[Smartisan Nut R1 Guides, News, & Discussion] mahst68:
Review

Design

Looking at both phones, they're strikingly different, each with their pluses and minuses. Both are "notch" phones which absolutely does not bother me. I know some people have like nightmares about phone notches sneaking into their house at night and murdering their families... I do "not-ch". Hahahaha. Anyway, the OP6 goes with the curved rounded edges whereas the Nut R1, that's right "Nut" R1, goes with the candy bar straight rectangle look akin to Sony Xperia many iterations. Neither are revolutionary by any means, its just preference. The OP6 is definitely heavier by stats but feels more so in hand then the Nut R1. The OP6 is slightly larger too. Both not too large where its a must to use 2 hands all the time, but for my comfort, the Nut R1 feels better. Nut R1 goes with individual buttons for power, volume, etc. The OP6 has the rocker button for sound and the very impressive programmable slider button. The Nut R1 does have a special button on its left hand side but at least for me now (until maybe I figure a few things out) I can't change it to be used for something useful yet, so really it's a space waster. OP6 notch is larger as well. NOTCH!!!!!!!!!

UPDATE 07/14 - Figured out the special button on the Nut R1! Boy was I wrong! This button along with some other button press combinations allows you quick access to 2 features that are only found on the Nut R1. The first is call "Idea Pills." Essentially, throughout your normal day, if you have to jot something down or need to make not of something, pressing and holding the button allows you to make a voice note. It then transcribes that note which then can be used in the note app, the calendar app or any host of other apps. You can make voice recordings all day then simply with a right to left swipe of the screen on the right hand edge, you can see all your notes and reminders. It's pretty cool. Of course, other button combos with this special button do other functions: with power button is screen shot, with up volume can turn on the phones flashlight and then with volume down + special button gives you direct access to a very slick and cool feature called "one step." One Step is a cut- paste drag & drop feature that lets you fairly seamlessly send messages, access your favorite apps & contacts, etc. while linking them to your pictures, notes, etc. There's a pre-loaded video that is in Chinese of course but you can idea by what the person is doing in the video. Awesome!

Verdict: Dead Heat - I favor the design of the Nut R1 slightly more however it having a Bixby button that right now I can't program sucks. OP6's slider button is awesome! Hard to pick a winner....

UPDATED Verdict: Nut R1 - Knowing the idea pills and one step feature now makes this phone a productivity champ with the special button... Bixby Button it is not!

Display

From the stats, both phones have similar resolutions. The OP6 of course has AMOLED FHD+ as opposed to the Nut R1's FHD+ IPS LCD. OP6 display is slightly larger (thus the slightly better pixel count). This is definitely one of the most subjective portions of the review. For me, even though the OP6 had the AMOLED Display and AMOLED is just better and we're supposed to just accept that. The Nut R1 out of box with no tweaking (like putting into different mode or putting sRBG on) looks truer. Whites look white and blacks look black. OP6 has a larger chin especially if you opted to lose the the virtual buttons on the Nut R1 for gestures. Both have a hide notch mode for the upper portion of the screen however the notch for the Nut R1 is significantly smaller. Both handle the notch differently for alerts. The Nut R1 acts as if it is one complete screen across the top opting to show the alerts with a void where the notch is as opposed to treating the before and after notch screen portions as 2 completely separate spaces like the OP6. I'm not 100% sure of which way I prefer but there's definitely a difference. The Nut R1 seems brighter in the sun although there's no lumen stats to compare which one should be brighter. The one failure that the Smartisan R1 does have is that the polarizer over the display was applied in the wrong direction or maybe is not there at all... what does that mean? Well, if you put on a pair of polarized sunglasses, guess what, black screen unless you angle the phone in an awkward position to see. I have reached out to Smartisan on this and awaiting their reply. Plan on trying a tempered glass screen protector to see if that helps.

UPDATE 07/14 - Tried tempered glass screen protector and it fixed the polarization issue! Even though I can never put one of these on without some dust or something getting caught under the screen. Ordering a few more so I can hopefully put one on cleanly. Talking to Smartisan, they're gonna send me some protectors too, just have to pay for shipping (as soon as they figure out how I can do that)! Still gonna say that the OP6 is the better display, however with a cleanly placed screen protector on it it makes it super hard not to change the verdict!

