OnePlus 5T - Review 2022 - Griffin Thoofearm1963

The OnePlus 5T ($499 for 64GB; $559 for 128GB) is the best phone you can get for $500, but that'due south slicing the phone market pretty thinly. The latest from the cult unlocked smartphone maker is beautifully built and has the processor power and RAM of phones that toll $300 more. But its modem and principal photographic camera are thoroughly midrange, landing information technology in an awkward zone between less-expensive and more-capable devices on the Us market.

To properly understand the OnePlus 5T, you have to shake off its old "flagship killer" reputation. The 5T doesn't measure up to actual 2022 flagships similar the Samsung Galaxy S8, Samsung Galaxy Note 8, or the iPhone Ten. Rather, this is a midrange-killer, assassinating devices similar the Moto X4, the LG G6, the Essential PH-1, and the HTC U11 Life.

The 5T comes hot on the heels of the OnePlus 5, in OnePlus'south second year of a half-dozen-month cadence. (Last year, we saw the 3 and the 3T; there was no OnePlus four.) Information technology shares a processor and modem with the 5, just the screen is upgraded and the camera is changed.

From Apple, y'all'd consider that an "S" release. OnePlus founder Pete Lau joked that Due south, plus one, is T, and and so here nosotros are. Don't assume that OnePlus will accept a new phone every six months, he cautioned us. This ane just has a screen that he couldn't pass up.

Physical Blueprint

The OnePlus 5T is very well built. It has a very slim, matte blackness aluminum unibody, at 6.15 by 2.95 by 0.29 inches (HWD) and 5.7 ounces. It isn't glace, but you'll notwithstanding want to put a instance on it. The single speaker is on the bottom, along with the USB-C port and standard headphone jack. On the left side, you'll observe OnePlus's splendid physical mute slider. The front of the telephone is generally screen.

Left: OnePlus 5. Right: OnePlus 5T.

The screen is why the OnePlus 5T exists. Co-ordinate to OnePlus execs, they saw the tendency towards bigger screens and smaller bezels, then when a 6-inch, 18:nine Samsung AMOLED console became available, they jumped at the chance to grab information technology. The 2160-by-1080 panel is 401ppi, which is less dumbo than other competing phones. They tend to be either higher-resolution, at the same size, or smaller in size, at the same resolution. The result is that icons and UX elements appear physically larger here than on a Galaxy S8 or Moto X4, although you get well-nigh the same Web browsing real manor every bit on the S8, considering the physical size of text is the same. The one place you lose is in VR, where the OnePlus 5T isn't compatible with VR headsets, only OnePlus makes the correct signal that VR isn't that frequently used nowadays.

The phone has the brightness, rich colors and broad viewing angles we associate with Samsung AMOLED, as opposed to the lower-quality LG P-OLED we've seen on the Google Pixel ii XL. If that'south too saturated for you, though, you can tune it down to DCI-P3 (like the iPhone) or sRGB (similar the Pixel.) Screen images are perfectly viewable outdoors.

The telephone'due south fingerprint scanner is on the back now, similar on LG phones. It's quick and works reliably. That'southward good, because the phone's face-unlock feature does non work reliably. OnePlus says that it created a proprietary, 2d face-unlock system that is faster and more secure than Google's default face unlock. I establish that it didn't piece of work very well off-angle (on a table), or with my eyes closed, or when I was backlit, or sometimes just in general. Most of the time it worked, but it didn't piece of work plenty that (unlike with Apple tree'south Face ID) it got on my fretfulness. Having the fingerprint scanner every bit a reliable backup was essential.

Left: OnePlus 5. Right: OnePlus 5T.

Cases are important for phones. Many smaller Android brands, such equally ZTE, don't take a broad set up of reliable cases. That's a OnePlus force: the company offers $19.95 screen protectors and $19.95-$29.95 cases in various styles, including silicone, carbon-cobweb, and natural wood.

Unfortunately, the OnePlus 5T is not IP-rated for water resistance. I got very mixed messages on water resistance from OnePlus; I was told that it could exist dropped in puddles or handled in the rain, merely not dunked. We did not test water resistance considering we needed the phone to remain performance.

Modem and Audio Quality

OnePlus, unfortunately, cut some corners with the cellular modem. The 5T supports all of AT&T'south and T-Mobile's frequency bands except T-Mobile's new rural Ring 71. Information technology besides supports some Dart and Verizon LTE bands (including Sprint's ring 41, but not Verizon's band 13), but those carriers won't authenticate this phone.

