The OnePlus One Review
by Joshua Ho on November 19, 2014 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Android
- Mobile
- OnePlus
Camera UX
For the most part, the OnePlus One has a generally standard camera system for 2014 smartphones. With a 6P lens system, F/2.0 aperture, and Sony IMX214 camera sensor, the OnePlus One has a relatively standard camera system for today's smartphones. The focal length is similar to most smartphones on the market at a relatively wide 3.8mm length, which makes it equivalent to a 28mm focal length when accounting for the crop factor of the sensor. The front facing camera has an OmniVision OV5648 sensor, which is a 5MP, 1.4 micron, 1/4 inch sensor, with an F/2.0 aperture at 2.67mm focal length. This means that the field of view is similar to the rear-facing camera at about 29mm accounting for the crop factor.
While the camera hardware is relatively standard, the camera interface is definitely a unique take, and is the first time that I've been able to use Cyanogen's camera UI. In general, this UI feels like a mix of the old Google Camera, along with an immense amount of complication and not much explanation. For example, in the settings there's an ISO selection menu. While this is nothing to talk about normally, there's a setting called "Auto (HJR)". The only way for me to learn about this setting is by searching for it on Google, which explains that it favors higher ISOs to reduce the effects of shaky hands. As of the latest 44S update, this crashes the camera any time I try to take a photo in low light. To further explain the point, there are plenty of options in the video size setting, but a huge number of them are completely unexplained. While one might easily guess what 4K UHD or HD 1080p is, I find it difficult to believe that 4k DCI, CIF, or QCIF are self-explanatory. Interestingly enough, turning RAW capture on or off also has an effect on the maximum shutter speed, something that isn't actually detailed anywhere.
While an unfamiliar UI is not really a massive issue, there are some fundamental flaws with how the UI works. One of the most obvious flaws is the aspect ratio of the preview, which is 16:9, when output images can have a 4:3 aspect ratio. This makes it impossible to accurately frame an image. In order to do the ISO chart test, it was necessary to use Google Camera to frame the chart before switching back to the Cyanogen camera.
In addition to all of this, the scene selection UI doesn't have much thought put into it. All filters and all scene modes are integrated into a single menu, which is navigated by swiping up and down on the preview. This wouldn't really be an issue but when there are 31 options to swipe through this really gets to be a bit much to handle. There is a list option that can be found by going through the menus though, which is a bit better at organizing information. Unfortunately, most of the scene options are a bit nonsensical. The "night" modes don't actually change anything (ISO and shutter speed seem to be identical), and pretty much everything else is unclear on what it does. The one interesting mode is the slow shutter mode, which sets ISO to 100 and allows the exposure time to go as high as 8 seconds for high-quality photos on a tripod. This is also broken as of the 44S update, which causes the camera to crash until the phone is rebooted. I suspect that OnePlus is better off exposing full manual controls instead of trying to cover every possible edge case with a large number of scene modes that may or may not change anything. There's also no way to get a grid to try and frame images properly.
Speaking of ISO and shutter speed values, while the camera UI was mostly responsive in previous versions, around the 38R OTA I saw a dramatic shift in the auto exposure algorithm as it went from a maximum of 4500 ISO and around 1/11 second shutter speed to 4100 ISO and 1/6 second shutter speed. This has effectively made it impossible to use the camera at night, as there is no OIS present to reduce the effects of even slight hand shake. Overall, all of these issues make the OnePlus One quite frustrating to use as a camera.
Aside from these niggles with the camera application that can generally be resolved by using Google Camera, another area of evaluation is shot to shot latency, along with focus latency. To this end, the device was tested by pointing the camera at the ISO chart with strong lighting to be able to reach base ISO and timing how long the camera took to focus on an object along with how quickly the device could take a photo.
The OnePlus One does do surprisingly well in our focus test, setting a rather respectable focus latency around the same speed as the competition. On the other hand, the default capture speed is really quite long, although this is really mostly due to the RAW capture as turning off RAW capture dramatically speeds up response time in the camera to a much more respectable ~750 ms.
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max1001 - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link
Totally agree, it's a good phone but def lack polish. I have been using one since launch.The most disappointing part was the camera because the hardware is class leading but the software is seriously holding it back.
Stochastic - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link
I just got my OnePlus One about a week ago. This is actually my first smartphone (yeah, I held out that long) so I have no real reference point to go by, although I have used iPhones, a 2013 Moto X, a Galaxy S5, and the LG G3 briefly. Since I’m not used to the smaller sized devices that were popular in 2007-2013, the OPO doesn’t feel gargantuan to me. In fact, after hearing so much about how massive the device is, I was a little surprised at how reasonably sized it is. I would say I have average sized hands and I can still use the device one-handed for some functions if I cradle it right, although obviously it’s far more ergonomic/efficient to use with two hands. Again, since this is my first smartphone, this doesn’t bother me in the slightest.Battery life is very good in my experience. Granted, I use airplane mode most of the time and have tweaked the auto brightness curve so that the display is very dim, but so far I’ve been reasonably impressed with how long it can last on a charge. To me this is more important than being able to use the phone one-handed.
