OnePlus 5

At a sub-flagship price of Rs. 35,999, OnePlus 5 holds up against the competing flagship models with a great camera and a killer performance. Round-edged and thinner, OnePlus 5 looks forward to staying in the top lists of current flagship phones.

Though it does not offer the freedom to increase storage capacity or flagship water-resistance, OnePlus 5 is a beast of a device. It is a definite go-to phone for people with a tight budget but a dream to play with high-end flagship features in the smartphone market.

Thin, rounded, and handy – the OnePlus 5 brings some significant changes in design. Weighing around 153g, it is light and feels good to hold. It retains the traditional headphone jack and comes with a rich bottom-mounted speaker. It has excellent sound quality, but other flagship models with dual-speaker easily beat it. OnePlus 5 comes with the feature which the company calls ‘Horizon Line’ – the idea being that one half of the phone is shadowed while other half lighted. It makes the phone more elegant-looking.  One shortcoming is the lack of waterproofing. It also comes with moderate bezels leading to lesser screen size. OnePlus 5 does not have a microSD slot – so you have to rely on the storage offered by the company.

OnePlus 5 does not bring in major modifications to their display. Like the OnePlus 3T, you get a 5.5-inch Full HD AMOLED display. The AMOLED screen looks sharp with dark tones and black stripes looking deep and immersive. But the biggest downer is that OnePlus 5 does not come with QHD resolution. The peak brightness is capped at 394 nits, much lower than 437 nits of Galaxy S8 and 396 of Pixel XL.The bezels bring a decrease in screen space too.

OnePlus 5 beats its competitors easily with intense performance and great graphics. Powered by the recent Snapdragon 835, which is the same as Samsung Galaxy S8 and HTC U11, OnePlus 5 is partnered with either a 6GB and 8GB RAM which does wonders to the performance. Benchmarks scores are proof: it scored an impressive 6,542 against 6,124 of Galaxy S8, despite sporting the same processor. Even the GPU stood a better chance scoring 39,576 against 35,903 of Galaxy S8. Engage in heavy gaming, or put your phone to strenuous tests – OnePlus 5 will pass them with flying colours. It’s smooth and snappy – the perfect combination in a flagship model.

OnePlus 5 brings in the whole new modification in their set for the first time by packing a rear dual camera with it. It sports a primary 16MP camera with a wide aperture of f/1.7 and a 20MP telephoto lens equipped with an aperture of f/2.6. Unlike the Huawei P10, it does not have a monochrome sensor to capture better contrast, but the camera comes with an excellent zoom feature and ability to capture plenty of details without any loss. Both come with Portrait mode coupled with attractive bokeh effects. The primary camera fared better than the secondary camera, especially with 2x zoom which led to a loss of image quality. Samsung S8 beats OnePlus 5 clearly in this aspect. Plus, low-light images suffer a blow by capturing more visual noise, less white balance and washed out details. Samsung S8 does better in all these counts and produces a sharper image. The 16MP selfie cam is a great shooter that captures littlest details and defocuses the background too. But it does not come with the Portrait Mode which is becoming a trend in competing flagships. Video shooting is a joy with multiple quality options: 720p, 1080p, 1080p at 60 frames per second or 4K video recording. However, it does not come with video stabilisation in 4K which might affect the quality.

While the 3,300 mAh battery of OnePlus 5 may seem like a downgrade from the 3,400 mAh of OnePlus 3T, the processing technology is new and consumes a lot less power. Keeping pace with other flagship models, OnePlus holds its own by lasting for a day with moderate use. Continuous web-surfing tests found it last for an excellent 13 hours 6 minutes, putting it in the top list with Galaxy S8+’s 11 hours 4 minutes and Pixel XL’s 11 hours 11 minutes.OnePlus 5’s fast charging tech, called Dash Charge, is remarkable and can pump in juice in the device in no time. 0% to 60% can take a mere 15 minutes – and is enough to last a day.

Power and style – OnePlus 5 has packed all the significant features in the device to best its competition. Though it may limit you with the lack of expandable storage, the phone gives you one the best flagship hardware that will make your experience faster, smoother, and more powerful. It is a bit expensive than the previous OnePlus models, but for those looking to pay a little more to get high-end flagship features, this is the set you’re looking for.