OnePlus have created so much hype around their first phone, the OnePlus One, that it would be difficult to buy even without the invite system. So is the OnePlus One really the flagship killer that was promised or something else?
Since the start of the OnePlus phenomenon, the global marketing team behind this spin-off brand from Oppo have promised us a “2014 Flagship Killer”, told us to “Never Settle” and have made various pot shots at big name rivals.
Some of the choices that OnePlus have decided on haven’t won them any favours, but their true fans are diehard and follow the company through invite systems, controversial promotions and media backlash.
It’s been a roller coaster of a ride, one which the OnePlus team seem to be riding quite well, but what about their product? Their first phone. Is the OnePlus One everything it promised to be?
OnePlus One Review – Design
Whatever OnePlus want us to believe, the reason that the OnePlus One is so affordable isn’t that they are a start-up, or that they save money by cutting out the middle man and dealing direct, no. The real reasons for the low price are 1) All the R&D was done by Oppo for the Oppo Find 7a, 2) The OPO is sold at close to cost with the hope that component costs will drop and they will eventually make a profit.
The 2nd point is also the reason for the invite system. Keeping demand high and supply low has bought the company time, prices have now dropped so that OnePlus can actually make more phones and loose less money. OnePlus will deny this, but its the same method Xiaomi use, along with Huawei and others.
So while the low price has meant an invite system many hate, and a long wait for many fans, it does mean a well made, high spec phone can be made at a great price.
Once you get your hands on the OnePlus it really does feel like a quality piece of equipment. The phone is not only extremely well put together but the materials and components used are second to none. There are issues with the yellow screen though (no not the ‘warmer’ colour settings of CM11s seen below), and some early customers had build issues, but not everyone is reporting these.
For this review I’m focussing on the 64GB Sandstone finished OnePlus One, but everything here applies to the 16GB baby skin model (except for the texture of the rear panel).
Choose the 16 or 64GB version of the OnePlus One and from the front both phones are identical. They both have that lovely looking, polished, recessed bezel, and large 5.5-inch JDI display.
Rear panels of the OnePlus One can be removed, but only to switch your style cover from one to another. It’s not an easy job as the rear case is extremely tight, but with a little persuasion it can be done, just remember to remove the SIM tray first.
Speaking of the rear this is where we get the dual LED flash and 13 mega-pixel Sony IMX214 rear sensor with F2.0 aperture. The camera lens and LED flash are located on a metal back reminiscent of the Oppo Find 5. Beneath the camera is the OnePlus Logo which is machined out of the surface, and towards the bottom we have the Cyanogen logo. If your OnePlus doesn’t have the Cyanogen logo then you have a Chinese version of the phone.
External speakers are located in the base on either side of a micro USB, a 3.5mm headphone jack is at the very top of the phone. Single SIM tray on the left as well as the volume rocker which leaves the right side to accommodate the power button.
The OnePlus One is not a flashy phone. In black it looks understated and classy, and always manages to draw attention with its understated looks. With the optional bamboo and wood covers it will truly be an awesome looking device.
If you really want to be picky then the OnePlus One is too long. There is no reason for the phone to be this length, well expect that fact that it is based on the Oppo Find 7, which is also too long.
As we are back on the OnePlus and Oppo similarities we cannot not mention the fact that the OPO lacks a removable battery and hasn’t a micro SD expansion bay. Two features the Find 7 has. Obviously Oppo weren’t going to cannibalise sales of the Find 7 by giving the OPO these features though, and 64GB is enough for me at least. Still these are missing features, which have led to some question the “Never Settle” motto of the company.
OnePlus One Review – Specifications
The OnePlus One is an affordable phone by flagship standards. In China the retail price is 1999 Yuan for the 16GB and 2299 Yuan for the 64GB. In the U.S the price is actually slightly cheaper with the 16GB model costing only $299 USD. Prices do vary depending on where you live, but no matter how much you end up spending the OPO is a better equipped and cheaper alternative to other flagship phones.
