OnePlus One Review

The OnePlus Tech has entered the market among much hype, with their marketing team having done an excellent job of creating an extreme level of anticipation and pull among consumers. With the newcomer making first a splash due to similarities with the Oppo 7 range, and then after claiming to have a Nexus like feel, with lesser price, the newbie has already seen its fair share of headlines.

And with the 3GB of RAM, coupled with a 5MP front facer and 13MP main snapper also providing UHD recording, and coming in at a very low cost for a 64GB version, the best hardware on offer, a large display which is hi-res, a classy chipset, a DCI 4K video enabled snapper, deep reserves in the battery, and with CyanogenMod 11s, the next generation in hyper-performing Android, the OnePlus sure feels like fulfilling its end of the bargain, though you will have to struggle to get your hands on one of these babies.

Still, with all things going its way, there still are some drawbacks with the device, starting with the obvious shortfall and distribution issue. Additionally there is no FM, which was a surprise, since nowadays it is part of the standard package. Additionally, the bulk of the OnePlus One is a concern, with sturdiness kept in mind rather than slimness and weight.

Still, once you do manage to get your hands on the device, it is a pleasurable experience. The OnePlus One is pretty easy on the pocket without looking like it, and the interface is also pretty streamlined and similar to the Nexus one. The large screen pushes the bezels right to the edge of the sides, taking the screen from end to end, and the UHD display will get you hooked from the get go.

While unboxing the classy packaging of the OnePlus One, you will get everything inside the retail box that you need to get started with this phone.

• OnePlus One handset
• An A/C adapter (will use the USB cable for charging)
• MicroUSB cable connector for A/C adapter for charging
• Ejector tool with rubber vest

A 5.5 inch screen with 1080 x 1920 display with 401ppi 1080p LTPS LCD capacitive display is what is brought forward by OnePlus, with a pleasantly sharp display – pulling this off at this size is no small feat.

With the LTPS display, even with brightness controls at full throttle, the heating problems will not occur, and the IPS addition ensures better viewing angles. The Gorilla Glass 3 further confirms protection.

The contrast ratio on the OnePlus One still would require some improvement though, and the black levels are up there, though the brightness is good, and is visible in sunlight too, though not in the mix of the best. Still, the black is not too deep to cover the brightness levels completely, so that was somewhat of a surprise.

OnePlus One is not a flashy smartphone with subtlety used as a key strength, keeping it clean, with a simplistic front, with the front keys being invisible when it is off, while a silver frame with an aluminum-like look running at the borders of the front and sides, giving a view like the display is slightly raised.

The back cover is replaceable, though it requires the SIM slot to be ejected first. Still, the back covers being replaceable is interesting, since there is a wide variety to select from. The back covers have also received their fair share of thought process. The back cover has the company logo right under the back snapper and LED flash. The design has a flatter look, with the edges being on the slightly sharper side, and the corners are rounded subtly and a gentle curve at the back for a better grip. The buttons are thin while also being on the sharper side, adding to the minimalist look.

On the top front lies the earpiece, the sensors for proximity and ambient light and the 5MP snapper. Right below the display are the capacitive buttons for Menu, Home and Back – the keys have dimmer backlight than the display, which gives the buttons an appealing effect. On the right side of the smartphone resides the power / lock key, while on the left side, alongside the volume rocker, lies the SIM card slot.

At the bottom resides the standard microphone with two speaker grilles and the microUSB port – the speaker grilles are closer than we would have liked and does not offer stereo audio either, one of the very few shortcomings on this device that we can think of at this time.

At the top of the device resides the standard noise-cancelling microphone alongside the 3.5mm audio jack. At the back is the 13 MP snapper with a dual-LED flash, and another noise cancellation microphone at the back next to the camera.

With the size seemingly overwhelming the smartphone, OnePlus team did what they could to make the experience better, including the slight softening of corners, though flat sides make it a bit difficult. The back cover has a unique finish and provides a better grip than on most other smartphones out there, giving it a more secure feel and less accidents.

The OnePlus One has Android 4.4.2 KitKat, layered with CyanogenMod called 11S for better performance levels. The CyanogenMod 11S is close to the Cyanogen 11 but with some additional features, and these are to some extent, specific to the OnePlus One. These additions include a custom lockscreen, which looks like a blurred layer on top of the wallpaper (the basic swipe-down for unlock and swipe-left for camera works here) – the custom lock screen can be disabled as well. The buttons can be assigned custom shortcuts for long press.

The home screen is the standard Android issue, though the rounded icons used throughout are specific to the One. The usual home screen customization options are all present, though the widgets are no more a part of the app drawer – they can only be accessed by a tap and hold on any vacant space on the home screen. Most widgets can be customized for size also.

The dock can be customized, icons can be moved around, and shortcut keys are present on each side of the app drawer key. The Google Now home screen has been removed from the equation for the CyanogenMod. The standard wallpaper modification can be done, a screen can be made the default screen, and transition effects can be defined also for home screen swipes. The Recent Apps section is unchanged, though a Kill All option has been added – this is CyanogenMod after all.

