OnePlus X review: Straight Up

Telephony and messaging

The contacts manager features tabbed interface, which displays all contacts and the favorites. You can sync with multiple accounts including Google and Exchange. A button to add a new contact is constantly present in the bottom right corner - you can choose which account to sync the new addition with.

Contacts app • The Phone app and its dialer

The phone app comes with a tabbed interface for speed dial, recent calls and all contacts. The dialer is invoked by taping on its dedicated key and supports smart dialing.

The loudspeaker is just one and is still placed at the bottom. Its sound quality isn't among the best we've heard so far and it could improve on both high and low frequencies for a deeper sound. Its loudness isn't chart topping either - the OnePlus X achieved an Average mark on our test, which means you may want to keep an eye on your X in loud environments.

Sound quality is not going to win any contests as it's tinny, but the equalizer helps things to an extent.

Messaging is pretty much as straightforward an affair as on every other droid out there. The generic Email app is being decommissioned in favor of the Gmail app. If you tap on its icon, it will tell you the Gmail app is the client that will handle all your emails from now on.

Messages app • Gmail • Google Keyboard

As expected, the default Google keyboard is on board as well. It offers two sleek-looking, brand new skins - Material Dark and Material Light. The duo matches the new look of Android Lollipop.

Some regional versions come with SwiftKey pre-installed and neither this, nor Google Keyboard can be removed.

Multimedia

Google Photos is onboard as well, offering unlimited cloud backup of your images. Upon opening the app you'll see two tabs - one for all photos and another one for highlights.

Viewing a single photo gives you a number of options. You can share it, set it as wallpaper or contact photo, or edit it. The built-in Photos editor is incredibly powerful too.

The Photos app • viewing and editing images

The Photos app also handles the video files as Android Lollipop lacks dedicated video app. Available video decoders include Xvid, DivX, H.263, and MPEG-4. The app will play some major file formats, though serious video fans should certainly seek out a more capable solution from the Google Play, as the lack of AC3 audio support is quite limiting. Subtitles aren't supported either.

Watching a video

Finally, Google Play Music is the default player for your tunes on the OnePlus X. The app has been treated to the new material design, though its functionality remains unchanged - it can play your local files, as well as stream music from the cloud.

Google Play Music

You can tweak the sound via the built-in equalizer.

There is also a dedicated OnePlus Radio app to utilize the FM radio capabilities. It supports RDS and output via the loudspeaker.

OnePlus Radio

Audio quality is somewhat underwhelming

The OnePlus X made a decent start in our audio quality test. The smartphone didn't have the best frequency response or the perfect distortion readings when connected to an active external amplifier, but we can live with those flaws. And you do get just-above-average loudness with mostly excellent clarity scores, so it's mostly good on this occasion.

Plug in a pair of headphones, though, and things quickly go south. Volume drops, a ton of distortion creeps and you get the usual spike in stereo crosstalk. Hardly the most impressive showing here by the OnePlus X and one that would make audiophiles think twice before ordering it.

OnePlus X frequency response

You can learn more about the tested parameters and the whole testing process here.