Is it worth upgrading to OnePlus 5? Check out features that stand out

OnePlus, a China-based smartphone manufacturer, launched its much-awaited ‘OnePlus 5’ on June 20. The smartphone, which comes with a better camera, and superior technical specifications and operating system than its predecessor, OnePlus 3T, will be launched in India on June 22.

The OnePlus 5 aspires to be the next flagship killer, with top-of-the-line innards, premium cameras and redefined design language that is largely crafted on the blueprints of Apple's iPhone 7 Plus. Now that the smartphone is just about to be officially launched in India, and its features and specifications are made public, it’s time to compare the flagship device with its predecessor to determine whether the hype surrounding the device is good enough reason for you to buy it as an upgrade.

What has improved

Design

OnePlus introduced a metallic design with OnePlus 3 and the same design language has been taken forward to OnePlus 3T and now to OnePlus 5. The OnePlus 5 features a premium metallic build, which is slightly curved at the back and on the edges. The smartphone is touted as the slimmest OnePlus flagship device with a thickness of 7.25mm. However, the OnePlus 3T is 7.4mm thick and, therefore, the difference is not practically visible.

However, one change is clearly visible in the rear of the device. The OnePlus 5 takes a cue from Apple iPhone 7 Plus and the similarities are greatly visible in terms of dual-camera placement, microphone, LED and the antenna lines.

The smartphone's camera is placed on the top-left corner accompanied with LED flash and microphone. The antenna lines are moved to the top and bottom of the smartphone, and are almost invisible. No regulatory information or model number information has been embedded on the back, making it look clean with just the OnePlus logo engraved in the centre.

The front of the OnePlus 5 looks identical to that of its predecessor and there are no changes made in the placement of camera, sensors and home key that doubles as a fingerprint scanner.

Hardware

OnePlus is known to offer the best of innards and the legacy continues with OnePlus 5. The smartphone is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor, which has Snapdragon X16 LTE modem supporting data speed of up to 1 Gbps, coupled with an Adreno 540 graphic processing unit (GPU). The smartphone comes with two storage and RAM variants -– 64 GB/6 GB and 128 GB/8 GB. Both variants support dual-lane Universal Flash Storage (UFS) 2.1 for superior performance.

The OnePlus 5 offers top-of-the-line innards that put it in direct competition with other flagship devices, sans the premium price tag.

Camera

The Camera is one department that has seen a major change in OnePlus 5. The OnePlus 5 sports a dual-camera set-up -- 16-megapixel and 20 MP dual cameras -- at the rear. The 16 MP camera features a bright aperture of f/1.7 and the 20MP one sports a f/2.6 aperture. The cameras support portrait mode, which focuses on the subject and blurs the background, something that was introduced first in Apple iPhone 7 Plus.

OnePlus 5 camera details

We will reserve our verdict about the camera performance till we review the OnePlus 5. Based on the photographs shared by the company, which claims they have been clicked using OnePlus 5, we can say that the camera performance looks promising and is a huge improvement over the OnePlus 3T.

Software

OnePlus has also refreshed its Android-based operating system ‘Oxygen OS’ that now features Google Pixel-like app drawer, which can be accessed from any window now, without going back to the home screen of the device. The company has also added to the OS a reading mode that adjusts the screen temperature setting automatically. The reading mode can also be activated manually from the notification area or settings.

People familiar with the progress on updates would agree that the additions made in the OS would come to OnePlus 3T as well and, therefore, both the smartphones will eventually be on par with each other.

What could have been improved

Display

The OnePlus 5 sports 5.5-inch Optic AMOLED screen covered with Gorilla Glass 5 for added protection. A screen is still a full-HD unit with 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution. OnePlus fans have been asking for a higher resolution screen or a curved screen that removes the bezels completely. The expectations from OnePlus 5 could be judged from the rumours and speculations that were there around the phone before its official launch.

In terms of display, the smartphone lags behind in the race and is not an upgrade over OnePlus 3T.

Speaker

The OnePlus 5 sports a bottom mounted mono speaker. Not that the speaker sounds bad or anything but the device could have been equipped with stereo speakers to add more value to the smartphone. The speaker is accompanied with USB type-C port and 3.5mm audio jack at the bottom, which is exactly how is was in OnePlus 3T.

Other features

The fingerprint sensor in OnePlus 5 is placed under the ceramic-coated home button and, the company claims, it could unlock the phone in 0.2 seconds. On the connectivity side, the smartphone supports 34 global network bands and, therefore, could be used across the globe. There is Bluetooth v5.0 on board and Near Field Communication (NFC) chip as well. The device 3,300 mAh battery