OnePlus One- My Take

[Techteen14]

Just to be clear, this is my first real review. I'm not sure how good I am at it.

Introduction & Background

Since OnePlus is doing another open sale tomorrow night, and because I've used the One for enough time to review it, I figured I would write my thoughts on it. Prior to buying the One, I had an iPhone 4, which I had for 2 years and decided I wanted something big and relatively inexpensive. My dad was lucky enough to snatch two of them up in the last open sale.

Unboxing and First Impressions

The packaging is really premium, clean and minimalistic, with just a OnePlus logo on the outside and a red pull tab. The power brick is packaged by itself in a smaller matching box, I assume to keep the clean and premium feel. In the main box is the One, the flat anti-tangle USB charger (which I'll talk about in the Accessories section below) and dedicated SIM tray tool, which is amazing since I don't like to use paper clips.

My first thoughts when handling the device were that it was big, and that it was very light and had nice weight distribution. I also liked the rounded back and "sandstone" textured plastic. It doesn't feel like it's $350.

Design & Build Quality: 9/10

The One's design is beautiful. I personally like soft touch/textured plastic better than aluminum, glass or glossy plastic because it adds grip, and the One's back doesn't disappoint. The rounded back helps with ergonomics, and its slightly rounded top and bottom help it to stand out over the rounded rectangles that are pretty much every other smartphone. The power button is in the place where my thumb naturally rests (though I am tall and have large-ish hands), though I kept hitting the lower volume button whenever I pressed the power button when using the One one handed. I turned on Double Tap to Wake and Double Tap Status Bar to Sleep, so between those and my flip case (see Accessories) I hardly ever hit the power button anymore. The notification LED is really convenient, and the ability to customize its color, pluse rate and such is cool.

My only gripes, and the two reasons for the 9/10 rating, are that the MicroUSB port is curved like the bottom of the phone, so the connector feels loose and is wobbly. It doesn't fall out, and it actually takes a bit of force to remove it, but it looks like it will. Also, I don't like the raised screen from a durability point of view. It looks really nice, but I'm not sure how well it'd fare if dropped on its face. The screen itself is amazing, though, and it's definitely noticeably higher-resolution than my iPhone 4.

Performance: 10/10

The 2.4GHz (2,457MHz) Snapdragon 801 performs great, especially with the 3GB of RAM. I love not having to reload an app or tab every time I leave it and come back, and I've never encountered any lag. Animations are snappy. Is there really anything else to say?

Camera: 7/10

The rear camera is, frankly, crap. The pictures look grainy and noisy, and the stock camera app is horrible. I don't take pictures with my phone (I have a DSLR for when the moment deserves a picture, otherwise I don't need to document every second of my life. No one cares what I ate for lunch), but YMMV. turned on RAW and pictures look much better, though I think I will still try the app mentioned directly below. Updated ranking.

There is hope, however. I have a hunch that most of my complaints about the camera can be fixed with an app called Manuel Camera, which inserts Manuel Noriega into any picture you take Manual Camera. It appears to let you tweak every aspect of your photos, like ISO (which I suspect is making the photos grainy). It requires 5.0., though, which is supposed to come next month.

The front camera is great. But really, why do you need to:

A) Take selfies?

B) Take 5MP selfies?

Are you going to make posters? If you said yes, you need help.

OS: 9.5/10

I choose to use unrooted CM11S, with Nova Laucher on top.

Battery Life: great, I usually get 6.5 hours of screen on time and 17-19 hours total. Compared to my iPhone's 1.5 hours of screen on time and >4 hours total, this is amazing.

Stability: it's just as stable as my iPhone, which is to say only needed to reboot once and only crashed once in the <3 weeks that I've had it. I do get the "Unfortunately, Exchange Services has Stopped" error every once and a while, but that's a minor inconvenience.

Security: there are some cool security features, like Privacy Guard, which lets you limit what apps can use what data, and Whisper Push, which encrypts your SMSs.

Keyboard: Google Keyboard is really cool. It looks nice and has some nice functionality, like swiping to type. And cursor controls are the best thing since sliced bread, I can't emphasize this enough.

The phone bits: no one uses this, but if you still do, or it's an emergency, call quality is fine but not outstanding.

Accessories

Black OnePlus Flip case:

The $14.99 OnePlus One Flip Case is nice, it looks premium but doesn't really feel the part. It covers the notification LED, which is annoying, but the ability to wake/sleep the device with just the flap is SUPER convenient. It adds some bulk, which makes crouching/sitting/running uncomfortable. I'd rate 8/10

OnePlus Tempered Glass Screen Protector:

It doesn't affect screen sensitivity, color or brightness, is a little more reflective. What more do you want? 10/10.

OnePlus Flat Power Cable:

This cable is awesome. It's flat and doesn't tangle, the color scheme is very aesthetically pleasing and it has that cool USB end thing. The white cable holder thing is great for people like me who bring their cables places. 10/10.

