Look at your phone. If you can honestly admit that you love
every single thing
about it, I have good news: You can stop reading this review, since it
won't have an impact on your happiness. But if there's even one thing
you wish your smartphone could do better, it means you had to make
compromises when you bought it. Everybody wants a perfect phone, but
such a thing simply doesn't exist. So, we settle on a phone that has
only 95 percent of the features we want, and that... kinda sucks.
OnePlus believes it
doesn't have to be this way. Its motto, "Never Settle," represents the
fledgling Chinese company's mission to build and sell the perfect
smartphone. Its first attempt is
the One,
a premium-looking device that has customizable firmware and top-shelf
specs. Oh, and it'll sell for $299 unlocked and free of contract, which
is even less expensive than
Google's Nexus 5.
Seems a little over-ambitious for a small startup with no official
track record, doesn't it? Let's find out if the One is too good to be
true.
Pros
- Great value
- Fantastic display
- Premium hardware
- Top-of-the-line specs
- Firmware is as customizable as you can get
Cons
- Minor stutters in processor-intensive tasks
- Limited availability at launch
- Low speaker volume
Summary
For $300, no other phone comes close to what the OnePlus One
offers. Not only does it look and feel like a premium device, but it
also comes with specs similar to what you'd find in a flagship
smartphone. If you want a high-end phone on a budget, look no further.
Hardware
The OnePlus One doesn't look like a $299 phone. Its arched back,
polycarbonate build, elegant chassis and top-of-the-line spec sheet
could easily fool someone into thinking you paid $600 for it. That's
probably because a lot of
other companies
are trying to sell the same kind of device for that much money.
How is it possible, then, for a startup like OnePlus to sell a
flagship device at a lower cost than many of its closest competitors?
Easy: Use the same business model Google used with the
Nexus 4
and 5. In other words, it doesn't plan to make any money for a while.
OnePlus has no track record to rely on aside from the fact that its
founder and much of its workforce came over from Oppo, which has a
reputation for making great devices (albeit at a much higher cost).
Keeping the price down is an investment for the nascent company; it's
got a lot to prove, and the One is meant to be exhibit A.
There's not much to hate for a first-gen product, unless you're
simply not a fan of larger smartphones. That's because the One sports a
5.5-inch display and is 1.7mm taller and 0.6mm thicker than the
Samsung Galaxy Note 3.
It is, however, roughly four millimeters narrower and six grams lighter
than Samsung's 5.7-inch flagship. If you're not used to holding phones
bigger than a Galaxy S5 or Nexus 5, you may feel like you're stretching
hand muscles you never knew you had. I'm used to devices this size,
however, and I found that using the OnePlus One was as pleasant an
experience as you're going to get with any phone larger than 5.3 inches.
It features an arched back, which makes it rest more naturally in my
hands, and its blunt edges give my fingers plenty of room to rest
comfortably.
Doing the calculations, the One's 5.5-inch 1080p IPS LCD panel has a
pixel density of 401 ppi. The pickiest of pickies will automatically
discount the quality of the screen based on the fact that it's not quite
as crisp as devices like the
HTC One M8
and Samsung Galaxy S5, but I'm sure you won't notice the difference.
And dare I say, I actually enjoy the One's display more than most
flagship smartphones, and it's leaps and bounds better than the Nexus 5.
Because it uses an IPS panel, the One's viewing angles are among the
best in the industry, keeping pace with the One M8 and absolutely
destroying the GS5. It's not quite as bright as the GS5, but it's still
respectable for a flagship-caliber device; heck, even its whites are
whiter than those three other phones. Most importantly, the colors are
natural, making them more satisfying to stare at than the saturated GS5
and overblown Nexus 5. In case this isn't your style, however, the
firmware lets you customize the amount of color saturation, intensity
and contrast.
The display rises slightly above the rest of the frame, which means
it's more exposed than most smartphone screens. Fortunately it features a
slab of Gorilla Glass 3 for scratch resistance, which should help for
those chance encounters with keys, pens and other similar objects.
There's a 5-megapixel front-facing camera near the top next to the
earpiece and sensors, and you'll also find a set of three capacitive
buttons at the bottom, which can be turned off in favor of virtual soft
keys (more on this in the next section).
