Considering its cheaper price tag compared to most other flagship Android flagship phones, the 5T looks like another great phone from OnePlus.
The 64GB storage and 6GB RAM model will cost $500, and the 128GB of storage with 8GB RAM will cost $560 when the phones are available to buy on November 21.
Those price tags make the OnePlus 5T the most expensive OnePlus phones to date, but they're still priced well under competing Android flagships that can easily cost north of $850. I have yet to fully test the OnePlus 5T, but it's proven to be a real winner during the few day's I've had the phone.
OnePlus also introduced facial recognition to unlock the phone, and it works incredibly well.
Once you set up facial recognition on the OnePlus 5T, you'll forget you ever set it up. It unlocks the phone so quickly that I rarely ever see the lock screen, and it feels like I don't have any security measures in place. It's never failed, either, and it works from a decently wide angle.
OnePlus isn't making any concrete promises about its new facial recognition, however, as the company said it's designed more for convenience when unlocking the phone rather than security-intensive tasks like making mobile payments with Android Pay. I have yet to test how secure it is and how well it prevents other people from unlocking the phone using their face.
The OnePlus 5T continues OnePlus' tradition of running a clean, simple version of Android.
One of the things I love about OnePlus phones is that they run a clean, near-stock version of Android. Appearance wise, nothing beats stock Android, especially when you compare it to phones like Samsung's Galaxy phones and LG G- and V-series phones that run heavily altered versions. There's no bloatware apps – save for the single OnePlus community app – and no overwhelming catalog of features.
And OnePlus' own special flavor of fast charging called Dash Charge is as good as ever.
Dash Charge is one of the most underrated features on OnePlus phones. Most Android phones with fast charging reduce the charging speed when you're using the phone to prevent it from overheating. Dash Charge, on the other hand, keeps all the heat-emitting aspects of charging in the charging adapter itself. That means the OnePlus 5T – and any other OnePlus phone that supports Dash Charge – can charge at its maximum speed even when you're using it.
OnePlus still hasn't ditched the headphone jack, which is a great thing.
No dongles required here. The OnePlus 5T is among the few remaining phones that come with a headphone jack.
You'll still get the notifications switch, which is OnePlus' signature feature that I'm particularly fond of.
So far, the only two devices with physical switches that let you switch between vibrate and ring modes are Apple's iPhones and OnePlus' phones. OnePlus phones go one step further than the iPhone, however, as its switch lets you choose between ring, vibrate, or totally silent. It's an incredibly useful and undervalued feature that I think every phone should have.
The camera also received an upgrade, from 16 megapixels in the OnePlus 5 to 20 megapixels in the 5T.
I have yet to fully test the OnePlus 5T's camera and whether the extra four megapixels make a real difference, but the camera seems great from the few pictures I've taken with the phone so far.
Like the OnePlus 5, the OnePlus 5T has a portrait mode for the rear camera, which I still need to test. If the portrait mode from the OnePlus 5 is anything to go by, it should work quite well on the 5T. Unfortunately, it's still lacking a portrait mode for the front-facing 16-megapixel selfie camera, which would have been a good update for the 5T to include, especially as the Pixel 2 phones and the iPhone X have selfie portrait modes.
The secondary camera lens also appears to be designed purely for the portrait mode, and there's no optical zooming like there was on the OnePlus 5, or the iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone X, or Samsung Galaxy Note 8. That means the OnePlus 5T zooms digitally, which generally isn't as good as optical zooming. OnePlus says the zoom results should be just as good, but it's a claim I'll have to fully test.
The camera bump has been redesigned to be more sleek, and the fingerprint scanner is now on the back.
Apart from the new screen, one of the major changes in the OnePlus 5T is the fingerprint scanner around the back, which replaces the fingerprint sensor that used to be on the front of OnePlus phones.
Indeed, the narrower bezels on the OnePlus 5T make for a strikingly beautiful, minimally designed device.
The OnePlus 5T is also about as thin and light as the original OnePlus 5, which makes it one of the most comfortable and light smartphones to hold and use.
The OnePlus 5T looks nearly identical to the original OnePlus 5, except for the new narrow bezels and a larger display.
The OnePlus 5T dons a 6-inch AMOLED display with a taller 18:9 aspect ratio compared to the OnePlus 5's 5.5-inch display with the standard 16:9 aspect ratio. The 5T's larger screen fits in a package that's about the same size as the original 5, a feat made possible by the new narrow bezels around the OnePlus 5t's display.
OnePlus also updated the display to work better in bright sunlit environments.
Apart from an updated design, little has changed under the hood compared to the OnePlus 5. It still runs:
- The latest and fastest Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor, which you'll find in most current Android flagship smartphones.
- 6GB or 8GB of RAM for fast performance, depending on the model you chose.
- A 1080p display that's technically less sharp than the 1440p displays on other flagship Android smartphones, but the difference is hardly noticeable.
