OnePlus 5 Review : The smartphone which continues to Never Settle

Three years old Chinese smartphone maker OnePlus which aims to Never Settle has once again launched its latest flagship smartphone or may be we can say the Flagship Killer. It’s been over a month since OnePlus 5 was announced and company is continuously improving it. The smartphone has been launched with a price tag of Rs. 32,999 for 6GB RAM model and Rs. 37,999 for 8GB/128GB model.

So far OnePlus has managed to push regular software updates to its OnePlus 5 smartphone. Since its launch, The device has received around 4-5 software updates in a months time. Every time the update log does talks about the camera and overall improvements of the device. Well this is a good thing from user’s perspective as the manufacturer whose product you are purchasing is actually caring about the device and improving it.

Let’s keep everything aside, and let’s focus on the main part – Review!. We have been using the OnePlus 5 for over a month now, we got the device from the OnePlus team for review purpose. Earlier we have brought you the unboxing and Hands on the device. Today we are bringing you the review of OnePlus 5. We have the 8GB RAM variant with us and we will be reviewing the same.

Let’s see whether the OnePlus 5 follows the company’s tagline “Never Settle”!

OnePlus 5 Review : Design – Familiar yet elegant:

By looking at the OnePlus 5, you can easily say that you have definitely seen the another smartphone with same design language. The phone flaunts familiar design language but despite being familiar design the phone looks elegant. OnePlus 5 comes in Slate Grey and Midnight Black colors and both color options looks stunning and gives premium feel.

OnePlus 5 comes with a dual camera setup on its back side with dual LED flash. On the bottom side of the device, there is 3.5mm audio jack, USB Type-C port and speaker grills. On the right side of OnePlus 5 there is Power button. On the left side, there Volume rocker and profile slider. And on the front side you will find a selfie camera, Display and Fingerprint sensor under its home button.

OnePlus 5 Review – Display:

The Chinese company has not changed the display in its latest flagship smartphone OnePlus 5 and choose to carry forward the same display which was used in the OnePlus 3T. The phone packs a 5.5 inch Full HD Optic AMOLED 2.5D Display which translates to 1920 x 1080 pixels. To protect from scratches, there is a Corning Gorilla Glass 5 on top.

The display hasn’t changed much in the OnePlus 5. This year also the company decided to skip the Quad HD panel on its smartphone and choose the Full HD panel. It might have kept the battery and cost cutting factor in mind while selecting the Full HD panel. Overall the display is good, the viewing angles are also good. The phone does performs well under direct sunlight, the screen is visible under sunlight.

OnePlus has added Reading mode feature on OnePlus 5. With the reading mode enabled, you will feel like you are reading from an original novel or book rather than reading it on a smartphone. The reading mode enables the gray filter on the screen. The mode is automatically activated on reading apps but you can also predefine app or enable it manually from status bar.

[Review] OnePlus 5 – Processor : It is a Dragon house and RAM-house

The phone is a power house when it comes to the performance. OnePlus 5 is powered by a 2.45GHz Octa core Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 Processor. For Graphics the processor is coupled with Adreno 540 GPU. The smartphone comes in 6GB/8GB RAM variants. We can easily call it as RAM-house as well.

OnePlus 5 offers incredible performance. We are using the 8GB RAM variant with us. Whenever we see 8GB RAM on a smartphone, first question which comes to our mind is –

Do we really need a 8GB RAM in smartphone?

The answer to above question can be different for different persons. A user who doesn’t use heavy apps/games, doesn’t need 8GB RAM for sure but for a heavy user, 8GB RAM can be beneficial. OnePlus 5 comes in both 6GB and 8GB RAM variants. It has options for both moderate and heavy users.

We all know that Android is a resource hog, whatever you throw at it, it will use it. So with 8GB RAM, you can relax and use the smartphone without much lags and hangs. With 8GB RAM under the tow, OnePlus 5 offers great performance and it doesn’t lag much.

We cannot say that it doesn’t lag at all, OnePlus 5 does lag but few times only. Many times the app also hangs and can stop working but in that case the manufacturer can do much as it depends on app developer itself. However OnePlus had said that it had optimized Oxygen OS so that the app don’t close invariably. The device handles Multitasking easily and it keeps the app in the memory. You can resume from where you left and start the app/game. The OS is optimized properly so that heavy RAM is used properly.

OnePlus 5 comes with dual lane UFS 2.1 inbuilt storage, which offers fast access and transfer speed. Our device has 128GB inbuilt storage which cannot be expanded. Out the 128GB, you get over 110 gigs for your usage. For moderate to heavy usage, the inbuilt storage is sufficient. With 64GB/128GB inbuilt storage options, we don’t feel the need for expandable storage. The phone does support USB OTG, with which you can transfer the date from OnePlus 5 to external pen drive. You can check out our video to know how you can enable USB OTG support on the device:

OnePlus 5 Review – Camera : Seflie cam is a hit, Dual cam is a hit or miss

With the flagship smartphone from other manufacturer including the iPhone 7 Plus also sports the dual camera setup, so how can the Flagship killer can ignore it. For its 2017 flagship smartphone, OnePlus also chooses the dual camera setup for its main camera. It is the first smartphone from the company to come with this setup. The dual sensor protudes on its back side which are covered by glass. To add proper light the cameras are coupled with dual tone LED flash.

