One Plus 5
The headline feature here is an interesting dual-camera setup on the back, but in typical OnePlus fashion there's a serious amount of power and the option of a frankly ridiculous 8GB of RAM.
For £449/$479, the OnePlus 5 is a fantastic deal, but the higher price necessitates a more critical look at some of its shortcomings. There are a few missing features and some odd omissions, but this is still one of the best tech bargains.
Looking at the OnePlus 5, it’s hard to believe that the company that made it is less than four years old. This is a phone that manages to hold its own alongside flagship devices from companies that have enormous pots of money to spend on research, development and design, and a decade or more of experience making smartphones.
Yet OnePlus has managed to make one of the best phones of 2017, and keep the price lower than most of the competition.
OnePlus has always made impressive phones at sub-flagship prices, but with this iteration the Chinese company has learned from previous mistakes, and built on its successes, to create an all-round fantastic phone.
ONEPLUS 5 DESIGN
The OnePlus 5 is a really good-looking phone, but it’s not the most original. The back reminds me of an slightly curvier matte-black iPhone 7 Plus, right down to the camera arrangement, the blended antenna lines and even the flash. The front is pretty much the same as those of the outgoing OnePlus 3 and 3T, which is no bad thing, but in a world of the Essential Phone and LG G6 it feels a bit old-fashioned.
It feels light in the hand – it weighs 153g to be precise – but not so light that you feel like it may blow away in a forceful gust of wind.
OnePlus is talking up the placement of the antenna bands here. According to a spokesperson the color has been specifically designed to try and hide the antenna bands for an unspoiled full-metal look, and when you do spot them they don't detract from the design of the phone.
ONEPLUS 5 SCREEN
The big headline display-wise is that OnePlus hasn’t decided to upgrade to a QHD resolution screen for the OnePlus 5 at all. Nope, not a sausage.
That means you get the same 5.5-inch Full HD AMOLED display from the OnePlus 3T, and it is a little hard not to be disappointed by that considering the increase in price of the handset this year.
Of course, OnePlus needs to cut a couple of corners to keep its price tag competitively below its rivals, and to be fair the screen is one of the very few places where it's decided to make a saving.
The display now covers the wide DCI-P3 colour gamut, like the iPhone 7 and Galaxy S8, and this is my preferred colour profile. It gives colours more of a punch, without oversaturating, and there’s more variety in the shades. There’s an sRGB mode too that removes a bit of the punch, and a Default mode that feels to me a bit too colourful.
The good news is that the screen on the OnePlus 5 still looks beautiful. It’s a shame the company hasn’t opted for a higher resolution, but at 401 pixels per inch it looks great when you’re watching video, and as it’s AMOLED, blacks and other dark tones look great.
ONEPLUS 5 PERFORMANCE
OnePlus has managed to pack in the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 system-on-a-chip here, which we’ve seen in the HTC U11, Sony Xperia XZ Premium and some versions of the Samsung Galaxy S8.
This is processing power at the top of its game. Whether you’ll notice the difference between last-generation processing power and what’s in the OnePlus 5 on a daily basis remains to be seen, but make no mistake: this is a very powerful phone
The Snapdragon 835 runs the show, and it’s a very good SoC. Along with being speedy, it’s efficient and each phone that’s powered by it does get better battery life. There’s the Adreno 540 GPU, which can comfortably handle any 3D game on Google Play, and there’s super-fast UFS 2.1 storage that helps load times. You can choose between a 64GB and 128GB model, but pick wisely as there’s no expandable storage.
Any game you want to run on this device will work smoothly, and most importantly fast. We ran some demanding apps, including, as mentioned, Real Racing 3, and the OnePlus 5 handled them with ease.
ONEPLUS 5 CAMERA
Perhaps OnePlus’s crowning glory, the camera has been through a number of improvements for the OnePlus 5. OnePlus has been criticized in the past for its lack of innovation in this area, and it’s now delivered.
The biggest change here : there are now two lenses instead of one. They’re laid out on the back just like those on the iPhone 7 Plus, slightly raised from the body, and they even function in a similar way to the cameras on Apple’s flagship.
The main camera lens has a super-wide aperture of f/1.7, which ensures that photos are bright without being overexposed. The telephoto lens then has an aperture of f/2.6.
There’s so much packed into this camera, and while some bits aren’t great, there’s a lot to like.
The high megapixel count captures very detailed shots that are full of colour and vibrancy, while the wide aperture on the main lens allows for more light to hit the sensor when it’s dark.
Both low-light and daytime pictures look really good, though it can struggle with glare when it’s really sunny. The auto-HDR mode does help here, levelling out the exposure and contrast without making it too obvious.