A 5.5-inch JDI 1920 x 1080 display takes up the front of the phone and provides beautiful viewing angles and crisp clean text. The CM11S version of the OPO does have a slightly warmer colour setting to the Chinese ColorOS version by default, and can be adjusted depending on the level of ‘warmth’ you prefer’. This is a separate issue to the screen yellowing that many OPO owners have complained about, and I can confirm that the screen on my phone also has yellow patches towards the bottom. This does’t bother performance or use, I only notice it when I look, but there is no denying it is there and it really shouldn’t be.
Gizchina News of the week
On the inside of the phone the OnePlus One meets the standard specification for any of the current flagship phones. It has a Snapdragon 801 processor from Qualcomm, there is 3GB RAM on board, NFC, 3100mAh battery, 13 mega-pixel Sony sensor with F2.0 aperture, quality stereo speakers, WIFI, and LTE.
There is nothing missing from this line up, the OPO will even support VOOC fast charging if you use the charger from the Oppo Find 7, although this isn’t a feature that has been advertised.
OnePlus One Review – CyanogenMod 11S
I’m going to come out and say it right away. I’m not a fan of CM11S on the OnePlus One. I do love the fact that it is fast, lightweight reliable and works well with all the apps and accessories I have tested. For many this is a big enough selling point by itself, but I was/am hoping for more.
With such a capable phone I feel a little let down by the lack of ‘Wow’ features. I often bump in to people who have heard of the OPO or have an interest in high-end smartphones in general, the story is always the same. They are amazed by the design and quality, they love the hardware, price and speed, but they are always left wondering “What does it do that my (insert flagship phone here) cannot”.
Ok so these people might not ‘get’ what the OnePlus One is all about, but to be honest we should be treated to some killer ROM features to really test that killer hardware. ColorOs has an amazing camera app, and seriously customisable lock screen gestures, CM11S doesn’t. MIUI is chock full of useful features, CM11S isn’t.
I want more features on my “2014 Flagship Killer”. I want Hotword support (it isn’t enabled in CM11S yet), I want that 50mp image capture that the Oppo Find 7 has, I want the gesture options from Oppo too! In fact after using the OPO with ColorOS for a time, I actually preferred it, despite the terrible UI.
CM11S isn’t without it’s issues and bugs either. When I first set up my OPO the camera app wouldn’t save photos so I needed to reset the phone. The few lock screen gestures we have ( ‘V’ for flagship light, double tap to unlock) are far to easy to activate by accident, often finding the phone dialing numbers in my pocket, which was never an issue with the Find 7. And for some reason when I have been listening to music for an hour or so the volume starts to adjust itself (this is really quite an odd bug).
OnePlus One Review – Battery Life
For those of you who think you are settling for a non removable battery, Let me tell you that I would feel I was settling if it got one. Having a none removable battery in the OnePlus One has meant a larger battery can fit in the same size body as the Find 7, and directly soldered connections means less resistance and better battery performance.
The battery on the OnePlus One lasts, and lasts. Its on par with the battery on the Vivo Xplay 3S and Vivo Xshot, meaning you can easily get a day of use with all data on, and a day and half is possible.
Never have I been out with the OPO and been let down by lack of battery life. Perfect!
OnePlus One Review – Camera
For me the sign of a good smarphone camera is the quality of the photos, the user experience of the camera app, and how often you feel you need to take photos. With the Vivo Xshot (which I still believe is the best Chinese phone on the market, and the phone to beat) I am always dipping my hand in to my pocket to snap photos of anything and everything. The quality of the Xshot camera is awesome, the features are fun and useful and the speed of capture is superb.
Photos caught on the OnePlus One aren’t as good as the Vivo Xshot, but they aren’t miles behind, but it isn’t as enjoyable to take photos with the OPO. The camera app lacks useful features, speed of capture isn’t as fast and auto focus isn’t as accurate.
The camera on the OnePlus isn’t terrible, anyone who tells you it is is just wrong, but it isn’t the best, and it isn’t fun to use. Again the he hardware is there, but the OS is lagging way behind.
OnePlus Camera Photo Sample
OnePlus One Review – Performance
There isn’t anything to complain about at all here. The OnePlus One has 3GB RAM, Snapdragon 801 processor and powerful Adreno GPU. The OPO is a powerhouse, not the most powerful, but powerful enough for every app you could every want to run.