Let’s talk about the specs of the camera first. OnePlus 5 comes with 16 Megapixel Wide-Angle f1.7 Apperture lens and there is a secondary 20 Megapixel f2.6 lens. The main camera is used to capture the images, while the 20MP lens is a telephoto lens which is used to calculate depth information and helps in portrait mode. For selfies, the phone comes with 16 Megapixel front camera.

The dual camera setup for its main is a hit or miss. OnePlus 5 comes with a portrait mode in which you can selectively focus on a  particular object and rest of the background gets blurred. When the portrait mode works, it works like a charm and when it fails, it gives disappointing results. The phone struggles to click amazing pictures when there is low light. Overall the pictures are good but not mind blowing.

OnePlus 5 comes with 1.6x optical and upto 8x digital zoom. When you launch the camera app, it shows 1x in the bottom above shutter button. Clicking on it zooms to 2x. With the help of optical, digital zoom and software optimizations the phone shows lossless picture at 2x zoom. The company also offers Pro mode in which you can tweaks the settings as per your need, but you should have some professional knowledge in order to get the settings right.

Check out the rear camera samples from OnePlus 5:

The device comes with a 16 Megapixel front camera. OnePlus 5 has amazing front camera. The results obtained from the selfie cameras are great. You can enable the timer, which will start once you smile. The smile timer works like it should. This is a good feature for clicking selfies.

OnePlus 5 Review – Connectivity: One Phone for all all countries

The Chinese company has made one variant of smartphone which works in all countries. OnePlus 5 comes with support o 34 network bands which works in almost all countries. It Supports up to DL CAT12/ UL CAT13 (600Mbps/150Mbps). It features 2×2 MIMO, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, 2.4G/5G. It comes with latest Bluetooth 5.0 and has NFC. It has USB 2.0, Type-C port and also has 3.5mm audio jack.

OnePlus 5 comes with dual sim car support. It has dual Nano sim tray. The device comes with fingerprint sensor under its home button. The fingerprint sensor can be configured during initial setup or can be setup later. The Fingerprint scanner on the smartphone is really fast, it can unlock the device in a fraction of seconds.

OnePlus 5 Review – Battery : Dash Charge is really fast

OnePlus Five packs a 3,300 non removable battery. The phone offers average battery life. It can last for a day with moderate usage. The fast charging tech which the company calls as dash charging is really fast. Within a hour of charge, the device can be completely charged. If you are getting late and don’t have much time, then if you plug the device for 15 minutes also then you will have enough juice to make some calls and keep it alive for a day.

The dash charger charges the device with 5V 4A current. One of the major drawback of the technology is that it requires company charger only. The device won’t be charged fast if you connect it with other charge or power bank.

[Review] OnePlus 5 – Software : OxygenOS is similar to Stock OS

Whatever hardware you put in any device won’t be of much use if the software is not optimized properly. So any smartphone need to have a stable yet full of features. OnePlus 5 runs on OxygenOS 4.5 which is based on Android 7 Nougat. It will be updated to Android 8 O once Google releases it officially. The company has been seeding regular software updates to the device. However it is not updating the security patches. The latest Oxygen OS 4.5.6 also has 1 May 2017 security patches only.

The OxygenOS on the OnePlus 5 is similar to Stock OS which is a good thing. It doesn’t comes with bloatware pre-loaded. Only few selected are pre-installed when you first switch on the device. The device has two capcitive buttons of back and app switcher. By default the back button is on left and app switcher on right side. You can swap the buttons from settings.

The company has added new features like gestures, night mode, reading mode, Pocket Mode, Gaming DND, USB OTG support, LED light and others. OnePlus 5 also comes with Quick pay option. In India it supports PayTM for Quick Pay. You need to long press the home button to show bring the PayTM Quick pay options.

The software on the OnePlus 5 is quite stable and the company is regularly pushing software updates to make it even more better. The app management is also very good. The software properly utilizes the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 Processor and huge 8GB RAM.

OnePlus 5 Review – Final Verdict : The phone continuous to Never Settle

As we have already talked about every aspect about the smartphone, now its time to talk about the final verdict. OnePlus 5 has many plus and some minus. The company which started with a moto to launch high end flagship devices at cheap price has been slowly moving towards to the low end premium segment. But still looking at the specs and performs the device offers we think OnePlus 5 continuous to Never Settle.

Even at the asking price of RS. 32,999 for 6GB RAM model, you get too much. You won’t find the incredible hardware at this price point very easily. As per our brief review we think OnePlus 5 is good option for those who are looking to buy a premium smartphone. It is priced at Rs. 32,999 for 6GB/64GB model and Rs. 37,999 for 8GB RAM variant. The smartphone is available via online retailer Amazon and OnePlus online stores in Midnight Black and Slate Grey color options.

How do you like the review of OnePlus 5? Do tell us your thoughts in the comment section below.