The Ultimate Upgrade: Installing a Bamboo Backing on My OnePlus One

As a fan of the Moto X, I've been using my phone daily, and it's become an integral part of my daily routine. However, I recently decided to upgrade my phone's look by installing a bamboo backing on my OnePlus One. The installation process was surprisingly easy, as I simply snapped the bamboo backing onto the phone. This was a great relief for me, as I didn't have to worry about any complicated procedures.

Removing the Sandstone Cover, However, Was a Bit of a Challenge

Removing the sandstone cover from my OnePlus One was not as straightforward as I had expected. The included tool made it easier than using a flathead screwdriver or fingernails. With some effort, I finally managed to remove the cover, and it was a great feeling knowing that I had successfully upgraded my phone's look.

Taking a Look Inside the Covers

Once I removed the sandstone cover, I took the opportunity to compare it with the new bamboo backing. The main difference I noticed was the material used in each cover. The Sandstone material felt more substantial on the sides, while the bamboo backing had a plastic lining separating it from the phone's frame. The insides of both covers were made of plastic, which wasn't surprising.

Putting the Bamboo Cover On

With the sandstone cover out of the way, I installed the new bamboo backing on my OnePlus One. This process was quick and easy, as I simply snapped the bamboo backing onto the phone. I couldn't wait to test out the connectivity options with the new backing in place.

Testing Connectivity Options

One thing I wanted to test was whether or not the NFC changes with the new backing. I tested it on my UI Mega Boom and found that it still worked just fine using NFC and Bluetooth. The connectivity options remained the same, which is great news for users who rely heavily on these features.

A Dramatic Change in Look

The bamboo backing has given my OnePlus One a dramatic change in look. It's no longer the same Sandstone black, but rather a beautiful combination of bamboo and plastic. While it may not be to everyone's taste, I think it looks exquisite and can't wait to enjoy using it.

$50 Off, No Invite Required

According to the website, you don't necessarily need an invite to purchase the bamboo backing for $50 off. You can pop over to their store and buy it yourself if you have a OnePlus One and want to change the look of your phone. The price is not too steep considering the drastic change in look that the bamboo backing provides.

Conclusion

Overall, I'm thrilled with my new bamboo-backed OnePlus One. It's a great upgrade from the Sandstone black, and I love the unique look it brings to my phone. With its easy installation process and seamless connectivity options, this is definitely worth considering for users who want to change up their phone's look.

Recommended for You

If you're interested in more coverage on the OnePlus One, be sure to check out our review of the device. We also have a lot of great content planned for MWC 2015, so keep an eye out for that as well. Don't forget to like and subscribe to our channel, and tune in to our Friday Debate podcast, which is coming up on its fifth episode soon.

