me convinced that it's not worth the price of entry to get something above the bottom feeders like the $5.29 new Huawei I just picked up last week. Phones, in my mind, are disposable devices so low-cost is the way to go.eastcoast_pete - Friday, July 27, 2018 - link
Nice review, Andrei! Question: I may have overlooked it, but this phone is NOT water- or dust proof, at least as far as I can tell, correct? That is a major minus point for a flagship phone in my book, as it "breaks" the deal/compromise of sealed battery, but IP67 or 68 water and dust proofing. Hey, even Apple came around to that view eventually. Here, we get the worst of both worlds, no user-replaceable battery, no SD card slot, and no water and dust proofing.Different question @ Andrei: are all benchmark tests for phones conducted at about the same room temperature? I assume they are, but, if they are not, that would add a major variable. Heat dissipation is just so much easier when in a room at, let's say, 20 C, versus one at 30 C (and we are having hot summers this year). And, circling back to my comment about water proofing, I imagine it's harder for a fully sealed phone (like the majority of current flagship phones, i.e. S9, S9+, V30/35, Experia Z etc.) to dissipate heat than it is for phones that aren't fully sealed up. Any comments? Thanks!
Andrei Frumusanu - Friday, July 27, 2018 - link
It's not IP certified but as you may have read in some teardowns it does have many of the protections that are usually found in IP68 phones. I guess it could survive accidental water situations.The sustained are done in constant-ish (21+- 2°C) temperature, yes. I don't think IP proofing has any effect on thermals, the ingress points are irrelevant to temperature. Most phone's thermals are determined by the mid-frame build and how it's able to dissipate heat over its whole footprint to the screen and back.
128bit - Friday, July 27, 2018 - link
Never like chinese phones there phones looks good, but there quality overall not that good same like there cars and by the way this phone overheating.Dr. Swag - Friday, July 27, 2018 - link
Great article, but could you take care to proofread a bit better? There's tons of grammar mistakes (mostly missed commas) all over the place.Dr. Swag - Friday, July 27, 2018 - link
For the benchmarks, did you test for benchmark cheating at all?tsk2k - Friday, July 27, 2018 - link
Yes! Thank you so much Andrei and Anandtech, this is the only proper way to review a mobile phone.The web tests and frame drop testing is amazing, finally a way to quantify what I've been saying for years.
shoreview - Friday, July 27, 2018 - link
Too bad that they refuse to put Verizon Band 13 LTE in there. It's pointless crippling of the phone. Like the missing ex-Nextel CDMA band that Sprint uses.Any insight on why this is? Did Verizon and Sprint actively intervene to keep OnePlus off their networks? In any case I've been on Android from the start but the support situation and security update situation are leading me to look more and more at iPhone. Which won't come easy; the USB lockdown on iOS and certain aspects of the OS are annoying to say the least. But this was one of my last hopes for replacing my Verizon-supplied Note 4 with another Android and it has been dashed. Getting a non-carrier-branded Samsung is a non-starter until they start taking long-term security support seriously; even Google Pixel is short of Apple standards by a year or two.