First test Oneplus 5
Oneplus moves up out of the mid-range to take on the flagships with a phone that’s been improved in just about every way… and is still cheaper than its rivals
The great underdog phone goes upmarket
It’s tough to see how Oneplus could have made its latest flagship-killer any cheaper… but then, we’re not sure you’d have wanted it to.
This is a smartphone that has improved on its predecessor in just about every way. Sure, the price is up, but you’re getting a better-looking, better-made device that’s still a whole lot less cash than the high-end competition. It really is all the phone you need.
Small refinements, like the slimmer and curvier aluminium unibody that’s just that little bit more comfortable to hold, all add up. Fancy bezel-busting displays might grab attention elsewhere, but with an AMOLED screen that looks this good, you won’t mind a bit of extra wedge around the edge.
It’s stupidly fast, of course: the all-powerful Snapdragon 835 has the grunt to make Android 7.0 feel supremely smooth, without hammering battery life. It’ll easily last all day and still have some in the tank the next morning. Dash Charge gets you topped up ridiculously quickly too.
The Oneplus 3’s weakest link is now this phone’s big strength, with dual cameras that help it challenge Samsung and Apple. In the right light, it takes fantastic photos – portrait mode goes toe to toe with the iphone 7 Plus, and sometimes beats it.
So… is this the perfect phone?
1 A waking dream The front-facing fingerprint sensor is stupidly fast, unlocking the phone in less than 0.2 seconds – faster than a blink. It’s flanked by hardware buttons, but you can turn ’em off and use onscreen keys if you prefer. 2 An Apple a day? Those rounded corners, all-metal body and protruding cameras might look classy, but you can’t deny they make this look a lot like an iphone 7 Plus. Skinnier top and bottom bezels help keep the overall size down, though.
3 A full house It might not pack in the pixels like its more expensive rivals, but the Oneplus 5’s 1080p screen is still perfect for streaming Full HD video, and means the battery isn’t getting blitzed when you’re scrolling through social media.
4 A grey area The £499 Midnight Black edition is packing a whopping 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage space. If that sounds like overkill, the £449 Space Grey model has 64GB of storage and 6GB of RAM, which is still plenty.
5 A new look It feels a lot like stock Android, but Oneplus’s own Oxygenos adds a few tweaks that make it even slicker. That means the same swipe-to-open app drawer as Google’s Pixel, and a neat scrolling shelf for all your widgets.