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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max1001 - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link
Totally agree, it's a good phone but def lack polish. I have been using one since launch.The most disappointing part was the camera because the hardware is class leading but the software is seriously holding it back.
Stochastic - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link
I just got my OnePlus One about a week ago. This is actually my first smartphone (yeah, I held out that long) so I have no real reference point to go by, although I have used iPhones, a 2013 Moto X, a Galaxy S5, and the LG G3 briefly. Since I’m not used to the smaller sized devices that were popular in 2007-2013, the OPO doesn’t feel gargantuan to me. In fact, after hearing so much about how massive the device is, I was a little surprised at how reasonably sized it is. I would say I have average sized hands and I can still use the device one-handed for some functions if I cradle it right, although obviously it’s far more ergonomic/efficient to use with two hands. Again, since this is my first smartphone, this doesn’t bother me in the slightest.Battery life is very good in my experience. Granted, I use airplane mode most of the time and have tweaked the auto brightness curve so that the display is very dim, but so far I’ve been reasonably impressed with how long it can last on a charge. To me this is more important than being able to use the phone one-handed.
The 5.5 inch display is well suited to web browsing and article reading, which are my primary uses for the device. To be honest I wouldn’t mind an even larger display—I’d like to try the Nexus 6 at some point. Reading this review I’m really surprised by the quality of the screen calibration. Subjectively, I can confirm that the display looks quite good, although I’d like my next device to have an OLED for inky blacks and lower power draw. The few videos I’ve watched so far looked about as good as they do on my Dell U2412M. At 401 PPI, the display appears laser sharp to me. Then again I don’t have 20/20 vision, so even a ~250 PPI display would probably appear sufficiently resolving to my eyes. To be honest, I’d trade resolution for even better battery life and performance in a heartbeat.
The bottom mounted speakers leave something to be desired, but I find that to be the case for all smartphones save perhaps the HTC One M8. If you care about sound quality you’ll use headphones. The OPO does a good job of driving my ATH-M50s (and hopefully the Fidelio X2s I have coming in), so it should work well as a DAP without the need to resort to a portable amp.
Regarding Cyanogenmod and the overall polish of the software: obviously this device isn’t going to be on par with iOS or Android Lollipop in that regard, but I haven’t encountered any show stopping bugs so far on the 44S firmware. I’ve also been reasonably happy with the touch sensitivity, although I can’t really assess this as I’m using a .24 mm Orzly screen protector. I look forward to the CM12 update that we should receive early next year and hope that polish will improve with time.
Stochastic - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link
I just read over my post and realized that I'm perhaps gushing a bit too much. So here are some gripes:The battery isn't user replaceable. Personally, I find this to be the OPO's biggest shortcoming.
As examined in detail in the review, the camera is decidedly lackluster. This doesn't personally bother me as I'll just use a DSLR if I really care about image quality, and the camera is still serviceable in a pinch, but digital shutterbugs should steer clear.
UI performance is overall very good in my opinion, but there still is some minor stuttering/hitching with certain apps. It's not a big deal but it's definitely not as smooth as iOS.
While the OPO doesn't have any deal-breaking issues unlike most Android phones (poor battery life, subpar display, limited storage capacity, middle-of-the-road performance, etc.), it also doesn't have too much to set it apart except for maybe the customizability offered by Cyanogenmod. This can easily be forgiven given the $350 price point, but I still envy the features found in the Moto X.
The OPO is only supported by GSM networks. Definitely a con.
Availability is still limited, and from what I've heard, customer support is pretty terrible. Caveat emptor. Going forward this needs to be OnePlus' top priority.
DanD85 - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link
Thanks for reviewing the OnePlus One! It's one of the best phone of this year, combine with the spectacular price and you have a clear winner.webdoctors - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link
There's a MIUI ROM out for One Plus One. Could the reviewer please also try that? I've found MIUI to give a pretty polished experience. Sorry as I realize installing a custom ROM on a $300 phone shouldn't be necessary, but considering the great HW, seems a shame to be let down by CM...(but that same argument could be given for all the great Android phones crippled by crappy Android vs iOS)Munna2002 - Friday, November 21, 2014 - link
I'm curious - how does one get this and are there reviews of MIUI doing a comparison with CyanogenMod?Midwayman - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link
Its a phone for enthusiasts it seems. Thing is all the options and development was done for people who are able to root and install a ROM on their own. No surprise that Cyanogen has some rough edges for a mass market.Bob Todd - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link
After basically losing interest in this phone due to the incredibly slow market roll-out/invite process, I find it more interesting again now that the Nexus 5 is out of stock in every configuration. The Nexus 6 being so underwhelming in the review here is also helping.Shlong - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link
You should also mention that it comes with an additional nano sim card tray so it'll fit both nano and micro sim. It's a very good phone and for the price it can't be beat (unlocked to boot) but the camera is just crap. Luckily, I have an iphone 6 plus as well but for those without an extra phone and love taking pictures, you will be disappointed. Everything else is excellent however.augiem - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link
I actually ordered one of these last week, but ended up cancelling the order. Go scour the OnePlus forums and you'll find there is an unusually high number of reports of extremely buggy software and hardware. One recent forum poll showed 25% of phones had problems. Even people who are extremely happy with the phone consistently live with problems always expecting them to be fixed in the next patch. This goes on for months and months and months. Some of the problems people have had are very serious such as earpiece failures, touch screen lockups, loss of LTE signal, random reboots, sudden data loss, battery drain, yellow banding on the screen, constant app crashes, etc. Die hard fans always blow these issues off. Their solution? Telling everyone to root their devices and load alternate roms or start running the dailies from Cyanogen. Okay... Sounds like a solution to me. To make matters worse, customer support is nonexistent at the company with many reports of receiving no response to support contact for a month or more. People have frequently been forced to file claims with PayPal to get their money back. None of this is mentioned in all the glowing reviews of this device around the web. Word of advice: DO YOUR RESEARCH before you jump in and buy this phone. Even for techies, the cost of ownership is very high in the time you'll likely have to invest to get the phone running properly.