
OnePlus 5 Unveiled With Snapdragon 835 and Dual Cameras for $479
Chinese smartphone startup OnePlus has made its name over the last few years by offering high-end specs for a much lower price than more established smartphone makers. It’d developed something of a cult following, too. The run-up to the OnePlus 5 announcement was filled with rumors and leaks, and now we have all the details. OnePlus has with an aluminum chassis, Snapdragon 835, up to 8GB of RAM, and a dual camera array. Pricing starts at $479 and pre-orders are live today.
The Snapdragon 835 is the same chip that powers the vastly more expensive Galaxy S8, and you can’t even get a version of that phone with 8GB of RAM.
The number of phones with dual cameras has exploded in the last year, and now OnePlus is giving it a shot. Some dual camera phones use them for image sharpening, and others are offering wide-angle secondary sensors. Then, there are some like the OnePlus 5 that use the secondary camera as a sort of digital zoom. The built-in telephoto lens offers 2x magnification and 20MP resolution. The main camera is only 16MP, but it has a wider aperture to let in more light. The comparatively narrow aperture on the telephoto lens means that some “zoom” images taken in low light are actually done with the main camera and digital zoom. Also, the positioning makes the OP5 look rather like an iPhone 7 Plus.
The OnePlus runs Android 7.1 Nougat, and it’s almost bone stock. OnePlus makes a ROM called OxygenOS for its devices, which doesn’t make nearly as many changes to Android as Samsung’s TouchWiz or LG’s UI. It’s a very fast phone because of the light touch software. OnePlus has even gotten better about updating its phones, and was one of the fastest to get Nougat on the OnePlus 3 last year.
The OnePlus 5 is a GSM/LTE unlocked phone with support for dual SIM cards. It’s only available direct from OnePlus, but you can with the “clearer photos” code. Yes, really. The phone will be available for immediate ordering on June 27th.
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