ONEPLUS 5 THE DARK KNIGHT WITH CHINK IN THE ARMOR.

OnePlus a start-up founded on 16 December 2013 came with simple, bold idea to make a better phone that not just a phone but a flagship phone. The company's main goal was to design a smart phone that would balance high-end quality with a lower price than other phones in its class, believing that users would "Never Settle" for the lower-quality devices produced by other companies. OnePlus has shrugged off other Chinese handset makers’ strategy of targeting the budget smart phone segment.

OnePlus came out with pretty amazing devices named “OnePlus One”, “OnePlus 2”, “OnePlus X”, “OnePlus 3”, “OnePlus 3T” and “OnePlus 5”. Company skipped number 4 as it is considered ill-fated in some East Asian cultures (mainland China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan etc.)

Coming to OnePlus 5 which has gained a lot of hype around it, a product having price of mid-range smart phone packing the features specs of a flagship, is selling like hot cakes. Is it worth our money, let's find out?

DESIGN

We cannot say OnePlus came with an innovative design with its OnePlus 5. The device is having dimensions “154.2 x 74.1 x 7.25 mm (6.07 x 2.92 x 0.29 in)” and weighs “153 g”. The 7.25mm device is one of the thinnest device around in the market. Design-wise, the aluminum unibody features a continuous line around the edge of the phone. The rear of the device appears to be mirror image of Apple iPhone 7 Plus (Just a difference of brand logo). The antenna lines, moved to the extreme top and bottom, are subtler than the previous OnePlus device. The power button is placed on the right, next to the ejectable dual-SIM tray, while the volume rocker keys and alert slider sit on the left side of the device.

DISPLAY

OnePlus carried forward same displayed which we saw in OnePlus 3T having a 5.5-inch Optic AMOLED screen covered with Gorilla Glass 5. The screen continues to be a full-HD unit with 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution having 401 ppi pixel density. Apart from this it comes with software based tweaks having reading mode, which adapts the screen tone automatically to suit the ambience and DCI-P3 color gamut filter certainly adds to the overall screen performance.

HARDWARE

OnePlus devices are known for using the best-in-class hardware and they carried forward the legacy with OnePlus 5. The smartphone is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor, which has Snapdragon X16 LTE modem to support data speeds of up to 1 Giga-bit per second (Gbps), coupled with an Adreno 540 graphic processing unit (GPU). The smartphone comes with two storage and RAM variants – 64 GB/6 GB and 128 GB/8 GB. Both support dual-lane Universal Flash Storage (UFS) 2.1 for superior performance.

The OnePlus 5 feels lightning fast with no visible lag. The device can easily be called a powerhouse that performs blazing fast, irrespective of the task assigned to it.

SOFTWARE

The OnePlus 5 runs the Android Nougat v7.1.1 operating system, covered under Oxygen OS 4.5.2 out of the box. Oxygen OS gives pure Android experience with powerful enhancements. The OS feels fluid and swift. The company has added some new features to the ‘Oxygen OS’, such as a Google Pixel-like app drawer that can be accessed from any window by swiping up the screen.

CAMERA

The OnePlus 5 sport a dual-camera set-up– 16-megapixel and 20 MP dual cameras at the rear – and a 16 MP camera at the front. The 16 MP camera at rear, features a bright aperture of f/1.7 and the 20 MP supports an f/2.6 aperture. Both the sensors are made by Sony. The cameras support portrait mode, which focuses on the subject and blurs the background, which was key feature of Apple iPhone 7 Plus.

Posted by Vikramjot Singh July 04, 2017
ONEPLUS 5 THE DARK KNIGHT WITH CHINK IN THE ARMOR.
OnePlus a start-up founded on 16 December 2013 came with simple, bold idea to make a better phone that not just a phone but a flagship phone. The company's main goal was to design a smart phone that would balance high-end quality with a lower price than other phones in its class, believing that users would "Never Settle" for the lower-quality devices produced by other companies. OnePlus has shrugged off other Chinese handset makers’ strategy of targeting the budget smart phone segment.

OnePlus came out with pretty amazing devices named “OnePlus One”, “OnePlus 2”, “OnePlus X”, “OnePlus 3”, “OnePlus 3T” and “OnePlus 5”. Company skipped number 4 as it is considered ill-fated in some East Asian cultures (mainland China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan etc.)

Coming to OnePlus 5 which has gained a lot of hype around it, a product having price of mid-range smart phone packing the features specs of a flagship, is selling like hot cakes. Is it worth our money, let's find out?

