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The biggest reason is that OnePlus has done away with its lame invite-to-purchase system, meaning potential customers no longer have to fight to hand over their money. Thanks to that change, it really feels like there are no catches now: OnePlus is offering a Snapdragon 820, a whopping 6GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, and an aluminum body for $399 (£309), and it's actually going to work with LTE networks outside of China.

Design

The OnePlus 3 is easily the best-made phone OnePlus has ever produced. The aluminum unibody is a big upgrade over the plastic-clad OnePlus One and 2, and it's more durable than the glass-backed OnePlus X. The back design looks like an exact copy of an HTC One M9, but it's hard to care too much about originality when the build quality is this good. Overall, the OnePlus 3 is as well made as a top-tier phone from HTC or Apple; it's just offered at a much lower price.

SPECS AT A GLANCE: OnePlus 3 SCREEN 1920×1080 5.5" (401ppi) AMOLED OS Android 6.0 (Oxygen OS) CPU Quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 (two 2.15GHz Kryo cores and two 1.6 GHz Kryo cores) RAM 6GB GPU Adreno 530 STORAGE 64GB NETWORKING 802.11b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.2, GPS, NFC BANDS US version:

GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz

WCDMA: Bands 1/2/4/5/8

FDD-LTE: Bands 1/2/4/5/7/12/17/30

CDMA EVDO: BC0

EU/Asia Version:

GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz

WCDMA: Bands 1/2/5/8

FDD-LTE: Bands 1/3/5/7/8/20

TDD-LTE: Bands 38/40 PORTS USB 2.0 Type-C, 3.5mm headphone jack CAMERA 16MP rear camera, 8MP front camera SIZE 152.7 x 74.7 x 7.35 mm (6 x 2.94 x 0.29 in) WEIGHT 158 g (5.57 oz) BATTERY 3000 mAh STARTING PRICE $399 (£ 309 ) OTHER PERKS "Dash" charging, three-position physical notification mode switch, fingerprint sensor, notification LED, Dual SIM slots

The front of the device uses OnePlus' usual setup. There's a home button that looks like a physical, clicky button, but isn't—it's a stationary capacitive button just like the two flanking it. The home button doubles as a fingerprint reader, which we're seeing more and more often now that Android Marshmallow included native support for them. The buttons to the left and right of the home button are labeled only with dots to indicate where they are. These buttons are configurable in the settings—by default the left one is "back" and the right one is "recents" and there's an option to swap them.

Maybe this is just a "phone reviewer problem," but I would really prefer labels on the buttons. I would think any UI designer would tell you labeled buttons are a good thing, helping users perform tasks easier and faster. Without labels, I'm unsure of what's going to happen when I press a button. If this is your only phone and you use it for a couple of years, you're going to get used to it, but new Android users coming from other phones may need some time to adjust. If you're not a fan of the hardware buttons either way, there's an option to enable the standard onscreen buttons at the cost of a strip of screen space.

One of the other oddities used here and present in past OnePlus designs: a three-position notification switch on the side. The switch corresponds to the three modes of Android's notifications—silent, priority-only, and all notifications. The switch seems to be the only way to change notification modes on the OnePlus 3—there is no software method—making it a "hard lock" into whatever mode you set. You get a haptic feedback buzz every time you move the switch, making it easy to do a no-look switch-to-silence. The switch is very sturdy and also gives a satisfying "click" with each movement.

The "hard lock" implementation of the switch feels more useful than OnePlus' past implementations, where it was possible in software to change the notification mode, making the switch out-of-sync with the actual setting. Now if you move the switch all the way up to "silent," you can be sure it's actually on silent. The phone display lets you know what mode you're switching to, but it would be nice to see some actual labels on the switch, too.

I am not a fan of the "factory-installed screen protector" the OnePlus 3 ships with. For starters, it's too small—the protector leaves a 3mm perimeter of glass exposed. That's not just bezel; it doesn't line up with the LCD panel under the glass, leaving a weird line down the left and right side of the screen. This protector is also a fingerprint magnet, and it constantly seems greasy and blurry in a way that regular screen glass does not. Sadly, it doesn't dry-wipe clean the way glass does either. You need some kind of liquid to really get the grease off the OnePlus 3's screen protector. It's not clear why the company did this; they certainly didn't cheap out on the glass. The OnePlus 3 uses Gorilla Glass 4, so unless you're really rough with your device, there's no need for a protector.

The one cut corner on the OnePlus is probably the display, which is a 1080p AMOLED with a "Pentile"-style subpixel layout. Pentile has the full complement of green subpixels, but it's missing half of the red and blue subpixels. The result is a "1080p" display that is missing 33 percent of the subpixels you'd get on a 1080p "RGB" display. We've seen this a lot on 1440p displays, but on a 5.5-inch 1080p display, it's a bit of a step down in image quality. The OnePlus 3 won't win any display awards against the $700 devices, and it wouldn't be our pick for someone looking for a VR-ready device. For a $400 phone, though, it's fine. The display is "good enough" for games, videos, reading, or any other "normal" smartphone activities.

On the bottom of the phone is a "loud enough" speaker, a USB Type C plug, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. There's also a pair of exposed screws, which will make the folks at iFixit happy. While we're on the subject of charging, the OnePlus 3 doesn't support Qualcomm Quick Charging, but it does have a proprietary solution called "Dash Charging." This offers speedy charging over a USB type-C connector, but it uses a charger and cable you can only get from OnePlus.

Dash Charging is an interesting idea—it puts a duplicate of the power management system inside the charger, which moves a lot of the charging heat generation from the phone to the charger brick. This allows the OnePlus 3 to keep charging during heavy use instead of throttling the power in order to avoid overheating. It seems to work from our testing. On a sunny day, mounted to a windshield car dock, the OnePlus 3 was able to charge while navigating and playing music, which is something most phones can't do. The tradeoff is all that proprietary equipment, which is both rarer than Qualcomm Quick Charge gear and more expensive. OnePlus sells a Dash Charger and cable for $34, while a comparable Qualcomm version costs about half that.

Other than the (removable) screen protector and three-position switch, the OnePlus 3 feels pretty standard. It appears to be a well-made, expensive device. The real standout detail is that OnePlus is able to offer all this for just $400.