Believe it or not, the folks over at OnePlus are telling us that their upcoming phone is hiding underneath the body of that Sony Xperia Z1. What’s more they’ve announced that the OnePlus One will come with a 5.5″ Screen and still fit into a body that’s smaller in size than a phone rocking a 5″ screen.
On the One lus forums, Pete Lau, former VP of Oppo and current founder of OnePlus has advised that the latest announcement in their ongoing slow release of specs for the OnePlus One is about the screen. The Screen will be a 5.5″ Full HD 1080p, 400+ PPI panel manufactured by Japan Display Inc.(JDI) a well respected manufacturer of LCD panels that’s a joint venture of three leading manufacturers – Sony, Toshiba and Hitachi.
The screen will feature Touch On Lens(TOL) a technology similar to the In-Cell Touch technology used by LG in their Smartphone screen which removes the gap between the touch sensor and display. The TOL modules are also 300% more shatter proof than other One Glass Solution(OGS) screens in the market. The screen will also contain Content-adaptive backlight control(CABC) and DRAM..(I don’t get that either, but).
The company has been spruiking a ‘Never Settle’ motto when talking about their new phone. In keeping with this motto, they’ve addressed the immediate question of why they have opted to use a FullHD panel instead of the expected QHD panel, saying :
Some people might ask, why no QHD display? Remember when people said 1080p was overkill and were wrong? Well, QHD is overkill. Unless you inspect the display under a microscope, you won’t find a difference between a QHD and a 1080p display. On the other hand, a QHD drains 35-60% more battery, requires the device to render more pixels making it slower, and also emits more heat. The technology is not there yet. Going with a 1080p 5.5″ was the only responsible choice towards our fans and users.
The post ends with Pete advising that the OnePlus One will have one of the best screen/front space rations on the market and coupled with the slim body and tapered edges will make it easy to operate with one hand.
There seems to be a fair bit of compromise going on no matter which way you look at it. Some of the decisions actually appear quite sensible, however they’ve talked a big game and it remains to be seen if they can deliver. So far we know the phone will come with a 5.5″ 1080P screen, 2.3GHz Quad-Core Snapdragon 800 SoC, 3,100mAh battery and come with either 16GB or 64GB of internal storage.
Stay tuned, there will definitely be more coming as the company continues their marketing push to remain at the forefront of peoples minds in the face of a looming Galaxy S5 launch and All New HTC One announcement. Seems like the best time to put out another update would be March 19th when their former employers are announcing their new Flagship, no?
“There seems to be a fair bit of compromise going on”
I muse have missed where the compromise was??
Snapdragn 801 instead of waiting for Snapdragon 805(A supposedly superior chipset) is still a compromise – Releasing at X date instead of waiting for the better chipset = compromise.
FullHD screen vs QHD – the reasons for going FullHD vs QHD are valid but are still a compromise – Battery Life for Pixel Density.
There is no question that OnePlus is trying to achieve something special here but to claim they aren’t settling is pretty much not marrying up with reality based on those two compromises alone.
the arguments you have made can be applied to top tier phones of early 2014 (e.g. S5, Z2, One 2014 and etc)
Going FHD vs QHD is not a compromise, it’s called meeting user demand.
99% of us cannot distinguish the difference even at close viewing distances let alone regular use, so why on Earth wouldn’t you prefer to benefit all those buyers with ~50% more battery life?
Going with one spec over another due to something not being optimal is a compromise – Never Settle is the motto – we settled on a FHD screen to get better battery life is what they are saying – I am NOT making a comment on whether users can distinguish between FHD vs QHD.
You are just playing with words and a theoretical concept Daniel. I can easily say: Never settle with an undiscerneable increase in image quality, when you can get 50% more from the same battery! I’m not a native speaker but I understand very well the expression “less is more”, and I guess it fits perfectly here. I also guess you just needed an argument to pick a fight with 1+ and the screen was your safest bet. I would also like for you to name any product that never settled until it was the best in the market at everything… Read more »
my biggest issue with this phone is availability.