The OnePlus One Review
by Joshua Ho on November 19, 2014 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Android
- Mobile
- OnePlus
Software
While software tends to be a bit of a side note in reviews, it really is a crucial part of the experience. Without a good UI, the entire experience can be ruined as a result of these issues. This leads us to CM11S, the first official UI released by Cyanogen. For the most part, this UI really is just a lightly re-touched version of what we see in Nexus devices, but with a large number of extra features. For example, we see a revamp of the quick settings menu, with horizontal quick settings in the notification drawer along with a large number of available quick settings tiles in the quick settings menu.
Of course, CM11S goes much deeper. There really is an immense amount of customization available to the end user, from a custom boot animation to new icons, fonts, wallpapers, sounds, and overall system UI themes. While Holo is the official AOSP UI, CM11S ships with Hexo which is largely similar to Holo, but with a strong emphasis on hexagons throughout the UI. Many of the modifications that one might be used to from a custom ROM are present here, such as the ability to dynamically change the battery icon in the status bar, the way that the clock is displayed, reception representation, gestures to turn on the flashlight or the display, re-mapping the rather dim capacitive buttons, enabling or disabling on screen buttons, permissions management, changing the size of a pattern unlock, changing the lock screen altogether, and similar customizations.
While one can spend their time defending choice for the sake of choice, I definitely question the value of all of these additions. While some will value the ability to deeply customize their OS, for anyone that is even remotely unfamiliar with the idiosyncrasies of CyanogenMod and Cyanogen they will find their experience to be deeply frustrating. While I've already detailed some of the usability issues present in the camera application, many of these features fundamentally don't make sense. The notification drawer's "quick access ribbon" out of the box is simply a row of icons that can have very little meaning at times. While one can guess that an airplane is for airplane mode and a flashlight is for the torch, a circular arrow is utterly ambiguous in nature. Given the quick access nature of this menu, one might guess that this is a rotation lock toggle but for one reason or another it's actually the auto-sync toggle.
These issues extend to the point of being outright frustrating for average users. While one might guess that setting up lockscreen protection through the security menu as with almost every other UI, CM11S places it in the lockscreen menu which definitely can make for some level of difficulty in adapting from other devices. Something as simple as the pattern lock becomes complicated as one is given an almost ridiculous amount of choice from a 3x3 to 6x6 pattern. While a 4x4 or 3x3 pattern makes sense, 5x5 or 6x6 is almost guaranteed to be wholly unnecessary for an OS that's supposed to target a large number of users that may or may not be accustomed to the Cyanogen UI experience.
Finally, it's hard to argue for extensive customization of most visual aspects, as it's really far too easy for themes to rapidly diverge from meshing with Google design lines quite rapidly. While I'm sure that there are people out there that will like whatever themes are available using the CM11 theme engine, it's really hard to argue that this is a good thing for cohesive experience. The sheer number of issues with the camera alone is enough to question whether this level of customization is worth dealing with the likelihood of buggy releases.
While there are a lot of issues with Cyanogen's approach of throwing every possible option to the user, to their credit a great deal of the experience does come out quite enjoyable once one has spent enough time actually figuring out what each option does. For example, while on most phones it's pretty easy to fill the status bar with an NFC indicator, WiFi, cellular reception icons, battery icons, battery percentage text, and the time, this can be avoided on the OnePlus One. Various elements can be removed if desired, and things like the privacy guard application allow for a great deal of fine-tuning to ensure that applications don't have more permissions than necessary, although this could cause unintended behavior in an application. In addition, the overall experience has been consistently smooth and performant, with no real lag. The real issue here is that CM11S has taken the kitchen-sink approach to UI design, to the detriment of the user.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
148 Comments
View All Comments
wyewye - Thursday, November 20, 2014 - link
An article beginning with "There's really not much else to be said" ...Why do you keep this smug asshole on your team, Anand? Are you really looking to drive away viewers?
Regarding the OnePlus One, this config would have been decent in mid 2013. Coming in late 2014, this phone is not only not a flagship killer but average at best.
