OnePlus 5 review: Doing the math

Doing the math

GSMArena Team, 20 June 2017.

Custom gallery

One of the few custom apps on the OnePlus 5 is the Gallery, which defaults to a view of photos and videos taken by the phone, arranged by date. Switch to Collections and your selfies are separated from the main camera photos, plus you get access to your screenshots, downloads, and whatever other folders you have. Videos are also played from within the Gallery- there's no dedicated app for them.

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Gallery app

The built-in editor is very capable, giving you tons of options for adjusting brightness, contrast, and whatnot. Filters can be applied too, and if you absolutely insist you can stamp 'Never Settle' on your photos.

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Powerful editing features

Google Play Music for playing your tunes

With OnePlus's own Music app gone, you get Google Play Music out of the box. You don't need a subscription to access your local media, and you get bells and whistles like album art, powerful searching algorithms, and the neat ability to upload your own tracks to the cloud and stream them for free.

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Google Play Music

Solid audio quality

The OnePlus 5 performed nicely in the first part of our audio test. The smartphone had perfectly clear output with an active external amplifier, while its loudness was good.

When headphones come into play the volume drops a bit, but remains above average, while distortion is well controlled. Some extra stereo crosstalk and a bit of intermodulation distortion appear but neither of those makes a large difference in non-lab conditions. We’ve seen a few smartphones provide more accurate and louder output with headphones, but our guess is that few will be disappointed with what the OnePlus 5 has to offer.

TestFrequency responseNoise levelDynamic rangeTHDIMD + NoiseStereo crosstalk
OnePlus 5+0.03, -0.01-94.194.10.00100.0070-94.2
OnePlus 5 (headphones attached)+0.15, -0.08-94.094.00.00330.139-59.9
HTC U11+0.05, -0.11-94.194.10.00170.0067-94.5
HTC U11 (headphones attached)+0.05, -0.02-93.793.80.00180.105-53.7
Samsung Galaxy S8+0.04, -0.00-92.592.50.00160.0072-92.8
Samsung Galaxy S8 (headphones attached)+0.03, -0.03-92.392.30.00560.060-77.2
Sony Xperia XZs+0.01, -0.02-93.593.30.00420.0092-92.7
Sony Xperia XZs (headphones attached)+0.12, -0.32-92.693.20.00720.219-67.0
LG G6+0.01, -0.02-93.393.30.00590.0095-94.4
LG G6 (headphones attached)+0.01, -0.02-93.493.40.00670.020-56.3
Huawei P10+0.01, -0.04-93.094.80.00190.0080-93.5
Huawei P10 (headphones attached)+0.25, -0.02-92.793.00.1920.175-59.5
Apple iPhone 7+0.06, -0.10-92.492.30.00150.0093-80.9
Apple iPhone 7 (headphones attached)+0.03, -0.11-92.392.30.00110.012-77.0

OnePlus 5 frequency response
OnePlus 5 frequency response

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

Reader comments

still useing this phone.. with my wife.. good for work and others. when you get worst issue, there's from other brand. lol wkkk

  • Anonymous
  • 13 May 2024
  • 6c1

Bought it since august 2017. Still no glaring issue except battery life which is as expected because its already nearly 7 years old, and a bit screen burn in at top right where signal and battery percentage are (no burn in at rest of the screen). Sti...

  • Milo
  • 16 Aug 2022
  • L2s

Bought it July 2017 and stil working perfectly since day 1. Only the battery performance after five years is weaker (lasts little more than one day). Definitely my next one will be OnePlus again.