Technology

OnePlus 5 Officially Announced: Price Starts from $479

After months of speculation, leaks and teases from both the company and its CEO, the OnePlus 5 was finally unveiled today at a launch event in June 20. And while most of the info about the phone was already out there, which we summed up in this roundup post, there were quite a few surprises as well. So without further ado, let’s get to it.
OnePlus 5 Announced

OnePlus 5 Announced

The OnePlus 5 boasts of a 5.5 inch 1080P AMOLED Display and will be powered by the Snapdragon 835 chipset (that part was already official quite a while back). The Snapdragon 835 should improve the phone’s speed and power efficiency by 10% and 20% respectively while also making it 25% faster than its predecessor, the OnePlus 3T. The design, unlike some of its rivals like the Samsung Galaxy S8 or the LG G6, the OnePlus is following the iPhone in avoiding ditching the bezels just yet although they’ve been extensively slimmed down. In fact, the look is strikingly similar to that of the iPhone 7 / 7 Plus duo that were unveiled last year.

Snapdragon 835

The Snapdragon 835 powers the OnePlus 5

The look is not the only thing OnePlus is borrowing from the Cupertino Company’s flagship device as there’s some more similarities as well, chief of which is the camera. Just like the iPhone, the OnePlus 5 will come with a dual camera setup. Of the two cameras, there’s an f/1.7 16 MP Primary Camera and an f/2.0 20 MP Secondary Camera (with a telephoto lens). The CEO had previously teased the phone’s low-light photography prowess which was on display at the event as well with a few showcased snapshots. This means Bokeh Photos should also be possible.

The battery capacity, which had been a point of contention among rumors is set at 3300 mAH. With a thickness of just 7 mm, this would’ve been the most they could’ve managed to squeezed into the phone without repeating a Note7-like fiasco. Its Dash Charge featured was, surprisingly, compared directly with the Samsung Galaxy S8 and shown as offering faster performance. There’s an Alert Slider on the left with the Volume Rocker and Speakers on the Front. The 3.5 mm headphone jack is (thankfully) still there although the OnePlus team initially joked about having it removed.
Emily Ratajkowski

Emily Ratajkowski took the stage to announce the camera’s features

The OnePlus 5 will come with the latest iteration of Oxygen OS built on top of Android out of the box. The OS includes new features like expanded screenshots (to allow capturing pages longer than the screen size) and a new reading mode that makes the screen warmer using its ambient sensors for a pleasant reading experience. It will also prioritize apps by loading up the ones most frequently used before-hand, a nice way to keep things smooth.

An impressive thing about the otherwise rather muted keynote was how OnePlus has factored in consumer response in building its next phone, taking into account complaints about screen calibration issues and vibration sensor being too loud. We were also shown a peek into the OnePlus Customer Support Team which has grown from 5 people to 500.

The OnePlus 5 is launching in two variants – one with 6 GB of LPDDR4 RAM and 64 GB of storage and another with 8 GB LPDDR4 of RAM accompanied by 128 GB of storage. The former is priced at $479 / €499 while the latter will set you back $539 / €559, making this the most expensive smartphone by OnePlus. The phones are available in Midnight Black and Slate Gray variants.

OnePlus Starting Price

The OnePlus 5 starts from $479. The Internet got it right.

Pre-Orders for the Phone are now live and can be placed either on the official website or on Amazon. The phone itself will start shipping from June 27. Do note though that this is only for the US and European users; the phone is set to be officially announced in China tomorrow, on June 21 and in India a day later, on June 22. We’ll be bringing you updates about those events as they take place.