As a tech reviewer specializing in smartphones I get asked "which phone should I get" about 20 to 30 times a year, and as I've written before, my default answer is almost always "[the newest] OnePlus phone."
I don't say this because I think OnePlus' phones are the absolute best phones on the market. No, I don't even use one as my daily driver, in fact. But that's because I'm a gadget geek, a power user who shoots and edits videos often and sometimes do actual work (I wrote this article entirely on a Huawei Mate 9 Pro while on vacation on Christmas Eve) on phones. But most importantly, it goes back to the fact that I've always been a gadget geek who spent the chunk of his disposable income on gadgets.
Most people are not that gadget crazy. Most people just want a phone that works well and is reasonably priced. Most people also are not power users that will need the most cutting-edge display or camera tech. That's why for them, I recommend a OnePlus, because its phones are just about the perfect combination of value and new-enough tech. They're not priced as high as an Apple or Samsung or even Huawei and LG, but they're usually more powerful and usable than cheaper budget devices from Xiaomi or any of LG's and Samsung's "mid-tier" lines. You know how in boxing people say "pound for pound, so-and-so is the best fighter on earth"? Well OnePlus phones have been, dollar for dollar, the best phones on earth.
I've been testing the newest release from OnePlus, the 5T, for a day and half now. It's not enough time for a full review, but I already know that this is yet another stunner of a value. It doesn't have the curvy OLED displays found on the LG V30 or Galaxy Note 8; it's not quite as "bezel-less" as the iPhone X and it lacks the premium Apple features like 3D touch and TrueTone display; and it doesn't have the Razer Phone's game-changing 120Hz refresh rate ... but at $499, the OnePlus 5T is cheaper than all of those aforementioned handsets by at least $200.
So far, the OnePlus 5 experience has been pleasant but unsurprising. The 5T's software is still as awesome as ever (I like OnePlus' OxygenOS the best out of all phone softwares, even over stock Android); the metal unibody build quality is as great as the OnePlus 3, 3T, and 5; and just as I guessed, the 5T does indeed look very, very similar to the Vivo V7+ (Vivo and OnePlus belong to the same parent company).
I wrote about how fast the OnePlus 5 felt in my review, and the 5T continues that as expected. But even knowing that OnePlus phones have always been fast, there are two areas about the OnePlus 5T that really blows my mind in terms of speed.
The first is the phone's new facial identification feature, which the company just calls "face unlock." Watch the video below.
The phone unlocks instantaneously. It's so fast that if I'm looking directly at the phone when I press the power button, it bypasses the lockscreen completely. To put it bluntly: it works so fast that it almost feels fake, like there's no actual security on the device. But don't worry, OnePlus is a reputable and beloved company, so there is in fact some form of facial recognition tech happening. OnePlus admits it's all done with the selfie camera, so there's zero chance it's as secure as the iPhone X's Face ID, which uses a series of sensors to map the user's face.
But here's the thing, I've been trying to trick the 5T for over a day to no avail. I used a life-sized photo cutout of my face; I used a photo displayed on an iPad Pro; I even asked some random dude at a coffee shop who has similar face shape to try unlocking my phone and each time the 5T didn't budge.
Now I want toclarify, again, the 5T's facial recognition is not as secure as Apple's Face ID, and even the latter has been proven to be less secure than a traditional fingerprint reader. So if you're one of those people who are always concerned about security, then you probably want to skip the face unlock and stick with fingerprint.
The second super fast element of the 5T is its recharge capability. OnePlus' own fast charging tech, dubbed "Dash Charge," has been available since the OnePlus 3, but it feels even faster on the 5T. From multiple tests, I'm getting almost 2% bump a minute. Earlier I plugged in the phone with 52% battery at 1:05, and by 1:13 I had 67% battery life. That's a 15% battery boost in eight minutes!
Again, it's so fast that I'd be lying if the thought "wait, is this going to start a fire" didn't cross my mind. But that's just me being silly. The phone doesn't even heat up that much the way Huawei's phones do when being fast charged.
I'll be back with a full review soon. Right now I'm still marveling at the insane face unlock speed. It's almost annoying sometimes because I'd be trying to check the lockscreen notification and phone jumps straight into homescreen. But this being a OnePlus phone, there's an option to customize: I can set it so the phone requires an additional swipe before scanning my face.
