This Chinese company is a master when it comes to creating a hype around its upcoming smartphones. OnePlus tried to replicate the success of the OnePlus 3 and 3T with the 2017 OnePlus 5 and it did manage to achieve it up to a certain level. The phone also faced a lot of criticism for many of the company’s claims and other issues that surfaced for the early adopters.
OnePlus has clearly stated that it has worked on improving the camera on the OnePlus 5 because the sensor on the last year’s devices didn’t live up the users’ expectations. This year’s flagship doesn’t either, as it omits Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS) which was present in the OnePlus 3T. The OnePlus 5 was launched with a dual-camera setup that was touted as one of the best (on paper) and could provide a better bokeh effect, do a 2x zoom, and a few other gimmicky features.
The phone’s design was earlier said to be copied from the iPhone 7 Plus and it later turned out that the camera app of the OnePlus 5 was also made quite similar to that on Apple devices. While OnePlus may have tried to take features from the iPhone 7 Plus, it couldn’t implement the 2x zoom the way it should be, the feature is seemingly here just to deceive.
Apple iPhone 7 Plus’s 2x zoom using the second camera module is clearly stated to be optical zoom but that’s not the case with the OnePlus 5. Carl Pei informed in a tweet that the claiming 2x lossless zoom and not optical zoom, which, for users, who specifically acquired the phone for the feature, is extremely discouraging! Optically zooming capability of the OnePlus 5 is limited to just 1.6x, while the rest 0.4x is taken care by SmartCapture multi frame technology, in one word, it’s the software.
https://twitter.com/getpeid/status/877582747006517248
Moreover, the bokeh effect is one of the capabilities that the dual-camera setup is meant to offer and the OnePlus 5 can’t handle that either. The images clicked using the OnePlus 5 seem to artificially make the background softer using the software, which certainly isn’t the best way to do it. The flaws can be easily seen towards the edges of the subject in focus. But, since it is a smartphone, the software is probably the only manner to achieve this effect in combination with the dual cameras, thus we have to depend on software updates to improve the quality, just like the iPhone 7 Plus. Fun fact: OnePlus calls it Portrait Mode, like Apple did for iPhone 7 Plus.
Also Read: OnePlus 5 Vs Apple iPhone 7 Plus: Everything at a Glance
In his video, a YouTube user TechAltar has pointed all the goof-ups and fabrications OnePlus has done so far, including its connection with Oppo. For those don’t know, Oppo, the world’s fourth largest smartphone maker and OnePlus are owned by the same Chinese company. Oppo and OnePlus share more technologies than you can even imagine. Just have a look at the Oppo R11 launched just days before OnePlus 5 and notice how similar the two phones look!
According to the video, the OnePlus’ Dash Charging is just a renamed version of Oppo’s VOOC charging system that was launched much before Dash Charge. And when you connect a Dash Charge-enabled OnePlus device to a VOOC charger, the phone displays Dash Charge. OnePlus has continuously mentioned that it is a small company and it doesn’t have the resources to bring the newest tech, which may not be entirely true.
He has talked about many other valid points in the video that you can watch it below:
The point is, OnePlus hasn’t launched a groundbreaking product that brings something new to the table that other smartphones can learn from. The only such phone was the OnePlus One that was truly groundbreaking at that time and it gave the company its identity that it has lost while taking features from other smartphones and packing all of them into one to make their next flagship. Those features are even half-baked but are still used in the phones and marketed as one of the best in the industry. It seems that OnePlus has replaced its invite-based sales system with a hype-based system.
No smartphone is perfect, but the OnePlus 5 certainly isn’t, rather it is far from being perfect. But for the price it is being offered at, the OnePlus isn’t a bad phone at all. In fact, it has proven to be faster than the iPhone 7 Plus in day-to-day activities in many instances and the credit for this goes to the hefty 8GB RAM and its OS. The Oxygen OS is undoubtedly one of the best Android skins out there for offering a ton of customization features without being heavy.
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