Harry_Wild - Thursday, November 20, 2014 - link
"Reception, at least for T-Mobile US' band 4/AWS LTE is noticeably worse than most devices that I've tried. "I'm a T-Mobile user; and this above result sure makes me uneasy to even consider it as a purchase! Hopefully, One Plus, can find some way to fix the LTE for T-Mobile so it can be more clear!
Munna2002 - Friday, November 21, 2014 - link
I'm a T Mobile user and haven't had issues with the OPO reception in the NYC metro area. LTE speeds are as fast as those observed with a Samsung S3 and S5.littlebitstrouds - Thursday, November 20, 2014 - link
The reason this phone is so popular isn't that it matches up perfectly with flagships, even though it does it's best job, but rather that for $350 off contract it allows you to finally have a near flagship phone on non-contract services without breaking your bank. I went from an EVO LTE with $99 a month from sprint, to $50 a month with t-mobile non contract. $50 savings a month, and I don't have to use last year's gear while doing it.BabelHuber - Thursday, November 20, 2014 - link
I do not understand why CM is criticized because of its options:I like them and I use them - for me a stock Android phone has too few options. I need to use Xposed/ Gravitybox to get the options back, otherwise I can't stand it.
Also I do not understand what is wrong with CM's Theme Engine: It works well and there are lots of themes I really like.
Of course there are also themes which do not work correctly one way or the other, but that's not the Theme Engine's fault.
So I would see it exactly the other way round: CM adds sensible features to Android. Of course there are also lots of settings in CM which I don't use, like the profiles.
But why should I be embarassed about this? I use what I want and I ignore the rest. That's what options are for.
Also I didn't have difficulties getting used to CM at all.
So I think from the software side Joshua Ho got it wrong.
If I would be malicious I'd say it's no wonder that the Anandtech staff likes iOS so much, because they seem to be too stupid to use a fully-featured OS :-)
srkelley - Thursday, November 20, 2014 - link
It's not that they're dumb, far from it, but that the presentation of the options can leave a lot to be desired. Joshua Ho points out the number, but the number of options alone isn't the real issue. It's too number made available to people that require them to either search outside of the ui to understand or to learn what they do through trial and error.I'm perfectly fine with that, I have a OPO (https://plus.google.com/+ShirondaleKelley/posts). Still, such a thing must be cited. Even power users just want to be users sometimes. Maybe they just want to exert their power through workflows instead of configuration. Maybe they want to be able to recommended a good phone to friends without becoming their personal and default support option. Having such a thing the review reminds you of what the norm is and allows for a much more comprehensive review. It's constructive criticism, not scalding or venomous criticism.
Since we're all power users here, maybe we would still get to phone for our friends but decide to install miui or preconfigure certain items. A review like this certainly helps with the decision of what to recommend and how to handle it.
BabelHuber - Friday, November 21, 2014 - link
In my experience, people like CM's options, even the 'regular' users.My GF uses CM11 on her Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.4 - I had to install it because she hates the Samsung-UI the device came with. With CM, she is satisfied with the device.
I've also shown two friends how to install CM on their older devices (SGS2 and HTC Desire HD). They also like it.
Nobody said that he/she is confused. Nobody wants to have less options.
So I still think that CM is fine and I still do not understand how somebody would prefer less options. It just does not make sense to me.
srkelley - Sunday, November 23, 2014 - link
Yes, and that's good for them.Again, it's not solely the number but in how they're presented. If it had a more cohesive, polished presentation then the number really wouldn't matter. The way that some part of the interface exposes (or doesn't) functionality is the true issue here.
No, that doesn't mean that everyone will have trouble. I just don't believe that you should have search outside of a ui to understand how to complete basic and intermediate level items. That can be the cause with some of the cm11 functions. It's nowhere near all of them, it's something that I see the team fixing over time. It used to be way more daunting in the beginning, the team has been making great improvements while adding more functionality and I love it for that.
slfisher - Monday, November 24, 2014 - link
Do you have a "CM for Dummies" reference to point to on how to configure it? thanks.icekyuu - Monday, November 24, 2014 - link
Try this - http://cornerplay.com/2014/08/05/cyanogenmod-onepl...For the record, I love CM's customization options.
I vastly prefer the Google Camera app though. I suspect what happened is the reviewer got frustrated with the CM Camera app and that boiled over for everything else. When everything else is actually fine.