OnePlus X Review

[Murdoch]

OnePlus X Review

 

While I’ve taken an interest in OnePlus since the ‘One’, their marketing and invite system has always put me off buying their hardware. But I decided to take the plunge on the OnePlus X due to the industrial design, and the almost high-end specs for a budget price.  This is my experience after 7 days with the phone.

 

Invite, Purchase & Delivery

I was very surprised by how easy it was to get an invite. I signed up for an invite via their website, and received an invite by email the next day. After making the order, the phone was shipped within a couple of days. It ships direct from China and they provide a tracking number, delivery cost £10 and it took 2 days to get from China to the UK. Highly impressive, from the moment I decided to buy one, the phone was in my hands within 5 days. And that was without having to jump through any hoops, such as smashing up an old device.

 

Design & Build Quality

This is an extremely good looking phone for the money. The Gorilla glass front and rear both look excellent, complimented perfectly by the metal rim around the sides, the whole thing feels premium. There were no imperfections with my device, all the joints meet up perfectly, the power, volume and alert slider buttons are all solid and positioned perfectly for one handed use. The Headphone socket is in its optimal position (at the top). The microUSB connector gives a reassuringly firm connection with the provided OnePlus charger. Albeit the included charger is a little bit out of tone with the phone, being bright red and white. The phone has a completely flat back, has a reasonable weight to it, but it’s marginally top heavy, so while fine it’s not the most ergonomic or balanced feeling phone in the hand. It is of course a finger print magnet. Surprisingly though, it comes with both a screen protector already attached, and a good quality back cover. Nice additions.

 

The only noticeable compromise on build quality at first glance, is the lack of backlighting on the bottom navigation buttons. This might be an issue for users not familiar with Android. However they give good haptic feedback when pressed, and for anybody familiar with the recent, home and back button positioning, the minimalist look may well be considered a net gain.

 

Display

The phone packs a 5” 1920x1080 AMOLED screen. The most impactful thing about this screen is that blacks are black and the contrast is great. This is inherent to AMOLED technology, the pixels are individually lit as opposed to requiring a backlight, so when they are off, they are completely off. OnePlus have designed the UI with this in mind sticking with a predominately black theme. If you’re coming from an LED backlit phone, it will probably take a while to set the correct brightness level, I found myself tinkering with it for the first couple of days, but eventually got it just about right. The adaptive brightness does do a good job of adjusting brightness to your environment, and there’s no jarring changes like on some devices where I’ve had to turn that feature off completely. I do however find myself bumping up the brightness a bit while watching certain movies with a lot of dark scenes. All in all, the display is crisp and clear, while AMOLED provides extremely good contrast, with the blackest blacks and no sign of any bleed or glow of any sorts.

 

Speakers & Music

For me this may be the biggest compromise. On first look, it seems like the OnePlus X has bottom mounted stereo speakers, as seen by the two speaker grills. However, you’ll quickly realise when you cover the left grill, and all but mute the sound that there’s only one loudspeaker in this device. And as such, it’s prone to being covered up - You have to be careful of how you hold this thing if you want any sound at all. In terms of the speaker quality, it’s serviceable, there’s adequate volume without distortion. But if you truly care about loudspeaker performance on your phone, you should buy one with front facing stereo speakers, they are infinitely better.

 

It fares much better with headphones and IEMs. There is no hiss or distortion at low volumes and dynamic range seems fine, I’m pretty confident there’s a decent enough DAC in the device. Unfortunately the phone doesn’t ship with a Graphic Equaliser as standard. I was expecting AudioFX to be included with the OS even though as a company they’ve moved away from CyanogenMod. Similarly, there is no default Music app, the only bundled app for Music on OxygenOS is Google Play Music. I got around this by backing up and sideloading AudioFX & the default CyanogenMod Music app from my other device running CM. It would have been nice to see those bundled though.

 

There is however the addition of an FM Radio and OnePlus Radio app, which works well and is useful if you want to kick it old school and listen to FM radio without dipping into your data cap.