The phone supports 3x carrier aggregation simply lacks 4x4 MIMO antennas, and then it tops out at 600Mbps down. That'southward similar to the latest iPhones and virtually midrange phones, just outpaced past college-end Android phones.

The telephone takes upwards to two nano-SIMs, merely I was disappointed to see that the 2nd slot couldn't be used for a MicroSD card. Dual SIM phones are rare hither in us, just additional storage would take been welcome.

Call quality is proficient hither, but voice coverage will depend on your carrier. The phone supports both Wi-Fi and VoLTE on T-Mobile. Neither option appeared with AT&T or Cricket SIMs. Using the AT&T 3G network, the earpiece was loud, and the speakerphone was sharp and clear. The speakerphone mix doesn't kill all the background noise, but my vocalization was nicely detected and pushed far forward of whatsoever groundwork noise.

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The 5T supports Bluetooth 5.0 and had no problem pairing with my Plantronics Voyager Focus UC. If you lot play high-quality music files, though, brand sure to delve into the settings and switch the codec from SBC to the higher-quality AptX HD. The single speaker isn't astonishing, but at least it doesn't distort at loftier volumes the style the Moto X4's does.

Battery life was very good, at 7 hours, 10 minutes of LTE video streaming with the screen on full effulgence. Unfortunately, that's two hours less than the OnePlus 5's runtime (ix hours, 15 minutes), likely due to the increased screen size. Information technology'll still last longer than the S8 though (5 hours, 45 minutes). OnePlus'southward quick "Dash Charging" lives upward to its billing, too. I got from 0 to twoscore% in 20 minutes, and to 79% in 45 minutes, with the telephone off. If you take other phones around, be enlightened that OnePlus's dash charger, included with the phone, is merely an ordinary non-quick charger when used with other phones, and not-OnePlus chargers won't quick-charge the telephone.

The phone as well doesn't have wireless charging, but honestly, after vi months of using a Milky way S8 with wireless charging, I still see it as a dispensable frill. I'one thousand okay with leaving it out on this midrange telephone.

Oxygen OS and Performance

OnePlus's Oxygen Bone skin over Android seven.i.1 Nougat focuses on speed and customizability. (The company says that an Android Oreo update will come during the first quarter of 2022.) Its benchmarks tend to match other Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 phones, especially if they're in 1080P resolution mode: its 169,703 score on Antutu, for example, it very similar to the Moto Z2 Force and the Google Pixel 2, and simply a chip behind the Galaxy Note 8 and LG V30.

On-screen gaming frame rates are also on par with loftier-cease peers at the same resolution. The Galaxy Notation 8 just scores 13 fps in the GFXBench Auto Crash test, compared to the OnePlus'due south 23 fps, but knock the Note 8 downward to 1080p and it's on par.

The thing is, though, this is the least expensive Snapdragon 835 phone out at that place. At its price level, the OnePlus 5T is competing with the Moto X4 and HTC U11 Life, both of which manage around seventy,000 on Antutu, and the LG G6, which gets 135,000. The OnePlus 5T's GPU has at least double the performance of any of those phones, which you definitely feel in action and driving games; the game Breakneck, for case, had more sensitive controls on the OnePlus 5T than on the Moto X4. So you're getting a heck of a lot of processor for your money.

The same goes for RAM. The 5T comes in two models, with 6GB and 8GB of RAM, and 64GB or 128GB of storage. That ways more flipping in and out of apps without watching them restart than on other phones, which is especially relevant if you lot do a lot of gaming. Our 128GB test telephone has 111GB free.

Oxygen Os, itself, doesn't go in your way. Information technology looks and feels like stock Android, with a bunch of little customizations that you can use or ignore. The almost useful is "parallel apps," which lets you create a second, virtual installation of some popular apps so y'all can have ii accounts available. It works with Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook Messenger, Twitter, Skype, and Whatsapp.

OnePlus has a vibrant user community, a vigorous beta program, and an invasive data collection organisation telling the company what people are doing with their phones. Afterwards some controversy, the "user feel program" is still opt-in, although you tin opt out in the Settings bill of fare.

And if you don't like Oxygen Os at all, OnePlus is probably the most hacker-friendly mainstream Android brand; the company confirmed that the telephone'southward bootloader is unlocked, and y'all can install whatever ROM yous like.