Verdict: OnePlus 6 - The Polarizer issue is a non-started for me as all my sunglasses are polarized. It's slightly better that I have Android Auto so I don't necessarily have to deal with it too much in the car. However, during an outside concert or festival, etc. so annoying to have to lift off my sunglasses just to use the phone. Stay tuned, this may change if there's a simple workaround. Otherwise, for inside use not having to deal with sunglasses, my preference is the Nut R1.

Camera

As I always try to state before diving face first into the shallow pool of phone cameras, I am not a fan of phone cameras as opposed to actual cameras. I went to school for photography so it is quite hard for me to say " this phone take better pictures than this phone..." Both / All, IMO, are grainy noisy messes compared to their actual camera counterparts. With that said, this is another area where I feel both phones are fairly equal. OP6 uses a 16M + 20M f/1.7f dual rear camera setup. The Nut R1 uses a slightly less spec'd 12M + 20M f/1.8 & f/1.75 setup. The Nut R1 however crushes the OP6 with its 24M f/2.0 front camera as opposed to OP6's 16M f/2.0 front camera. What's this all mean? Nothing.. We're talking about some small differences here with the rear camera setups. Spec-wise the OP6 is better, but a lot also goes into what software is processing the pictures for you. I will post some test shots in a later post. As far as the camera software themselves, both are fairly decent with their share of annoyances and/or postives. The Nut R1 requires you to rifle through the different modes to get to the setup menu, minor annoyance. The OP 6 software feels more basic though whereas the Nut R1 looks more professional. I am not going to make a judgement. I'll just post samples of each and let you tell me. For video, OP6 does let you shoot at 60fps for 4K. The built-in software for the Nut R1 only allows 30fps at 4K. Not a huge deal, I am sure the Nut R1 has the 60fps capability which may work with other camera softwares, it just not there out of the box. I don't necessarily do that mush video recording where the 4K difference is going to hurt me, but that's me... again your decision. I will update this section a little more after the the test shots as I dig deeper which both cameras.

Verdict: Is Still Out! - I'll let you look at test shots. I'll update and then maybe decide on which is better IMO. :confused:

Software / Essentials

This always the hardest section to write about as I could fill a book looking at both phones take on Android Oreo. :D Here's the thing, I'm gonna touch on what I feel gives a person interested in the 2 phones a good understanding and leave the details to anyone that wants to comment later. :silly: As most are aware OP6 runs OxygenOS, pretty vanilla take on Android Oreo without very major differences from what runs on the Pixels... It's definitely one of the better OS takes on Android out there. Styled nicely with great customization and unlocking capability for our developer community. Stable, nice however maybe a little boring. SmartisanOS on the Nut R1 is your quintessential chinese born ROM OS. High customization so much so that it can make your head spin. Strict focus on battery saving and notification light experience means you definitely have to do some tweaking to get things the way you like it.

What's the same between the two?

1. Both are fast. No lag to speak of. This ain't touchlagwiz

2. Both allow for 3rd party launchers fairly easily. Sometimes this is not so easy with china born phones but not in this case

3. As far as I can see, good support on updates... Got 2 so far from Smartisan, one as soon as I setup the phone and the other yesterday, fairly quick considering I only had it about 5 days. OP6 has had 2 updates. OnePlus has been notorious for supporting updates frequently when a new product launches but then dropping support for older models. They have vowed to change that but so far so good.

4. Both have Face Unlock & Fingerprint Unlock as well. I believe that OnePlus would contend that their Face Unlock is more secure and it probably is. The fingerprint scanner of the Nut R1 is huge making it very easy for scanning placement whereas the OP6 is a little undersized. Nut R1 used their branding as a functional part of the phone... quite clever!

What's Different?

1. SmartisanOS out of the box does not come with google services or play store, it is however very easy to install and get your favorite play store google apps cooking.

2. Google Pay does not work. This is standard for China Born ROMs and won't change until such time that Google Pay is allowed in China. I have a Gear S3 watch that I just setup Samsung Pay on as my workaround.

