OnePlus 5T, the Chinese company's latest smartphone offering with top-notch specifications and an aggressive pricing, was announced on Thursday. The new launch may excite many Android users but it will also annoy those who bought the OnePlus 5 a few months back. Since the launch of the OnePlus 3T last year, OnePlus seems to be following with a mid-cycle upgrade for its flagship smartphones and the OnePlus 5T is the latest example of it.
The new OnePlus 5T may share the same price tag as the OnePlus 5 but it brings some upgrades. To name a few, the new bezel-less display with an 18:9 aspect ratio makes the OnePlus 5T first smartphone to ditch the standard 16:9 aspect ratio. The company says that the new OnePlus 5T also receives a new dual camera setup. In this post, we will see the major differences between the new OnePlus 5T and OnePlus 5 depending on which you can take a call to either wait for the upgraded version or go with the original model.
OnePlus 5T vs OnePlus 5 design
One of the biggest differences between the two smartphone is in terms of display. The OnePlus 5T has the new 18:9 aspect ratio dominating the front panel, and ditches the physical home button which embedded the fingerprint scanner. The company has moved the fingerprint scanner to the back panel. There are not many aesthetic differences in terms of build when we compare the OnePlus 5T and OnePlus 5.
A big change, however, is the lack of hardware capacitive buttons. Present on all OnePlus phones until the 5T, the change may not be for everyone, but certainly signals a change that will probably be carried forward to future generations. It's a little ironic of course, that the taller, 18:9 aspect ratio display that removed the hardware buttons from the bottom lip, is the very same display that will be forced to give up some visual real estate for onscreen navigation buttons.
Talking about measurement, the OnePlus 5T comes with 156.1x75x7.3mm dimensions while the OnePlus came with 154.2x74.1x7.25mm hinting that new device is larger. In terms of weight, the OnePlus 5T weighs 162 grams while OnePlus 5 was lighter at 153 grams. The company has launched the OnePlus 5T in just Midnight Black colour while the OnePlus 5 came in Midnight Black, Slate Gray, and Soft Gold colours.
Talking about the specifications, we can say that the OnePlus 5T is almost identical to the OnePlus 5 smartphone with the exceptions of the screen size and dual camera setup. The OnePlus 5T features a 6.01-inch full-HD+ (1080x2160 pixels) Full Optic AMOLED with an 18:9 aspect ratio, 401ppi pixel density, and 2.5D Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection. The OnePlus 5, on the other hand, comes with a 5.5-inch full-HD (1080x1920 pixels) AMOLED display with 401ppi pixel density. Both the phones support sRGB and DCI-P3 colour gamut.
Similar to the OnePlus 5, the OnePlus 5T is powered by an octa-core Snapdragon 835 SoC, clocked at up to 2.45GHz, paired with either 6GB or 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM. The OnePlus 5T is backed by a 3300mAh non-removable battery, same seen on the OnePlus 5, and supports the company's Dash Charge fast charging tech.
At Thursday launch event, OnePlus heavily promoted the all-new dual camera setup on the OnePlus 5T. The Chinese company has removed the telephoto lens and replaced it with a large aperture one.
The OnePlus 5T sports a primary sensor, which is identical to the OnePlus 5, of 16-megapixel Sony IMX398 with 1.12-micron pixels, and an aperture of f/1.7. The secondary sensor is a 20-megapixel Sony IMX376K which replaces the 20-megapixel Sony IMX350 sensor which came paired with a telephoto lens. Unlike OnePlus 5, the company is now targeting low-light conditions more than the portrait mode. OnePlus also claimed that the new 5T features 'Intelligent Pixel Technology' for capturing more light in low-light situations. At the front there's again a 16-megapixel Sony IMX371 sensor, also seen on the OnePlus 5.
OnePlus 5T vs OnePlus 5 software
One of the biggest disappointments for OnePlus fans was that the new OnePlus 5T still ships with Android Nougat. It runs on OxygenOS 4.7 based on Android 7.1.1 Nougat. The company has also introduced an iPhone X-like Face Unlock feature on the OnePlus 5T, something that was missing on the OnePlus 5. The company says that the screen must be awake to unlock using Face Unlock and won't work for functionalities like payments through a third-party app.
The OnePlus 5 also ships with Nougat and currently running the OxygenOS 4.5.14 build. OnePlus confirmed that it will release the Android 8.0 Oreo open beta starting later this month for the OnePlus 5 units, and for OnePlus 5T users by end of December. The company without giving an exact time frame confirmed "early 2018" for the final Oreo OTA for both the OnePlus 5 and 5T.
Price
OnePlus 5T has been launched in India at Rs. 32,999 for the 6GB RAM/ 64GB inbuilt storage variant, and Rs. 37,999 for the 8GB RAM/ 128GB model. It will only be available in a Midnight Black colour variant. The OnePlus 5T prices are the exact price points at which the OnePlus 5 was launched in the country. The smartphone is exclusive to Amazon India, but will also be available via the OnePlus online store in India. In India, the OnePlus 5T will be going on sale exclusively for Amazon Prime members at 4:30pm IST on November 21. The regular sale of the handset kicks off on November 28 in India.
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