The notifications area is almost the same, the access to settings is standard Android – the only minor improvement is that on swipe-down on any notification, it expands or collapses, while swiping to the sides dismisses them.

A Themes sub-menu has been added to the settings, allowing selection of different themes, icons, styles, fonts and startup animations too. Customizations can be done to the quick settings panel, the status bar, the notifications drawer, and gesture shortcuts can be added too. There is a huge load of features in this area, all of which cannot be discussed with the limited space we have. Users can specify if they want the standard buttons below the screen, or to use the on-screen keys instead – selecting the on-screen keys disables the buttons, and puts up the on-screen keys at all times other than for specified apps.

A feature similar to the Nokia implementation is the Quiet Hours mode, where sets up the Do Not Disturb for configurability. The complete set of activities including the allowed people, mute notifications, among others are present. The Secure Messaging allows for encrypted messages exchange between CM 11 sets, while the Privacy Guard allows to setup which information can be accessed by apps. The OnePlus One, though running CyanogenMod, is still a pretty stable smartphone, and during our test drive, never faltered.

The phonebook, and dialer are standard Android issue, with the basic features all in place to cater to different requirements that they may have to cater to. In-call screen is also the default Android version.

As far as the call quality is concerned, the audio levels put out by the OnePlus One is excellent, with a crisp and loud sounding earpiece, coupled with good signal reception. The loudspeakers performed remarkably well too, with the exception of some bass issues, though we feel that our expectation levels have been raised too much by the HTC One series we are afraid. Still, the audio is the loudest we have heard in a while from a smartphone.

Google Chrome is the default browser for OnePlus One, refined to a decent level by Google to have a minimalist UI. All the standard options are available.

The CyanogenMod comes with some pre-installed apps, some of which are worth the mention. The CyanogenMod has its own File Manager, with the basic features, though a lot of taps are required, and we eventually downloaded an alternate from the Store. The Torch app is standard, using the LED as a flashlight. A Calculator app and Voice Recorder apps are here, as is the Clock, and the Calendar app. Another interesting app is the Screencast app, which lets you record the usage of your smartphone, as well as audio recording for comments being made verbally in parallel.

Google Now is available with its set of features, like informing about traffic situation on regular routes, relevant sports and weather information, among other things. It also has voice integration which can assist with multiple tasks like call launch, message taking, directions, or opening up a website being some of the many features. Google Maps is utilized for navigation related tasks, as well as navigation with audio support.

The Messenger app, the standard stock Android version, is the default app for messaging, though Hangouts is present too. The conversations layout is the standard thread manner, and keeps a track of communication from each number separately even if multiple numbers belong to the same contact – Hangouts does not make this mistake. The standard Email app is available in parallel with the Gmail app, and both are almost the same, though the Unified Inbox option is present only in the generic Email app. For messaging, emails and any other keyboard related activities, the OnePlus One also has Swype available to support quick typing. Voice input is also present, and spelling mistakes are underlined similar to the basic Android versions.

The gallery with the OnePlus One is the CyanogenMod gallery. The default view is the Album view, while the menu slider is present to show images by moments, day by day too. Images and media from other DLNA and online sources like Flickr, Google+ and Dropbox can also be seen. The image display is great, especially given the large display and good colors – image details can also be seen. The gallery uses the Google Photos’ editing features to allow image editing too.

The video player is pretty simplistic, embedded in the gallery app, and includes the play/pause controls as well as the timeline – audio effects can be managed once headphones are plugged in. an impressive feat was that it was able to play all the file formats that we tested on it.

The music player from Google is also present, and displays the album art, playlists, library, settings, and has the Listen Now feature, which uses the song selection and track changing as a baseline to offer a more relevant music selection. Music can be uploaded via the Play Music. The 5-band equalizer visible in the Play Music is actually a separate app labeled AudioFX, which allows control over configuring audio coming from headset, speaker, USB, Bluetooth and Wireless. This was extremely helpful since different settings are obviously needed for different audio output methods.

The audio levels for the OnePlus One are pretty good, with high and excellent sound. Still, with headphones being plugged in, the degradation is pretty obvious, with frequency starting missing, and increase in crosstalk is also a bit disturbing. Still, the overall quality is fine, but the headphones quality could be improved.

OnePlus One is touted to be the Flagship Killer, and the hardware backs up the boasting. The top of the line chipset in Qualcomm Snapdragon 801, coupled with a 2.5GHz CPU with Krait 400 and GPU of Adreno 330, backed up by 3GB of RAM, with a 1080p display is all top of the line, other than the display part of course, which still is pretty good. The RAM surpasses Samsung Galaxy S5 among other top smartphones, though the software also plays an important role in the performance.

The CPU, GPU, RAM and storage speed is among the top in the market. The CPU rating includes both single and multi-core performance checks, so this is pretty good performance. The Adreno 330 also performed in the top tier overall regarding the display performance. For internet usage also, the OnePlus One proved a consistently good performer, almost in the lead.