Interestingly benchmarks between ColorOS on the Chinese version of the OnePlus One and those of the global model running CM11S are quite close. Again, the hardware on the OnePlus One is killer.
OnePlus One Review – Global vs Chinese OnePlus One
OnePlus One Review – Conclusion
I am lucky with my job. I get to play with some of the most exciting smartphones on the market, and the OnePlus One is undoubtedly one of the more exciting to date, but I don’t use it anymore.
This is the 2014 Flagship killer people all over the world are itching to be invited to buy, and I have given it to my wife who is already telling me she wants her Meizu MX3 back. I’m back my Vivo Xshot and I don’t see that being replaced anytime soon (although the Mi4 review is coming so that might change).
I’m going to use football to try and explain my feeling for the OnePlus One. Basically the OnePlus One is the England Football team. Take each individual player away from that team and you have the some of the best players in the world. Put them together and you have a quality looking line-up who are capable of beating the world, but once you start playing something isn’t quite right, there is something lacking.
The OnePlus One is a great phone, if you buy chances are you will love it, but as someone who tries new phones day by day I can tell you there is better out there. The OnePlus One is nearly but not quite the flagship killer that I hoped it to be.
Now bring me an updated OS, with an improved camera app and give it some ‘life’ and we will revist this review again.
Very, very nice review. Thanks Andi
Hatts Off Andi ,Awesome Review!
That Engeland-comparison cracked me up! I’ll stay with my Mi2s for now!
Andi,is there any Low Call Volume Problem in OPO?I heard that many OPO’s forum People reporting that their OPO’s Call Volume is Low(When compared to other Phones) while they were using it in a Crowd.Is it True,in your case?
It’s lower but quite clear
First of all,Thanks for your Beloved Reply.I am eagerly waiting for your Review of Nubia Z7 Max!
If I’m not mistaken they’ve fixed it with an OTA update.
Anyway,I am not going to buy OPO.I will wait & buy Z7 Max for sure,b’caus it’s a perfect phone that suit’s all my needs!
Cm improved the call volume in a previous OTA update. But after seeing people still having issues there going to improve it further in future OTA update 🙂
Ok,thanks for Notifying me.Anyway,I am going to wait & buy Nubia Z7 Max instead of OPO!
Andi, for the first time, I’m seeing a neutral review of this phone from you.
Not to offend you, but I have been obsserving your articles on this phone for quite some time, and you had been quite biased with the earlier ones.
I’m happy to see you now see this phone in its true nature, by calling a spade a spade. There’s one correction required though – this phone does not have stereo speakers as you say, but dual mono speakers instead. OnePlus made a big blunder of it by saying Apple was deceiving its customers, when in reality Apple had clearly stated the specs in its product page. It was OnePlus who lied instead saying they were giving stereo, when they are actually not. It may not have been a lie, but definitely indicates product ignorance (derived from OPPO after all) and hypocrisy. Something that their customers have not taken too kindly, as obvious! Check their forums and you will see they’ve clamped down and deleted a lot of threads exposing such blunders.
Hmm… I don’t know what to make of this review Andi… I’m a proud owner of an international OnePlus One and coming from a ‘back in the day’ Galaxy Note (n7000) this phone genuinely does feel like the best phone in the world to me, but I do fully understand that your job involves you playing with all the latest and greatest Chinese phones and tablets and so ye, I’m sure you have seen better…
But what I do see quite a lot in your reviews is how keen you are on Camera quality. I’d say you base your conclusion approx 75% on how the Camera experience turns out and is this really the right way to rate a mobile phone? I’m a fan of the Cm experience to be honest, I’ve always loved their ‘stock+’ non-bloated versions of Android and whilst I do agree with you to an extent regarding cm11s lacking some ‘show off’ features I don’t fully agree with the Chinese ‘model’ of these feature types, for example, I briefly owned a Zopo ZP998 just before getting my invite for my OPO, it was a really good phone for the money and on the whole I was extremely happy with it, but the air gesture feature was just a gimmick that rarely worked, fine it was a show off feature to colleagues and friends but the question always arose, “when would I use that?”