Stay Connected

Finally, don't forget to visit Android Authority.com for all the latest news and updates on the world of Android. We're your go-to source for everything related to Android devices, so be sure to check us out regularly for the best content.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enif you're one of the lucky people that can call the OnePlus One a daily driver what with the invite system and actually the ability to get the phone on Tuesdays nowadays uh then you would know that it is a pretty well-designed phone especially with the Sandstone black material on the back uh that is a premium feel for a $345 phone but for an extra $50 you can replace the back with what is now available a bamboo cover and that's exactly what I'm about to do now because it's Josh vagar from Android authority what's going on everybody and my OnePlus One right now looks like this but soon after this video it will look like this oh yeah Workshop angle so here is my OnePlus One currently with the Sandstone black that comes with the $349 Edition obviously uh I haven't really been using it too much on the daily as of late but that's probably going to change once I'm done with this installation and we're going to go ahead and get started right now just a quick unboxing of the actual uh device itself or rather the accessory we should call it um the typical white and red that the boxes come in OnePlus one's style or oneplus's style go ahead and slide it out and there is the bamboo cover and here is what everything kind of looks like now if you look at the bamboo cover it has everything cut just right but you'll notice here on the side if I remember correctly that the the SIM card slot right over here is a separate piece now we have our instructions right here to actually install the thing along with a couple of tools that are available for the installation this will separate the back cover from the device frame itself uh it's just this little guitar pick looking thing that I'm going to be poking and prodding all of the different snaps out from the sides and then the SIM card trays are over here oh there's two of them oh that's awesome so the SIM card tray is this one the original one and I used to have to put an adapter on my nano SIM card in order for it to work in the one plusus one but now there is a nano SIM tray right here which actually makes it very nice I don't have to use an adapter for it but those are the tools that are inside I will be going through these instructions in a sec and we're going to get started with this the other tools that you are going to need uh come with your OnePlus One for the most part I have this SIM tray tool right here that will pop out the SIM tray and that's the first thing I have to do here and then I'm actually going to use a uh headphone jack in order to pop up the first part of the cover from here and then that blue tool that you can see right here uh is going to help me pop out all the other notches the Sandstone colored back is now removed and we have access to the body itself so there are the two covers so you can see them side by side as compared to the actual device itself and you're going to see how the look is actually changing quite a bit from here uh if you know me already I love bamboo backings on my phones that's why I'm a big fan of the Moto X and I use that on the daily but now I'm going to have a bamboo backing for my OnePlus One now installing the bamboo backing onto the phone should be a matter of just snapping it on which is great uh so I'm not too worried about that removing the Sandstone cover however was a little bit difficult but with the included tool it finally uh kind of came out and it was definitely a lot better than using like a flathead screwdriver or your fingernails God forbid uh but nonetheless I wanted to take a quick look at the insides of these two covers uh so you can just sort of see the differences between them uh one thing I will point out is that the Sandstone material does uh feel like it's on the sides here but on the bamboo cover you have bamboo on the back but on the sides here it is a plastic lining and of course the insides of both are made of plastic so that's not much of a surprise and really not that big a deal I just thought I would mention that so we're going to put the Sandstone aside and it will probably sit in a drawer now because now it's time to install the bamboo one and there you go after popping in the replacement nano SIM tray over here on the side I'm officially on my way having this bamboo OnePlus One in my possession and I'm super excited to use it I love bamboo backings on phones and right now the Moto X and the OnePlus One are the main ones that have it especially if you spend the $50 in order to get your replacement backing to replace the Sandstone of the original OnePlus One and $50 is not that big uh of a cost to have when you can change the look dramatically of your phone I do have a couple of remarks though the handling of the phone itself is still mostly the same the samstone black still has a bit of a better texture to it especially when you have it sitting in one hand the grip feels just a little bit better but not by too much and as far as the look goes uh I will admit that that let's say plastic lining around the bamboo that separates it from the actual frame of the phone is uh maybe a little bit jarring uh you are expecting somewhat to have a full bamboo backing but I understand that that's not necessarily the case but when you go from the bamboo to the plastic and then you move over more you also still have that metal uh sort of frame around the screen so there's a bit of a juxtaposition when it comes to the look of this phone once you have this bamboo cover on it's not a big deal by any means but it is something that you might notice that you basically have well a three toned phone at this point um but nonetheless it still looks very nice quite Exquisite and I am going to enjoy putting it on here um testing out the connectivity on this particular phone I do see that I still get reception just fine and the one thing that I knew I really wanted to test out was whether or not the NFC changes on here as well well I tested it on my UI Mega boom and sure enough it was able to connect to the speaker just fine using NFC and then of course Bluetooth to get right over so it looks like the connectivity options are still going to remain the same and you'll still have the same experience when it comes to your OnePlus One experience on here so that does it for this look and very quick review of the uh bamboo style swab cover that OnePlus has made available now I did use an invite in order to get it but according to the website you don't necessarily need to have an invite to get it for $50 off of their accessory section in their store website so you can pop over and uh buy it yourself if you have a OnePlus One and you just want to change the look a little bit it is a pretty drastic change from the Sandstone black but I think it's one that me at least personally uh will really love so keep it tuned to Android 30 for even more coverage uh we do have our OnePlus One review right over on the side in case you haven't seen it already uh and also don't forget to check us out for mwc that is happening in just a couple of weeks uh and we're going to have a lot of great coverage for you from Barcelona Spain for the Mobile World Congress of 2015 keep it tuned here and drop us some likes on our videos subscribe to our Channel if you haven't already and don't forget to listen to our podcast we're coming up on our fifth episode there of the Friday debate podcast you can find it on all of the different podcast channels out there including iTunes Stitcher and