The OnePlus 5 rear camera also comes with a Portrait mode, which allows you to get beautiful shots of people using the two-lens setup. It means you can place your subject in the foreground of the image and then blur out the background, complete with attractive 'bokeh' effects.
This is especially useful when you’re taking shots of people, but you can use it on objects as well. It allows you to create some interesting effects.
ONEPLUS 5 BATTERY LIFE
Battery life is one of the few areas where a flagship phone can stand out from its rivals in 2017, and the OnePlus 5 needs to be able to survive at least a full day on a single charge.Ever since the Note 7 started combusting, it seems that advances in battery tech and capacity have taken a back seat.
It’s a similar story for the OnePlus 5. The non-removable 3300mAh battery is bigger than that of the OnePlus 3, but 100mAh smaller than the one in the OnePlus 3T. Thanks to the improved efficiency of the Snapdragon 835 processor, though, battery life is about on par with its predecessor.
The processing tech used inside this phone is newer though, and much more efficient in terms of power consumption, and we think you’ll notice that in day to day battery life.
OnePlus isn’t offering the best battery life on the market here, but it’s a similar level to most of the flagship competition, and unless you’re a power user you’ll probably get through a whole day of using the OnePlus 5 and still have a little leftover before you plug in overnight.
Conclusion
The OnePlus 5 features everything most of the other flagship phones right now have, but at a lower price than most of those handsets.
Even though at £449/$479 the OnePlus 5 is the most expensive entry in the series yet, it still is undeniably one of the biggest bargains in tech. Considering varieties of the iPhone 7 and Samsung Galaxy S8 can cost up to £400 more, it really does feel like OnePlus is onto another winner.
It doesn't have the fantastic audio quality of the HTC U11, or the Infinity Display and Iris scanner of the Galaxy S8 or Galaxy S8 Plus, but it does pack great power, a versatile camera system and an attractive design.
Still, no phone is perfect and the benefits here are easy to see. Dash Charging is great, the improved P3 colour gamut is welcome and OxygenOS is fantastic. Plus the camera is fast and reliable.
If you want a phone that can do everything well, but which doesn't cost as much as most of the other big name handsets, it's hard not to recommend the OnePlus 5.
The OnePlus 5 is simply stellar.
With the OnePlus 3, the Chinese 'start-up' finally made a phone that was nearly perfect. There's no OnePlus 4 this year, but instead the OnePlus 5 takes things up another level with a seriously packed spec sheet – and a higher price.
The headline feature here is an interesting dual-camera setup on the back, but in typical OnePlus fashion there's a serious amount of power and the option of a frankly ridiculous 8GB of RAM.
For £449/$479, the OnePlus 5 is a fantastic deal, but the higher price necessitates a more critical look at some of its shortcomings. There are a few missing features and some odd omissions, but this is still one of the best tech bargains.
Looking at the OnePlus 5, it’s hard to believe that the company that made it is less than four years old. This is a phone that manages to hold its own alongside flagship devices from companies that have enormous pots of money to spend on research, development and design, and a decade or more of experience making smartphones.
Yet OnePlus has managed to make one of the best phones of 2017, and keep the price lower than most of the competition.
OnePlus has always made impressive phones at sub-flagship prices, but with this iteration the Chinese company has learned from previous mistakes, and built on its successes, to create an all-round fantastic phone.
ONEPLUS 5 DESIGN
The OnePlus 5 is a really good-looking phone, but it’s not the most original. The back reminds me of an slightly curvier matte-black iPhone 7 Plus, right down to the camera arrangement, the blended antenna lines and even the flash. The front is pretty much the same as those of the outgoing OnePlus 3 and 3T, which is no bad thing, but in a world of the Essential Phone and LG G6 it feels a bit old-fashioned.
It feels light in the hand – it weighs 153g to be precise – but not so light that you feel like it may blow away in a forceful gust of wind.
OnePlus is talking up the placement of the antenna bands here. According to a spokesperson the color has been specifically designed to try and hide the antenna bands for an unspoiled full-metal look, and when you do spot them they don't detract from the design of the phone.
ONEPLUS 5 SCREEN
The big headline display-wise is that OnePlus hasn’t decided to upgrade to a QHD resolution screen for the OnePlus 5 at all. Nope, not a sausage.
That means you get the same 5.5-inch Full HD AMOLED display from the OnePlus 3T, and it is a little hard not to be disappointed by that considering the increase in price of the handset this year.
Of course, OnePlus needs to cut a couple of corners to keep its price tag competitively below its rivals, and to be fair the screen is one of the very few places where it's decided to make a saving.
