Gadgetory

there's been a little confusion about what this phone can do for audio during the press event labeling this as the front speaker well it is a speaker but one just for phone calls our review unit doesn't pull off the stereo speaker trick found on competing handsets and with that little bit of clarity out of the way audio expectations for the oneplus 5 were pretty high the 3t outperformed most of the flagship sri reviewed last year but this year premium phone manufacturers are taking audio a lot more seriously competition is always great for the consumer but can oneplus continue to undercut the price and deliver the ear candy let's take a listen starting off with that speaker performance we're about par for the course on a mono bottom firing speaker anymore this test is becoming an ever-diminishing listen at the minutiae of differences between phones which highlight lower high-frequency sound or deliver a decibel more or less gain that said the oneplus 5 competes very well against similar solution apologies were repurposing that tract from our main review but the difference is between the Wawa wads and the saxophones is what caught my ear in testing and it's reproduced here well for mono audio now moving on to headphone performance a nice little nod from the company during the phone's reveal including a headphone jack is great but not all headphone jacks are created equal we're happy to report that oneplus did not rest on their laurels from the 3t we do see improvements to this hardware first this DAC is now capable of true-blue 32-bit playback and can reproduce frequencies of sound that even dogs cannot hear and over the 3t we see slight improvements to noise and dynamic range in terms of quality these numbers are almost identical to the Galaxy S 8 in addition to quality there's also a small but noticeable improvement to amp output this is likely the feature people will recognize most readily the output power dictates how well a funnel port will drive nicer headphones and the 1+5 will outperform all but the top-tier options like the axon 7 or LG v 20 and a quick word on software oneplus includes an audio tuner to help spruce up tracks might be nice on some genres of music especially uncompressed audio files it really does monkey with EQ so it's not exactly my cup of tea but it might be up your alley depending on your taste so let's wrap this up where does that leave us with the audio on the 1 + 5 well done 1 + well done indeed we'd really like to see more manufacturers start pointing at least one loudspeaker at our collective faces though that will become increasingly difficult with current designs eliminating four heads and chins the 1 + 5 performs well enough it's just been a while since we were really impressed by a phone speaker now the real victory here comes from one of the more polarizing legacy ports on a phone there are some great Bluetooth solutions available we're hoping to see more data port dax and adapters and android sorely needs better support for USB audio that leaves the three point five millimeter headset jack as the last universal solution for folks who want high quality audio consistently and the freedom to use whatever headphones or earbuds they wish with the convenience of from one gadget to another no alternative solution is anywhere near is mature which makes a story here all the sweeter it's not enough to just include the port you have to back it up with some solid guts yet again punching above its price tag the one plus five delivers as always thanks for watching be sure to subscribe to this channel for our full one plus five coverage including our in-depth real camera review and stay tuned for a few more comparisons click the bell icon to make sure you don't miss anything and help us out with some sharing on your favorite social networks and news sites for PocketNow i'm juan carlos bag now so I'm gadget guy on Twitter and Instagram and I will catch you all on the next review