So in conclusion on my part, I’m mega happy with my OPO as it currently is and I believe in time Cyanogenmod will make the software ‘tastefully’ better and better and I’m so glad I got a ticket to get on that ride because I’m excited to see where it’s going ☺
Also, on a side note, would we really say the Meizu MX3 is a better phone? (better as in want to go back to using that as a daily driver???)
I’ve just based the review on my personal findings. As mentioned in the review I have other phones to hand that I prefer over the OPO. I personally love my daily driver (xShot), but don’t have the same feeling for the OPO. It’s strange as all the ingredients are right but….
Anyway, you have good reason to be the proud owner of the phone as it is extremely good, better than the Nexus 5 (as mentioned in another comment), but it hasn’t slayed all the flagships and I’m sticking with what I prefer.
As for the MX3, the OPO is much better in my opinion. Not sure why my wife keeps going back to it.
Hi Andi, thanks for the reply, I fully understand that it’s your opinion and hey obviously you’re fully entitled to it, just try not to come across so dismissive of such great potential?
I’d love to see you revisit the international opo in a few months perhaps? When Cyanogenmod have managed to Chuck a few more OTA updates at it? Who knows, it could be like a completely different phone come the end of the year?
Thanks though Andi, really I love what you’re doing here! I visit Gizchina.com at least once every couple of hours every day to catch up on the latest and greatest, good work!
Adam.
Thanks Adam, will certainly keep my eye on the updates and will use the phone when I can. Thanks for the support and have a great weekend 😀
Very, very nice review. Thanks Andi
Hatts Off Andi ,Awesome Review!
That Engeland-comparison cracked me up! I’ll stay with my Mi2s for now!
Andi,is there any Low Call Volume Problem in OPO?I heard that many OPO’s forum People reporting that their OPO’s Call Volume is Low(When compared to other Phones) while they were using it in a Crowd.Is it True,in your case?
It’s lower but quite clear
If I’m not mistaken they’ve fixed it with an OTA update.
First of all,Thanks for your Beloved Reply.I am eagerly waiting for your Review of Nubia Z7 Max!
Anyway,I am not going to buy OPO.I will wait & buy Z7 Max for sure,b’caus it’s a perfect phone that suit’s all my needs!
Cm improved the call volume in a previous OTA update. But after seeing people still having issues there going to improve it further in future OTA update 🙂
Ok,thanks for Notifying me.Anyway,I am going to wait & buy Nubia Z7 Max instead of OPO!
Hmm, great review but I have to disagree on some parts as a oneplus owner. I have used the Oppo Find 7 a lot and the 50mp camera feature is gimmicky, slow and very inconsistent, I also find colour OS is a bit laggy, heavy and still on 4.3. Gestures again gimmicky, personally I don’t find them useful at all on either phone. I turned mine off on the OPO, i do agree that they are too easily triggered. Hot words etc again I don’t find it practically useful on a day to day basis, never use this type of functionality. I don’t really see what MIUI has in terms of customisation that is really useful that CM11 lacks or can’t be replicated in downloaded apps. Again I find a lot of MIUI ‘features’ not that useful on a day to day basis and I can really think of one I genuinely miss from my previous xiaomi phones.
Also what about the things OPO has that MIUI doesn’t? Like the ability to turn on screen buttons on or off, like the ability to calibrate the hue/saturation/contrast of your screen? I enjoy the close to stock experience, I like the simplicity of it. I also think that relatively speaking in comparison to the majority flagships the build quality is on par or better. Easily outclasses the GS5 for example, feels much more solid. Camera wise it easily outclasses the nexus 5, it’s closest price range competitor outside china and weather their marketing says ‘flagship killer’ or not I still think it is the best phone available outside china for this price. The superiority of the vivo Xshot is in my mind unsurprising when you consider how much more it costs. I have seen many reviews of the OPO camera and while it may not be top of its class its still a good performer and in my mind whether you listen to marketing jargon or not, I think you would be naive to expect every aspect of the OPO to be superior to all flagships at this price, I think it’s just unrealistic to expect that.
