A phone with top-notch specs and user experience doesn't have to cost you an arm and a leg. Google has proven this with its last few Nexus devices, Motorola has reinvented itself on the principle, and countless lesser-known Chinese manufacturers have been doing it for years. The latest to launch its company (and an insane marketing hype machine) on this principle is OnePlus with the release of its first phone, the OnePlus One.
Following what felt like an eternity (a few months, in reality) of marketing hype over social media and some hand-picked journalists, OnePlus finally dropped all of the details on the OnePlus One. The company's mantra of "Never Settle" set high expectations for a phone that was also set to have an amazing price, and in the end it surprisingly met many of those lofty goals.
The OnePlus One has industry-leading specs across the board, with a huge high-resolution screen, top-of-the-line processor, 3GB of RAM, 16GB or 64GB of storage, solid build quality, customization-friendly CyanogenMod OS and a genuinely shocking $299 unlocked starting price. That all seems too good to be true, so what's the catch? Well, despite the company's philosophy, no phone is perfect — but the One still has a lot going for it.
