Those in Europe will soon get their hands on the OnePlus X as they can now sign up to get an invite from OnePlus today. The Chinese smartphone manufacturer announced on Twitter that EU sales just begun on OnePlus.net. For the first month, the device will be invite-only but the company promised more ways to buy soon and that applies even in Europe.
The OnePlus X came as a surprise to us and we thought it’s only a mid-range phone in high-end disguise. As the third device from OnePlus, we’re expecting that it will be great for a mid-ranger. It’s impressive how the brand packed those high-end features and yet made the phone affordable at $249.
To review, the OnePlus X comes equipped with a 5-inch AMOLED screen with Full HD 1080p resolution (440 ppi), Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 (32-bit), Adreno 330 GPU, 13MP Samsung ISOCELL camera, 16GB built-in storage, microSD card slot, and a non-removable 2,520mAh battery. Phone runs on Oxygen OS based on Android 5.1 Lollipop.
OnePlus X Specifications:
• OS: OxygenOS (Android 5.1 Lollipop)
• Processor: 2.3GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 quad-core processor (32-bit), Adreno 330 graphics
• Display: 5-inch AMOLED screen with Full HD 1080p resolution (440 ppi)
• Dimension: 140 x 69 x 6.9mm
• Weight: 138g
• Battery: 2520mAh battery (non-removable)
• Storage: 16GB plus microSD card slot (up to 128GB)
• RAM: 3GB
• 13MP Samsung ISOCELL camera with LED flash
• 8MP selfie shooter
• Connectivity: WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, 3G, 4G LTE
Major problem for the US though, it does not support band 12 (tmob) and 17(att.) Major oversight. Some tmob areas only support band 12 for voice and data, att’s LTE coverage is mainly band 17.
I would not call this a major oversight. They deliberately did not include these bands as T-Mobile has asked all manufacturers who wish to use 700Hz spectrum (Bands 12 and 17) on their phones to undergo T-Mobile’s VoLTE certification process. So if you a phone manufacturer the you either go through the VoLTE certification process and then you can have a working band 12 on your phones and utility T-Mobile’s 700 Hz spectrum or you don’t even include the band if you dont want to spend time and MONEY on the certification process. However if you ignore T-Mobile’s request and don’t go through their cert process but still have band 12 on your phones then US consumers using such phones would not be able to make 911 calls when on band 12 as their VoLTE is not enabled which may lead to potential law suits. So T-Mobile shifted the responsibility to the manufacturers and OnePlus simply removed any potential litigation threat by removing this band (12) from OnePlus X. Is this a deal breaker? To me – yes it is. OnePlus are lazy assholes and lairs not willing to make an extra step for their consumers.
Oversight in the sense that it eliminates the only two networks in the US that could have hosted the X. Band 12 does require certification and it’s ultimately the choice of the manufacturer to go ahead with tmob’s cert process. Reference the new Nexus phones. They have band 12 radio but supposedly just released new radios to disable it.
The bigger issue is band 17 and the much larger customer base that ATT has. 17 does not require cert so just including this and not 12 would have been “good enough.”
Guess what I’m trying to say is, why bother with the US at all if you’re not going to support the proper frequencies?