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The Lab - OnePlus 6T Review - by Menasheh Nov 1, 2018

Menasheh, Nov 1, 2018 :

Hello OnePlus Community!

I am Menasheh, a computer science student in New York. Traditionally a buyer of “cheap” Motorola phones, I had a falling out with their customer support team. They told me it would cost $125 to replace a mildly cracked screen. They also warned me that if I dared replace it myself, that would void the warranty. Silly me, I had expected minor cracks to be covered under the warranty. I decided to stop fooling myself about “saving” money by buying lower end Motorola devices. Just get a OnePlus 6 and use it for 3 years, I told myself. And yeah phones shouldn’t need cases, but apparently they do. So I bought the OnePlus 6, a case, and the tempered glass screen protector to make sure the phone would be protected. I tried my best, but after one short month there was this OnePlus 6T Lab contest, and the rest is history.

Unboxing
As the saying goes, first impressions are last impressions. So while the physical packaging may get tossed to the trashcan minutes after unboxing, the unboxing experience has the potential to completely change the way the customer approaches the brand on a subconscious level. OnePlus definitely puts their best foot forward here. As I unboxed this OnePlus 6T, I had the opportunity to relive the moment of my original OnePlus 6 unboxing, and I paid attention specifically to the differences that I noticed for the OnePlus 6T. I’ll first go through the parts of the experience which were more or less the same, and then highlight the differences I specifically noticed.

The OnePlus packaging is of premium quality. The outer box has a smooth matte feel and a beautiful white and grey texture. Various branding elements accentuate the loud simplicity of that box, focusing on the white and offwhite as well as red. There’s the OnePlus logo, the number 6 referring to the 6/6T family of phones, the OnePlus 6T logo, with the T in a red hexagon. And the slogan, “Unlock The Speed.”

Removing the plastic packaging, I hold the box by the cover and let the inner box slowly slide out. The inner box fits snugly, and it takes almost ten seconds. But then, the OnePlus 6T is there, in all its glory.


Okay, most of its glory. Still has a few stickers on it and needs to be set up.

The phone rests in a plastic holder which fits it perfectly. I pick it up carefully, remove the stickers, and place it to the side. There’s a hole in the plastic underneath, I use that to pick up the little cardboard box it’s embedded in. From my recent OnePlus 6 unboxing I knew what to expect inside: An entry-level basic gray transparent case, and tucked inside it, some more documentation. There’s a card with the sim tray ejector, which I use to harvest my sim from the OnePlus 6 and insert it into the OnePlus 6T. There’s a safety information booklet, which I flip through briefly and notice two consecutive sections labeled “Driving Safely,” neither of which seem to contain warnings specifically about driving. There’s also an important warning on another page not to put the device in a microwave oven. Be careful, guys! There’s also a folded “Unlock the Speed” poster with some basic description of the phone’s hardware features in five languages and some cute OnePlus branded stickers, for anyone who’s into those.

Back in the original packaging, is the charger and charging cable each rest snugly in custom-molded plastic cutouts for their likeness.

After confirming that the charger is the exact same model as the one I got with the OnePlus 6, I leave it in the packaging and continue to set up the phone.

Setup
Remove stickers, power on, pretend to have read the terms and conditions, the usual. Then I got a little bit confused, because Google offered to install my apps, and I was planning to use OnePlus’s app for phone migration, OnePlus Switch. So I started the default android app installation from backup process, but then started OnePlus Switch in the middle. Apparently it makes a wifi network on the destination phone and the other connects to it for the duration of the data transfer. It transferred my apps, music, and settings. I didn’t have to manually change an obscure setting like the custom DNS one again, which was great because manually typing a long DNS address can be annoying. And while WhatsApp and Telegram even transferred their accounts with zero setup, banking apps for example still required logging in and setting up again. However, the OnePlus Switch app made the transfer significantly less painful than it usually is to switch devices.

Retrospective: Appreciating Differences
I left some of my reactions out of the unboxing which I’ll get back to now. First of all, without being 100% sure of the specs just yet, the biggest differences I knew about were the lack of headphone jack and the Screen Unlock. To me, the headphone jack was a big enough deal that I originally decided to purchase the 6 and consciously ignore the upcoming 6T. You can’t charge and listen at the same time in just one port, even if the type C bullets would maintain the audio quality that only wired connections currently provide. So I quickly ran my eyes down to the bottom of the device to see what they did with the extra space. Perhaps if there were two USB C ports, this problem could be ignored? But no - in the place of the 3.5mm headphone jack lay… another speaker? I couldn't clearly determine that there was stereo audio, and I thought they took out the audio jack to save space for the battery? Confusing.

There was a renewed focus on the community in the packaging. The outer red cardboard focused on the community, as well as with the fingerprint logo representing the onscreen fingerprint reader.

There was also a little card divider between the inner box with the phone and the lower section with the accessories. I’m used to OnePlus branding being cute, and making me smile. “OnePlus,” “Best Buds for Life,” “Unlock The Speed.” So I was kind of surprised when the message on the divider card was… “Invitation Letter?”

However, the inside was a personal invitation to join the OnePlus Community, which was a nice touch. I feel like the community aspect is one which can set OnePlus apart. The letter specifically mentioned the company’s focus on the user, what we as users want in a phone. So why, then, I can’t help but wonder, did they get rid of the headphone jack?!

Another detail to appreciate about OnePlus is the fact that the phone comes with a plastic screen protector and case by default. I am unaware of other manufacturers doing that. It is a step in the right direction, at the very least.