For the curious at heart: The OnePlus 3 shares its camera with these other flagships
While the camera on your smartphone certainly isn't the only important consideration, we have gotten to a point where great imaging experience appears to be greatly appreciated by consumers and critics alike. It's no wonder companies such as OnePlus spend as much time convincing us that theirs is incredibly good. Sometime it is, other times it isn't. We don't usually have a way of knowing before we get to try a phone ourselves.
In the case of the newly released OnePlus 3, however, we kind of know—but not quite exactly. That is, the camera on board—a Sony Exmor RS IMX298 sensor—isn't exactly new to us, and there are quite a few devices already on the market with it. These include the Xiaomi Mi 5 and the Huawei Mate 8 (both of which we've reviewe), the Oppo R9 Plus, and the upcoming Asus ZenFone 3, which we'll hopefully get in our hands sooner rather than later.
Obviously, despite sharing imaging hardware, these devices are more likely to give you photos that differ even in controlled and entirely identical environments. The reason for this is software algorithms. And in our experience, these can make an enormous difference. But if you're looking for an early, pre-purchase indication of quality, we wouldn't go with the camera samples OnePlus published on its website, but the ones we've captured with the first two of the above-mentioned high-ends. Here are some of them for your viewing:
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