OnePlus just launched its latest flagship from a VR space station

Today, Chinese smartphone brand OnePlus launched the latest handset in its line of flagship phones: the OnePlus 3. And here’s something new: the company showcased the new smartphone via a VR app that lets you tour the company’s (made up) headquarters in space. There, you can learn about the phone from a monotone-voiced blue hologram of OnePlus founder Carl Pei and a weird floating robot that guides you through some of the new phone’s best features.

Blue Hologram Carl Pei on the left, weird robot on the right.

What’s under the hood

Just in case you’d rather not travel into OnePlus’s virtual space station, though, here’s what you need to know about the phone. It’s a pretty powerful beast, sporting 6 GB of RAM, a Snapdragon 820 processor and an Adreno 530 GPU. The phone has a 5.5-inch 1080p AMOLED screen and comes with a 3000 mAh battery. It also has an improved fingerprint sensor.

In terms of special features, OnePlus is pushing two on the 3.

The first is the camera automation. The 16 MP back camera includes automatic HDR and noise-reduction features, but the pièce de résistance may be the 8 MP front-facing “selfie” camera, which will automatically snap a picture when it detects you’re smiling.

The second is its high-speed charging feature, which it calls dash charge. OnePlus says that the 3 can go from zero to 63 percent charged in just 30 minutes. The charging system also has some special heat dispersion features that OnePlus says ensure very little heat reaches your phone so that you don’t have to worry about it overheating during speed charging.

The best news of all?

If all of that sounds interesting to you, you’ll be quite happy to hear this: OnePlus is finally abandoning its invite-based purchase system. If you want to buy a OnePlus 3 you can do that right now via the VR app, or just hop on to OnePlus’s website. The phone costs US$399 and comes with 64 GB of storage.

We haven’t had a chance to get our hands on one of these phones yet, but if all the tech works like OnePlus says it does, this could be a very nice option for its price range.