I just don’t see what more they could have offered at this incredible price. What has any other flagship got that this doesn’t have? A slightly better camera? A bit more customisation? A gimmicky fingerprint scanner? Slightly better build? Again all relatively small additions/improvements and always at a much inflated price tag. Also when you consider the fact that under the hood it goes toe toe with any flagship out there also has a cracking battery, i find it harder to find fault. Let’s also not forget Xiaomi has no 4G phones still at this time of writing, and while a small thing they also have no NFC. Until xiaomi release a mi4 with european LTE bands, xiaomi are not a competitor to this in my opinion. One thing I will say Is i think that the OPO is too big. They should have stuck with 5/5.2 inches, its just too large in my opinion.
The england comparison is nice but england are straight garbage and even prior to the world cup expectation was low and everyone knew they lacked world class players. I see the one plus more like Holland, a team strong robust and powerful team expected to do well with very few pitfalls that almost went all the way but faced very stiff competition on the day, maybe at times tactically they fell a tiny bit short but at the same time didn’t always get the lucky breaks they perhaps deserved.
Thanks for the comment. Yep, the OPO is much better than the Nexus 5, but that’s last years flagship it really had to be. MIUI also has creen calibration but you are right about the buttons.
Andi, for the first time, I’m seeing a neutral review of this phone from you.
Not to offend you, but I have been obsserving your articles on this phone for quite some time, and you had been quite biased with the earlier ones.
I’m happy to see you now see this phone in its true nature, by calling a spade a spade. There’s one correction required though – this phone does not have stereo speakers as you say, but dual mono speakers instead. OnePlus made a big blunder of it by saying Apple was deceiving its customers, when in reality Apple had clearly stated the specs in its product page. It was OnePlus who lied instead saying they were giving stereo, when they are actually not. It may not have been a lie, but definitely indicates product ignorance (derived from OPPO after all) and hypocrisy. Something that their customers have not taken too kindly, as obvious! Check their forums and you will see they’ve clamped down and deleted a lot of threads exposing such blunders.
Hmm… I don’t know what to make of this review Andi… I’m a proud owner of an international OnePlus One and coming from a ‘back in the day’ Galaxy Note (n7000) this phone genuinely does feel like the best phone in the world to me, but I do fully understand that your job involves you playing with all the latest and greatest Chinese phones and tablets and so ye, I’m sure you have seen better…
But what I do see quite a lot in your reviews is how keen you are on Camera quality. I’d say you base your conclusion approx 75% on how the Camera experience turns out and is this really the right way to rate a mobile phone? I’m a fan of the Cm experience to be honest, I’ve always loved their ‘stock+’ non-bloated versions of Android and whilst I do agree with you to an extent regarding cm11s lacking some ‘show off’ features I don’t fully agree with the Chinese ‘model’ of these feature types, for example, I briefly owned a Zopo ZP998 just before getting my invite for my OPO, it was a really good phone for the money and on the whole I was extremely happy with it, but the air gesture feature was just a gimmick that rarely worked, fine it was a show off feature to colleagues and friends but the question always arose, “when would I use that?”
So in conclusion on my part, I’m mega happy with my OPO as it currently is and I believe in time Cyanogenmod will make the software ‘tastefully’ better and better and I’m so glad I got a ticket to get on that ride because I’m excited to see where it’s going ☺
Also, on a side note, would we really say the Meizu MX3 is a better phone? (better as in want to go back to using that as a daily driver???)
I’ve just based the review on my personal findings. As mentioned in the review I have other phones to hand that I prefer over the OPO. I personally love my daily driver (xShot), but don’t have the same feeling for the OPO. It’s strange as all the ingredients are right but….
Anyway, you have good reason to be the proud owner of the phone as it is extremely good, better than the Nexus 5 (as mentioned in another comment), but it hasn’t slayed all the flagships and I’m sticking with what I prefer.
As for the MX3, the OPO is much better in my opinion. Not sure why my wife keeps going back to it.
Hi Andi, thanks for the reply, I fully understand that it’s your opinion and hey obviously you’re fully entitled to it, just try not to come across so dismissive of such great potential?
I’d love to see you revisit the international opo in a few months perhaps? When Cyanogenmod have managed to Chuck a few more OTA updates at it? Who knows, it could be like a completely different phone come the end of the year?
Thanks though Andi, really I love what you’re doing here! I visit
at least once every couple of hours every day to catch up on the latest and greatest, good work!
Adam.
