OnePlus 5 Review

Introduction

The new OnePlus 5 is an evolution of a successful formula: it adds a dual camera with Portrait mode and the fastest Android chip around…

The OnePlus 5 is the newest phone by OnePlus, a company that in just three years has fought its way to become one of the recognizable names among flagship makers. It did so by word of mouth and a large group of dedicated fans, standing by its ‘never settle’ motto. Oh yes, and by making flagship-grade phones with top specs at affordable prices.

The OnePlus 5, however, is its most expensive phone, and it’s got an iPhone inspired look and even a similar dual camera on the back.

It is the company’s best and the company’s most controversial phone. Also, it’s the only one it makes, OnePlus’ all-or-nothing bet.

How has it worked out? We have been living with the OnePlus 5 for a while and we’re eager to share our experience. Read on.

In the box:

• Wall charger (5V - 4A)
• USB-C to USB cable
• User manual
• Sim ejector

Design

Beautiful and stylish? Check! Not so much an iPhone once you get to actually use it. Also, alarmingly slippery and lacks water protection.

You have probably seen the pictures: the back of the OnePlus 5 next to the back of the iPhone 7 Plus, all looking pretty much exactly the same. Yes, the resemblance is there and it’s hard to deny where OnePlus draws inspiration from, but once you hold the new OnePlus 5 in your hand you notice that there is far less similarity than those pictures might have convinced you of. The curved back, the accent line around the edges and a few other details make the OnePlus 5 actually feel noticeably different than the iPhone 7 Plus.

Curious fact: Yet still, the OnePlus 5 does not feel fully an original design. It feels like a mash-up. It’s no secret that OnePlus is owned by Chinese giant BBK Electronics, which also owns Oppo and Vivo, two very popular brands in China. And the OnePlus 5 is basically a mixture of those two companies’ flagships. If you live in the US and Europe, you probably have not heard about the Vivo X9 and the Oppo R9s, but if you want to see the OnePlus 5’s ‘mother and father’, just take a look at those two phones. The Vivo X9 is nearly a carbon copy of the OnePlus 5’s design, while the Oppo R9s uses basically the same dual camera setup and fast charging. After you look up those two phones, you will start seeing the OnePlus 5 as a bit of a Frankenstein phone. We know we do.


Now that we have addressed this, let’s say that the OnePlus 5 is a 5.5-inch phone with a 9:16 display, and for its form factor it is a narrow phone that is comfortable to hold, but still definitely far from being single-hand friendly like the new breed of narrow phones with a tall display like the Galaxy S8. The back is curved and an already thin phone becomes even thinner at the edges, which contributes a lot to its ergonomics. Yet, it’s also devilishly slippery, tending to slip out of your pocket easily and while I haven’t dropped it yet, I feel like this is more of an inevitability with the OnePlus 5 than with other phones.

Up front, you have a slightly larger than on earlier OnePlus phones physical home key. That’s also where the fingerprint scanner is. It definitely feels like one of the fastest finger scanners around, it’s nearly instantaneous, impressively zippy.

OnePlus has also gotten the little things right with the ‘5’: the side buttons are made of metal, clicky and easy to press, with nice travel to them. The 3-way mute key on the left has a textured surface, so you can easily find it by touch, without even looking at the phone. The USB-C is properly centered (but still limited to only USB 2.0 speeds), and there’s a 3.5mm audio jack.

There are two big features missing: the OnePlus 5 does not have any special water protection and it does not support wireless charging. OnePlus CEO says water proofing just makes phones thicker and heavier, and adds he’s not convinced it’s ‘a big consumer requirement’. Big or not, we find it a nice convenience and feel the OnePlus 5 would have been an even better phone if it had water protection.

Display

5.5” AMOLED display with a 1080 x 1920-pixel resolution. It looks great.

The OnePlus 5 features a 5.5-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 1080 x 1920 pixels.

The specs-obsessed will be quick to point out that it’s not a Quad HD (1440 x 2560 pixel) display, meaning that it’s less sharp than other 5.5” phones like the Google Pixel XL and the HTC U11. In reality, though, it’s almost impossible to notice the difference in sharpness. For most everyone, the resolution of the OnePlus 5 is more than sufficient and the phone looks sharp enough.

Color defaults to a punchy mode that most users really dig. Everything looks very vivid in this mode, very contrasty, but also somewhat bluish.