pocketcast and once you're done with all of that don't forget to head on over to Android authority.com because we are your source for all things Androidif you're one of the lucky people that can call the OnePlus One a daily driver what with the invite system and actually the ability to get the phone on Tuesdays nowadays uh then you would know that it is a pretty well-designed phone especially with the Sandstone black material on the back uh that is a premium feel for a $345 phone but for an extra $50 you can replace the back with what is now available a bamboo cover and that's exactly what I'm about to do now because it's Josh vagar from Android authority what's going on everybody and my OnePlus One right now looks like this but soon after this video it will look like this oh yeah Workshop angle so here is my OnePlus One currently with the Sandstone black that comes with the $349 Edition obviously uh I haven't really been using it too much on the daily as of late but that's probably going to change once I'm done with this installation and we're going to go ahead and get started right now just a quick unboxing of the actual uh device itself or rather the accessory we should call it um the typical white and red that the boxes come in OnePlus one's style or oneplus's style go ahead and slide it out and there is the bamboo cover and here is what everything kind of looks like now if you look at the bamboo cover it has everything cut just right but you'll notice here on the side if I remember correctly that the the SIM card slot right over here is a separate piece now we have our instructions right here to actually install the thing along with a couple of tools that are available for the installation this will separate the back cover from the device frame itself uh it's just this little guitar pick looking thing that I'm going to be poking and prodding all of the different snaps out from the sides and then the SIM card trays are over here oh there's two of them oh that's awesome so the SIM card tray is this one the original one and I used to have to put an adapter on my nano SIM card in order for it to work in the one plusus one but now there is a nano SIM tray right here which actually makes it very nice I don't have to use an adapter for it but those are the tools that are inside I will be going through these instructions in a sec and we're going to get started with this the other tools that you are going to need uh come with your OnePlus One for the most part I have this SIM tray tool right here that will pop out the SIM tray and that's the first thing I have to do here and then I'm actually going to use a uh headphone jack in order to pop up the first part of the cover from here and then that blue tool that you can see right here uh is going to help me pop out all the other notches the Sandstone colored back is now removed and we have access to the body itself so there are the two covers so you can see them side by side as compared to the actual device itself and you're going to see how the look is actually changing quite a bit from here uh if you know me already I love bamboo backings on my phones that's why I'm a big fan of the Moto X and I use that on the daily but now I'm going to have a bamboo backing for my OnePlus One now installing the bamboo backing onto the phone should be a matter of just snapping it on which is great uh so I'm not too worried about that removing the Sandstone cover however was a little bit difficult but with the included tool it finally uh kind of came out and it was definitely a lot better than using like a flathead screwdriver or your fingernails God forbid uh but nonetheless I wanted to take a quick look at the insides of these two covers uh so you can just sort of see the differences between them uh one thing I will point out is that the Sandstone material does uh feel like it's on the sides here but on the bamboo cover you have bamboo on the back but on the sides here it is a plastic lining and of course the insides of both are made of plastic so that's not much of a surprise and really not that big a deal I just thought I would mention that so we're going to put the Sandstone aside and it will probably sit in a drawer now because now it's time to install the bamboo one and there you go after popping in the replacement nano SIM tray over here on the side I'm officially on my way having this bamboo OnePlus One in my possession and I'm super excited to use it I love bamboo backings on phones and right now the Moto X and the OnePlus One are the main ones that have it especially if you spend the $50 in order to get your replacement backing to replace the Sandstone of the original OnePlus One and $50 is not that big uh of a cost to have when you can change the look dramatically of your phone I do have a couple of remarks though the handling of the phone itself is still mostly the same the samstone black still has a bit of a better texture to it especially when you have it sitting in one hand the grip feels just a little bit better but not by too much and as far as the look goes uh I will admit that that let's say plastic lining around the bamboo that separates it from the actual frame of the phone is uh maybe a little bit jarring uh you are expecting somewhat to have a full bamboo backing but I understand that that's not necessarily the case but when you go from the bamboo to the plastic and then you move over more you also still have that metal uh sort of frame around the screen so there's a bit of a juxtaposition when it comes to the look of this phone once you have this bamboo cover on it's not a big deal by any means but it is something that you might notice that you basically have well a three toned phone at this point um but nonetheless it still looks very nice quite Exquisite and I am going to enjoy putting it on here um testing out the connectivity on this particular phone I do see that I still get reception just fine and the one thing that I knew I really wanted to test out was whether or not the NFC changes on here as well well I tested it on my UI Mega boom and sure enough it was able to connect to the speaker just fine using NFC and then of course Bluetooth to get right over so it looks like the connectivity options are still going to remain the same and you'll still have the same experience when it comes to your OnePlus One experience on here so that does it for this look and very quick review of the uh bamboo style swab cover that OnePlus has made available now I did use an invite in order to get it but according to the website you don't necessarily need to have an invite to get it for $50 off of their accessory section in their store website so you can pop over and uh buy it yourself if you have a OnePlus One and you just want to change the look a little bit it is a pretty drastic change from the Sandstone black but I think it's one that me at least personally uh will really love so keep it tuned to Android 30 for even more coverage uh we do have our OnePlus One review right over on the side in case you haven't seen it already uh and also don't forget to check us out for mwc that is happening in just a couple of weeks uh and we're going to have a lot of great coverage for you from Barcelona Spain for the Mobile World Congress of 2015 keep it tuned here and drop us some likes on our videos subscribe to our Channel if you haven't already and don't forget to listen to our podcast we're coming up on our fifth episode there of the Friday debate podcast you can find it on all of the different podcast channels out there including iTunes Stitcher and pocketcast and once you're done with all of that don't forget to head on over to Android authority.com because we are your source for all things Android\n"