3. Notification Shade toggles off between either toggle buttons like your bluetooth, data, airplane mode, etc. or notifications shade... no stack like most are used to... not a big deal, but some might be bothered

4. No Notifications on the lock screen or at least I haven't figured out how yet. With face unlock being so fast, I never hardly see the lockscreen anyway.

5. Notifications in shade won't let you expand them in the shade.

6. Shade color and theme not changeable and it is white on Nut R1

7. Cannot change default messaging app on Nut R1. The default app is fairly nice and you can always install Android Messaging. Android messages does work just not as default

8. The Nut R1 (and actually any Smartisan phone) are not water resistant or water-proof. This was confirmed by Smartisan's Customer Service. Doesn't really bother me since I don't even try to get "waterproof" phones wet. $500 plus experiment whether your phone is waterproof or not, no thank you. At any rate, don't go jumping in a pool with the Nut R1 in your pocket! :crying:

Items Left to be Explored on the Nut R1

1. Smartisan says they support openSSL and that they have no issues with bootloader unlock. They said details are in the openSSL forum. Just don't know where that is... might be on their forum site which is immense.

2. Looks like Google Camera works and works well with this phone. Haven't tried myself yet but Smartisan Forums say you can just use the original apk download for google camera

3. Full battery life, connection strength and a host of other functionality items

VoLTE appears to work for me on TMobile, not wifi-calling though. Maybe it is wifi calling when on VoLTE and connected to wifi but it does not give indicator as such.

Of course, the big missing item from the OP6 is wireless charging. Nut R1 does have qi charging capability although the coil placement is slightly weird.

Geez, is that a lot... there is so much more but rather not keep on going. Please ask if you have questions! :p

Verdict: Nut R1 - You had me at Qi... why oh why did OP6 did you not include wireless charging on a glass backed phone. Although some may say bloat, there's cool stuff built into the Nut R1... plus whats looks to be the ability to unlock means let flashing begin! (Even though I'm not going to figure out how to do that anytime soon) :eek:

Cost & Value

Understandably nowadays, a new phone comes out every month worth looking at. Apple manages to keep their values up because you only get 1 refresh per year without any other competition. Benefit of controlling the hardware and software in a closed system. Android on the other hand has 100's upon 100's manufacturers. From that, you basically have the newest phone with the latest gadgets. More RAM, more drive space, etc. In recent years, the rise of Chinese manufacturers has even added to the dilemma of phone value to the money paid out. Xiaomi, Smartisan, OnePlus, ZTE & Huawei just to name a few are offering quality phones at better prices making it hard to justify a $800+ flagship phone. Samsung can no longer keep trying to command iPhone prices for their phones and expect success. Even the mighty iPhone is starting to feel the pinch of the growing China manufacturing phone market. Apple made money off of the iPhone X, their first $1000+ phone, but not as successful as previous versions even with some new innovation. With that said, both the OP6 and Nut R1 are a decent investment for the hardware you're given at the price point under $700. Both Snapdragon 845, both dual camera, quick charge, etc. makes them compete at the level of LG and Samsung without having to look to lease from your carrier. Ultimately, this gives you freedom from your carrier to be truly contract free. The resell value of the Nut R1 is a little more dicey than OP6 given OP6's name recognition and availability here in the United States. Could I go on swappa and sell the Nut R1, maybe...? :confused: I know I can sell the OP6, but probably at a 20% loss. Neither phone is a no-brainer for resell so investing in either will need to be an investment to get away from being under your service providers thumb more than anything. Is that enough even at these prices points to justify in getting either one of these phones? That's definitely a question to consider... especially when the Android phone with max stats, new bell or whistle and the hype train is just a month away... ;)

Verdict: Nut R1 - Ultimately it's cheaper... even when you take into consideration no water resistance value. Nut R1 does have Qi which is absent from OP6. If water resistance is the straw breaking the camels back, then of course OP6 is better. Not as many accessories for the Nut R1, which might be a blessing more than a curse. No proprietary fast charging meaning you have to get a special charger like OP6 (for the car in particular).