The 5.5 inch display is well suited to web browsing and article reading, which are my primary uses for the device. To be honest I wouldn’t mind an even larger display—I’d like to try the Nexus 6 at some point. Reading this review I’m really surprised by the quality of the screen calibration. Subjectively, I can confirm that the display looks quite good, although I’d like my next device to have an OLED for inky blacks and lower power draw. The few videos I’ve watched so far looked about as good as they do on my Dell U2412M. At 401 PPI, the display appears laser sharp to me. Then again I don’t have 20/20 vision, so even a ~250 PPI display would probably appear sufficiently resolving to my eyes. To be honest, I’d trade resolution for even better battery life and performance in a heartbeat.
The bottom mounted speakers leave something to be desired, but I find that to be the case for all smartphones save perhaps the HTC One M8. If you care about sound quality you’ll use headphones. The OPO does a good job of driving my ATH-M50s (and hopefully the Fidelio X2s I have coming in), so it should work well as a DAP without the need to resort to a portable amp.
Regarding Cyanogenmod and the overall polish of the software: obviously this device isn’t going to be on par with iOS or Android Lollipop in that regard, but I haven’t encountered any show stopping bugs so far on the 44S firmware. I’ve also been reasonably happy with the touch sensitivity, although I can’t really assess this as I’m using a .24 mm Orzly screen protector. I look forward to the CM12 update that we should receive early next year and hope that polish will improve with time.
Stochastic - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link
I just read over my post and realized that I'm perhaps gushing a bit too much. So here are some gripes:The battery isn't user replaceable. Personally, I find this to be the OPO's biggest shortcoming.
As examined in detail in the review, the camera is decidedly lackluster. This doesn't personally bother me as I'll just use a DSLR if I really care about image quality, and the camera is still serviceable in a pinch, but digital shutterbugs should steer clear.
UI performance is overall very good in my opinion, but there still is some minor stuttering/hitching with certain apps. It's not a big deal but it's definitely not as smooth as iOS.
While the OPO doesn't have any deal-breaking issues unlike most Android phones (poor battery life, subpar display, limited storage capacity, middle-of-the-road performance, etc.), it also doesn't have too much to set it apart except for maybe the customizability offered by Cyanogenmod. This can easily be forgiven given the $350 price point, but I still envy the features found in the Moto X.
The OPO is only supported by GSM networks. Definitely a con.
Availability is still limited, and from what I've heard, customer support is pretty terrible. Caveat emptor. Going forward this needs to be OnePlus' top priority.
DanD85 - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link
Thanks for reviewing the OnePlus One! It's one of the best phone of this year, combine with the spectacular price and you have a clear winner.webdoctors - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link
There's a MIUI ROM out for One Plus One. Could the reviewer please also try that? I've found MIUI to give a pretty polished experience. Sorry as I realize installing a custom ROM on a $300 phone shouldn't be necessary, but considering the great HW, seems a shame to be let down by CM...(but that same argument could be given for all the great Android phones crippled by crappy Android vs iOS)Munna2002 - Friday, November 21, 2014 - link
I'm curious - how does one get this and are there reviews of MIUI doing a comparison with CyanogenMod?Midwayman - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link
Its a phone for enthusiasts it seems. Thing is all the options and development was done for people who are able to root and install a ROM on their own. No surprise that Cyanogen has some rough edges for a mass market.Bob Todd - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link
After basically losing interest in this phone due to the incredibly slow market roll-out/invite process, I find it more interesting again now that the Nexus 5 is out of stock in every configuration. The Nexus 6 being so underwhelming in the review here is also helping.Shlong - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link
You should also mention that it comes with an additional nano sim card tray so it'll fit both nano and micro sim. It's a very good phone and for the price it can't be beat (unlocked to boot) but the camera is just crap. Luckily, I have an iphone 6 plus as well but for those without an extra phone and love taking pictures, you will be disappointed. Everything else is excellent however.augiem - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link
I actually ordered one of these last week, but ended up cancelling the order. Go scour the OnePlus forums and you'll find there is an unusually high number of reports of extremely buggy software and hardware. One recent forum poll showed 25% of phones had problems. Even people who are extremely happy with the phone consistently live with problems always expecting them to be fixed in the next patch. This goes on for months and months and months. Some of the problems people have had are very serious such as earpiece failures, touch screen lockups, loss of LTE signal, random reboots, sudden data loss, battery drain, yellow banding on the screen, constant app crashes, etc. Die hard fans always blow these issues off. Their solution? Telling everyone to root their devices and load alternate roms or start running the dailies from Cyanogen. Okay... Sounds like a solution to me. To make matters worse, customer support is nonexistent at the company with many reports of receiving no response to support contact for a month or more. People have frequently been forced to file claims with PayPal to get their money back. None of this is mentioned in all the glowing reviews of this device around the web. Word of advice: DO YOUR RESEARCH before you jump in and buy this phone. Even for techies, the cost of ownership is very high in the time you'll likely have to invest to get the phone running properly.