OnePlus also includes two ‘pro’ color modes. First, you have the option switch to sRGB colors, where sRGB is the color standard that most cameras these days default to and most content is optimized for. Colors in sRGB look less saturated on the OnePlus 5 and a bit dull compared to the defaults. The bigger issue here is that whites appear a bit too green, so we cannot fully recommend using this option. The OnePlus 5 display also has a new DCI-P3 color option. This is a newly implemented color standard on phones, one that the iPhone 7 supports as well. Colors here are slightly more saturated, wider than sRGB, but we again notice that whites tend to appear greenish. So at the end of the day, we stick to the default color mode on the OnePlus 5, which might not be the most accurate, but we find the most pleasing. You can find more details in the charts right below.

In terms of brightness, this is not the brightest one out there. This is an issue when you use the phone outdoors, especially now in summertime when the sun is bright -- it’s hard to see what’s on the screen.

We should also note that the screen is now protected by Gorilla Glass 5 on the OnePlus 5, which is more durable than on earlier OnePlus phones. Kudos to OnePlus for that.

Interface and Functionality

Mostly the same-as-before, clean Android experience with focus on speed. We noticed some bugs in critical apps like Facebook, though.

The OnePlus 5 features a clean Android interface that the company calls OxygenOS.

The keywords here are “speed” and “no bloat”. Indeed, the OxygenOS is an exemplary interface with the useful customization options that it provides and with its focus on being... wicked fast. It is also built on top of Android 7.1.1 Nougat, a modern Android build. OnePlus has a somewhat sketchy history with Android updates, but it promised to change last year when it launched the OnePlus 3. So far, it has lived up to its promises with timely updates that address key issues, so we have no reasons to doubt its commitment to the OnePlus 5 as well.

There are very few new features in this latest OxygenOS: the big one is the swipe-up app drawer, similar to the one on Pixel phones. It’s a much more convenient, coherent way to access your apps. There is a new ‘Reading mode’ as well, that turns your screen to grayscale and increases sharpness, which should make reading off your phone easier on the eyes. It’s nowhere near as good as an ebook reader like the Kindle, but it indeed helps with eye strain.

Other neat little new features include a ‘do not disturb’ mode for gaming where an accidental press of a button will not quit a game, a new ‘secure box’ for your private files, expanded screenshots and auto night mode triggers.

For all else, the interface is the same as before. You can set quick shortcuts to open particular actions when you double press or long press the home, recents or back button (go into Settings > Buttons for that). For instance, we’ve now set our OnePlus 5 to lock with a long press of the home screen. You can also switch the recents and back keys your way (some think the back key should be on the left, while others like it on the right). Want to use on-screen navigation keys? You can enable that as well. This is an example of useful, great customization that we would love to see on other Android phones.

There is also a welcome Dark mode for the interface (go into Settings > Customizations to enable it). It turns all the backgrounds in settings and the app drawer dark, which is easier on the eyes at night, but also helps save battery life.

It’s not all roses, though. The OnePlus feels incredibly fast without feeling fluid. We would have liked a bit smoother transitions, and they are just not there.

One issue that spoiled the great experience was with the Facebook app. Scrolling the news feed feels jittery and slow. There were bugs with images: when you try rotating the phone horizontally, Facebook images would not rotate properly and you would need to pinch to zoom in and try to see them in full size. Those issues are frustrating, especially when it comes to an app that many people spend hours in, and we hope OnePlus works this out.

Processor, Performance and Memory

The Snapdragon 835 coupled with fast UFS 2.1 storage and proper optimization makes the OnePlus 5 fly. Also, 8 gigs of RAM because… why not?

There are two ways to look at the OnePlus 5: on one hand, at $500, the OnePlus 5 is the most expensive OnePlus phone ever. On the other, it’s also the cheapest phone with the Snapdragon 835 currently available.

Whichever way you look at it, the fact that you have the latest and greatest Snapdragon 835 is important: it’s the fastest Android chip around and it is the only one built on the most advanced, 10 nm manufacturing node, meaning that it draws less power while providing more punch.

In addition, the OnePlus 5 features the newer UFS 2.1 type of storage, which is slightly faster than UFS 2.0 storage and much faster than older MMC storage. In practical terms, UFS 2.1 storage ensures that apps will not only load fast, but app installs will be faster and everything on the phone will get a speed boost.

The OnePlus 5 does not feel as fluid as the Google Pixel, the gold standard on Android these days, but it does feel surprisingly fast.

The OnePlus 5 still does not support a microSD card memory expansion slot, but with 64GB of storage in the base model, we don’t feel like this is a major omission. You also have a slightly costlier 128GB OnePlus 5 version, in case you need that extra storage.

The 128 GB 'Midnight Black' version also bumps the RAM from 6 gigs in the base model to 8GB of RAM. This is a first on a mainstream phone and while most users will not notice it, 8 gigs of RAM does mean that you can have a few games and a dozen of Chrome tabs open simultaneously. There are no issues with RAM management as on earlier OnePlus phones either.

