The OnePlus One Review
by Joshua Ho on November 19, 2014 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Android
- Mobile
- OnePlus
Display
Within the past few years, smartphone displays have improved immensely. Color rendition, peak brightness, contrast, resolution, viewing angles, and power draw have all improved since the first modern smartphones that appeared in 2007. Of course, while it was once possible to judge relative quality in displays by subjective comparison, most smartphones no longer have TN displays or poor maximum brightness. In order to better test displays, we turn to SpectraCal’s CalMAN 5 with a custom workflow.
In the basics, we see that the OnePlus One has a reasonably bright display and acceptable display contrast, although there's room to improve in both. OnePlus has also done a good job of making sure that their display gets dim enough for night time reading, as minimum brightness is around 4.2 nits. Viewing angles are also great. While contrast with viewing angle changes isn't as good as AMOLED panels, I don't see any color shifting with viewing angle changes. This seems to remain an advantage of IPS panels for now.
In grayscale, we see that the white balance is just a bit blue, but there really isn’t a big issue there. The OnePlus One sets a record for grayscale accuracy. I would like to see a bit better color balance at the higher scales, but it's really just nitpicking. Specifically, red needs to be bumped up to be in line with green and blue. It's understandable why this is done though, as the display's backlight will be the weakest in red in general.
In the saturation sweep, OnePlus has done a great job to make sure that colors are as accurate as possible. The only issue here is that the red, magenta, and blue is a bit weaker than it should be. Some extra saturation would definitely tighten up the accuracy here in addition to making the display more appealing than it is now. However, the display is still incredibly well-calibrated, and will be more than accurate enough for general use.
The strong showing in the saturation sweep helps carry the OnePlus One through to do well in the ColorChecker. For the most part, we see that much of the error comes from the issues previously discussed with grayscale. The display overall is great, and while it isn’t perfect, it’s really just nitpicking at this point. The OnePlus One manages to display colors more accurate than almost everything on the market. The only real issue I've noticed with this display is that there's a bit more IPS glow than I'd like when shifting viewing angles.
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tipoo - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link
Was that meant as a reply to me? I know that, the N5 was a great example of this. Though the 6 is going back up to stupid pricing.tipoo - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link
Yes the authors "first" comment was wrong, but I meant about the "understand the market" bit, I'm guessing he means subsidized prices.Arbie - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link
A phablet with no microSD? These larger phones (and of course tablets) are what benefit from that the most, in their role as media players. I wouldn't even consider the OPO.coldpower27 - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link
64GB is already sufficiently large that a microSD isn't totally necessary. Less and less Android phones have this feature now. That has been the general trend now. Google is moving away from it with the Nexus 5/6/9, Apple never has had it in it's products.There are still some modern products that have it. Samsung GS5, Note 4, HTC One M8, LG G3.
cjs150 - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link
The idea that 64 G is enough is hilarious - this is a phone begging to be used as a media device whilst travelling. The reason for removing the microSD is a function of price. Phone/Tablet manufacturers massively overcharge for adding extra storage. It is also a function of the same manufacturers employing designers who, to put it simply, need to get out into the sunshine a bit more. Not everywhere has good access to the cloud, in fact huge chunks of the first world has poor or no access - and that is before you get started on the data cap that no doubt is written into your phone contractChaser - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link
What's hilarious is are people that believe 5" phone displays should be loaded up with movies and then used as miniature Imax viewers. It's a phone. It doesn't need 80 HD movies with Dolby Digital 7.1.jabber - Thursday, November 20, 2014 - link
Yeah if you are going on vacation, enjoy the vacation. Don't spend it watching crappy movies the whole time. You really don't need to carry masses of video and audio around.oliwek - Saturday, November 22, 2014 - link
Those recent phones have (micro)-USB OTG connectors. So it's possible to stock movies and music on USB thumb drives... I'd prefer to get the choice, though.oliwek - Saturday, November 22, 2014 - link
LG G2 had no SD card slot, G3 has got one. Same evolution for the HTC One. And Samsung flagships always had SD card slots. So this evolution is not so widespread (if you except Nexus models, and Apple tactics to let the customer pay more and more for enough NAND)..
slfisher - Monday, November 24, 2014 - link
I held off from getting a OnePlus for that reason for quite a while -- as well as the fact that it doesn't have a removable battery. I was really holding out for either a Google Play edition of the S5, or Lollipop on my existing S3. Since neither one was forthcoming, I went for the OnePlus because of the bare metal and the 64GB.