The OnePlus 5T is here, and while it's name might induce cold sweat flashbacks to
your algebra days, it's actually a pretty powerful and inexpensive phone with a few
new physical changes from the OnePlus 5 earlier this year – including smaller screen bezels
and moving the home button to the back of the phone.
It warrants a new durability test.
So let's get started.
[Intro]
OnePlus had the guts to send a sealed retail version of the phone to me.
I've never had a OnePlus phone fail my tests yet, but there's a first time for everything.
The scratch test is first, and sneaky enough, this phone comes with a preinstalled high
quality plastic screen protector, but for the sake of the scratch test, I'll pull that
off.
It is nice of OnePlus to include it though.
This Mohs scratch test tells us what the screen is made out of.
Plastic screen phones would scratch at a level 3.
Tempered glass starts scratching at a 5 or 6.
And sapphire and ceramic start scratching at a level 8.
The OnePlus 5T is using 2.5D Gorilla Glass 5 and naturally scratches at a level 6 with
a deeper groove at a level 7.
That sentence did have a lot of numbers going on, but the funny part is, you still understood
it.
There is no home button at the bottom of the screen anymore, it's been relocated to make
room for the much larger screen, which I'm a fan of.
At the top of the phone we have a 16 megapixel front facing camera that records in 1080p.
It's under the same glass as the screen.
We also have a metal grill covering the earpiece.
It sits pretty flush with the glass so there won't be much dirt or metal shavings getting
caught inside the slot.
The back of the phone is where the fingerprint scanner is located – right in the center,
away from the camera.
Initially I thought it was going to be made out of plastic, but it turns out OnePlus has
kept the basically invincible ceramic material from previous phones and used it on this 5T.
This scanner is unscratchable.
Thumbs up for that.
Physical damage will not be a problem for this thing.
Keys, on the other hand....just kidding, those don't leave a mark either.
Anodized aluminum like this is coated with super hard aluminum oxide which is acting
as an abrasive to the softer metal on my keys.
The anodizing is pretty thin though, so drops and razors might tell a different story against
the OnePlus 5T.
Personally, I was real good at math up until they started mixing the alphabet all over
there.
But don't even get me started on the number 8.
It is one of the hardest numbers to divide in half.
If you divide 8 horizontally, you get 0.
And if you divide 8 vertically, you get 3.
But according to my report card in school, neither of these were the right answer.
Razor blade marks don't rub off though, so try to avoid doing your homework on the phone.
The dual LED single tone flash is plastic, but that's fine.
The important part is the lens of the camera, and that does remain scratch resistant.
My razor blade leaves no mark on the 16 or 20 megapixel cameras.
These are not super wide angle or telephoto unfortunately, just doing that portrait mode
thing.
I personally would prefer having one different lens included instead of having 2 of the same.
But at least this whole phone is cheaper than one back glass replacement on the iPhone 10.
That really shows which company puts their customers first.
The volume button is made from metal.
And this guy up here, which I feel every phone should have, is a mute switch – also made
from metal.
The dual SIM card tray does not have an SD card slot.
But it's also made from metal.
The top of the phone doesn't have much to look at, but there's still plenty of metal
up here.
And the bottom of the phone is where the party starts.
We have a USB-C/charge enabled charging port, along with our good buddy jack.
Recently rejected with both the Google Pixel and iPhones, it's good to see he's still around.
The glass layer of the screen does have a plastic cushion between the metal frame of
the phone and the glass.
This helps keep the pressure off the glass if the phone is ever dropped or bent.
And finally it's time to burn test this 6 inch AMOLED display.
This 18 x 9 aspect ratio is pretty similar to what we're seeing on the Galaxy S8 at the
moment.
I got about 20 seconds out of the display before it turned white and never recovered.
And now for the bend test.
OnePlus has never failed my test before, and it's time to see if these new design upgrades
messed with the build quality.
There is a slight flex to the phone, but then it locks out, not allowing the phone to flex
any further.
There is no crinkling near the power button or separation of the display from the body,
even though separation wouldn't technically be a bad thing for this phone since OnePlus
isn't bragging about any water resistance.
But the OnePlus 5T does pass the bend test from both sides.
Other than the lack of water resistance and the lack of wireless charging, this is an
incredibly full featured and useful phone with a price point low enough to benefit the
customer.
I'd be proud to have this phone in my pocket.
The only thing left to find out now is if the red battery is back inside the phone yet.
We'll find out during the tear down.
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I'll have that tear down posted soon.
Thanks a ton for watching and I'll see you around.