OnePlus 3

I purchased my OnePlus 3 back in 2016, as it was the first fully new phone I could afford at the time with a price tag of $349. When I finally had the device in hand the only way I can describe the moment is that... it just felt right; it not only looked the part, but it navigated with a buttery smoothness I had never experienced being an avid user of Samsung's pre-owned sloppy seconds. The hype of it all was backed by the stellar performance of the device itself, and I couldn't have been more thrilled.

This phone stayed with me as a daily driver through 2019, when I sold it to a co-worker of mine in need of something reliable. He experienced a lovestruck few months with it until somehow it had fallen out of his vehicle on a freeway and had been run over by another vehicle. (I didn't believe it, but this guy absolutely insisted it was the truth.) Past this unfortunate situation, the phone actually lasted several days beyond this incident with problems beginning to crop up little by little, likely as a result from the internals being sandwiched against themselves. It never died completely, but got stuck in a bootloop which couldn't be remedied.

All in all, this phone in its heyday made me feel like I was in some underground group or exclusive society of people with something different that they all had in common - the phone they used. A weird way to word it maybe, but it was something special. So much so that, in fact, after owning a OnePlus 3, a OnePlus 6, and a OnePlus 7 Pro (my current daily driver, which I still love) I have decided to downgrade to a new OnePlus 3T as it is the closest I could come to this device.

Would not receive 4G (I think!) with T-Mobile chip.

My usual apps ("When is my bus coming") did not work.

OnePlus chose to cook up their own symbols ... it doesn't show bars, and does not say "4G", etc. And, amazingly, OnePlus has nothing in the box or on their web site to explain what _their_ symbols mean. I am astonished at this incompetence. I had a chat with their "support" people, who were (1) able to use plain English, and (2) were unable to explain OnePlus's symbols. I asked "What does the little 'E' mean?" And he said it stands for "Edge". Gee, and what does _that_ mean?

I consider it unusable, and I am sending it back.

this is a great phone for the price... it has a great software performance, good camera, good battery life and the desing is beautiful... claerly better than a lot of flagships. definitely a very good phone for 400