A volume rocker and micro-SIM slot line the left side of the One,
while a power button adorns the right. There's a 3.5mm headphone jack on
top, and you'll find twin speaker grilles flanking a micro-USB port on
the bottom. Some potential buyers might complain about the lack of a
microSD storage slot, but if that's really an issue, you can just spend
an extra $50 for the 64GB version. This is a fantastic deal compared to
other flagships that make you pay another $200 for that amount of space.
The gently curved back is minimal, featuring a 13MP camera with dual-LED flash, noise-canceling mic and logos for OnePlus and
Cyanogen
(unless you have the Chinese version, which doesn't have the latter).
The back cover is interchangeable, which gives you the ability to
customize your hardware somewhat. Five plates have been announced so
far, each with different colors and/or textures, but only two will be
available at launch time. You'll need the extra time to practice
removing the back, though, because the process is about as painful as
changing the oil in your car. To do it, you'll need to first eject the
SIM tray and then, using a mixture of fingernails, luck and prayer (if
that's your thing), pry open the back methodically. OnePlus made it
difficult to take off on purpose, since nothing underneath the cover is
removable -- not even the 3,100mAh battery. Plus, think of the fine
sense of accomplishment you'll feel when you've actually succeeded.
The One will come in two variants: one for China (with
Chinese-specific bands and TD-SCDMA) and another for the rest of the
world. OnePlus has tried to cram as many connectivity options as
possible into the One, with seven LTE bands (1, 3, 4, 7, 17, 38, 40), as
well as penta-band HSPA+ (up to 42 Mbps) and quad-band GSM/EDGE. For US
readers, that means you can use this on AT&T or T-Mobile, but not
Verizon or Sprint. It also supports Bluetooth 4.0, USB OTG, WiFi
802.11b/g/n/ac, GPS/GLONASS and NFC.
As an aside, my review unit is a white 16GB model and is a
pre-production device. OnePlus reps tell me the hardware and firmware
are "almost final," but improvements and bug fixes may be made between
now and when the final units hit the assembly line. Once I have a final
unit in my hands, I'll take another look and update my review if
anything gets fixed (or broken, as it were).
Before moving on, a disclaimer: Despite the company's "Never Settle"
mantra, a few of you may still feel like you'd be settling with the One.
OnePlus couldn't realistically pack
every possible feature that now exists
into its perfect phone -- especially at such a low price -- so if you
want something with wireless charging, a microSD slot, waterproof
design, aluminum build or a removable battery, this may not be the
perfect phone for you.
Software
As if the One wasn't unique enough, it also comes with a much more
customizable Android experience than what 99 percent of users currently
enjoy. This is because OnePlus is an exclusive partner with
CyanogenMod, so naturally its very first phone comes with the firmware (build 11S, based on Android 4.4.2) directly baked in.
Hold up. What exactly is CyanogenMod? It's custom firmware based on
the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) and gives the user more freedom
to fiddle around with settings, icons, themes and... well, nearly every
aspect of the Android experience. Cyanogen's one of the most popular
pieces of third-party firmware in the Android universe and can be
installed a wide variety of devices, but the experience is even better
on the One because it was built into the phone; since CyanogenMod could
work with the hardware early in its development, it was able to add a
bunch of optimizations that you won't find on other phones.
At first, it doesn't appear that different from stock Android, save
for a few style changes (think: icons and buttons). But don't let its
understated facade fool you: There's a lot of power behind the scenes,
and it becomes more evident as you continue to poke around. There are
several new features, with tweakable settings thrown in everywhere. Many
of you are simply looking for an inexpensive phone and don't care about
making dozens of tiny adjustments to your Android setup, and the beauty
of CM is that it can fit your style just as easily as it can fit the
preferences of power users -- it's completely customizable, and it's
fantastic. Here's a crash course on what you can tweak.
Thanks to a healthy modding community, there are tons of different
CyanogenMod themes to choose from. Prefer LG's or Samsung's interfaces
for some weird reason? No sweat, just go to the Themes Showcase app and
download what you want. Most of them aren't perfect ports (some only
feature select parts of the UI, like icons, buttons or fonts), but they
will at least offer you some of the familiarity of what you're used to.
You can also choose to download a number of different fonts, sound
packs, boot animations and wallpapers.
The One comes with a set of capacitive keys below the screen, but you
can deactivate them and opt for a virtual bar of soft buttons instead.
It may not make sense to do that if you're trying to squeeze as much
real estate as possible out of your screen space, however. If you choose
to keep the on-screen bar, CM will let you add, take away and rearrange
the buttons that appear there.
