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Intro

The OnePlus 5 is what we call an affordable flagship. It has all the hallmarks of a top-tier device — classy design, high-performance specs — and yet it sells for hundreds less than what's offered by the industry leaders. If you want top performance for the dollar, the OnePlus 5 is a good place to start.

Body

OnePlus has come a long way in just a few short years. When it launched the original OnePlus smartphone, the company was hardly more than a scrappy China-based startup. It had an awkward reservation system, limited supply, and didn't really seem cut out for the competitive smartphone market. The OnePlus 2 and OnePlus X followed and the company picked up some fans along the way. By the time the mid-2016 OnePlus 3 arrived, we saw a company hitting its stride thanks to the phone's appealing design and excellent performance. The OnePlus 5 is the firm's 2017 flagship smartphone and it's great to see just how much progress OnePlus has made.

The OnePlus 5 is a metal-and-glass slab that comes in black or dark gray. It has softer corners than the OnePlus 3 and a smoother overall shape. The front is 2.5D curved glass and it sits in an aluminum chassis that wraps around the back and all four sides. The 5 isn't the most unique design you'll ever see (some have likened it to the iPhone 7), and yet the simple lines are still pleasing in their own way. Antenna lines appear along the top and bottom edges, but they are hardly noticeable. I like the matte finish on our review unit.

1+5  

The phone is a fine size and is what most would consider "average" today. The 5 shares almost identical dimensions with the OnePlus 3. It's larger than the LG G6 and Samsung Galaxy S8, but smaller than an iPhone 7 Plus. It's slim at just 7.25mm thick, so it fits in pockets with ease. But I was just barely able to use it one-handed, and even then only when I stretched my thumb uncomfortably to reach the top of the screen. Most people will find the OnePlus 5 is a two-handed phone. The weight is nice. I had no trouble carrying it around and using it.

What it comes to materials and build quality, the OnePlay 5 is right up there with some of the best I've seen from Huawei and ZTE, though it's not quite as impressive what Apple and Samsung are capable of. There's no question the curved Gorilla Glass 5 is flawless, and the aluminum chassis feels strong and sturdy. The pieces are fitted together with clean precision. It's truly assembled in fine fashion. I have absolutely no complaints about the 5's quality.

The OnePlus 5 has a plain black face with no branding. The metal grille of the earpiece speaker is practically invisible. The shape and positioning of the fingerprint sensor and home button is identical to that of the OnePlus 3; it's really easy to find and use with your thumb. This capacitive key is indented a bit and offers haptic feedback when pressed. Invisible capacitive keys flank the home/fingerprint button to interact with the "back" and "app switcher" functions of the user interface. I wish these buttons lit up, as they can be hard to find. OnePlus kept the side bezels in check, but the black strips above and below the screen are a bit much.

One hardware control that sets OnePlus' handsets apart is the ringer switch. The 5 has a three-position switch tucked into the left side that lets you control the phone's sound (on, vibrate, silent). This is a great throwback feature. The switch has a ribbed texture that makes it easy to find, and the action is practically perfect. The baked-in software tools allow you to customize all three positions, which makes it even better.

The volume toggle is just below the ringer switch. It's a bit small for my tastes, which makes it hard to find and use. The travel and feedback is quite good. You'll find the screen lock / power button on the right edge of the phone. It is a decent size and delivers good feedback. The SIM card tray is tucked above the screen lock button. The strong, metal tray supports up to two SIM cards, but it does not accommodate memory cards of any sort. Shame, that.

The layout of the bottom edge is typical of a modern smartphone. A USB-C port is flanked by the 3.5mm headphone jack and the speakerphone. It's worth pointing out that the USB-C port supports audio-out for digital music; not all USB-C ports do. The top edge of the phone is completely smooth.

The all-metal rear panel is mostly flat, though it curves just as it reached the side edges of the phone. It's a bit plain. The 1+ logo is stamped into the metal about two-thirds of the way up from the bottom. I prefer this to paint. The dual camera array is in the upper-left corner. The entire camera module, which is rather small, is raised 1mm or so from the metal surface. The angled side of the module catches the light fairly often. A two-tone flash is located to the right of the camera module.

Thanks to the all-metal chassis, you cannot open up the OnePlus 5. The battery is inaccessible.

OnePlus made one major goof with the 5's hardware: it's not waterproof, nor even water resistant. Many other phones in this class offers at least some protection against liquid damage. The OnePlus 5 does not. If you drop it in the pool this summer, it's a goner.

Other than that, the OnePlus 5 is a fine piece of hardware that I think most anyone should be confident to carry around. It's a well-built slab that looks good and feels good.