Internet and Connectivity

More 4G LTE bands than ever make the OnePlus 5 a true global phone.

The OnePlus 5 ships with Google’s Chrome as the default and only browser on board. By now, Google Chrome is the go-to browser for most people: it’s speedy, syncs effortlessly across devices and is comfortable to use. And it loads pages impressively quickly on the OnePlus 5.

The OnePlus 5 is still not CDMA-carrier compatible: it will not work on Verizon Wireless and Sprint in the United States (it does work effortlessly on AT&T and T-Mobile, though).

This, however, does not mean that OnePlus is sitting still in terms of connectivity: the 5 comes with support for a whopping 34 frequencies, making it a truly global 4G LTE phone. Here is the full list LTE bands the OnePlus 5 supports:

• FDD LTE: Band 1/2/3/4/5/7/8/12/17/18/19/20/25/26/28/29/30/66
• TDD LTE: Band 38/39/40/41

In terms of other connectivity option, you also have dual-channel Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.0 with aptX and aptX HD support, and NFC support.

Camera

The OnePlus 5 camera is fine, but not quite a home run. It’s impressively fast both to start and focus, but images turn out with a lot less detail than on the 3T. New ‘Portrait mode’ is a good start.

Call Quality

Call quality on the OnePlus 5 is solid. We had no issues on both ends: voices in the earpiece are sufficiently loud and clear, easy to recognize with their natural tonality, and the mic output is also crisp and clear, so callers on the other end will not have any problems hearing you.

Battery life

The OnePlus 5 battery life is solid, without beating any records: expect to get through even busier days on a single charge, but not more.

The OnePlus 5 features a 3,300mAh, non-removable battery, a slightly smaller one than the 3,400mAh cell on the 3T.

However, with the power-efficient Snapdragon 835 and the non-excessively energy consuming Full HD display, the OnePlus 5 will get you through even those busier, longer days. It’s not quite in two day territory, though. And that’s more than your average phone, so we can safely say that battery life is very good. In real life we get between four and five hours of screen-on time, depending on usage.


The OnePlus 5 also aced our custom battery test beating most flagships and ranking on par with the excellent iPhone 7 Plus. It scored 9 hours and 18 minutes, significantly improving over earlier OnePlus phones.

Then, there is Dash Charge. OnePlus’ proprietary fast charging solution allows you to fully recharge your phone in less than 1 hour and 40 minutes. Its key advantage over others, though, is that it maintains fast charge speeds even when you charge while using your phone. OnePlus says that you get a day’s power in half an hour, and we found that a half-hour charge will indeed juice up the phone to more than 50%. Keep in mind, though, that you need to use the wall charger and the red USB-C cable that come in the box, Dash Charge will not work with third-party accessories.

Price and alternatives

Things are different for OnePlus now. From the ‘Never Settle’ start-up that used to make super affordable phones to… the OnePlus 5. To illustrate the change at OnePlus, here is how pricing has changed throughout the years:

• OnePlus One: $300 for 16GB, $350 for 64GB
• OnePlus Two: $330 for 16GB, $390 for 64GB
• OnePlus 3: $400 for 64GB
• OnePlus 3T: $440 for 64GB, $480 for 128GB
• OnePlus 5: $480 for 64GB, $520 for 128GB

At this price, the OnePlus 5 might be the most expensive OnePlus phone, but it is also the cheapest phone with the Snapdragon 835 chip out there. There’s two ways to look at it. It’s still noticeably cheaper than most flagships, and it’s even cheaper than last year’s flagships. Here is how the price of the OnePlus 5 compares to direct rivals:

• OnePlus 5: $480 for 64GB model
• Pixel XL: $770 for a 32GB model
• iPhone 7 Plus: $770 for a 32GB model
• iPhone 6s Plus: $650 for a 32GB model
• Galaxy S8: $725 for a 32GB model
• LG G6: $700 (currently sold at $600)
• HTC U11: $650

So it’s clear that despite the price hike, the OnePlus 5 is still one of the best value-for-the-money offers out there.

Your alternatives?

All the above phones, if you are looking for similar firepower and the Snapdragon 835 chip. If you start looking at the same prices, you will have to make do with less powerful devices like the Moto Z2 Play, a $500 phone with slightly better battery, but a less ambitious camera and a weaker, Snapdragon 626 system chip.

We would also look at the more affordable iPhones: the iPhone 6s and/or the iPhone SE if you are fine with their smaller sizes. These phones offer similarly powerful processors, timely updates and excellent software, but battery life is less impressive.

Conclusion

Update: Read our OnePlus 5T review!