 

OxygenOS

The OnePlus X is currently running Lolipop 5.1.1, and will soon be getting a Marshmallow upgrade. OxygenOS has a very stock Android feel, there is no bloatware. In fact the opposite is true, all of the stock apps are the Google versions, the dialler, messenger, calendar, contacts, photos, Gmail  is even the only bundled email client, and as I mentioned before Play Music is the only Music app. There are two exceptions to this, Swiftkey is bundled alongside the Google Keyboard, and the default camera app is slightly different from Google’s. While many people will like this, if you’re not big on using Google apps, you might prefer some default apps for email, music, photos etc. That being said, you can always pick up alternatives from the Playstore, or backup and sideload the CyanogenMod versions as I did.

 

Dark mode is a great addition. It allows the settings menu and UI to be changed to a completely black theme with your choice of accent colour. I love this feature, and while it might have been done with battery saving in mind, I would like to see every Android device have this option.

 

The phone features a few in built gestures, which can all be independently turned on or off. When the screen is off you can, double tap to wake, draw “o” open camera app, “v” for torch, or “II” with two fingers to play or pause music. All work perfectly and are completely responsive. The device also features proximity wake, which shows the time, date and notifications when you move your hand close to the device. I found this quite useful as a quick and low power consumption way of checking notifications and time, without having to turn the display on fully or unlock the device.

 

The navigation buttons (which don’t light up) can be customised to change the function of the specified button, including long press and double tap functions. There is also an option to enable software navigation buttons, for people that really need to see buttons light up, while the trade off is you lose some screen real estate.

 

OnePlus are using their launcher called ‘Launcher3’ which is fairly minimal. The homescreen is functional, it features the usual Google apps in the dock, and Google search bar at the top of the screen which unfortunately can’t be removed. You can swipe in from the left to reveal ‘Shelf’ which gives you access to frequently used apps and contacts, you can also add widgets to this. There isn’t a huge amount of customisation, you can change the App drawer grid size, you can apply a different icon pack, and you can turn off shelf. Beyond that there is no customisation. The good news is, it runs really well with aftermarket launchers such as Nova Launcher, for those like myself that like to customize things further.

 

Specs and Performance

Performance is excellent considering the price of the phone, it features the Snapdragon 801 and 3GB of RAM, this is last year flagship specs for £199 ($249). It’s snappy, I’ve experienced no UI lag, apps launch quickly, and everything feels responsive. With light gaming, web browsing, social media, messaging and video playback it’s all seamless as you’d expect. The phone doesn’t get warm or overheat with that particular use case.  

 

It comes with 16Gb storage, and supports either a dual Sim or single Sim and MicroSD (upto128Gb) combination.  I’ve heard some murmurings on the Oneplus forums about some SD cards not being recognised, but my 32GB card was picked up fine. I’m confident any issues will be fixed via software updates.

 

There are some compromises, there is no support for NFC, only 2.4GHz WiFi is supported so say goodbye to 5GHz, there is no USB C or quick charging and there is no fingerprint scanner.  Certain LTE bands used in the US aren’t supported either, so check those accordingly. However, none of those were an issue for me, OnePlus have successfully compromised in the right areas, and they’ve kept the costs down while trying to affect the least amount of users. This is a fine balance, but I think for the most part they got it correct. They haven’t compromised much on the Screen, horsepower or design, and I think those matter most.

 

The camera seems completely fine, personally I’m not big on taking Photos with my phone, but again it seems like a good camera module for the money.

 

Battery Life

I feared the worst when I started reading the OnePlus forums, people were reporting excessive battery drain. And sure enough, when I first tested the phone it was decimating the battery, it came with 75% battery, and I was headed for emptying the battery with only 1h 45mins of screen on time. However, I realised the device was extremely cold during delivery, so I gave it a full overnight charge, and rebooted the phone in the morning. I was relieved to find the draining issue has corrected itself. I am now pleasantly surprised by the battery life. It features a 2525mAh battery, and in real terms with my initial testing this relates to about 6-7 hours of streamed 1080p video playback on a single charge. Screen on time will certainly get you through the day unless you are an extremely heavy user. Standby time is excellent, even without Marshmallow and Doze (which are coming soon) this phone sips power when not in use. A light user will get two days plus out of this phone no problem.

