The OnePlus One Review
by Joshua Ho on November 19, 2014 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Android
- Mobile
- OnePlus
Battery Life
At this point, battery life is one of the number one priorities for a phone. While in 2013 our primary tests consisted of the web browsing test and video playback tests, we've expanded our suite to include Basemark OS II and GFXBench to simulate intensive general usage and gaming, respectively. For all of our tests in which the display is on, we calibrate the brightness of full white to be 200 nits in order to standardize and attempt to control for extraneous variables as much as possible. While this may seem arbitrary, it's important to do so to draw real conclusions about which phone has better battery life. 200 nits on a phone can be as low as 50% and as high as 90%, so setting a standardized brightness percentage would not be an effective method of controlling for display brightness. With that in mind, let's get to the battery life tests.
Here, we see that the OnePlus One takes the number three spot for battery life amongst phones and phablets. This is definitely a great result to start with, and is a solid 20% higher than the One (M8). However, the Huawei Ascend Mate 2 continues to hold its position with a long lead over just about anything else available in the market today.
We can see a similar story in LTE web browsing battery life. However, the OnePlus One manages to close up the lead that the Ascend Mate 2 holds in WiFi browsing. It's likely that the 28nm LP process and lack of envelope tracker is responsible for closing the gap in this regard. It's interesting to see how the iPhone 6 Plus trails behind the OnePlus One here, but it's likely that this difference is due to the fact that the iPhone 6 Plus has an off-die modem compared to the OnePlus One's on-die modem.
White battery life tends to fall towards the bottom here, we can see that the reality is that the OnePlus One performs quite well, which indicates that there's relatively little throttling to speak of and that the OnePlus One is simply doing well by sustaining high levels of performance.
We see the same story in the GFXBench rundown. The OnePlus One manages to set a new record for final run FPS among phones and phablets, although battery life is near the bottom of the pack. It seems that if there's any one reason for the escalating display size wars, it is to increase battery life. While by no means a clear order, we can see that the larger battery more than compensates for the larger display of the OnePlus One. This makes sense, as a phone should have a fixed size circuit board. Therefore, by increasing display size the circuit boards become smaller relative to the rest of the phone, and all of the area opened up by increasing the size of the phone can be taken up by the battery. Overall, the OnePlus One is almost as good as it gets for battery life in a phone, with excellent sustained performance under load.
Charge Time
To really have a holistic understanding of battery life, we must also take a look at charge time. While battery life can be the only determinant of mobility, in cases where usage is heavy enough that the battery or multiple batteries have to be charged, charge time can become incredibly important. To this end, OnePlus includes a 5V, 2.1A charger in the box to quickly charge the rather large 11.78 WHr battery.
Somewhat surprisingly, the OnePlus One does a great job in this test, coming quite close to other devices with QC 2.0 fast chargers like the Galaxy Note 4 which is definitely good to see. Overall, this makes the OnePlus One one of the best phablets on the market for battery life.
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martyh1 - Thursday, January 15, 2015 - link
I agree. But that's for me. Other users have different needs. For me, 64GB is way more than enough. And my Note 3 is not benefiting me by having an SD card slot when I have to take off the cover to get to it. For me, an SD card slot is most useful if you can insert/remove it extremely easily.tipoo - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link
Yeah, that's my primary concern. Though the 32GB is reasonably priced, especially compared to other high end phones.tipoo - Friday, November 21, 2014 - link
Actually 64 for just 50 more, not 32... quite reasonable. That would be good enough for me.dawheat - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link
Surprised there's no mention of touch issues. My OPO is decidedly my backup phone now, even on the newest firmware, b/c the touch response still isn't as good as other brand name phones. It's gotten much better but you still get missed swipes, zooming when you didn't mean to, etc. To me, it's a big negative to an otherwise excellent phone.ratbert1 - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link
I was trying this phone out while I had my N5 on L preview. I have been trying to decide whether to keep my N5 or this. I love the display and the software works for me except for transition stuttering at times. I agree there are way to many customization options for me to become familiar with as far as themes. I do enjoy the battery life. Even in remote locations where my other two phones will be dead by late afternoon, this still has 30% left. In the end I can't get over the size. I keep my phone in my front pocket and this is too big. My hands are not big, so it is a two handed affair all of the time.Since getting and enjoying Lollipop on my N5, I will keep it and sell the One. I will definitely miss it though.
Jax Omen - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link
Can we please get someone who isn't busy fellating Apple to review android phones? Seriously, so sick of this guy. I don't even have to know what the phone is to know how the review will end, every one of his android phone reviews ends with "it's not a bad phone, but there are better options in the market". EVERY. SINGLE. REVIEW. This one bafflingly adds "too much choice having decisions to make on my phone confuses me" just to further drive home the point that he's in a love affair with Apple.Master_Sigma - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link
The author doesn't fellate Apple in this review at all. In fact he spends a lot of time praising its hardware (except for the camera) and overall design. Its only in the software that he feels it needs work and, as a OnePlus One owner, I completely agree with him. The software really does need a lot of polish before it can punch with the flagships. However, given the price ($350 for 64GB of onboard storage is insane) its very easy to overlook the software issues. That, and OnePlus has been very good so far with keeping this phone is updated. The last 2 updates alone fixed alot of issues that earlier reviewers like Marques Brownlee were having.mrex - Wednesday, November 26, 2014 - link
Polish what? The software is excellent already (44s).Phasenoise - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link
I think you've got blinders on. The review was actually pretty positive and notes while not suitable for direct comparison to high-end smartphones (does not mean Apple), the price is good and the compromises may not bother you.tipoo - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link
Did you just have that in your clipboard to post without reading the review? Apple hardly got any mention, and the review was pretty positive. Pointing out the negatives is a reviewers /job/, so I don't know why you'd knock that part...You know, unless you're fellating Oneplus.