Screen

OnePlus carried over the 5.5-inch, full HD screen from its past models. The AMOLED screen makes use of the standard 16:9 aspect ratio, so it's the same shape as most other screens right now. The pixel count and size work together well enough, though I am sorely disappointed OnePlus didn't improve the resolution to quad HD, which would be better for virtual reality. The display does put out plenty of light. I had no trouble reading the phone outdoors when the brightness was cranked up, though you'll notice the automatic brightness control is slow to react to huge swings in ambient light (like when you transition from dark indoors to bright outdoor.) Colors are a bit oversaturated, but blacks look fantastic. The phone has a night mode that reduces blue light in order to reduce eye strain. It's a fine screen.

Signal

OnePlus sells the 5 unlocked with wide support for GSM/LTE networks around the world. It supports many of the major LTE bands used by U.S. carriers, including good support for AT&T, T-Mobile, and their prepaid subsidiaries. (The phone lacks CDMA 1900 and LTE band 13, so it won't work well — if at all — with Verizon and Sprint.) You'll find speedy technologies such as Cat. 12 LTE, three-channel carrier aggregation and 256QAM.

I tested the phone on both AT&T and T-Mobile and came away impressed. The phone handily latched onto AT&T and T-Mobile's 4G networks and remained there throughout testing. I saw the phone dip down to 3.5G on AT&T's network once, in a known weak spot. Other than that, it was clear sailing for LTE connectivity. Data speeds were robust, but didn't reach the peaks I've seen from today's best phones. In real world terms, the OnePlus 5 was able to stream video via YouTube and music via Spotify with no trouble. I saw little to no buffering and didn't experience any dropouts or pauses. Social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram all loaded content via LTE swiftly. It's a good data phone.

As for making phone calls, the handset was able to patch through on the first dial each time I made a call. The phone kept calls connected over miles of highway driving with no effort.

Sound

I'd rate call quality as very good, but short of "excellent". The earpiece produces clean calls that are free of distortion and noise. I wish volume were just a bit better. I had to keep the volume set to the max. in order to hear calls at home, in the car, in coffee shops, and so on. Voices sound nice and crisp, even if they're not quite loud enough for my tastes. People I spoke to through the OnePlus 5 said I sounded excellent.

The speakerphone is more prone to distortion when cranked up, and — like the earpiece — needs to be set all the way up most of the time. The speakerphone was hard to hear in moving cars and other noisy spaces, but it sufficed for use at home.

Ringers and alerts could be louder. The vibrating alert is amazing.

Battery

The OnePlus 5 has a 3,300 mAh battery tucked inside. After several days of testing it's clear to me that this battery size is well-matched to the rest of the hardware. The result is a phone that I couldn't kill in a day of rigorous testing. Most people should be pleased with the battery life they get from the OnePlus 5.

The handset include the base Android power-management tool. It can help a bit if you suddenly find yourself at 10%. The OnePlus 5 also includes a new tool called App Priority. The phone's software will close or put into low-power mode apps that it thinks aren't being used.

More importantly, the 5 supports OnePlus' Dash Charge technology (5 volts at 4 amps) for rapid powerups. The company has a catchy slogan: "A day's power in half an hour." In other words, OnePlus claims plugging your phone into the included charger for just 30 minutes will give you an entire day's worth of battery life. I don't know about that, but the phone does charge up crazy fast.

Bluetooth, GPS, NFC, WiFi

The 5 has a good selection of secondary radios and they all perform really well. For example, you'll find Bluetooth 5.0 aboard. When it came to connecting to headsets, speakers, cars, and other devices, the OnePlus 5 got the job done. The phone paired with little effort. Phone calls passed through my car's hands-free system were just adequate. Music, on the other hand, sounded amazing when streamed to my favorite headphones. The phone supports aptX HD, which is the newest high-resolution stereo Bluetooth codec. As long as you have a compatible piece of audio gear, expect to be impressed.

The GPS radio interacted well with Google Maps. The OnePlus 5 was able to pinpoint my location within just a few seconds of opening the app, and accuracy was as good as about 20 feet. The phone managed real-time navigation with no trouble at all.

The NFC radio that's aboard the OnePlus 5 helps it pair with Bluetooth accessories and also supports Android Pay.

The dual-band WiFi radio supports 2x2 MIMO for faster throughput if you have a solid WiFi router. At home, the WiFi worked amazingly well. I didn't have trouble using the OnePlus on Starbucks' WiFi, either.

Eric has been covering the mobile telecommunications industry for 17 years at various print and online publications. He studied at Rutgers Newark and University of Kentucky, and has a degree in writing. He likes playing guitar, attending concerts, listening to music, and driving sports cars.

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