Just like Carl Pei promised, the smartphone makers have released their third phone to date. Oddly, the OnePlus X looks to be a OnePlus One on the inside, just taking a hit in battery and screen size, while adding some notable features and aesthetics. Unfortunately, Shenzhen’s “finest” have decided to deploy the same notorious invite system but there’s an improvement.
The X runs their home-grown Oxygen OS based on Android 5.1.1 and there are two materials that differentiate the pair; Onyx and Ceramic. Making the device smaller, this time 5-inches, it carries an AMOLED display with a FHD resolution and has Gorilla Glass 3 plastered on top for protection.
Repeating the usage of the Snapdragon 801 on their latest device, it’ll see only 32-bit processing, something that was acceptable on the OnePlus One but causes some concern looking at the latest crop of devices popping up. Continuing the trend, it has the same amount of RAM too, 3GB; which in this day and age, still holds up fine, though there’s only 16GB of expandable internal storage. In the past none of their models had a microSD slot, so this might mean that OnePlus could include expandability in the future devices.
Changing it up this time around, they’ve added a hybrid dual-SIM functionality, that gives you networks up to 4G LTE but keep in mind you’ll have to do without one SIM slot for your expandable storage. Its rear camera lens is a 13-megapixel sensor with an f/2.2 aperture sensor, while the front gets an 8-megapixel selfie shooter. All the power is provided by a 2,525 mAh battery and there’s the same three tier alert slider found on the higher-end OnePlus Two.
The Onyx version retails for US$ 250 (RM 1,076) and the Ceramic version goes for around US$ 400 (RM 1,721). Only the former is sold in the States but otherwise they retail in the same countries worldwide. Sales will start in India on November 5th using the invite system but only for a month, after which it’ll be available for purchase without strings attached – this strategy will be mimicked across all continents. No word when the device will hit Malaysian shores but it has already been spotted on SIRIM, so you can anticipate it to arrive by year’s end.
We don’t think the Flagship Killer 2016 was a killer at all, the company which at first was painstakingly trying to keep up with demands of some 2 million reservations, may have left customers waiting too long; they probably opted for other devices by now, seeing a sudden surge of flash sales and our own Maxis selling the device outright without an invitation needed. Can OnePlus last long enough to put out their version of the 2017 Flagship Killer?