You can also customize the status bar to show the clock, battery
percentage (and the type of indicator it uses) and the number of
notifications for certain apps, like Gmail. You'll also be able to
adjust screen brightness just by sliding your finger to the left or
right on the bar, and you can choose to add a double-tap-to-sleep
option.
If you want to change which tiles show up in your quick settings menu
(and the order in which they're shown), you can do that by hitting a
plus icon near the top. And by the way, instead of having to use a
two-finger gesture to open that menu, it's possible to pull down on the
right side of the status bar to get there -- pulling down on the left
would bring up the standard notification bar. Finally, you can also
change which shortcuts show up on the lock screen, as well as the quick
launch shortcuts that appear when you slide up from the home button. I
could keep talking about more stuff you can tweak, but you get the idea
-- you can do
a lot. And part of the fun is discovering new settings to tweak.
The One lets you use gestures to activate different parts of the
phone. Oddly, this is one of the few parts of the OS that isn't
customizable. A double-tap wakes the device; a V motion activates the
LED flashlight; two fingers up/down will turn on your music; and a
circular gesture gets you straight into the camera. These gestures were
incredibly sensitive on my pre-release unit, so I would often hear music
coming from the phone as it sat in my pants pocket. Hopefully OnePlus
and Cyanogen will fine-tune this as the One gets closer to an official
launch.
Lastly, during the course of my review I stumbled upon one of the One's
best features: always-listening voice recognition, thanks to
Qualcomm. CM throws in a few modifications of its own to add more customization. After the phone learns your voice, you can say
"Hey Snapdragon" "OK OnePlus" to activate Google Now or any app of your choice.
Camera
The Nexus 5 has a lot of endearing traits, but the camera isn't one
of them. Sure, it has its moments of greatness, but I can't help think
this is a case of settling. The OnePlus One, on the other hand, uses a
13-megapixel rear camera with a Sony sensor, six-element lens setup and
f/2.0 aperture for lower-light shots. Additionally, the front-facing
camera tops out at 5MP -- a sizable improvement over the 1.3-megapixel
sensor on the N5.
The camera app is a special flavor made by the CyanogenMod team. It
consists of three circular buttons on the side for taking stills, video
and panoramic shots. Along the top sits some settings, scenes and a
toggle for the front-facing camera. In addition to HDR, night mode,
landscape and a few other standard options, the One has less-traditional
scenes like snow, sunset, party and theatre. These may offer some fun
ways to experiment with your camera, but I found that auto mode took
care of most scenarios perfectly well. But if you want to switch back
and forth, all you have to do is swipe your finger up or down on the
viewfinder.
When it comes to performance, the camera is decent, but hardly
stellar. Colors appear more natural than on the Nexus 5, but they're
still slightly less saturated than they should be. The sky isn't as blue
as I'd like, and some of my sample images suffer from soft focus. For
low-light shots, the large aperture didn't help the camera capture as
much light as I expected, as the level of detail is nowhere close to
what I got from the HTC One M8 or high-end Nokia Lumias. It's also quite
noisy. Compared to the N5, it gets about the same amount of light, but
the One's white balance is much better at night. Lastly, HDR mode is a
little
too strong; it does so well at highlighting the shadows
that it ends up making the rest of the picture look a tad cartoonish.
All told, the camera is one area in which flagship devices still
outperform the One, but at least it's a slight improvement over the
Nexus. (I've added an album of full-res photos
to Flickr, and will continue to add more as new updates come out.)
That said, the built-in editing software has some serious chops, in case
your photo needs a little post-production flair. If you feel the HDR
effect is too strong (or you want to bump it up even more), you can
change filter strength or switch to a different preset style. You can
also adjust the color, focus, sharpness and brightness. Even better, you
can select certain areas of each image that you want to tweak. There
are also heaps of filter options thrown in for good measure.
Video recording here is solid, with up to 4K resolution and a bit
rate of 20 Mbps. You can also film in 60 fps slow motion at 1080p and
120 fps at 720p. Since the One doesn't have optical image stabilization,
CM had to tweak the software to ease the pain a bit. It certainly
helps, because footage is noticeably smoother. It can't fully replace
actual hardware, of course, but the software enhancements at least make a
difference. The front mics seemed to pick up more sound than the rear
ones, so when taking movies of my children, my voice came out much
stronger unless they were close by; when filming them outdoors, however,
they sounded muffled when they were more than a few feet away.
