OnePlus 5 review: Is this the best OnePlus yet?

Sprinters usually take between four and five paces before they fully hit their stride. Winning the race means launching out of the starting blocks and getting up into an upright position as quickly as possible before extending your stride and shifting into high gear.

It’s a convoluted metaphor, but the best one I can think of to describe the OnePlus 5 smartphone.

It feels like the product of a company hitting its stride and flat-out sprinting.

The company’s previous handsets were great - but they felt like outsider choices for those without the budget to buy a Samsung Galaxy or an iPhone. That’s not the case any more.

The OnePlus 5 is a sleek and powerful phone that deserves to be classed right alongside the aforementioned examples.

Accordingly, the price has risen since the OnePlus 3T. This new phone is shipping with two configurations of Slate Grey with 6GB RAM/64GB storage and Midnight Black with 8GB RAM/128GB at £449 and £499 accordingly.
Design

The OnePlus 5 isn’t going to redefine smartphone design. There’s no edge-to-edge display, a built-in stylus or the ability to squeeze it. Instead it opts for classically slim (7.25mm), brushed metal body with a 5.5-inch display and several understated but useful options - like a physical slider for muting the phone. The company takes a meticulous approach to design and has made sure that the new crescent-shaped antenna blends into the bottom of the phone rather than strip across the back.

If there’s a black mark on the OnePlus 5’s design record it’s that the screen picks up dust particles and smudges like nobody’s business. The OnePlus 5 ships with a factory-fitted screen protector - remove it at your peril. The glass hasn’t been treated with the oleo phobic coating that repels the natural oils produced by your skin.

The screen is a 5.5-inch 1920 x 1080 display - which isn't as high as, for example, the 2560 x 1440 Google Pixel XL. But a full HD display is adequate for most people and the decision not to go higher keeps both the phone's battery life and price in check.

The OnePlus 5 is available in two different colours: Midnight Black and Slate Grey although these colours are tied to the components and prices mentioned above. There are also a range of official cases to choose from.
Camera and features

OnePlus has carried over popular features from its previous handsets like Dash Charge, the option load in two SIM cards at once and the modded Oxygen version of Google's Android OS.

Dash charge promises to charge up the 3,300mAh battery inside the OnePlus 5 enough to last a day in only half an hour.

“Dash charge carries more current while keeping voltage down to 5 volts, leading to stable, consistent charging speeds,” OnePlus says. I got a full 14 hours from a half-hour charge - during which time I was taking photographs, messaging and browsing social media.

Oxygen OS meanwhile has been slightly tweaked to add a few useful features. One of which is a Reading Mode that adjusts the sharpness and brightness of the display automatically to try and simulate the look of a Kindle or other e-reader. If you’re regularly reading longer articles on your phone then it improves the experience drastically

Another is a Gaming Do Not Disturb mode which does exactly what you'd expect and mutes the notifications while you're gaming.

Software aside, the headline feature this time around is the camera.

The OnePlus 5 has been fitted with a 16MP main camera supported by a secondary 20MP telephoto camera. Put together, they take extremely clear photos with the option of zoom on both photo and video modes. Thanks to a large f/1.7 aperture sensor, they can also perform very well in low light.

The software blends with the camera and give you a variety of different features from a Portrait Mode that creates a blurred depth-of-field bokeh effect to the slow motion and time lapse options on the video side. Autofocus and image stabilisation help to turn potentially shaky shots into decent usable snaps.

I took the OnePlus 5 away for a work trip and used it almost exclusively for picture taking while my heavy, bulky DSLR stayed back at the hotel.

There are enough pro settings (white balance, ISO, shutter speed) to keep enthusiasts happy whilst the rest of us can just rely on the auto function and impressive hardware to do the job.

The OnePlus 5 is a terrific phone and, without doubt, the best the company has ever produced.

It eschews all gimmicky features and focuses instead on providing the most refined version of a smartphone possible.

Navigating the various menus, settings and apps is incredibly quick thanks to the powerful CPU and additional memory. Whether this holds up over the course of a two-year contract after it's been loaded with updates and content remains to be seen.

But it's the camera that really stands out. Phone cameras have been getting better for years and now, for amateur photographers, they're certainly all you need. That's absolutely the case with the OnePlus 5.

The best way to sum up the OnePlus 5 is that it's got the balance spot on. The £449 or £459 price tags are reasonable for the technology you're getting and OnePlus has stripped out the extra stuff that would push this phone up into the £600+ bracket currently occupied by the likes of Apple and Samsung.

While I can't recommend the OnePlus on price alone any more (if affordability is your only concern then check out the Motorola Moto G5 ), I can recommend it in terms of solid all-round ability with a great camera.

The OnePlus 5 is a shining example of what a smartphone in 2017 should be.