ONEPLUS 5 REVIEW: THE ME-TOO PHONE

its four years of existence, OnePlus has fashioned itself as the flagship phone killer jumping out of the midrange bushes. Every OnePlus device to date has been defined by premium specs at bargain prices, but that changes with today’s OnePlus 5. Starting at $479 with 64GB of storage, this new flagship can no longer be mistaken for a super-specced midrange handset. And even though it doesn’t cost quite as much as a mainstream mainstay like the Galaxy S8, that’s exactly the sort of phone it will be compared against. This is the priciest OnePlus device yet, and it’s falling in line with its more traditional competition: you pay more to get more.

There’s no questioning the specs of this phone: it’s powered by the top-of-the-line Snapdragon 835 processor; comes with a combo of either 6GB of RAM and 64GB of storage or a laptop-rivaling 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage; and it has a total of 52 megapixels of image-taking prowess between its three camera.What I see when I look at the 2017 edition of the OnePlus flagship is a necessary maturation and refinement. The ruthless cost cutting of the past was never going to be sustainable, and now that the company is facing the exigencies of being a global operation with costs that go beyond basic distribution and marketing, OnePlus is growing up in both price and quality.

But as it develops into a new kind of phone, the OnePlus 5 is also starting to feel divorced from its predecessors, inheriting only the physical switch for alert modes and the Dash Charge rapid-charging technology. It now looks like a OnePlus 3 that’s put on an iPhone 7 Plus costume: still roughly the same proportions as before, but now with more rounded edges, curved antenna lines, and the same dual-camera setup as the iPhone. It’s more than a passing resemblance, and it frankly makes me uneasy.

Until today, OnePlus could confidently say it was different from all the other Chinese upstarts that, consciously or not, aped the iPhone to a point of losing their own identity. OnePlus phones always had character, rooted in no small part in their market-breaking low prices. But the 128GB Midnight Black phone I’m reviewing today costs $539, which is a stone’s throw away from Samsung’s Galaxy S prices. Without the unique selling point of massively undercutting everyone, and with the baggage of looking like a cynical iPhone rip-off, can the OnePlus 5 retain the small-company charm that’s made its maker popular all around the world? I’m not so sure.How do you feel about plagiarism? Your answer to this question will be essential to deciding how you feel about the OnePlus 5’s design. This is basically a slightly smaller iPhone 7 Plus that runs Android. Every physical feature of this phone will be instantly familiar to iPhone users: the curved antenna lines are the same; the dual-camera module, microphone, and LED flash on the back are in the exact same positions; and the power button and volume rocker are also placed as they are on the iPhone. Around the front, the selfie camera is in the same position as the iPhone, the bezels are almost identical, and the home button serves as the fingerprint scanner. The cheaper version of the OnePlus 5 also comes in Space Slate Gray. The only way the OnePlus 5 could be more “inspired” by the iPhone is if it lacked a headphone jack, which, mercifully, it does not.

In OnePlus’ defense, those smart antenna lines were first introduced by Meizu, not Apple; the iPhone’s button placement is universal because it works, not strictly because it’s on the iPhone; and bezel size is rarely a choice for phone designers. But where you put the cameras and flash is a choice, and xeroxing the rear of the iPhone does trouble me: I don’t want to be seen carrying an iPhone-wannabe phone. I did enough of that as a kid having to wear Reebuk sneakers. The look of the OnePlus 5 is, in a word, inauthentic.

                                         ORIGINALITY MAY BE LACKING, BUT THE ERGONOMICS ARE NOT

The feel of this phone, though, is quite unharmed by its lack of originality. I appreciate the softened sides and slimmer profile (7.25mm if you discount the slight camera bump), and I still find this a manageable large phone. The bezel-deprived Galaxy S8 and LG G6 have raised the bar for the ergonomics of large-screen devices, but absent the same advanced display technology as them, the OnePlus 5 still holds up pretty well. I can use it one-handed under most circumstances, and the only thing I’d really ask for is a more grippy texture on the matte rear cover. This might seem like a small thing, but OnePlus has always had really responsive power buttons and that’s still true with the OnePlus 5. I never screw up the double tap of the power button to launch the camera on this phone. The fingerprint sensor is also exceedingly fast at 0.2 seconds, and it’s unerringly accurate. It’s attention to these little details that sets the best devices apart from the rest. I also enjoy the call quality and clarity I get from this phone, though I’m not a fan of its loudspeaker, which tends to become sharp and piercing at moderately high volumes.