OnePlus 5 is now official and as expected it’s impressive

Today OnePlus have announced their long-teased 2017 flagship, the OnePlus 5. As is the way in 2017 very little unique information was left to the announcement but there was a few pieces of interesting information that caught our eye. From where we stand the OnePlus 5 looks set to do some real damage in the Android enthusiast circles so read on to find out all about the new OnePlus flagship.

The announcement focussed on six main areas — Design, Camera, Charging, Smooth experience, OxygenOS and Continuous improvement. I have broken it into areas that we feel are important to you below.

Now that the OnePlus 5 is official we can talk about the specs and what they mean in the real world. Many were leaked, with Qualcomm confirming the presence of the Snapdragon 835 powering it. The Snapdragon 835 seems to be the minimum for a successful flagship in 2017 and OnePlus have included it in this promising phone. As expected, the OnePlus 5 will come in two variants, a low RAM version with 6GB and 64GB of onboard storage and a higher RAM version with 8GB and 128GB of onboard UFS 2.1 dual lane storage.

I am not sure why OnePlus think a phone needs that much RAM but I have no doubt that OxygenOS is streamlined enough to not need that much. That 8GB is twice as much as in the Pixel XL. Is it a spec race? Future proofing? At this stage they say that the added RAM allows faster switching between more apps. One notable feature is the use of LPDDR4X RAM which promises to be 20% more efficient in its use.

There is a USB 2.0 Type C charging port as well as a headphone jack at the bottom of the phone, right where it should be. Apparently they toyed with the idea of removing the headphone jack but decided they were not ready for the backlash just yet — although they did at first troll us in the announcement saying they had removed it. As included last year there is both capacitive buttons and on-screen soft button support. OnePlus likes to cater for all their markets and have continued this with these two options.

The battery is a decent 3300mAh which, combined with their software optimisations and the power efficiency of the Snapdragon 835, should see it last a full day for even the heaviest of users. It is charged using OnePlus’ proprietary charging system, Dash Charge.

The display is a 5.5in 1080P AMOLED display and has an ability to change the white point setting on the display automatically. The display is protected by Gorilla Glass 5 which is useful addition. There is an E-reading mode that makes reading more comfortable and can be set to switch to automatically with the opening of an app (eg. Kindle app). The phone also comes with a full RGB LED notification light which hopefully and most likely will allow custom colours for differentiation of notifications. There is also what they call Lift Up Display and Ambient Display which aids in detecting notifications.

The full specs can be seen in the table below:

Other notable highlights of the presentation were the lack of any water proofing on the phone, OnePlus’ attention to lowering the input lag, a new app priority setting in the OS that allows the phone to learn what apps you use most often and leave those open and running and close those that you don’t and how much attention they do pay to feedback and look to improve and iterate on this feedback. OxygenOS is usually very similar to so many custom ROMs available and it continues to be this in this years iteration adding so much extra value to stock Android while at the same time maintaining a stock Android “look” and not introducing any lag into the user experience.

As expected the camera is a dual rear camera with the main lens being a wide-angled f/1.7 16MP shooter combined with an f/2.6 20MP telephoto lens. The front camera is a 16MP f/2.0 lens and has a portrait mode that allows the object of importance be in focus while the background is out of focus for selfie shots. I have borrowed some images from our friends at Android Police’s review published today.

The big news for Aussies is that this year there is only a single version of the OnePlus flagship. The global version will support all of the important LTE bands in Australia — even band 28 which has been lacking in previous years. Not only that, the phone is dual SIM which many Australians need if they have separate work and personal phone numbers. The bands it will support are:

• FDD LTE: Band 1/2/3/4/5/7/8/12/17/18/19/20/25/26/28/29/30/66
• TDD LTE: Band 38/39/40/41
• TD-SCDMA: Band 34/39
• UMTS(WCDMA): Band 1/2/4/5/8
• CDMA EVDO: BC0
• GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz

The OnePlus 5 also supports up to DL CAT12/ UL CAT13(600Mbps/150Mbps) depending on carrier support. The WiFi is 2×2 MIMO, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, 2.4G/5G and the Bluetooth is version 5.0 with support for aptX and aptX HD. There is also NFC for mobile payments included.

The phone is made from an aluminium unibody and at launch comes in Midnight Black and Slate Grey and will cost $479US for the 6GB/64GB version and $539US for the 8GB/128GB version. It is available via the OnePlus online store from June 27 but can also be purchased from one of their pop-up stores from June 21 (today).

At this stage it cannot be ordered by Australians directly from their website without using a mail forwarder but we expect to see grey market importers such as Kogan, Expansys and others being to advertise it very soon. Keep in mind the warranty you get when purchasing from grey market importers — some are better than others.

Overall there were very few, if any, surprises today with the announcement of the OnePlus 5. The phone packs just about every single thing possible into a phone that is priced in the mid-range. It is certainly an impressive looking phone which apparently doesn’t look as much like an iPhone once you have it in hand. It looks like OnePlus could have a hit on their hands with this device.

What do you think? Does the inclusion of Band 28 support change your mind on this phone?