Ease of Everyday Use

This section is a little weird for most people so let me explain. We have all have interactions with technology on a daily basis. From the alarm that wakes you up in the morning, to the coffee maker that makes you coffee to even the toothbrush to brush your teeth with, there's hardly a space in modern life where technology isn't already taken a foot-hold. Sometimes the technology can be obtuse, hard to use, hard to understand and even harder to save you time. Others we just have to live with... like modern cars, with 133 years since deployed, they are conceptually the same... in other words, they still ride on the ground. Yes,we have self-driving cars, cars that run on hydrogen, etc. etc. but no flying cars? No cars that could hover? Much like the phone market, technology is starting to hit a wall where stats of operating speed, RAM and other such items which use to be the tantamount reason to buy a phone no longer matter. It's the bells & whistles making the ad campaigns. These whistles and bells ultimately are being added to make daily use easier and more productive besides providing a higher quality product (like phone cameras for instance). OP6 does this in one of the simplest way (complex is not always better), the slider button. The ability to move from silent to vibrate to sound on is such a great experience with the phone. Even though you can program the button to do whatever you want, the default setting maybe all you need. The beauty of the OP6 light interpretation of vanilla Android helps to give the phone a great user experience. Much like Apple (and don't throw any at me), the OP6 works great, the way it's intended to right from the packaging. Although the ability to tweak, bootloader unlocking and flash ROMing are present. It is hard to justify taking the time to do so with such a well-rounded phone already. The Nut R1 on the other hand is slightly harder to crack, pun intended. Because of its Far East roots, it provides extreme customization from day 1. Do most people want to spend 2 days to fully setup their phone? Probably not. However, the Nut R1 gains some distinct advantages with for daily use from this. From my experience, battery life is better on the R1 than the OP6 since it has a slightly smaller screen and a slightly larger battery. More so, the extreme customization helps the software do a better job at battery monitoring and apps in memory running leading to better battery life as well. Then there's one step and idea pills to through in the mix again. These 2 software "enhancements", bells and whistles, whatever... saves time and adds productivity into the phone. It's not without one caveat. You need to figure these features out on your own (unless you know Mandarin). OP6's water resistance helps out too... if and when you might be presented with the problem of having your phone out in rain. Both phones show that they can get the job done daily.

Verdict: Dead Heat - If only the OP6 had Qi or the Nut R1 was water resistant, my job of deciding would be easy. :good: Unfortunately, it isn't that way...

Overall & Summary

Verdict: Smartisan Nut R1 or maybe not... :silly:

In all honesty, it is hard for me to decide a clear winner here. I have both phones and I'm still not sure which one I'm gonna put up on swappa and get rid of. This tells me I like something about each that ultimately makes me not want to get rid of either. Usually when I do these reviews, there's a clear cut winner. For this one, I can truly say either one is a home run based on the specific use case you need. Want something to develop a ROM, bootloader unlock, go with the OP6. Need something to be productive daily with while you're on-the-go and not sacrifice any performance at a very reasonable price, then the Nut R1 should efintely be considered. Finally, need a phone with 1TB of storage... guess what, the Nut R1 is your phone. I really haven't talk to much on the fact that you can get the Nut R1 with the unbelievable amount of UFS 2.1 storage of 1TB. I did not get it in that option (wish I could have got the 512GB if I could have found it reasonably priced) as I don't need that much space plus the $1000+ price tag is just slightly to much for me . You on the other hand might be a photo taking, song downloading junkaholic with no problem throwing a $1000 down then 1TB is right in your ball park. Most articles hype the Smartisan Nut R1 for the 1TB and miss the truly great phone underneath. Same can be said about the OP6 in another way. Articles typically about the newest "flagship killer" OnePlus has to offer look at why it's not a "killer" because its missing this or that or whatever feature... Yes, I did the same for Qi charging... so I'm to blame too. I just feel this year more than ever with the OP6 design change to a glass backed phone is just inconceivable not to have Qi. However, I have found a way around that also to find another awesome phone. Really, the winner here is all of us. Smartisan and OnePlus prove that you can make a quality product with top specs at prices most can afford. Samsung should be scared... Once again, this is just some guys opinion. :p