OnePlus 5T In-Depth Review: A Premium flagship Replacement?

Chinese Electronics manufacturer, OnePlus is known for releasing cheap smartphones which compete with more expensive premium flagship smartphones. In simpler terms smartphones that perform like an Rs 50,000+ smartphone without you being able to spend that money. The company's present flagship is their OnePlus 5T. So we decided to give it a test and check out what can it really beat it's double the price smartphones.

OnePlus 5T

The OnePlus 5T comes with a Qualcomm MSM8998 Snapdragon 845 coupled with an Adreno 540 GPU and 6GB or 8GB of RAM depending on which variant you bought. It sports a 6.01-inch (1280 x 2160 pixels) AMOLED display with an 18:9 aspect ratio. For the optics, it features a 16-megapixel rear camera with f/1.7 aperture coupled with a 20-megapixel camera with the same aperture at the back. For the selfies, it packs a 16-megapixel front-facing camera with a f/2.0 aperture with face detection and more. All of this is backed up by a 3,300mAh Battery.

The smartphone sports a metal and glass construction which gives the smartphone a premium feel. It runs on Android 8.0.0 Oreo. The smartphone is expected to be updated to Android 9.0 when it comes. However, given the company's past, we can't promise anything. Also, the software offers an almost stock UI experience with a couple of tasteful modifications. It also includes a Fingerprint sensor, a dual-sim card slot USB-C port and a 3.5mm headphone jack. As we have seen headphone jack disappearing in flagships these days, it's really good to see one here.

Design

The OnePlus 5T features a slightly modified design to the OnePlus 5. The smartphone metal and glass construction makes it look and feel premium. Also, the 18:9 display and reduced bezels at the front contributes to a better smartphone. IT also features OnePlus's iconic alert slider which is always a plus.

The front consists of a 6.01-inch (1280 x 2160 pixels) AMOLED display. Above that, you have an earpiece which gets really loud during calls. Therefore calling in busy and noisy areas is not an issue. The sensor array for the proximity sensor and accelerometer is at its’ left. And the 16MP front-facing camera with f/2.0 aperture is also at it’s left. The device features a rear fingerprint sensor and on-screen buttons, so that’s it on the front.

On the rear of the device, you will find the dual camera setup with dual tone led and fingerprint sensor at the back. You have also got a secondary microphone on the back for noise cancelling in noisy areas. The camera unit in the top left of the device with the flash unit on it's right. The fingerprint sensor is in the middle, little above the centre of the device. The phone bears the OnePlus logo just below the fingerprint sensor.

The power button is on the right with The dual-sim card tray. The volume buttons and the alert slider is on the left. There are separate slots for the two sim cards and micro-sd card. that's good over hybrid dual-sim card slots we have been seeing in the past years. On the top, there is nothing. And on the bottom, there is a USB-C port with the speaker and headphone jack.

With a good looking and feeling device, the metal body also increases durability. The smartphone is easy to use with one hand, but people with smaller hands might have some issue. The rear-mounted fingerprint sensor is in the correct location. The 18:9 aspect ratio display makes it a charm to use. The alert slider is convenient in many situations. Overall, the smartphone has great design.

Software

The OnePlus 5T runs on company's Oxygen OS 4.? with Android 8.0 Oreo as its base. The Oxygen OS is almost similar to the stock android with a couple of tasteful modifications. These modifications give the user ability to customize the device according to will. The software runs completely lag-free. This is partly due to well-designed software and 8GB RAM in our variant.

The software performance of the OnePlus 5T is really nothing to complain. The only issue is all those tasteful modifications take up 2GB of RAM out of the box. However, with the 6GB or 8GB of RAM that is not an issue.

Performance

The performance is a major area of concern in any device. The OnePlus 5T is meant to compete with premium flagship devices. Hence, the performance is the main concern on the 5T. With its specifications, it already matches it the expected performance mark. However, as we have seen in the past performance not only depends on the hardware but also the construction of the smartphone. The OnePlus 5T comes with a Qualcomm MSM8998 Snapdragon 845 coupled with an Adreno 540 GPU. This is coupled with an 8GB RAM in our variant. This is coupled with 128GB storage. If you decided to get the cheaper 6GB RAM variant, you will get only 64GB storage.

We ran our usual AnTuTu benchmarks and the GeekBench benchmark to evaluate the performance of the phone. Our review unit is an 8GB RAM with 128GB storage. So the test scores may vary. The AnTuTu 7 yielded a score of 205813. The GeekBench yield a single core score of 1952 and multi-core score of 6713. The performance numbers of the device leave its competition behind. So we are already having a great start.

The phone exhibits no lag while long usage duration. The phone's internals also stays cool even with long usages and heavy gaming.

In light gaming such as Temple Run and Hill Climb Racing, the phone runs smoothly. The situation is same in heavy gaming like with Asphalt 8 or PUBG. Considering, the devices price tag and its competition, the performance is impressive.

Display

The smartphone has a bigger than average 6.01-inch (1280 x 2160 pixels) AMOLED display with 18:9 aspect ratio. The display gets quite low and highly bright. The colours are great but compared to OLED a little suppressed. The sunlight readability is great. Coupled with the 18:9 aspect ratio display, the browsing on this smartphone is a delight.

Camera

The OnePlus 5T features a dual rear camera setup. The setup consists of a 16-megapixel rear camera f/1.7 aperture along with a 20-megapixel sensor with the same aperture. For the selfies, it packs a 16-megapixel front-facing camera with f/2.0 aperture. The camera sensors are great on paper. However, not everything depends on the camera lens as we have seen in the past.

The indoor shots by the device are quite good. The portrait mode takes the camera quality to next level until you get enough light and distance. However, the colours tend to be a bit less natural. This might upset the camera buffs but not normal people. The stabilization of the camera is good. The outdoor images from the device are really good. The colours aren't natural and are brighter than natural. The details are great and the exposure is also good. The portrait mode works best outdoors with ample light.

The 16MP front-facing camera with f/2.0 aperture has the same story. The photos from the front camera are same as the back camera. Except for a little change on paper, everything is same. The front camera also has face detection which helps you detect a persons face. This is used mainly for the face unlock feature. However, the camera application uses it for beautification mode.

The camera quality of the smartphone is really great. However, the true camera buffs might wanna stay away, as the colours at but unnatural. To the rest 99% of the people, the camera of the smartphone is really something they will love. There are reports of the Google NX camera port for the OnePlus 5T increasing camera quality quite a bit. It is the same camera as in the Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL. However, we fight our war with the arsenal we have and not the arsenal we could have had.

Battery

Packing a 3,300mAh battery, the expectations are quite high. Also, what a good performing phone if you need it charge it more than you use it. The device charges really fast with the company's dash charger. It took the smartphone to completely charge from 0-100 in around an hour's time. This is really impressive. Also, the smartphone lasts almost a day with the need to plug in at night.

We ran the PC Mark’s Work 2.0 Battery Life test which subjects the phone to extreme usage and finds out the battery life in that condition. The device yielded a result of 13 hours and 36 minutes. Which is up to the mark with the capacity of a battery in smartphones.

Conclusion

The OnePlus 5T comes with a starting price tag of Rs 32,999 for the 6GB RAM and 64GB storage variant. The upgraded 8GB RAM model with 128GB storage costs Rs 37,999. Considering the price tag, the smartphone is a great deal. The smartphone trumps its competition in every aspect. The original question was does the smartphone really out beat the Rs 50,000+ premium flagships? With the absence of features like the wireless charging. The OnePlus 5T does give a competition to the premium flagships but not without making some compromises. However, if the question is, it worth the money, then the answer is true yes.