Conclusion/TL;DR

This device is great, and I would buy it again. The design is amazing, CM11S fixes pretty much every gripe I had with stock Android and battery life is phenominal. The camera is bad, but might be able to be fixed in 5.0./CM12S.

OVERALL RATING: 9/10

Pictures

Sorry for bad quality, taken with my iPad's .3MP (IIRC) camera.

Front, with closed Flip Case.

Back, no Flip Case.

Open, Flip Case.

Open, no flip case and my homescreen.

[werto165]

"The phone bits: no one uses this" k

[dli7319]

I agree with everything except for the 2 cons on the design portion. The USB port on my OnePlus One is one of the tightest I've ever used, much of this I attribute to the high-quality cable. I've had my phone since July and the USB port and cable are still as strong as they were when they were new. It doesn't wobble or feel loose.

I like to think of the raised screen as recessed bezels. I don't really think it compromises durability since other phones would also land on their screen when dropped face down. Anyone who worries about this would put a case on their phone even if the bezel and screen were flush. Most case manufacturers (diztronic, cruzerlite...) have a 1-2 mm lip above the screen. A lot of people put glass screen protectors on their OnePlus One.

One thing I'd like to add is that my signal strength on AT&T's HSPA+ is not as great as it is on my HTC One. I can usually get ~10 Mbits/s down on my HTC One M7 but I only get ~4Mbits/s on my OnePlus One. This prevents me from watching HD videos on Youtube off data.

[Techteen14]

I agree with everything except for the 2 cons on the design portion. The USB port on my OnePlus One is one of the tightest I've ever used, much of this I attribute to the high-quality cable. I've had my phone since July and the USB port and cable are still as strong as they were when they were new. It doesn't wobble or feel loose.

I like to think of the raised screen as recessed bezels. I don't really think it compromises durability since other phones would also land on their screen when dropped face down. Anyone who worries about this would put a case on their phone even if the bezel and screen were flush. Most case manufacturers (diztronic, cruzerlite...) have a 1-2 mm lip above the screen. A lot of people put glass screen protectors on their OnePlus One.

I have the OnePlus Flip Case and Glass Screen Protector, so I'm not that worried, just thought I'd post my thoughts unless someone decides to rock it naked.

One thing I'd like to add is that my signal strength on AT&T's HSPA+ is not as great as it is on my HTC One. I can usually get ~10 Mbits/s down on my HTC One M7 but I only get ~4Mbits/s on my OnePlus One. This prevents me from watching HD videos on Youtube off data.

Do you not have LTE? (HSPA+ =4G)

[ShadowCaptain]

SNIP

 

didn't they  update the camera to shoot raw?

 

example this is a photo from it

[Techteen14]

didn't they  update the camera to shoot raw?

 

example this is a photo from it

Actually, they did. I just tried it out and RAW photos look much better.

Can you explain RAW to me?

I think I'll still give Manual Camera a try, if not to have a more DSLR-like experience on my phone... Might make me a smartphone photographer.

[ShadowCaptain]

Actually, they did. I just tried it out and RAW photos look much better.

Can you explain RAW to me?

I think I'll still give Manual Camera a try, if not to have a more DSLR-like experience on my phone... Might make me a smartphone photographer.

 

RAW means the camera is recording all of the data taken by the sensor, otherwise photos are taken in JPEG which are heavily compressed

 

 

Manual camera is fine, i have it on my iphone, but it is clumsy and time consuming to use compared to flicking dials on a DSLR, it takes more time diving into menus on your phone just to take a quick snap

[Techteen14]

RAW means the camera is recording all of the data taken by the sensor, otherwise photos are taken in JPEG which are heavily compressed

 

So basically an uncompressed and unprocessed file? I've heard a lot about RAW, just haven't read into it much.

 

Manual camera is fine, i have it on my iphone, but it is clumsy and time consuming to use compared to flicking dials on a DSLR, it takes more time diving into menus on your phone just to take a quick snap

I'll download it and try it out ASAP, then use that 15 minute refund if I don't like it. Probably one of the best features of the Google Play Store.

[ShadowCaptain]

 

So basically an uncompressed and unprocessed file? I've heard a lot about RAW, just haven't read into it much.

 

I'll download it and try it out ASAP, then use that 15 minute refund if I don't like it. Probably one of the best features of the Google Play Store.

 

yes basically, raw gives you a lot more power in editing too, more colour and exposure data is captured, so you can recover images that are too dark/too bright, and you can easily edit the saturation  and sharpness

 

JPEGs generally come out looking OK, but fall apart during editing, they are pretty much, "as seen" and not  much can be done with them

[Guest]

The camera is pretty okay, it certainly isn't bad....

[Majinferno]

Typing on my oneplus one right now. Great phone and the price really helped me get away from a contract/ switch from ios.

Thanks for the review