The launch of OnePlus 5T in November was a little unexpected for everyone, considering that the company had released the OnePlus 5 just a few months before. Though in India you can still find the OnePlus 5 to buy, outside the 5T is replacing the predecessor completely.
So, what’s new? Take everything you loved about the OnePlus 5, and add to that smaller bezels, an 18:9 display and a (very) slightly improved secondary camera. The OnePlus 5T immediately became my favourite phone from 2017 and I actually ended up buying the Star Wars Edition. Not only is it one of the best phones available in the market specs-wise, the competitive pricing just makes it irresistible. Here are the five things we love the most about this phone:
1. Design
The OnePlus 5T follows the same curved body design as the OnePlus 5 and is as thin. The biggest difference, is that the screen is bigger and the bezels smaller, which means that the fingerprint sensor is now located at the back, below the camera. It’s positioned quite well and can be reached very easily and naturally. As a result, you have a 6-inch 18:9 display in essentially the same body which housed a 5.5-inch screen in OnePlus 5. The rest of the phone is more or less similar, with the alert slider on the left, and the volume, power keys and the SIM slot on the right. The phone still comes with a 3.5-mm jack on the bottom, accompanied by the USB Type-C charging port and the speakers. Sadly there’s no slot for a MicroSD card, but the phone offers plenty of on-board storage.
2. Performance
The OnePlus 5T is perhaps the fastest phone we’ve used till date. With the Snapdragon 835 processor along with 8 gigs of RAM, this phone is a beast and hits all the right spots in benchmarks. There’s no lag at all, even while running multiple apps simultaneously, including games. Whether you’re a fan of Telltale’s prized games or like something more action packed like N.O.V.A, there’s nothing that the OnePlus 5T can’t handle. Check out the numbers yourself.
3. Battery Life
With a bigger display, but the same 3300mAh battery as the OnePlus 5, we didn’t expect a lot from the OnePlus 5T in this area. But we’re glad to say that the battery life in 5T is at least as good as the OnePlus 5, if not better. It can easily last more than a day on a single charge under normal to heavy usage, even with the GPS and data left running all the time. The dash charge just sweetens the deal, charging your phone from zero to 100% in just about an hour. Moreover, it doesn’t heat up either while charging, which is an issue we’ve observed with some phones that support fast/dash charging.
4. Display
At its price, the OnePlus 5T probably comes with the best display. It uses bright, 6-inch Samsung OLED panel with a resolution of 2160 x 1080 pixels. Even though the competing phones can go up to a QHD display, there’s nothing to complain about here. Unlike the displays in some popular phones available in the market, there’s no oversaturation or issues with viewing angles either. Streaming Netflix is quite a exhilarating as the shows look vivid and brightly lit, and so do the games with their vibrant environments.
5. Price
We can’t really emphasize this enough. At a starting price of INR 32,999, the OnePlus 5T really blows the competition out of the water. It’s the best phone in the market at this price point, offering features and specs for which you’ll be paying at least 10-15k more for other brands. Of course, it doesn’t seem like much of a technical upgrade from the OnePlus 5, but then it’s available at the same price.
All in all, the OnePlus 5T is a fantastic phone. The one thing that we were disappointed in was the camera. Though the dual lens camera in OnePlus 5T is capable of taking amazing and detailed shots under well-lit conditions, the low light performance is average at best. Not to mention the portrait mode, while being good, is still not as good as some other flagship phones in the market.
What do you think about the phone? Let us know in the comments!
