- OnePlus has always been known
for delivering flagship performance at a much lower price
and that trend continues with the brand new 5T.
You're getting a lot of features from phones like
the iPhone X and Galaxy Note 8
except at about half the price.
But the question is,
is it worth it?
Hey, guys.
This is Austin.
I spent the last week playing with the OnePlus 5T
and there is a lot to like.
Compared to the already solid OnePlus 5,
the most noticeable change is with the screen.
Gone is the old 5.5 inch panel and in its place
is a much taller six inch screen
in the exact same size to chassis.
Sure, its bezels might not be as thin as something like
the iPhone X, but you're still getting a lot more
screen real estate with the two-to-one aspect ratio.
It's a great panel, too.
While the resolution is a little low at 2160 by 1080,
it's still plenty sharp to my eye.
Unlike the Pixel 2 XL, it's actually a nice looking
OLED display.
It looks nice right out of the box, but you have several
other screen modes including sRGB and DCI-P3,
which is my personal favorite.
Because you've got the larger screen, the capacitive keys
are gone and the fingerprint sensor has been moved
around back.
I'm totally fine with this.
Just like the Pixel, this feels like
a really natural spot for it.
The 5T does add facial recognition and while it's not in the
same league as the iPhone X, it's pretty quick.
Although it's definitely not perfectly accurate.
Unfortunately, it's still running Android 7,
but Oxygen OS remains pretty close to Stock Android
with basically no bloatware.
There's a lot of great customization options
like rearranging your onscreen buttons and what things like
a long press will do, as well as tweaking the notification
shade and status bar to be exactly how you like.
This is a great option if you really want
to tweak your phone, which is why a lot
of people go with OnePlus in the first place.
The rest of the design looks almost identical
to the OnePlus 5 and that's not really a bad thing.
You've got the same almost too slippery aluminum back
with the addition of that fingerprint sensor
and amazingly for a new flagship in 2017,
a headphone jack.
You're also getting solid performance with a Snapdragon 835,
six or eight gigs of RAM,
and either 64 or 128 Gigabytes of storage.
This is backed up with a 3300 milliamp hour battery.
While not massive, with the lower res screen and OnePlus'
super fast Dash charging,
it makes it pretty easy to keep the phone topped off.
If this feels like a classic S-model update to you,
then you'd be right.
I can't fault OnePlus for not totally overhauling the phone.
The original OnePlus 5 was really solid.
The issue was that it came out only five months ago.
Look, I'm all for pushing tech forward, but it's kind of
ridiculous that a five month old phone is already obsolete.
Why didn't they just make the OnePlus 5T,
the OnePlus 5 in the first place?
To be fair, I feel the same about the way that Samsung
updates the Galaxy S and Note lines.
Six months later, it seems like you just get a slightly
updated Galaxy S8, but at least with the Note you're getting
some major upgrades like the S Pen and dual cameras.
This strategy kind of worked last year with the OnePlus 3T,
but 2017 has proven to be one of the most competitive years
for smartphones ever and nothing shows that off better than
the Google Pixel 2.
I absolutely love this phone.
Software updates have improved the XL screen, but for me
the standard Pixel 2 checks so many boxes
that it's basically the gold standard.
Put it side by side and it's clear that the OnePlus 5T
is a much larger phone.
The smaller bezels absolutely dwarf the Pixel 2's five inch
display and having a headphone jack is a real win
for a lot of people.
The 5T still only has a single downward firing speaker,
which actually does get reasonably loud and has some bass,
but it just can't match the terrific stereo speakers
on the Pixel.
The OnePlus also lacks any kind of waterproofing
or wireless charging.
Now I can live without these, but knowing that the Pixel 2
isn't afraid of getting wet is a big selling point.
While Oxygen OS is good as far as skins go, I can't get away
from just how great Android looks
and feels running on the Pixel 2.
Not only has it had Android Oreo since day one,
but it is blisteringly fast.
I've said it before and I'll say it again,
Google has worked some real magic with this phone.
One area where OnePlus has really stepped it up
is in the camera department.
The main wide angle shooter is unchanged, but they swapped
the telephoto option for a 20 megapixel secondary camera
with the same focal length.
On one hand, this is a downgrade
as you don't get optical zoom.
However, they're using the same camera
to improve low light performance.
It works.
Side by side with the Pixel,
it holds up really well with noise.
Although it can't quite touch the Pixel 2's incredible
dynamic range.
They've gone for a slightly punchier, more saturated look,
which I think most people will like, but it comes
at the expense of some detail,
even looking a bit soft at times.
You do have portrait mode on both
and while the 5T does an adequate job, I really prefer
the colors and that crazy range of the Pixel.
To my eye
it looks like a significantly more expensive camera.
This is what 4K video looks like on the OnePlus 5T.
So I think audio is actually surprisingly decent
and the stabilization, even though it's not optical,
does a pretty good job of keeping up.
The OnePlus 5T is a great phone.
When you consider the $500 price, it's easy to reconsider
that Galaxy Note 8 or Pixel 2 XL.
If you can look past the screen though,
I think the standard Pixel 2 is worth every penny
of the $150 price premium.
So, what do you guys think about the OnePlus 5T?
Let me know in the comments below and I will catch you
in the next one.