With Google abandoning the cheaper Nexus line for a more premium phone priced at a more premium price, the future of smartphone sales might lie in the top-of-the line smartphones. While the One Plus 3 is a flagship killer on its own accord, the One Plus 3T is a device with beefed up specs that can hold its own against newer competitors like the Google Pixel phones. With the release of the One Plus 3T, however, it seems evident that the Chinese smartphone manufacturing company is aiming for a more premium market share that they have not appealed to with their cheap but powerful One Plus 3 phones.

One Plus has always impressed me with their phones and while only a few years back, they would release one flagship phone, 2016 has seen the release of the mid-ranged One Plus X alongside their flagship One Plus 3 model. The One Plus X had its flaws but the One Plus 3 was an amazing phone which I even considered the best budget phone of 2016 solely because of its price to performance ratio. Even today, the One Plus 3 is an impressive phone and by no means has it turned obsolete. But just six months after the release of the One Plus 3, One Plus has released a revamped model of the One Plus 3, the One Plus 3T, which looks exactly like the One Plus 3 but with better internals. While the One Plus 3T is marketed at a more premium market segment similar to the Pixel and iPhone lines, the One Plus 3T still costs lower than the Google Pixel phones at $480 for the 120GB model; the Google Pixel phone with the same storage option costs around $870. One Plus seems to be staying true to their ‘Flagship killer’ status by providing performance on par to the Google Pixel phones but at a much cheaper price range.

While the One Plus 3T’s upgrades are subtle, they are impressive none the less. The phone is equipped with  a much faster processer, the top-of-the-line Snapdragon 821, from Qualcomm. The One Plus 3 comes with the Snapdragon 820 processor that Qualcomm released in late 2015, the predecessor for which is the 821 that Qualcomm released in 2016. The 821 processor runs at a slightly higher frequency of 2.4 GHz for the performance cores and 2.0 Ghz for the efficiency cores. This would result in a ten percent improvement in performance when compared to the older 820 processors. Apart from the bump in performance the 821 also offers some additional features like the Snapdragon VR SDK, Dual Phase Detection Auto-Focus and updated performance optimizations. One Plus has also improved the storage options by providing a higher 128GB option and the battery has been improved to a 3400 mAh battery compared to the original’s 3000 mAh battery. The rear camera remains the same with a 16 MP sensor but bumps the front-facing selfie camera from a mere 8MP to 16MP. The T version of the phone also comes in a new darker grey colour that One Plus has dubbed ‘Gunmetal’.

The phone, with the bigger battery and the battery improvements of Android 7, should perform better than the One Plus in battery usage and selfie shots of the 16MP front-facing camera brings out the subtle details of a selfie. The 821 processors also bring better performance to the One Plus phone. While the original One Plus 3 managed to beat both the Samsung Galaxy S7 and the LG G5 in benchmark scores, the One Plus 3T even manages to keep up with the much faster Google Pixel and LeEcoLePro 3.

But part from hardware, One Plus also has some software treats for 3T users. The One Plus 3T offers better gesture controls like turning the phone face-down to mute calls and a three-finger gesture for screenshots. There is even an option to change icon sizes and even lock specific apps with a password. One prominent feature would be the extended screenshot feature that lets users capture an entire webpage even though only one part of the page is visible. This would mean dynamic screenshots of webpages and text messages for the One Plus 3T users.

Apart from the changed mentioned above, the phone is identical to the original One Plus 3 in all other aspects. The phone is built from the same materials and aesthetically, they’re identical. There are no design improvements here and the screen remains at a resolution of 1080p at 5.5 inches even with all the shiny new hardware updates inside. This, most likely, is a cost cutting measure from One Plus to keep the price of the phone competitive.

So, does the updates of the One Plus 3T justify the extra cost? If you already have a One Plus 3, the answer would be no. The One Plus 3 is still a very competitive phone and should perform better than the Samsung Galaxy S7 phones. But if you’ve been thinking about getting the One Plus 3, then opting for the One Plus 3T should yield a better price-to-performance ratio than the original. You will be getting better performance, better battery-life and a better camera at a slightly at a price-range that is only slightly higher than the original. And with the updates that One Plus had crammed into the 3T, the additional cost is well worth the performance improvements of the newer model. The 3T seems to be a response to recent launch of the Google Pixel phones, and the One Plus 3T manages to keep up.