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Is the OnePlus 5 Worth It?

2017-06-20
- Hey guys, this is Austin, and this is the OnePlus 5. So OnePlus has been known for making flagship phones at midrange phone prices. But is the OnePlus 5 worth it? Big shoutout to OnePlus for not only sending us a review unit so we can take a look at the phone early, but we also have this entire box full of accessories to check out. (cardboard tab tearing off) So what's cool is this is actually a custom pack specifically meant for reviewers. (laughs) Some very subtle marketing there. First, we have the OnePlus 5 itself, so this is the higher-end model with 128 gigs of storage, but we also have a few accessories here. So this is the bumper case, we also have the sandstone, we have a rosewood, and we also have ebony. Does anyone care about this stuff? So, we have the phone itself, which at first glance looks pretty similar to the OnePlus 3. We also have the Dash charger, which is kind of enormous. It looks like two iPhone chargers just like, squashed together. From the front it looks fairly similar to the OnePlus 3, however, when you flip it around back you'll see they've actually done some pretty major changes here. So even though this is only .2 millimeters thinner, because it has a more tapered edge, and the whole thing feels a lot more rounded, it actually feels a lot thinner. And of course, we do have those dual rear-facing cameras. Not similar to any other smartphone at all. Yeah, there's uh, there's definitely a little bit of resemblance in the family. So one of these cameras is going to be your main shooter, and one of them is going to be a telephoto lens. Pop out the SIM slot, and again, we do have support for dual SIMs, but what you can't do with the OnePlus 5, is use a microSD card here. I'm kind of surprised at how much I like this design. So up front, it definitely has much larger bezels, than something like a Galaxy S8, but as far as just like, in-hand feel, I really do like how the tapered design just kind of fits nicely. For comparison, the Galaxy S8 has a lot smaller bezels. So put side-by-side with the OnePlus 5, it's clear that this looks like a phone from the future, and this looks like a normal smartphone. Now that's not necessarily that bad of a thing, so the OnePlus 5 still does have a full home key with a fingerprint sensor, whereas with the Galaxy S8, you're gonna have to deal with the goofy thing on the back, but when you look at these side-by-side, it's clear that while the OnePlus 5 is caught up in specs, design, it still has a little ways to go. Inside, the OnePlus 5 absolutely has flagship specs. So it's rocking an octa-core Snapdragon 835 processor, either six or eight gigabytes of RAM, as well as 64 or 128 gigabytes of storage. So both the Galaxy S8 as well as the OnePlus 5 are fast, and the OnePlus actually slightly edges out the S8, but regardless across the board, these are very, very fast phones. What's almost more impressive is the speed of the storage on the OnePlus 5. While the Galaxy S8 is definitely no slouch, here we're able to get over 700 megabytes per second on the read speeds. To put things in perspective, that's faster than a lot of PC SSDs. Inside, this guy is also rocking a pretty solidly sized 3300 milliamp hour battery. That combined with the Dash charge, which is about at fast as you can charge a phone, thanks to OnePlus's giant power brick, means that the battery situation's also pretty solid on the OnePlus 5. Now the comparison with the S8 really isn't fair, as well, this guy starts at 479 dollars, the Galaxy S8 is over 750. However, it is impressive at just the level of power and specs that OnePlus was able to cram into a phone under 500 dollars. On paper, this guy has a very similar screen to the OnePlus 3, as it's still a 5.5 inch, 1080p AMOLED panel, however, this year they definitely upped the quality. Not only have they done a much better job of calibrating the display this year, but in addition to supporting sRGB, it also supports the full P3 color gamut. - Hey guys, this is Austin! And today I'm here at E3 2017 with a simple question, PS4 Pro, or Xbox One X? - The screen here is a really big jump over the OnePlus 3. So while it's not quite as good as something like the Galaxy S8, it's still AMOLED, it still looks great, and honestly, having a 1080p resolution still looks totally fine. If anything, it's just going to help your battery life. The one issue with the OnePlus 5 as far as video goes, though, is the speaker. So it's still a single bottom-firing speaker, and while it sounds decent, it does get reasonably loud, compared to something like the iPhone which also hides a second speaker in the earpiece, it just doesn't sound as good. The OnePlus 5 also supports Bluetooth 5.0, which I shall now demonstrate in total overkill fashion. (electronic music) The OnePlus 5 is also running Android 7.1.1 with the latest version of Oxygen OS. For the most part it's fairly stock-looking. They have made a couple of tweaks. For example, they have app priority, which will supposedly figure out which apps you use the most often, and preload them in the background. And one of the things they've done is they've enhanced the latency, so everything here should feel a little bit quicker than normal. And while it's hard to tell without actually having something side-by-side, it feels snappy. The OnePlus 5 definitely has the specs down, but one of the biggest upgrades here, is the new dual camera. The OnePlus 5 is rocking a 16 megapixel main camera, as well as a 20 megapixel telephoto. So what's interesting is it's the exact same orientation as the iPhone 7 Plus. When you switch over to that telephoto, it is a 2x zoom. When it comes to taking a normal still, it's pretty snappy. But, all you have to do is just tap the 2x button, and it will switch over to the telephoto. There's definitely a difference in image quality. I do think that the main camera looks a little bit sharper, but importantly, it's actually pretty quick to move between the two. Next, let's try portrait mode. Oh, wow! That looks pretty decent. It's a little bit soft on the edges, especially around your shirt, but it looks pretty decent. So I think the iPhone shot was a little bit more natural, so especially the way it handles jumping from Ken to the background. It's a little but smoother, whereas you can definitely see the line where the OnePlus does it. Is it fair to compare the OnePlus camera to a phone that costs several hundred dollars more? I kind of think so. I mean, they're not exactly being subtle with who they're targeting with this guy. The OnePlus 5 also has pretty nice-looking 4K video. So, compared to the iPhone, it's a little bit more compressed, and because there's not optical stabilization in 4K, it's not quite the smoothest-looking video in the world, but for a cell phone, there's really not a lot to complain about. The OnePlus 5 goes on sale on June 27th, for 479 dollars. While it's a little bit more expensive than previous OnePlus models, when you consider what you're getting here, especially compared to something like a Galaxy S8, this is a pretty solid deal. So, what do you guys think about the OnePlus 5? Let me know in the comments below, and I will catch you on the next one.
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