OnePlus 3 review: excellent performance, 6GB of RAM, sharp 16MP camera, clean interface design, and fast battery charging; at $400, this is a great phone
OnePlus finally has a genuine flagship killer Sam Byford / The Verge : OnePlus won't release any more low-end phones Andrew Martonik / Android Central : OnePlus 3 review: Finally all grown up Napier Lopez / The Next Web : The OnePlus 3 is here, and it might just be a true $400 flagship Zach Epstein / BGR : OnePlus 3 vs. Galaxy S7 edge: The specs showdown you've been waiting for Matthew Miller / ZDNet : No invite needed: OnePlus 3 available now for $399 Brian Heater / TechCrunch : The OnePlus 3 packs a flagship-sized punch at $399 Shawn Knight / TechSpot : The reviews are in and the OnePlus 3 is a hit at $399 Sam Rutherford / Tom's Guide : OnePlus 3 Review: Third Time's the Charm Manishs / Slashdot : OnePlus 3 Featuring 5.5-inch FHD Display, Snapdragon 820 SoC, 6GB RAM Launched at $400 3 Dan Seifert / The Verge : OnePlus 3 review: lessons learned
Context & Ripple Effects
OnePlus built its reputation on the $329 OnePlus 2, but that phone still sold through an invite system and sat below true flagship territory. The OnePlus 3 changes both variables at once: $399, no invite required, and specs — 6GB of RAM, a Snapdragon-class chip, fast charging — that reviewers immediately benchmark against Samsung's Galaxy S7.
The formula held: within five months the OnePlus 3T refreshed the same design at $439, confirming the company had found a repeatable template. What the 2016 reviews could not see is where the arc ends — relationships in this corpus show OnePlus later exiting the US and Europe under an Oppo restructuring, after component-cost pressures forced price increases on existing models.
First-order effects
- Buyers can now purchase a genuine flagship-spec phone at $399 without waiting for an invite, removing the scarcity mechanic that gated every prior OnePlus launch.
- Samsung's Galaxy S7, the default Android flagship of the moment, gains a direct spec-for-dollar competitor that reviewers treat as legitimate rather than a curiosity.
Second-order effects
- Rivals selling flagships at roughly double the price are pushed to justify the premium on camera quality and software support rather than raw specs, since RAM and processor parity is now available at half the cost.
- OnePlus's stated decision to stop making low-end phones cedes the budget tier entirely, concentrating the brand's identity — and its margin exposure — on the value-flagship slot.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the 'flagship killer' category normalizes high-end silicon at mid-range prices industry-wide — but OnePlus's own later trajectory, including the Oppo-driven withdrawal from North America and Europe and price increases tied to storage costs, shows the model was structurally hard to sustain as an independent Western brand.
- The long-run lesson visible across this coverage is that aggressive pricing wins reviews but not necessarily durable market position; consolidation under a parent (Oppo) becomes the endgame for brands competing purely on price.
The trend: The sub-$400 flagship formula OnePlus proved with the OnePlus 3 shaped a decade of value-focused Android hardware, before parent-company restructuring and rising component costs pulled the brand out of Western markets.