The Flagship Killers are back in less than 12 months of the launch of the One Plus 3T. This time though you can see the prices going up when you look back at the launch prices of One Plus One, Two etc. Read below to find out if it really is a flagship killer…
Take it out of the box and you feel you’ve just purchased a OnePlus 3T with the iPhone 7 Plus stuck at the back. The similarity is striking and disappointing in the beginning since One Plus has always been a bit different from the rest of the lot. The Aluminium unibody and curved glass edge from the front give it a rich feel and though it’s a bit slippery, still comfortable to hold.
The 5.5” screen is still full HD, at a time when other manufacturers are pushing for 4K. It still better than what the OnePlus 3T was hence feels natural and easy on the eyes. It’s got a pre applied screen guard even though it has the break resistant Gorilla Glass 5 screen protection. It's still got the UBC Type C charging port and a 3.5mm jack at the bottom. The Alert Slider button retains its spot on the dual Sim 4G phone and the Home button is still the fingerprint scanner. The 2 color variants available for now are Midnight Black and Space Grey.
Hardware wise, it's got the latest Snapdragon 835 CPU with either 6GB/8GB RAM and 64GB/128GB storage space. Other features include Bluetooth 5.0, NFC and USB OTG. No FM Radio or Wireless charging support unfortunately. Customisation options are plenty on this phone running Oxygen OS on top of Android 7.0. Double tap to wake, 3 finger screen capture, gestures to launch apps when screen is off, adding a shortcut to the Alert Slider button, Reading Mode etc. are some of the many gimmicks on offer.
In terms of Multimedia, the Camera setup is the most talked about feature and it does a pretty good job. The primary sensor at the back is a 16MP f/1.7 shooter while the secondary sensor is a 20 MP f/2.0 shooter which gives 2x optical zoom and useful to capture photos in Portrait mode or add the Bokeh effect. You get all the fancy filters and color effects, and videos can be recorded in 4K upto 10 mins at a stretch. There’s no built in Optical image stabilisation hence shaky hands can lead to shaky videos. The front 16MP camera takes sharp selfies and has a on screen flash for low light/ night shots. It’s not as good as the iPhone 7 Plus but does give it some competition considering it’s half the price!
Games run smoothly and without lag, there’s enough RAM always to have around 30 apps open at the same time and not notice and stuttering. The 3300 mAh battery lasts almost the entire day on moderate usage and thanks to the super fast Dash Charging you’re from 0 to 100 in less than an hour!
If you already have the OnePlus 3 or 3T, I’d say give this one a miss. A better display, waterproofing, Image stabilisation and a better utilisation of the dual camera setup is needed alongside keeping the cost down in order for this device to be a real challenger to the flagships out there.
★★★☆☆
Pritesh Khilnani
OnePlus 5 at CeX
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