A luxury budget phone
OnePlus is the mobile-phone company that skips everything else that other mobile-phone companies do, like sponsoring football teams and opening shops. Instead it just sells phones, initially only to customers who apply and wait for an invitation. Once a new model is in full production, however, it gets a ‘Buy’ button on the company’s website, and the OnePlus X is now available that way.
Well, sort of available. Of its three colours, only Onyx (meaning black) was in stock when we checked. The alternatives are Champagne (basically, white) or the tougher Ceramic, which hardly seems worth £70 extra. Various protective cases cost £20.
At first glance, this looks nothing like a £199 phone. The glass on each side is elegantly chamfered to meet the slender metal frame, which is finely grooved to make it easier to grip. It’s a simple design that looks classy, but distinctive enough to stand out. The display shows deep blacks and bright colours, covering the full sRGB range, and unlike some other AMOLED LCDs it’s reasonably bright, too, with clean whites. If you handed a phone aficionado the OnePlus X and told them it cost £650, they wouldn’t bat an eyelid.
There are compromises, though. The Snapdragon 801 processor, once considered high-end, is no faster than many mid- to low-end phones now; web browsing and advanced games were fairly smooth in our tests, but not perfect. OnePlus’ Oxygen OS software is based on Android 5.1.1 (Lollipop), but it already gives you greater control over what the personal data apps can access, providing options similar to those in Android 6 (Marshmallow). An upgrade should be available in the next few weeks.
Photos from the main camera looked OK, but on closer inspection were quite grainy, with details smudged, while the flash was too weak to help indoors. You can get better results with an even cheaper rival such as Sony’s Xperia M4 Aqua. On the other hand, the OnePlus X easily beat the M4’s battery life, playing our videos for 13 hours. It also has twice the storage, as well as a microSD slot for more.
VERDICT
It’s no longer surprising to find a quality phone under £200, but the OnePlus X does a great job of feeling more expensive.
SPECIFICATIONS
5in 1920x1080-pixel screen • 13-megapixel rear camera • 8-megapixel front camera • 16GB flash storage • 802.11n Wi-Fi • Bluetooth 4.0 • 3G/4G • Oxygen OS • 140x69x6.9mm (HxWxD) • 138g • One-year warranty