Interesting and detailed review of the OnePlus One by AndroidCentral, but this paragraph stood out to me:
Even with all of the right decisions made here, this isn’t revolutionary hardware design. There’s no two-tone camera flash, fingerprint scanner, ultra-high resolution display, waterproofing, dedicated two-stage camera key, massive camera sensor, front-facing speakers, heart rate sensor, back buttons or anything of the sort. The OnePlus One is just a phone, basically shaped like every other phone and with absolutely no design flair or features to set it apart from other devices.
In my view, it’s exactly this lack of “design flair and features” that sets it apart from the competition. There’s no fake leather, no fake metal backplate, nu buttons on the back, no super-sized gimmicky protruding camera sensors, useless fingerprint scanners, double camera sensors, heart rate monitors, flair guns, flamethrowers, fishing poles, and god knows what else the established players shove into and onto phones these days.
It’s a minimalist device focused almost entirely on a smartphone’s most important aspect – its display. And it’s exactly this minimalism that makes it stand our from the pack.
I agree that there are many useless features, mostly software features, on phones today. But the fingerprint scanner on the iPhone 5S is not one of them. I really miss it on the iPad.
Exactly. Touchid is amazingly useful in a corporate setting with mandated complex passwords. If I didn’t have touchID I’d have to type in an 8 character password every time I wanted to unlock the phone. TouchID is a massive timesaver.
It’s the reason I migrated from Android to a 5s. As times gone on and I play around with my phone less and less, the fingerprint scanner stuck out as a genuinely useful new feature. I’ve always hated unlocking my phone. Especially when you use it as an XBMC remote, etc.
…would pay at least $50 extra for an embedded flamethrower.
You already have it…
The Lithium battery !
If I wanted a li-ion based flame thrower, I’d buy a Tesla, ok?
For a second, I thought the quote from AndroidCentral read like it was tongue-in-cheek until I got to the last sentence.
Still rocking my “ancient” dual-core Razr HD and loving it.
This has to be one of the few reviews that I read this year which mentions and details about the actual call quality.
The cherry on top of the cake would be if they granted updates for Android.
I dunno man, I lost interest when I learnt that the upgrade procedure does a full wipe. You need a full wipe in order to upgrade the preinstalled ROM!
It does?
Can you post a reference for this? It makes absolutely no sense for an Android device to require a full wipe for an OS upgrade.
If instead you mean going from one modded version to another, i.e. CyanogenMod to ParanoidAndroid, then yes, it would of course require a wipe. That’s true for any Android device when switching between custom ROMs, otherwise you’re asking for bugs or for it to just plain not boot.
There:
http://www.gsmarena.com/oneplus_one_gets_a_stable_cyanogenmod_11s_r…
Thank you. You failed to mention that the article you linked also explains why:
It shipped with a development build, so all bets are off. I’m sure future versions shipping with a final build won’t have this issue.
What would really make this stand out from the competition for me is a removable battery and expandable storage. This has neither, so I’m not interested.
I used to feel that way about soldered batteries, but I recently got my hands on an HTC 8XT and the non-removable battery doesn’t bother me. In fact, I’m digging the thinness of the phone that the soldered battery provides. My HTC Arrive has a removable battery, and I never had to buy a new one even with using that phone for nearly three years straight, then abusing it by leaving it in the phone to drain down to 0V for months at a time. To this day, nearly four years after it was made, I can charge it up and get a full day’s use out of it. I have a feeling the battery in my 8XT will be good for the life of the phone, and I plan to use it until Microsoft stops issuing OS updates for it.
And something else I’ve come to love about HTC phones in particular, that the article mentions the OnePlus One is lacking, is the two-stage dedicated camera button. Granted, few phones rival “real” cameras for picture quality and features, but when your phone is a good enough camera for daily use, that two-stage button just makes it that much better and easier to use.
Replacable battery is preferred, but almost never needed. If a battery can last a whole day that is mostly good enough and otherwise an external battery pack goes a long way and works for multiple devices.
I always thought design was of the utmost importance to him.
Maybe he’s just seen the light. In any case, the lack of insanity is a good reason to buy. That and the low price, and easy updates from cyanogenmod.
Minimalism is a design trend too. My choice of Crunchbang Linux for an every day OS is mostly due to my preference for minimalist design. The same goes for my choice of phone operating system, Windows Phone 8. It is heavily text based with mostly white-on-black screens, similar to Crunchbang.
Ah, good point. He just likes that style.
His minimalism isn’t the same as my general apathy.
I had high hopes for the OnePlus One (OPO). Sadly many of their early statements turned out to be just marketing.
The OPO is just another disposable phone that you can’t easily replace the battery.
I was also disappointed in how large it is. They claims the size of a 5″ phone, but came in larger than other 5.5 inch phones like the G3.
Most frustrating is they allow changing the back cover so you can match your pants, but not the battery so you can swap out if it’s dead.
I was hoping for wireless charging as well.
I’ll wait for a S5 or LG G3 google play edition, but if necessary I could fall back to getting a nexus 5.
The phone seems more minimalist than that piece of shit website design is.
Yeah, I hate those “floating” layouts with a passion too.
As other users noted, the fingerprint sensor on the iPhone 5S works perfectly, and as they also say, I really miss it on my iPad. Maybe Thom is just upset that reports indicate the sensor doesn’t work well at all on the GS5.
Evidently Thom did not watch the WWDS keynote the other day when they detailed some of the new features and capabilities iOS will have for the fingerprint sensor in iOS 8. Its capabilities are going to be expanded considerably, and there’s no telling what they did not disclose the other day.
I’m one of the first 150 to get to buy the phone in a couple of weeks.
I’m totally not jealous.
Grumble.
Be frank, I was very excited about the phone because of its simplicity and the price tag. However, by the time I learned that the manufacturer is based in China, although very close to Hong Kong, I have entirely lost my interest. Why? Because you don’t know what they’re going to slip in your phone without your acknowledging. It may not be their fault, but the fact is that sometimes manufacturers in China have to do what they are told by the “central”. They have to obey or they’ll be out of business. To those who already own one, well, I hope I’m just being too paranoid.
I understand your apprehension (and i share it to a lesser degree) but this is actually a great way for chinese companies to build trust in the west. Open source OS. People can (and will) SCOUR that code to make sure it is only doing/sending what it should.
So I’m curious: What kind of phone do you use? There are very few that aren’t made in China these days.
I don’t much care for this particular phone, but I’d say the above should be quite enough. Some people always expect the revolutionary, but that simply won’t happen – even if it could, the industry would still introduce most novelties in smaller steps, to maximise profits and model sells for the long run.
Anyway, making a model with quite good internals, at a very nice price is more than OK. Actually devices like these could at some point accelerate innovation, since if prices are driven down for devices with the latest tech, then there’ll be more motive to introduce new things (at premium prices at first, but still).
I always wonder in amazement, when people think unlocked phone prices in the US are high. I’ve bought some unlocked phones over the years in the EU and in the US, and let me tell you, prices in the US can be pretty damn nice.
dont forget they often pay tax on top and (if you bring it to the EU) you have to pay import duty (assuming you declare your new phone like a good honest citizen
)
Thom, it seems to me that you completely skipped the CM11S negative review, saying that it’s too bloated in option and too different from the stock vanilla Android. It basically says that’s like TouchWiz etc.
And I think it is true. Up to version 7, CM was a more “UI geek” friendly Android, but with CM9/10/11 well, I really can’t see the difference between a ROM and a OEM skin. They’re both crap.