It’s the season of Chinese smartphonebrands in India as OnePlus is all set to follow Xiaomi into the country. The Chinese company has decided to bring the invitation-only One smartphone to India and announced the move in a blog post.
With Xiaomi already seeing some success with the first launch phase of the Mi 3, the big Chinese smartphone brands are gearing up for the big Indian market. The OnePlus One brings exactly what we know Chinese smartphones to be.
Internationally, it’s available at a starting price of $299 (unlocked and without contract) for the 16GB model (which comes to around Rs 18,000), while the 64GB variant is available at $349 (roughly Rs 21,500). But at the moment, the OnePlus One is only available through an invite system.
The OP One sports a large 5.5-inch LTPS IPS display with 1080×1920 pixel resolution and offers a pixel density of 401ppi. The display comes with Gorilla Glass 3 protection and the same adaptive backlight technology that’s seen in some Sharp displays. In addition, the phone is one of the few to have 3GB of RAM and is powered by the quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 clocked at 2.5GHz with Adreno 330 GPU. There’s a a 13-megapixel rear IMX214 sensor with a six-lens array and f/2.0 aperture that boasts quick shutter speed of only 0.3-seconds. It also comes with a 5-megapixel front-facing camera. There’s no microSD card slot in the phone, so you are stuck with the 16 or 64 GB onboard storage.
Software wise, the One features a customised version of CyanogenMod ROM called CM 11S. It’s not unlike CM we know from custom ROMs but with some specific new features for this phone. The software is based on Android 4.4 KitKat, so you are getting the latest version too. Connectivity are top of the line; users get 4G LTE (region dependent), Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.0, and NFC functionality. And there’s a decent sounding 3100mAh non-removable battery too.
The specs are good, but OnePlus will be just another new Chinese brands and will have to establish its credibility and intentions before thinking of success in India.