DESIGN

We cannot say OnePlus came with an innovative design with its OnePlus 5. The device is having dimensions “154.2 x 74.1 x 7.25 mm (6.07 x 2.92 x 0.29 in)” and weighs “153 g”. The 7.25mm device is one of the thinnest device around in the market. Design-wise, the aluminum unibody features a continuous line around the edge of the phone. The rear of the device appears to be mirror image of Apple iPhone 7 Plus (Just a difference of brand logo). The antenna lines, moved to the extreme top and bottom, are subtler than the previous OnePlus device. The power button is placed on the right, next to the ejectable dual-SIM tray, while the volume rocker keys and alert slider sit on the left side of the device.

DISPLAY

OnePlus carried forward same displayed which we saw in OnePlus 3T having a 5.5-inch Optic AMOLED screen covered with Gorilla Glass 5. The screen continues to be a full-HD unit with 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution having 401 ppi pixel density. Apart from this it comes with software based tweaks having reading mode, which adapts the screen tone automatically to suit the ambience and DCI-P3 color gamut filter certainly adds to the overall screen performance.

HARDWARE

OnePlus devices are known for using the best-in-class hardware and they carried forward the legacy with OnePlus 5. The smartphone is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor, which has Snapdragon X16 LTE modem to support data speeds of up to 1 Giga-bit per second (Gbps), coupled with an Adreno 540 graphic processing unit (GPU). The smartphone comes with two storage and RAM variants – 64 GB/6 GB and 128 GB/8 GB. Both support dual-lane Universal Flash Storage (UFS) 2.1 for superior performance.

The OnePlus 5 feels lightning fast with no visible lag. The device can easily be called a powerhouse that performs blazing fast, irrespective of the task assigned to it.

SOFTWARE

The OnePlus 5 runs the Android Nougat v7.1.1 operating system, covered under Oxygen OS 4.5.2 out of the box. Oxygen OS gives pure Android experience with powerful enhancements. The OS feels fluid and swift. The company has added some new features to the ‘Oxygen OS’, such as a Google Pixel-like app drawer that can be accessed from any window by swiping up the screen.

CAMERA

The OnePlus 5 sport a dual-camera set-up– 16-megapixel and 20 MP dual cameras at the rear – and a 16 MP camera at the front. The 16 MP camera at rear, features a bright aperture of f/1.7 and the 20 MP supports an f/2.6 aperture. Both the sensors are made by Sony. The cameras support portrait mode, which focuses on the subject and blurs the background, which was key feature of Apple iPhone 7 Plus.

Photos taken with OnePlus 5 are well detailed, sharp without being over sharpened and color reproduction is more on the natural side and not overly saturated. It also supports telephoto zoom, It is combination of optical zoom and software: “Optical zoom is at 1.6x, the remaining 0.4x is realized through Smart Capture multiframe technology.”

The camera is capable of recording 4K video, and EIS (electronic image stabilization) does a decent job at smoothening out any unwanted shakes and jitters. You can switch to the secondary sensor while recording, to get closer to the subject, but as the second sensor lacks any form of stabilization so you will have to compromise the quality of footage.

BATTERY LIFE

OnePlus 5 takes one step backward from OnePlus3T from much larger 3400mAh to 3300mAh. One cannot blame OnePlus for it as you have to compromise something for thinner design.

The 3300mAh battery last for almost a day with moderate to heavy usage thanks to Snapdragon 835, Full HD display and much lighter Oxygen OS.

If you are insane user then the good news is that OnePlus Dash Charge is absolutely amazing. It takes only 30 minutes to get a 60% charge, and roughly an hour and 20 minutes to go from empty to full. The Quick charging here is insanely fast and power efficient, making the charging process so much easier and convenient.

VERDICT

OnePlus 5 is an insane device having a true flagship features at a midrange price but they took a step back in design perspective and it isn’t going to please everyone. Also it’s missing a few features like expandable storage and water resistance.

As they say nothing is perfect and I can surely say that OnePlus 5 is bang for buck. All the features you are getting at an insane price. It will cost $479/€499/inr32999 for 64 GB/6 GB and $539/€559/inr37999 for 128 GB/8 GB.

At the end I feel that the OnePlus 5 is a superb device and I wholeheartedly recommend it. What do you think of OnePlus latest flagship? Let me know your thoughts down in the comments.