- Everyone wants a high-end phone,
but the problem is nobody really wants to pay for one.
That's where OnePlus comes in,
making flagship-level phones for a couple
hundred bucks less than the competition.
The latest in the line is the OnePlus 5,
and this is the Android Central review.
(upbeat music)
OnePlus is known for making solid, if unspectacular,
hardware and the OnePlus 5 is no exception.
Whether you choose the slate grey
or midnight black model, you get a well-built,
sleek, and more rounded-off phone
than the OnePlus 3, albeit without much
to make it stand out from a crowd.
Just think of a generic smartphone shape,
and you pretty much have the OnePlus 5.
On the other hand, the spec sheet
is not at all typical for this phone's $479 price.
By default, you get a hefty six gigabytes of ram
and 64 gigabytes of storage,
but you can also option up a ridiculous
eight gigabytes of ram and 128 gigabytes
of storage for just 60 dollars extra.
In either case, you get the latest
Snapdragon 835 processor and above-average
3,300 milli Amp hour battery and a solid
5.5-inch 1080p AMOLED display.
You even get some nice-to-have features,
like a great fingerprint sensor,
dual SIM slots, a really loud speaker,
and a clever hardware mute switch.
Of course, the one big missing hardware
feature here is waterproofing.
Something has to give when you're
a hundred couple dollars cheaper
than the competition.
Like its hardware, the OnePlus 5 software
is also pretty bare-bones,
but in this case, that's a great thing.
OxygenOS, as OnePlus calls it,
is basically stock Android 7.1
with a handful of clever, useful,
and unique customizations.
There's a slightly tweaked launcher,
support for customizable gestures,
a reading mode to reduce eye strain,
and several ways to tweak the experience to your liking.
And it's all done without tonnes of
overbearing features, unwanted apps,
or unnecessary visual changes.
The result is a phone that's a joy to use
in terms of the interface, but also in its performance.
Just as you'd expect, a Snapdragon 835 processor
and six gigabytes of ram absolutely scream,
making the OnePlus 5 one of the best-performing
phones available today.
Even with that blazing performance,
battery life remains above the industry average.
I ended most days with about 20% battery remaining,
which is a nice buffer to know I can get through
a heavier day without charging, if needed.
And when I did need to top off quickly,
OnePlus's Dash Charge, which remains unchanged
from the OnePlus 3, came to the rescue.
The most unique aspect of the OnePlus 5
is its camera setup, which is now
comprised of a 16-megapixel main camera
and a 20-megapixel secondary camera.
That second camera is equipped with
a longer focal-length lens,
giving you the choice of simply shooting
with that lens alone or combining
the two for a neat portrait mode
effect that selectively blurs the
background of your image to mimic a DSLR.
The main camera is a solid step up
from the OnePlus 3 and daylight
photos are crisp and accurate,
but its small pixels and lack of
OIS lead to photos that are just
a little grainier than I'd like in low-light situations.
Altogether, it's not quite up to the performance
of the Galaxy S8, LG G6, or HTC U11,
but then again, that's to be expected for its price.
At the same time, the secondary camera adds
to the experience by giving you really interesting
shots that you just don't see from other cameras,
but its one-micron pixels and f over 2.6 aperture
make it really only useful in good lighting.
Thankfully, it comes in handy for portrait mode,
which doesn't always perfectly blur scenes,
but when it works, the results are amazing.
(upbeat music)
In a never-ending race to get consumers' attention,
phone companies keep coming up with new features,
hardware designs, and gimmicks.
But what's often lost in the shuffle
is execution on the core smartphone experience,
the basic things that everyone wants.
OnePlus absolutely nails that core
experience with the OnePlus 5.
It doesn't do everything that the flagship
competition does or match each phone feature for feature,
but it's a well-built phone with a good screen,
great spec sheet, amazing performance,
and a capable dual-camera setup,
with clean, fast, and intuitive software.
For just $479, it's a pretty amazing feat,
and there's no doubt that this will be
OnePlus's most successful phone yet.
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