The display now covers the wide DCI-P3 colour gamut, like the iPhone 7 and Galaxy S8, and this is my preferred colour profile. It gives colours more of a punch, without oversaturating, and there’s more variety in the shades. There’s an sRGB mode too that removes a bit of the punch, and a Default mode that feels to me a bit too colourful.
The good news is that the screen on the OnePlus 5 still looks beautiful. It’s a shame the company hasn’t opted for a higher resolution, but at 401 pixels per inch it looks great when you’re watching video, and as it’s AMOLED, blacks and other dark tones look great.
ONEPLUS 5 PERFORMANCE
OnePlus has managed to pack in the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 system-on-a-chip here, which we’ve seen in the HTC U11, Sony Xperia XZ Premium and some versions of the Samsung Galaxy S8.
This is processing power at the top of its game. Whether you’ll notice the difference between last-generation processing power and what’s in the OnePlus 5 on a daily basis remains to be seen, but make no mistake: this is a very powerful phone
The Snapdragon 835 runs the show, and it’s a very good SoC. Along with being speedy, it’s efficient and each phone that’s powered by it does get better battery life. There’s the Adreno 540 GPU, which can comfortably handle any 3D game on Google Play, and there’s super-fast UFS 2.1 storage that helps load times. You can choose between a 64GB and 128GB model, but pick wisely as there’s no expandable storage.
Any game you want to run on this device will work smoothly, and most importantly fast. We ran some demanding apps, including, as mentioned, Real Racing 3, and the OnePlus 5 handled them with ease.
Perhaps OnePlus’s crowning glory, the camera has been through a number of improvements for the OnePlus 5. OnePlus has been criticized in the past for its lack of innovation in this area, and it’s now delivered.
The biggest change here : there are now two lenses instead of one. They’re laid out on the back just like those on the iPhone 7 Plus, slightly raised from the body, and they even function in a similar way to the cameras on Apple’s flagship.
The main camera lens has a super-wide aperture of f/1.7, which ensures that photos are bright without being overexposed. The telephoto lens then has an aperture of f/2.6.
There’s so much packed into this camera, and while some bits aren’t great, there’s a lot to like.
The high megapixel count captures very detailed shots that are full of colour and vibrancy, while the wide aperture on the main lens allows for more light to hit the sensor when it’s dark.
Both low-light and daytime pictures look really good, though it can struggle with glare when it’s really sunny. The auto-HDR mode does help here, levelling out the exposure and contrast without making it too obvious.
The OnePlus 5 rear camera also comes with a Portrait mode, which allows you to get beautiful shots of people using the two-lens setup. It means you can place your subject in the foreground of the image and then blur out the background, complete with attractive 'bokeh' effects.
This is especially useful when you’re taking shots of people, but you can use it on objects as well. It allows you to create some interesting effects.
ONEPLUS 5 BATTERY LIFE
Battery life is one of the few areas where a flagship phone can stand out from its rivals in 2017, and the OnePlus 5 needs to be able to survive at least a full day on a single charge.Ever since the Note 7 started combusting, it seems that advances in battery tech and capacity have taken a back seat.
It’s a similar story for the OnePlus 5. The non-removable 3300mAh battery is bigger than that of the OnePlus 3, but 100mAh smaller than the one in the OnePlus 3T. Thanks to the improved efficiency of the Snapdragon 835 processor, though, battery life is about on par with its predecessor.
The processing tech used inside this phone is newer though, and much more efficient in terms of power consumption, and we think you’ll notice that in day to day battery life.
OnePlus isn’t offering the best battery life on the market here, but it’s a similar level to most of the flagship competition, and unless you’re a power user you’ll probably get through a whole day of using the OnePlus 5 and still have a little leftover before you plug in overnight.
Conclusion
The OnePlus 5 features everything most of the other flagship phones right now have, but at a lower price than most of those handsets.
Even though at £449/$479 the OnePlus 5 is the most expensive entry in the series yet, it still is undeniably one of the biggest bargains in tech. Considering varieties of the iPhone 7 and Samsung Galaxy S8 can cost up to £400 more, it really does feel like OnePlus is onto another winner.
It doesn't have the fantastic audio quality of the HTC U11, or the Infinity Display and Iris scanner of the Galaxy S8 or Galaxy S8 Plus, but it does pack great power, a versatile camera system and an attractive design.
Still, no phone is perfect and the benefits here are easy to see. Dash Charging is great, the improved P3 colour gamut is welcome and OxygenOS is fantastic. Plus the camera is fast and reliable.
If you want a phone that can do everything well, but which doesn't cost as much as most of the other big name handsets, it's hard not to recommend the OnePlus 5.
Not as cheap as previous OnePlus devices, but you still get a lot for your money here.
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