OnePlus 5 vs OnePlus 3T: What’s New and Different?
OnePlus launched the OnePlus 5 smartphone at a global launch event on Tuesday night, and priced it in the US and select European regions starting at $479 (roughly Rs. 31,000) and EUR 499 (roughly Rs. 35,900) respectively for the variant with 6GB RAM, 64GB storage, and Slate Gray colour.
Validating the price hike, the OnePlus 5 offers a lot more than its predecessor OnePlus 3T. The OnePlus 5 sees changes in design, specification upgrades, and also introduces a lot of new features alongside the price hike. Here’s all that’s different between the OnePlus 3T and the OnePlus 5.
Price
While the India prices of the OnePlus 5 are not yet out, the smartphone is expected to be priced at Rs. 32,999 and Rs. 37,999 for the two variants respectively. OnePlus 5 prices in the US and select European regions for the variant with 6GB RAM, 64GB storage, and Slate Gray colour are $479 (roughly Rs. 31,000) and EUR 499 (roughly Rs. 35,900), respectively. The 8GB RAM + 128GB storage variant in Midnight Black paintjob costs $539 (approximately Rs. 35,000), and EUR 559 (about Rs. 40,000) in the US and the select European markets, respectively.
To compare, the OnePlus 3T 64GB model at launch was priced at Rs. 29,999, GBP 399 (roughly Rs. 33,700), EUR 439 (roughly Rs. 31,200), and USD 439 (roughly Rs. 29,800), while the 128GB model has been priced at Rs. 34,999, GBP 439 (roughly Rs. 37,100), EUR 479 (roughly Rs. 34,800), and USD 479 (roughly Rs. 32,500).
While in India, the smartphone will be sold on June 22 at 4.30pm IST on Amazon India, the smartphone has currently gone up for pre-orders in US and Europe right now, with an Early Drop system that will see shipments begin on Wednesday, June 21, a full six days ahead of general sales that begin on June 27. Early Drop pre-order buyers will get special launch offers as well.
Design
With respect to design, the OnePlus 5 sees a lot of design changes, evidently inspired by the iPhone 7 Plus. The antenna bands placement, the dual camera setup, and the thin metal rounded frame are all the changes seen in plain sight. The bezels in the front remain at the top and bottom of the device, with the Home Button still donning the capsule shape sits on the front panel, with the fingerprint sensor placed underneath.
Specifications, features
On paper, the OnePlus 5 is a beast with upgrades in almost all departments. It still sports a 5.5-inch full-HD display (goes from Corning Gorilla Glass 4 protection to Gorilla Glass 5), but bumps the processor to the latest octa Snapdragon 835 SoC, with four cores clocked at 2.45GHz and four cores clocked at 1.9GHz, as well as the Adreno 540 GPU. The top RAM configuration is now at 8GB of LPDDR4X. The OnePlus 3T on the other hand sports a quad-core Snapdragon 821 SoC with two cores clocked at 2.35GHz and two cores at 1.6GHz, the Adreno 530 GPU, and 6GB of LPDDR4 RAM.
The dual camera setup is probably the biggest change. There are 16-megapixel and 20-megapixel sensors at the back – with the latter a telephoto lens. The 16-megapixel main camera bears a 1.12-micron pixel Sony IMX398 sensor with an f/1.7 aperture, said to capture 34 percent more light than the OnePlus 3T. The 20-megapixel telephoto camera bears a 1-micron pixel Sony IMX350 sensor, with an f/2.6 aperture. At the front, is a 16-megapixel camera with a 1-micron pixel Sony IMX371 sensor, an f/2.0 aperture, and EIS.
In comparison, the OnePlus 3T bears a 16-megapixel rear camera with a Sony IMX298 sensor, an f/2.0 aperture, OIS, and EIS. At the front, it bears a 16-megapixel camera at the front with a Samsung 3P8SP sensor and f/2.0 aperture. The OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T were both plagued by touch latency issues, and OnePlus claims to have solved the issue on the OnePlus 5 by using high-speed cameras that track the movement of the screen and input speeds. The OnePlus 5 sports LPDDR4X RAM, which OnePlus claims is 17 percent more power efficient than the previous LPDDR4 offering.
The OnePlus 5 sports a slightly smaller 3300mAh battery compared to the OnePlus 3T’s 3400mAh offering, however, with “hardware and software optimisations” manages to deliver 20 percent more battery life than its predecessor – according to the company. Also being touted alongside is a feature called App Priority, which learns the apps users utilise most commonly to load them on startup. Apps that aren’t commonly used are deprioritised. Another performance improvement is the use of UFS 2.1 storage and a 2-lane ROM, which together are said to double bandwidth.
The OnePlus 3T on the other hand uses UFS 2.0 storage. The company carries forward the ceramic fingerprint sensor on the OnePlus 3T to the OnePlus 5, with the same boast of unlocking in 0.2 seconds. Finally, OxygenOS running on top of Android 7.1.1 Nougat on the OnePlus 5 gets some new features including Reading Mode, Expanded Screenshots (brought to the OnePlus 3T with OxygenOS 4.1.6 update), and a semi-transparent app drawer.
One other notable addition is the support for Bluetooth v5.0 on the OnePlus 5, compared to Bluetooth v4.2 on the OnePlus 3T. It also adds an additional microphone for better noise cancellation and audio recording. As for dimensions, the OnePlus 5 is slightly slimmer at 7.25mm, compared to the 7.35mm of the OnePlus 3T. It weighs slightly less as well, at 153 grams compared to its predecessor’s 158 grams weight.
