Not many smartphones are subjected to so many leaks that the OnePlus 5 went through before its launch. The highly-anticipated smartphone went official today with many of its leaks and rumours turning out to be correct. Here is a detailed look at the phone, but this time it would be based on the official information.
The Design
Let’s first jump into the design of the phone which was much talked about even before today’s launch. From the front, you will recognise the phone to be a OnePlus device because of its resemblance to the OnePlus 3/3T but with more rounded corners. It’s the back that got some visible changes, which many argue to be inspired from the iPhone 7 Plus.
There is no denying that OnePlus 5 won’t be getting any award for the most innovative design. But the phone manages to be quite ergonomic with all the extra curves that the OnePlus’ design team added. Still, anyone looking at the OnePlus 5 for the first time will notice how similar this phone and the iPhone 7 Plus are, especially in the Midnight Black colour.
Leaving the design aspect aside for once, it’s on the inside that matters the most and boy, OnePlus nailed it! Carl Pei said during the launch event; a better experience should sit above the phone’s specifications in your priority list. But OnePlus did justice to both the aspects of a smartphone, in most of the departments.
The Camera
OnePlus 5’s camera was the most talked about aspect during the number of leaks were at their highest, and I will also talk about it the first. Everyone already knew that the next flagship from the Chinese company would sport a dual camera setup, but not much detail was known. The company has now revealed that the main camera will have a resolution of 16MP, while the telephoto camera will be of 20MP.
The company went a step ahead and got itself a custom-made camera sensor from Sony called IMX398. With its 1.12-micron pixels and f/1.7 aperture, the camera unit is said to capture 34 percent more light than the OnePlus 3T. The telephoto camera has a Sony IMX350 sensor with 1-micron pixels and f/2.6 aperture.
The advantage of having two cameras placed side by side is that you will get a better bokeh effect and the camera will be able to provide lossless optical zoom of up to 2x. OnePlus also mentioned the phone to offer a faster autofocus with the two camera units. Smart Capture was introduced for a smarter auto mode while there is also a Pro Mode that lets you control all the aspects of your photo. With dual LED flash on the side, the rear camera can capture 4K video with EIS.
A 16MP camera unit also sits on the front with a 1-micron pixel Sony IMX371 sensor. It can capture 1080p videos and screen flash is also a feature now along with an Auto HDR mode.
The Performance
Snapdragon 835 is the most powerful piece of silicon to be ever made by Qualcomm, and that’s going to power this OnePlus 5. This processor, along with its Adreno 540 GPU will give up to 25 percent better graphics performance, as per the company. The octa-core processor comes clocked at 2.45GHz.
And for the RAM, the OnePlus 5 is one of the very few smartphones to come with a massive 8GB of RAM. OnePlus 5 will be coming in two variants – one with 6GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage and the other one with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage. The storage has also been improved with the use of UFS 2.1 which has two-lane Rom giving you double the bandwidth.
The best part is that OnePlus used an LPDDR4X RAM, which the company claims to be 17 percent faster than the LPDDR4 memory. The feature called App Priority will allow the phone to better manage the RAM and give you a much smoother experience. The feature is all about giving the most used apps a higher priority than the ones you don’t use much.
Regarding battery, OnePlus has actually reduced the battery capacity from 3400mAh in the OnePlus 3T to 3300mAh in the OnePlus 5. But the company says that it has managed to improve the battery life by 20 percent when compared to its predecessors using “hardware and software optimisations”.
The display on the phone is an Optic AMOLED with the same 5.5-inch size and a 1080p resolution. It supports sRGB and DCI-P3 colour standards and comes protected by 2.5D Gorilla Glass 5. The fingerprint scanner sits below the display that can unlock the phone in 0.2 seconds and has capacitive navigation keys on the either side.
OnePlus 5 ships with Oxygen OS running over the latest Android 7.1.1 Nougat. The OS comes with a handful of improvements over the previous version like the new Reading Mode, redesigned app drawer, and expanded screenshots.
The OnePlus 5 is also relatively rich in terms of connectivity, and the company calls it a “true world phone” because of its support for 34 GSM network bands. It supports 4G VoLTE, along with Wi-Fi 802.11 ac, Bluetooth 5.0, NFC, GPS, USB Type-C 2.0, and other basic sensors. The phone retains the 3.5mm headphone jack with its thickness of just 7.25mm.
The Price
OnePlus has announced the official pricing for the US and some European markets. The base variant with 64Gb storage has been priced at $479, while the 128GB variant will cost you $539. The phone is already up for pre-order in the two regions and will start shipping on June 21. The rest of the world will see the sales of OnePlus 5 starting on June 27. India has already been confirmed to get a separate launch event on June 22, and the phone will go on sale the same day as an Amazon Exclusive.
