Does the OnePlus 3 get extremely hot to the touch?

[AC Question]

Everywhere I looked they said that the OnePlus 3 has the least thermal throttling and best sustained performance of any phone out there. But nobody discussed why exactly it did not throttle while other phones did. Everyone simply said "Oh they must have very good thermal management or something". Then I saw a video comparing the temperatures of the ZTE axon 7 and the OnePlus 3 (google "Zte axon 7 vs OnePlus 3 antutu thermal throttling"), it turns out the reason the OnePlus 3 doesn't throttle isn't some magical thermal dissipation and management, it's solely because they raised the temperature limit at which the phone would throttle to beyond comfortable zones. In the video with just a few iterations of Antutu CPU test, the OnePlus 3 metal skin's temperature reached a scorching 47 degrees Celcius. Google shows that holding anything metal at 50 degrees Celcius for more than a brief moment can cause tissue damage (1st degree burns). And this phone was just shy of that temperature during Antutu benchmarks when only the was CPU running, so can you imagine what temperatures it would reach when you're playing a highly graphical game where both CPU and GPU are being taxed at the same time? Why does nobody talk about this?

 

[Javier P]

Mod note. Moved to the OnePlus 3 forum.

 

[DamianP]

Everywhere I looked they said that the OnePlus 3 has the least thermal throttling and best sustained performance of any phone out there. But nobody discussed why exactly it did not throttle while other phones did. Everyone simply said "Oh they must have very good thermal management or something". Then I saw a video comparing the temperatures of the ZTE axon 7 and the OnePlus 3 (google "Zte axon 7 vs OnePlus 3 antutu thermal throttling"), it turns out the reason the OnePlus 3 doesn't throttle isn't some magical thermal dissipation and management, it's solely because they raised the temperature limit at which the phone would throttle to beyond comfortable zones. In the video with just a few iterations of Antutu CPU test, the OnePlus 3 metal skin's temperature reached a scorching 47 degrees Celcius. Google shows that holding anything metal at 50 degrees Celcius for more than a brief moment can cause tissue damage (1st degree burns). And this phone was just shy of that temperature during Antutu benchmarks when only the was CPU running, so can you imagine what temperatures it would reach when you're playing a highly graphical game where both CPU and GPU are being taxed at the same time? Why does nobody talk about this?

Mine has never been hot to the touch over the past few months I've had it. I do use one of the OP3 cases but in use cases on all my phone's and compares to S7, S7e or Note 7 I would say the OP3 generally runs cooler during busy times(like app updates).
Generally speaking I would consider the OP3 a cooler phone compared to the other phones I have used for MY use.

 

[pong lenis]

Mine has never been hot to the touch over the past few months I've had it. I do use one of the OP3 cases but in use cases on all my phone's and compares to S7, S7e or Note 7 I would say the OP3 generally runs cooler during busy times(like app updates).
Generally speaking I would consider the OP3 a cooler phone compared to the other phones I have used for MY use.

Did you run any graphically demanding games on it? That's the whole point of the question: if under high power stress the phone simply ignores comfortable or safe temperatures. Simply using your phone for browsing and calling doesn't reveal anything to me at all.

 

[fuzzylumpkin]

Did you run any graphically demanding games on it? That's the whole point of the question: if under high power stress the phone simply ignores comfortable or safe temperatures. Simply using your phone for browsing and calling doesn't reveal anything to me at all.

I've used it with a few games, most notably Pokémon GO, which while not the most graphics heavy game, does put a phone through its paces. I've had it get warm, but never hot.

 

[pong lenis]

I've used it with a few games, most notably Pokémon GO, which while not the most graphics heavy game, does put a phone through its paces. I've had it get warm, but never hot.

can you test it with 3dmark or something?

 

[fuzzylumpkin]

can you test it with 3dmark or something?

Same thing really, it gets warm, but not hot to the touch. Internal temperature after running 3d mark read 35° for what that's worth and it was fine to hold. Pleasantly warm in fact.

 

[pong lenis]

Internal temperature after running 3d mark read 35°

I find that very unlikely to even be the skin temperature, let alone the internal one.

 

[fuzzylumpkin]

I find that very unlikely to even be the skin temperature, let alone the internal one.

Well aside from there being a few seconds between closing 3dmark and opening an app to show the temperature, I just ran the test and passed on the data... And i did say "for what it's worth". You can find it as unlikely as you want, I did you a favour. The appropriate response is "thank you", not to imply that I'm lying.