The Morning After: Our verdict on the OnePlus 6

A flagship phone for hundreds of dollars less.

Mat Smith
·Bureau Chief, UK
Updated ·3 min read

Hey, good morning!

Monday is here, and we're kicking things off with a review of the OnePlus 6, following it up with the first teasers for Samsung's next Galaxy Note (don't get too excited -- it's Bixby related) and NASA's planet-hunting spacecraft taking its first photo.

The reasonably priced powerhouse now comes in an elegant package.
OnePlus 6 review: a big step closer to the perfect smartphone

The OnePlus 6 is a refreshing glass-based design change for the phone series. Not only does the phone pack the latest flagship processor and up to a whopping 8GB of RAM, it still comes with a solid battery life. Most importantly, the OnePlus 6 features a much-improved camera that even beats the iPhone X. OxygenOS continues to deliver a super-slick performance, with its intuitive navigation gestures taking advantage of the stunning AMOLED screen's larger real estate. The lack of microSD expansion and wireless charging may annoy some, but the OnePlus 6 delivers the best balance between performance and value.

The voice assistant is getting a long-due overhaul.
Samsung will debut Bixby 2.0 with the next Galaxy Note

Samsung has been teasing its upgraded Bixby 2.0 assistant for several months now, but when is it actually going to show up in something you can buy? The company's AI research center head Gray G. Lee told the Korea Herald that the new AI helper will arrive alongside a new flagship phone in the second half of 2018 -- in other words, the next Galaxy Note.

As outlined last October, Bixby 2.0 should make use of Samsung's Viv acquisition to both encourage more conversational commands as well as deep linking, multiple users and more -- but given Samsung's track record with its voice assistant, we'd prefer to see them deliver on any feature promises made this time around.

Unfortunately, it's not working properly.
Google Duo can share your Android phone's screen

Google Duo has just made it easier to play tech support to friends and family: The video-chat app's latest version comes with the ability to share your screen during a call. To access the feature, simply tap on your screen to see the new screensharing icon above the camera-flip one. Tapping the new icon brings up a prompt warning you that Duo will start displaying everything on your screen. That said, it's still a little buggy.

The image covers 200,000 stars, which are but a tiny fraction of what all its cameras can see.
NASA's planet-hunting TESS spacecraft snaps its first photo

TESS, NASA's new exoplanet-hunting spacecraft, has captured its first image ever, giving us a glimpse of what its powerful eyes can see. In the two-second test exposure, the photo shows over 200,000 stars with the southern constellation Centaurus at the center and one of the brightest stars in the night sky, the Beta Centauri, visible, too.

But wait, there's more...

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