 

Verdict

This is a pretty easy phone to recommend, every single reviewer will emphasise the value. And they are correct to do so. This is a great looking and great performing phone for a minimal price. It has compromises, but there’s a fairly high chance those compromises won’t matter to you, or the trade off will be worth it. If you’re looking for a cheap phone with clean industrial design, a great 5 inch AMOLED screen, year old flagship performance, and you don’t mind the lacklustre speakers, lack of NFC, and fingerprint scanner.  Then I can safely say you probably can’t go wrong with a OnePlus X. Provided that is, the risk of getting your hardware direct from China with minimal customer support doesn’t faze you.

[AllHokage]

Thanks for the time and effort put into this! Going to be tuff to decided if I should pick this one up

[exercutor5]

Cool review. Got any pics? The phone's so sexy that those on the internet are not enough.

[Murdoch]

Cool review. Got any pics? The phone's so sexy that those on the internet are not enough.

 

Thanks bro, and sure I'll update later today with some screenshots and pictures. Work calls for now though.

[exercutor5]

Thanks bro, and sure I'll update later today with some screenshots and pictures. Work calls for now though.

 

Noice, waiting for them pics

[HDP]

Just ordered one today, looking forward to using it. I have read that it comes with a screenprotector already applied (is this true?), because -supposedly- it scratches easily. Did you get any scratches yet from daily use? 

[Bahdo]

Makes me much more interested in the phone, only problem is if I need to contact customer service it might be a problem since they're in China.

[LAwLz]

The Headphone socket is in its optimal position (at the top).

I don't get why people like the headphone jack at the bottom.

 

Good review by the way. It's good to hear that OnePlus has another good phone in their lineup.

[Bouzoo]

Cool review, was thinking about buying it for my gf, this helps a lot. 

 

I don't get why people like the headphone jack at the bottom.

 

While on top is better sometims, I have no issues with it on bottom on my G2. Actually I prefer it. Not a problem while putting it in pocket etc. For instance when I'm doing stuff it's on bottom and doesn't get in the way on being on my screen since the wire is always under my shirt. Also if the wire is not long enough and it's under your shirt it might be an issue on how much you can raise your phone or take it away from you. I can't remember the correct term for "wire", cord or something. 

[RedRound2]

I don't get why people like the headphone jack at the bottom.

 

If you have the headphones and charger connected all the wires will be bottom which is much better and more convinient than having one at the top and bottom. Another way I find bottom mounted jack useful is because you don't have to fiddle with your phone when you get it out of the pocket especially big phones

 

Why do you prefer top mounted headphone jack?

 

Nice review btw

[LAwLz]

If you have the headphones and charger connected all the wires will be bottom which is much better and more convinient than having one at the top and bottom. Another way I find bottom mounted jack useful is because you don't have to fiddle with your phone when you get it out of the pocket especially big phones

 

Why do you prefer top mounted headphone jack?

I prefer it at the top because that's how I put my phone in my pocket. When it is in my pocket with the screen in the right orientation I can just slide it out slightly to see notifications.

I guess there are benefits and drawbacks to both though.

[Tasuma]

I was thinking about getting a new phone. My galaxy s5 active is becoming sluggish and not a fan of actual buttons oddly enough. Def may pick one of these bad boys up soon. 

[JDMFTW]

So lacking LTE bands, No wireless AC, and no NFC. Makes it hard not to just scoop up a One plus 2. or shoot even a used one plus one.

[Murdoch]

So lacking LTE bands, No wireless AC, and no NFC. Makes it hard not to just scoop up a One plus 2. or shoot even a used one plus one.

 

Sure if you need those. And don't mind a larger phone. Definitely the way to go.

[JDMFTW]

Sure if you need those. And don't mind a larger phone. Definitely the way to go.

What service provider are you using for the test?

[Murdoch]

What service provider are you using for the test?

 

I'm in the UK, so those missing bands aren't an issue. I have a T-Mobile sim though.

 

I never use NFC, and don't mind 2.4Ghz WiFi as it gives better range in my house.

 

Those "cost saving measures" will rule some people out for sure. Personally, not a huge deal for me.

 

Also, the OnePlus 2 lacks NFC too. Which is a pretty strange omission tbh.

[muxmer]

Umm.. what about the camera of this phone..?

[agentagent47]

well done m8, very nice review. iam trying to purchase one but the distributor on my country doesn't get any oneplus X for the time being. i have to wait. D:

[tobi]

Thanks for the review! 
How would you say it does on the Slipperyness scale?