Gone are the days when OnePlus relied on flash sales and invite systems to sell its smartphones. Just about a week after unveiling the OnePlus 5 and starting to take pre-orders, the company is now selling the phone outright.
It’s available from the OnePlus website for $479 and up, and orders placed today are expected to ship “immediately,” although I suspect it might take at least a few hours for your phone to get boxed up and sent out the door.
OnePlus generated a lot of buzz in its early days by promising “flagship killer” devices. When the OnePlus One launched, it was about half the price of a typical flagship at the time, but it had competitive specs including a speedy processor, a full HD display, plenty of RAM, and a big battery. But it was hard to get your hands on one.
The company’s next few phones were a bit more of a mixed bag: OnePlus added some key features, but had a hard time keeping up with true flagships… and the prices continued to rise.
The OnePlus 5 is the company’s most expensive phone to date. But it still costs a lot less than the latest flagships from Samsung, Apple, HTC, and LG.
But it also lakes some features, including image stabilization for 4K video recording (that’s said to be coming in a future software update), a waterproof design, or the slim bezels that are all the rage these days. The phone also only has a mono speaker… but unlike some high end phones it does have a headphone jack as well as a USB 2.0 Type-C port.
The phone gets generally positive reviews, especially given its relatively affordable price. But it’s not universally loved by reviewers.
Other features include a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor, dual rear cameras with optical zoom, a 3,300 mAh battery, dual SIM card slots, a fingerprint sensor, and UFS 2.1 storage.
$479 gets you a model with 6GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. There’s also an 8GB/128GB model that sells for $539.
OnePlus used to be a flagship-level phone for $300.
Then it was $400. Then it was $440, and now it’s $480. Next year, it will be $550.
Price was half the reason I loved you, OnePlus. I wanted a OnePlus 5 right up until you announced the cost. Now you’re just another Apple wannabe, right next to the Pixel.
The reality is that it’s tough to make a flagship-level phone for $300/$400 and make money. $480 is still appreciably lower than most flagship phones sell at, and (no doubt) gives them a much better profit margin.
Finally got mine yesterday (and I ordered it during the launch event). I think the shipping department is pretty backlogged so I wouldn’t expect it to ship “immediately”. That’s been my biggest disappointment so far with this company – they overpromise and underdeliver. The phone itself is pretty great, I must say. Upgraded from a Nexus 5X. Battery life has so far been extremely impressive. Audio quality is superb. Tons of customization possible. Haven’t had a chance to put the camera through its paces yet. My guess is that many of the poor reviews have been people used to iphones, S8s, Pixels and the like. i.e. flagship users. If you’re upgrading from a mid-tier phone I think you’re more likely to be impressed. My hope is that I’ll have this phone for a few years which makes the slightly higher price easier to swallow.
Whether it’s a screen cracking, a battery losing its capacity, or something else, I never seem to end up having a phone last for a few years. If I knew for certain it would last that long, the price *would* be a lot easier to swallow.