What's good
- HD display with solid viewing angles and accurate colors
- Excellent battery life
- High-end interior hardware for fast performance
What's bad
- Unwieldy to use one-handed
- Poor image stabilization and slow autofocus
While relatively late to the smartphone scene, Chinese phone manufacturer OnePlus made waves with their first phone – OnePlus One. The company stands by its "Never Settle" mantra by offering high end specs at a very low price. Of course, the most noticeable feature is its 5.5-inch IPS display that has full HD resolution of 1080x1920 and pixel density of 400ppi. Critics lauded the display as one of the best in the Android market with excellent viewing angles and very natural colors. Engadget adds, "its whites are whiter…the colors are natural, making them more satisfying to stare at than the saturated GS5..."
On top of all this, OnePlus adds a new Touch on Lens (TOL) technology that allegedly improves touch sensitivity and reduces the chance of shattered screens by 300 percent. While none of the reviews we saw tested the shatter claim, they also didn't note any significant improvement in touch sensitivity.
In order to compensate for the large screen, the phone measures at 15 x 7.6 x 1 cm (6 x 3 x 0.4 inches) and weighs in at 162 grams. While fairly thin, reviewers found the overall size to be a bit unwieldy and somewhat difficult to use one-handed. Ars Technica found that they needed to adjust the phone in hand often, which they called, "a recipe for phone-dropping disaster." Despite its large size, critics still enjoyed using the phone due to its easy to grasp rounded case and textured back.
For the price, the OnePlus One packs a lot of power with its 2.5GHz quad-core processor and 3 GB of RAM. Therefore it's not too surprising that critics describe its performance as smooth, fast and lag-free even when using graphically-complicated 3D games. All that high-end hardware requires a lot of juice to operate, which is why the phone comes with a 3,100 mAh battery. While not user-replaceable, battery draining tests put it at just over 8 hours and real-life expert tests clock the battery at over 24 hours of heavy usage. Besides this it also comes in 16GB or 64GB internal storage which unfortunately cannot be expanded.
The one feature that didn't really impress reviewers was the camera. Gizmodo notes it takes decent pictures in daylight but suffers from mediocre image stabilization and slow autofocus. They go on to say that these issues improve when using the other camera apps like Cyanogenmod and HDR mode. Even when using these apps, critics still find the saturation a bit off and low-light shots fairly noisy.
Overall, critics highly recommend the OnePlus One due to its low cost of entry coupled with its high-end specs. Tech Crunch says, "OnePlus One manages to do the impossible, offering up top-tier specs at mid-tier prices…seemingly without sacrifices…that's nothing short of amazing." Phone Arena adds, "This is a fresh alternative…and one killer device."
What the Critics Are Saying...
- Michael Andronico, Tom's GuideThe OnePlus One is a gorgeous, powerful flagship phone that sells for a budget price. The handset’s rich HD screen, sharp camera and stunning battery life all hold their own against popular phones such as the Galaxy Note 4 and iPhone 6 Plus, and the inclusion of CyanogenMod provides a more att...
- Thomas Wellburn, What MobileFor the price and specification, nothing really comes close to the OneLPusOne delivering bang for buck. The downside is that the phone is not sold by any retailers or networks. You have to buy it online directly from OnePlus. So in the event of any faults the phone would have to be returned to OneP...
- Matt Egan, Tech AdvisorThere are only two, possibly three, bad things to say about the OnePlus One, if you are happy to buy online direct from OnePlus. We wish there was expandable storage, and it's bigger than other smartphones with similarly sized displays. And if we are being really harsh, we would hope for a better ca...
- Daniel Schmidt, NotebookcheckOnePlus delivers a really good smartphone with its One that calls itself Flagship Killer - and that not quite wrongly. Although the processor loses some of its power during permanent load, the smartphone is swift and other, considerably pricier contenders also struggle with these heat issues.Besides...
- Sofian Nouira, Digital VersusIt's hard not to like the OnePlus One. It's pretty close to perfect, and once you add price to the equation, it's a tough one to resist. The only problem is its by-invitation-only purchase scheme, which means you'll have to be patient—or lucky—to get one. That's a tough obstacle to overc...
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Common Questions
OnePlus backs up the One with a 1 Year parts & labour warranty.
If your One has problems and is still within its warranty period, you could contact OnePlus support or the retailer you purchased the phone from. You'll find OnePlus's contact information here. If your phone is off warranty and needs repair for a physical problem such as a broken screen or bad battery, you should visit an authorized service centre or a local phone repair shop. You can also connect with others in The Informr Community Forum to find and share answers to questions.
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