The snapper on the OnePlus One is a 13 MP one, present with the dual-LED flash suited for low-light imaging. The front facer is a 5MP piece, well suited for selfies. The snapper can go up to a maximum of 4128 x 3096. The UI is the CyanogenMod one for imaging, which has a large shutter, and can capture stills, videos, and Panorama – the UI has controls for switching between modes, flash settings and switching the cameras. The modes include the Beauty mode, the HDR, Smart Scene and Auto.

The camera processing is pretty good, and image storing doesn’t have any lag time as compared to some of the competition, which is good – additionally, the image quality is awesome. The camera has gone for the natural look, even though this means a little noise level. The white balance is also pretty good, and though the colors are slightly oversaturated, it is still likeable, and coupled with the impressive contrast and sharp images with only minor softening near the edges, the snapper seems pretty cool.

Still, the dynamic range on some images does not seem to fulfill the potential of the camera, with shadows being underexposed, and highlights exposed properly. We found this to be the only issue worth mentioning for the smartphone. Even with the slightly higher than normal noise on images, we would still feel it ok because of the much more detail present on the snaps, nor does it have the slightly fake over-processed look.

Another area we would find for improvement would be the somewhat extreme oversaturation of colors in the HDR mode, with the blues and greens bearing the brunt of the damage. The HDR images, even with this issue, still does have good image quality, and many might even consider them as closer to perfect.

The Macro mode is present here also, as is Panorama, though the Panorama mode could be improved a bit, with the resolution and detail coming out too low for our liking – of course, we would be comparing this with the likes of the competition.

The front facer on the OnePlus One is a mediocre 5MP snapper, with not too much canvas space – the imaging is decent, though not exceptional as in the main snapper.

The recording capabilities of the camera are pretty good, coming with a 3840 x 2160pixels at 2160p and 30fpd, as well as the DCI mode using the 4096 x 216 pixels at the same display quality but a slightly reduced 24fps rate and showing wider display, and better resolution.

The standard modes, like the slow motion capturing for 720p at 120fps or the 1080p mode at 60fps are here. The FullHD videos can be captured at 30fps at 19Mbps bitrate 191Kbps stereo audio and 48 kHz sampling rate. The video quality is amazing, better than Sony and Samsung if not equal to it. The reduction in dynamic range for shadows is consistent here too, though other than that, the recorder is a good performer. We might consider it the best video recording in a smartphone in the market at this time too, based on the overall quality.

The OnePlus One has multiple connectivity options, quad-band GSM, 3G and 4G LTE being the foremost. The OnePlus One is also equipped with Wi-Fi, DLNA, hotspot and Wi-Fi Direct, for improved content sharing. Additionally we have Bluetooth 4.1 and NFC, though the IR blaster seems to be the only thing missing.

MicroUSB is used for charging and PC connectivity purposes, and there is a USB On-the-go support present too which allows users to attach external flash drives to the smartphone.

The OnePlus One has made an effort by providing a 3,100 mAh battery with the smartphone hoping that all the requirements related to power will be fulfilled easily. The battery power almost had us when it showed up with 20 hours of talk time, 11 hours of video play, and 10 hours of browsing – indeed, it was a surprise to see the battery not utilizing itself to the max when on standby, showing up actually a decent 66 hours, though we definitely expected more.

Still with the battery helping out for over a day easily, we think that considering the display size, that is pretty good.

As is visible from the above review, the OnePlus One does live up to many of its expectations and more. Below are some of the very few shortcomings that the device does possess:

• Very limited in availability and low pace to meet the pre-orders
• Absence of an IR port
• Memory cannot be expanded
• FM radio is absent
• Mono only mode for dual speakers
• Absence of headphones in the package is frustrating
• 60fps videos are not present at normal speed

OnePlus One comes out as one of the most affordable smartphones, yet one of the most unavailable smartphones that we have encountered. Being boasted as the very-cheap top of the line smartphone, the biggest challenge came not with the smartphone but with the distribution. Still, once you do manage to get your hands on the OnePlus One, it is a most pleasurable experience.

Running a highly customized CyanogenMod version of Android, supporting over-the-air updates, the top of the line hardware assemblage, and a very affordable price tag, the OnePlus One is sure to be one of the main attractions in the market. A 4K recording, FullHD 1080p display, with 3GB of RAM and Snapdragon 801 at the back, coupled with 64GB of storage space, the performance is sure to give the competition a run.

All the specs aside, the handling and processing of the smartphone is very smooth, a crisp display, a battery that is a good performer, and speakers that are extra loud.

Still, one of the major, and we believe very few, concerns for buyers may be the lack of availability, and a lack of service centers in case of repairs required. Many could consider this a risk they may not be comfortable taking.

The price range and what we would get in return is remarkable, and makes it all the more difficult to resist. Still, a startup, having difficulties meeting deliveries, on its first smartphone – all this is enough to create doubt. Still, at this difference, and the hands-on that we had, it would be a risk worth taking for such a charmer.