💬 Review OnePlus 5T (red) by tazmcfly

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tazmcfly

Apprentice Lv2️⃣
Member for 6 years
Reviewed Device: OnePlus 5T (red)

Description
The OnePlus 5T is a mid range priced phone, with high range specs. It's fast, and the UI is very lean and usable. Battery life is great, and charging is fast.

Performance: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Camera:     ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Quality:      ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Price:       ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Things I like
Since its release, I have been very happy with this phone. My favorite part is the way they handle charging. I don't know the technical description, but essentially, the heat from charging is offloaded into the plug base instead of the phone. That means the phone never gets hot while charging. I play on the phone while plugged in, and it doesn't take long to charge back up. The only danger in this is pressing on the charger while it's plugged into your phone and breaking your port. I've never personally done this, I keep my fingers away from the port while it's charging. But my sons did this to other phones, so it's something to remember when playing while charging.

I know that the shelf in the OnePlus UI is a controversial topic, but I really love it. I put all of my favorite widgets on there, and save homescreen space. I like to see my phone's background image, so I put my apps in folders on the top and bottom edges. I get to enjoy my phone's background this way. The shelf freed up this space and I don't think I could ever live without it. As a note, I use the microsoft launcher because it gives just a little more functionality. It also has the shelf, but it also has this extra shelf on the home screen. You swipe up from the bottom layer of apps, and you can put more apps there. So it's a nice addition.

I play many different types of games, and so far haven't been unhappy with the performance. I played arena of valor for a long time. If there was ever a problem, it was usually due to my wifi, not the phone's performance capabilities.

I purchased my phone from the OnePlus site, so I don't have stupid cell phone company bloatware. Such a relief. OnePlus has a few apps on there, but they are mostly for functionality and support so they don't bother me.

A big plus is the volume slider. Mine goes silent>vibrate>sound mode. Having a physical toggle for this is a very smart and convenient thing. I turn my phone on silent every night, and when I wake up, it's back on sound mode. I laugh when I am in company where the phones are supposed to be silenced, and someone's phone goes off, and they just sit there trying to turn off the sound while it yells over and over. If I ever forget, I just slide the physical slider up to silent, and boom, no more sounds. It's awesome.

OTA updates done in a timely manner is another big plus. I'm so glad I don't have to wait for the stupid cell phone company to repackage and release my manufacturer updates.

Honestly, being able to circumvent the cell phone carriers on everything except actual cell service is a major win. I love OnePlus for this.

This phone is a few years old now, and I'd like to mention a few things about its longevity. My battery life is still good. It's not as good as it originally was of course, but it still lasts a long time. This is due in part I think because the heat is offloaded into the base of the charger instead of the phone. I get nervous when my phone is below 40%, so most of the time I charge it at least one more time during the day. But sometimes I run it until it's below 15%. Either way, it performs very well still.

The second longevity issue with phones is usually the performance. They tend to get slower as time goes on. This is not true as much for my OnePlus 5T. It's still really fast compared to samsung phones (I will never go back to samsung). I feel like there is a slight slow down after two years, but that might be because I get excited for the new models and want to upgrade, so maybe I'm trying to convince myself that my device is getting old.

OnePlus also seems to listen to the community about features, and they are really accessible when you have a problem.

My father in law had a broken charger port, and they had his phone repaired and back to him within a week.

Things I don't like
Although I really love my phone, there are a few cons. The camera blows chunks. It's really terrible. I can take good pictures in full sunlight and lots of indoor lights. But once you get a little dimmer, it just becomes blurry. Also, I tried the google camera ports and could never find one that didn't crash. I know that there have been many camera improvements made in the new models. Someday I will update to the new ones.

The other con is that OnePlus very aggressively optimizes apps to conserve battery. This has been getting worse lately. Depending on the app, I sometimes don't receive my push notifications at all. This is in spite of my turning the battery optimizer option to "don't optimize" on these apps. It's quite annoying. Recently I was in a group chat with my sisters, and we were in the same room. When someone would post a message, I wouldn't get the notification for it until like 5-10, sometimes 30 seconds after my sisters did. It's not that much of a delay, but it's still annoying.

They have a night mode, but it doesn't dim as much as I prefer. I have insomnia, and when it's been a long while, and I can't sleep at all, I will go on my phone to play sudoku until I get tired. In order to do this and not blind myself, I use the twilight app to dim it further, and make it a little more red. People can say what they want to about red light, but in pitch darkness it really helps.

Overall Ratings: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Verdict
I really feel that my OnePlus is just as good as it ever was, and because it's still so good, I can't really justify myself paying $300+ more dollars than I originally did to upgrade. I do wish OnePlus would lower the price again, but I can't hate on a company for making money.

Overall, I'm very happy with this phone and unless there is another phone that offloads the heat to the charging base instead of the phone, I will have no reason to ever buy a phone from another company.
 


Ryskuzhin

Lurker Lv0️⃣
Member for 4 years
I have the OnePlus 7 pro and I absolutely LOOVVEE IT!!! The ram starts at 6 gigs, and I have 256 gb internal storage. I can download SOO MANY apps. Not only that, but the camera is a beast! I have 3 rear facing cameras, that has telephoto, regular, and wide angle lense. The phone has a 14 mp front facing pop up camera. The phone is all screen!!! I love it so much!!!!!!!
 

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