There is no doubting that the year 2016 has been impressive for OnePlus. After launching its third flagship, the OnePlus 3, the company recorded unprecedented demand for the phone thanks to the facts that it carried the best hardware specs of the year alongside a mid-range price.
Like before, this has been the killer tactic for the Chinese smartphone OEM – something that has helped the company gain a huge following across the globe. Initially, the OnePlus One and OnePlus Two were available only on an invitation basis. One had to be invited by someone who already owns the phone in order to be able to buy one. This started changing when the midrange OnePlus X was released towards the end of last year after the company realized it had garnered a significant following.
In 2016, the OnePlus 3 was released and at some point, the company was forced to suspend sales due to running out of AMOLED panels or simply, excess demand for the phones. After a while, reports emerged that there will be a new OnePlus 3 variant with an LCD screen, something that the company moved in to deny. Further rumors came in claiming that OnePlus was working on a new OnePlus 3T phone that will carry a newer processor and Android OS.
Well, the former materialized but the latter didn’t. Instead, the company stepped up the front camera of the OnePlus 3T alongside the battery capacity. The same Optic AMOLED screen is maintained alongside 1080p resolution. You also get no changes in terms of outward appearance, but there is a new gunmetal color variant.
As noted, the inside received a bunch of changes, among them a new Snapdragon 821 and 128GB of onboard storage. However, the RAM is still 6GB and you also get another 64GB storage unit. The front camera gets a major jump from 8MP to 16MP, which matches the rear snapper of 16MP. However, it is only the primary sensor that gets all the sweet things, including OIS, PDAF and LED flash. The battery was stepped up from 3000mAh to 3400mAhm, which is a significant boost considering that the Snapdragon 821 is more power conscious than the 820.
Now, following the release of this OnePlus 3T model, the Chinese tech company has opted to permanently discontinue selling the original OnePlus 3 in the U.S. and Europe as a whole. The latter was released in June and in just five months, the phone is no more. Apparently, trying to buy it reveals that OnePlus 3 is out of stock and it won’t be coming back. The only option that remains is to get the OnePlus 3T, which starts at $439 for the base model.
OnePlus has not made it official yet, but there are still some retailers that can sell you the original OnePlus 3, at least for now.