Performance and battery life
It's hard to believe that a $300 device like the One has as much muscle underneath the hood as the Galaxy S5 and
Oppo Find 7. In fact, you technically can't get any faster, since the phone sports a 2.45GHz quad-core
Snapdragon 801
(MSM8974-AC), a 578MHz Adreno 330 GPU and 3GB of RAM. Until the
Snapdragon 805 comes out later this year, this is the absolute best
silicon that Qualcomm has to offer. But what does it mean to you? Smooth
everything, fast everything and no lag as far as the eye can see. If
you don't mind my nitpicks: The gaming experience is still slightly
sluggish with the occasional frame skip, but it's not very noticeable
unless you're paying close attention. Additionally, since the phone's
still running on a pre-release build, there are a few kinks that OnePlus
needs to iron out before it releases the One to the world.
CyanogenMod's firmware gives you the option to change your performance
profile to one of three modes, ranging from power conservation to
battery sucker. If you don't want to use any presets, you can adjust
some of the settings manually, such as minimum and maximum CPU
frequency. This is definitely in advanced territory; I don't recommend
you try it unless you know what you're doing.
One such issue is soft audio output, both on the external speakers
and in the earpiece. All of my conversations were much quieter than they
should have been, and I could barely hear music blaring at full volume.
(OnePlus tells me this will be resolved in an upcoming update, and I'll
amend my review as soon as that happens.) Fortunately, none of this was
a problem when I used headphones; in fact, I often had to turn down the
volume to make my ears feel comfortable. In addition, the One has an
equalizer app called AudioFX, which lets you fine-tune the audio.
Battery life, at least, is a bright spot. The One has a 3,100mAh
non-removable cell that's just a tad smaller than the battery inside the
Note 3. What's more, it's actually larger than what you'll find in the
GS5 and One M8. On most days, I made it to the end of the evening with
around 5-10 percent life remaining. (On average, this constituted 14-15
hours of solid use, and roughly four hours of screen-on time.) These
were days full of emails, calls, travel, social networking and a little
bit of gaming. All told, our standard video rundown test yielded 10
hours of life. This isn't the best I've seen, but I'd consider it well
above average for a smartphone -- and I'm hard-pressed to ask for more
from a $300 device.
The competition
Good things come to those who wait. Phones with lower asking prices
often come with excruciating delays, and OnePlus' first handset is no
exception. The company is going to have a difficult time meeting demand
right away, which is one reason why it's offering the One on an
invite-only basis at the beginning. The $299 16GB option, which will
come in white, will go out to the first batch of invites in mid to late
May; the $349 64GB model, offered in black, starts shipping in early
June. For the rest of you still waiting for an invite, OnePlus is hoping
to send one your way by the end of June.
At launch, the OnePlus One will be available in 16 countries: Austria,
Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy,
Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, the UK and the US. Once
it's ready, the One will face intense competition. The most notable
device in its price range is the Nexus 5, which you can get for $349
(16GB) or $399 (32GB). It comes unlocked and has the full native Google
experience, but admittedly, it doesn't have as extensive a spec list as
the One. The Nexus 5 is still the best option if you want timely
updates, but CyanogenMod has a good track record of pushing updates
quickly, and since the ROM is baked into the device (rather than
requiring a separate install), it makes the chances of getting prompt
refreshes even more likely. CM's also pledged that it will support
updates for the One for at least two years.
Wrap-up
It doesn't make sense that the OnePlus One should be this
inexpensive. It looks elegant, feels solid and performs smoothly, and it
doesn't show any signs that it's a first-generation product from an
unknown company. Regardless of
how well it sells,
the industry will see this as a benchmark for what an affordable phone
really can be. All told, it outperforms Google's Nexus 5 in nearly every
way -- and it does so at an even lower price. Heck, it's better than
many flagship phones that sell for twice as much.
The OnePlus One gets close to the perfection it's aspiring for, but
it's not for everyone. Many will despise its large form factor,
non-removable battery and lack of external storage. To a nitpicky
reviewer like myself, a truly perfect device would also include wireless
charging and some type of waterproofing. But let's be real: It just
isn't going to happen in a $299 device, especially one that's already
filled to the brim with flagship features.
Here's the thing: The One doesn't have to be perfect for me to
recommend it. A few missing features? Sure, no problem. What matters is
that it's perfect for you, and it fits all of
your needs.
Besides, imperfections make us eager to see what's around the corner. In
the meantime, we keep dreaming of perfection, and perhaps one day we'll
actually find it.