OnePlus One camera samples beat their own contest winners to the snap

Sticking true to their “Never Settle” mantra, OnePlus has some real world photo samples popping up over on Weibo from their soon to be released OnePlus One smartphone. Although there is no EXIF data to prove source, and the photos have been compressed into 1600×1200 or smaller jpegs, the images still show another reason to be excited about the OnePlus One smartphone.

OnePlus is calling their One a flagship killer. Early reports had us questioning that a little bit, but we now know the phone will come with a 2.5GHz Snapdragon 801 processor, 3GB of RAM, a 5.5-inch 1080p IPS display, 3100+mAh battery and a 13MP camera sensor. The camera sensor could provide quality similar to that of the Sony Xperia Z2, as the OnePlus One uses a 13MP Sony Exmor, f/2.0 aperture camera sensor with their own 6 lens configuration.

Last week, OnePlus held a contest, the winners of which were announced yesterday and will be receiving OnePlus One camera test units soon. The winners are to put the phones through their paces, taking and posting all sorts of real world pictures through social media. Keep tabs on Martinrm, ThirdEye and ZeGaby on Google+ next week, with hashtags #Photomania and #OnePlusCamera, to see more.

Ahead of the contest winners receiving their test camera units, the Chinese website MyDrivers.com is reporting that another camera test unit has been handed out. Kang Yi, who became an overnight sensation for being the face on the front of Renmin University of China’s website, is allegedly already firing out images from the phone on her Weibo profile. Check out the following gallery containing the photos posted by Kang Yi.

Self proclaimed display calibration specialist, and overall perfectionist of colors, François Simond had some great things to say about the supposed images by Kang Li. “What I see here is a conservative approach in the color calibration. Unlike almost every other smartphone camera” notes François Simond in his lengthy Google+ post on the topic. We agree that the photos look good, but you know what we want to see, some comparisons with those other smartphone cameras he mentions.

Over on the OnePlus forums, we’ve found some comparison photos that portray image quality dominance of the OnePlus One over the HTC One, Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and the LG G2. As the flagship killer, we can’t wait for the next round where we would expect to see the OnePlus One pitted against current flagships, like the Samsung Galaxy S5, HTC One (M8), LG G Pro 2 and especially the Sony Xperia Z2. For now, at least we get to see another image sample from what is promising to be an excellent smartphone.

Now that we’ve strung you along looking at unconfirmed OnePlus One photos, we have a little treat for you, straight from OnePlus staff member Carl Pei on Google+. Below you will find a true official OnePlus One image sample. The blue plush Android robot comes in at a proper 4160×3120 resolution and has all the EXIF attached from the OnePlus device.

With only a few images provided thus far, we can’t wait to see what Kang Li and the contest winners do with the OnePlus One camera. We look forward to more great samples from real world situations, until we can get our hands on the device to do our own testing.

Now that you’ve seen through a handful of images from the OnePlus One, are you eager to get your hands on One when it gets officially announced April 23rd?