OnePlus 5 review—The best sub-$500 phone you can buy
Smartphone companies don't seem to care about cultivating a true "lineup" of phones. If you aren't spending at least $650, most companies will offer you anonymous, second-rate devices that seem like they've had no thought put into them. With the death of the Nexus line and with Lenovo's continued bungling of Motorola, the "good but not $650" market is slimmer than ever. Enter the OnePlus 5, which continues the company's tradition of offering an all-business, high-end smartphone for a great price.
| SPECS AT A GLANCE: OnePlus 5 | |
|---|---|
| SCREEN | 1920i-1080 5.5" (401ppi) AMOLED |
| OS | Android 7.1.1 (Oxygen OS) |
| CPU | Eight-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 (Four 2.35GHz Kyro 280 Performance cores and four 1.90GHz Kyro 280 Efficiency cores) |
| RAM | 6GB or 8GB |
| GPU | Adreno 540 |
| STORAGE | 64GB or 128GB |
| NETWORKING | 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 5.0, GPS, NFC |
| BANDS | GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz WCDMA: Bands 1/2/4/5/8 FDD-LTE: Bands 1/2/3/4/5/7/8/12/17/18/19/ 20/25/26/28/29/30/66TDD-LTE: Bands 38/39/40/41TD-SCDMA: Bands 34/39 CDMA EVDO: BC0 |
| PORTS | USB 2.0 Type-C, 3.5mm headphone jack |
| CAMERA | Rear: 16MP main camera, 20MP telephoto camera, Front: 16MP |
| SIZE | 154.2 x 74.1 x 7.25mm ( x x in) |
| WEIGHT | 153 g (5.4 oz) |
| BATTERY | 3300 mAh |
| STARTING PRICE | $479 / 449 |
| OTHER PERKS | "Dash" charging, three-position physical notification mode switch, fingerprint sensor, notification LED, Dual SIM slots |
Today OnePlus is both announcing the OnePlus 5 and lifting the review embargo on the device, which we've had for about two weeks now. $479 (449) gets you an aluminum-clad pocket computer with a 2.45GHz Snapdragon 835 SoC, 6GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, and a 3,300mAh battery. You still get OnePlus' physical 3-way alert switch, a USB-C port, capacitive buttons with a front-mounted fingerprint reader, and a headphone jack. The phone has two cameras on the back: one 16MP main camera and one 20MP telephoto camera, arranged in the most iPhone-y way possible. Besides the $479 version, there's a more expensive $539 (499) version, which ups the RAM from 6GB to a whopping 8GB, adds another 64GB of storage for a total of 128GB, and changes the color from "Slate Gray" to "Midnight Black." This more expensive version is the one we tested.
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