Cameras

OnePlus does some odd things with the cameras this time around. On the dorsum of the phone, there's a main xvi-megapixel, f/1.7 camera only likewise a 20-megapixel, f/i.7 camera that's supposed to be for depression low-cal. The front camera is an excellent xvi-megapixel, f/ii selfie shooter.

The philosophy around the photographic camera is a little perplexing. The secondary photographic camera is supposed to kick in for scenes below 10 lux, using 4:one pixel binning to provide a brighter, v-megapixel image. That'due south totally not what information technology does in practice.

Offset of all, 10 lux is actually dim. Indoor scenes are far more than ten lux; even a darkened bowling alley, where we tested the camera, was at about thirty lux. Then it can be hard to go the secondary camera to trigger in the first identify, especially because you tin't turn it on manually.

The secondary camera as well delivers 20MP files. OnePlus says it bins the prototype downwards to 5MP and so re-expands the file to 20MP, which introduces a lot of visible artifacting. And because of software which prioritizes higher shutter speeds over viewable images, the photos can nonetheless await very dim, particularly compared to the latest Galaxies or the Pixel 2.

Here's where "what y'all're comparing information technology with" matters a lot. Against the $649 Pixel 2 and $720 Milky way S8 the 5T has unimpressive low low-cal operation. Simply the 5T crushes the $400 Moto X4 in low lite. In our super-low-light test, we could make out details in the 5T's image that were swallowed up in dimness on the X4.

In skilful light, the primary camera besides falls between the Moto X4 and the Milky way S8/Annotation 8. Yeah, there are more pixels than on the 12-megapixel Samsung phones, just that didn't result in more than sharpness and item, just more artifacting. The software bias towards higher shutter speeds didn't necessarily help here either, as some outdoor HDR photos turned out a little darker than I'd like.

The xvi-megapixel, f/2.0 front end camera destroys the X4'southward front end shooter. It delivers richer color, more realistic item, and collects considerably more light. Information technology takes flashless, low-light shots in darkened rooms that just get swallowed upward in mud on the X4.

The dual cameras enable the usual gimmicky bokeh 'portrait style' in its most basic grade, without the after-the-fact focus editing of the Galaxy Annotation 8 or the iPhone's range of lighting effects. Using the second photographic camera slot for the 'low light' camera also means you don't get wide-angle (like on the X4 and LG G6) or 2x zoom (like on the Notation viii and iPhone) options. There'due south a confusing '2X' button in the photographic camera UI, only information technology but activates digital zoom, with all the usual digital zoom artifacting.

OnePlus's "electronic image stabilization" stays with the theme of "non as practiced every bit a flagship, merely amend than nothing." When recording 4K video, you can see the EIS smoothing out video through a slight pulsing as it constantly corrects the video. Information technology's nowhere near as smooth, at-home or fluid every bit the OIS on a Galaxy Note eight, but it'due south less jittery than no stabilization at all.

None of this should be also shocking; it'due south just reality. There are no shortcuts. The OnePlus 5T has the best camera you can become in a $500 telephone, but it doesn't measure upward to phones that cost more.

Comparisons and Conclusions

There's an 'uncanny valley' in phone pricing in the United states. We buy a lot of phones that cost less than $400, but if we're going to spend $500, pretty often we spend $700, especially if that $700 telephone comes with a monthly payment plan.

The OnePlus 5T falls smack into that uncanny valley. If you're looking for a big screen at a reasonable toll, there's nothing quite like it. But OnePlus's price creep has fabricated its phones steadily less attractive compared with higher-terminate competitors. The OnePlus One cost $299. The OnePlus 3 cost $399; the OnePlus v cost $479, and now we're upward to $499 and $559.

The $649 Google Pixel 2 and the $720 Samsung Galaxy S8 both accept better cameras and modems (although they offer less storage and RAM), and they support all four major US carriers. If y'all intend to spend more than than the $400 for a Moto X4, you lot're likely to be picking up 1 of those on a monthly payment program from a carrier or major retailer. There's no payment plan for the OnePlus 5T; y'all have to buy information technology upward front.

The 5T sets the bar for a $500 phone, to exist certain. At that place's no $500 phone that performs similar this. Simply not many Americans are looking for a $500 telephone, per se. Unless the screen size hither calls out to you, the superior photographic camera and network functioning on the Pixel 2 or Galaxy S8 will probably practice you better.