Thanks Adam, will certainly keep my eye on the updates and will use the phone when I can. Thanks for the support and have a great weekend 😀
Andi, did you really just compare it with the England football team? I never knew you would have such a low opinion of this phone (no offense to England fan though)…
Hmm, great review but I have to disagree on some parts as a oneplus owner. I have used the Oppo Find 7 a lot and the 50mp camera feature is gimmicky, slow and very inconsistent, I also find colour OS is a bit laggy, heavy and still on 4.3. Gestures again gimmicky, personally I don’t find them useful at all on either phone. I turned mine off on the OPO, i do agree that they are too easily triggered. Hot words etc again I don’t find it practically useful on a day to day basis, never use this type of functionality. I don’t really see what MIUI has in terms of customisation that is really useful that CM11 lacks or can’t be replicated in downloaded apps. Again I find a lot of MIUI ‘features’ not that useful on a day to day basis and I can really think of one I genuinely miss from my previous xiaomi phones.
Also what about the things OPO has that MIUI doesn’t? Like the ability to turn on screen buttons on or off, like the ability to calibrate the hue/saturation/contrast of your screen? I enjoy the close to stock experience, I like the simplicity of it. I also think that relatively speaking in comparison to the majority flagships the build quality is on par or better. Easily outclasses the GS5 for example, feels much more solid. Camera wise it easily outclasses the nexus 5, it’s closest price range competitor outside china and weather their marketing says ‘flagship killer’ or not I still think it is the best phone available outside china for this price. The superiority of the vivo Xshot is in my mind unsurprising when you consider how much more it costs. I have seen many reviews of the OPO camera and while it may not be top of its class its still a good performer and in my mind whether you listen to marketing jargon or not, I think you would be naive to expect every aspect of the OPO to be superior to all flagships at this price, I think it’s just unrealistic to expect that.
I just don’t see what more they could have offered at this incredible price. What has any other flagship got that this doesn’t have? A slightly better camera? A bit more customisation? A gimmicky fingerprint scanner? Slightly better build? Again all relatively small additions/improvements and always at a much inflated price tag. Also when you consider the fact that under the hood it goes toe toe with any flagship out there also has a cracking battery, i find it harder to find fault. Let’s also not forget Xiaomi has no 4G phones still at this time of writing, and while a small thing they also have no NFC. Until xiaomi release a mi4 with european LTE bands, xiaomi are not a competitor to this in my opinion. One thing I will say Is i think that the OPO is too big. They should have stuck with 5/5.2 inches, its just too large in my opinion.
The england comparison is nice but england are straight garbage and even prior to the world cup expectation was low and everyone knew they lacked world class players. I see the one plus more like Holland, a team strong robust and powerful team expected to do well with very few pitfalls that almost went all the way but faced very stiff competition on the day, maybe at times tactically they fell a tiny bit short but at the same time didn’t always get the lucky breaks they perhaps deserved.
Thanks for the comment. Yep, the OPO is much better than the Nexus 5, but that’s last years flagship it really had to be. MIUI also has creen calibration but you are right about the buttons.
Andi, did you really just compare it with the England football team? I never knew you would have such a low opinion of this phone (no offense to England fan though)…
Seems like a very thorough and fair review but wait for the Opo fan boys to attack it.
Great Review!! Can’t wait to get it someday soon!
Stereo speakers are actually dual mono. I can’t beleive why they didn’t make it stereo ones. May be it effects loudness. Since 2 speakers are in place , it could be fixed by software. Anyways you can only feel stereo if its a htc style speaker or listen stere-iocally(I place on the neck LOL)
Only bugging issue is yellow band . Hardware wise there should not be any flaws. Like the ‘antennagate’ we don’t want a ‘yellow gate’ . Hopefully that would be fixed if opo realize and fix it on later builds.
Still the best phone around for the ‘time-price’.
Glad you enjoyed it 😀
@yudhir:disqus, the dual mono speaker connections are hard wired. Not that the output matters, but this is not something that can be fixed through software.
Would have been so nice that way!
Seems like a very thorough and fair review but wait for the Opo fan boys to attack it.
Great Review!! Can’t wait to get it someday soon!
Stereo speakers are actually dual mono. I can’t beleive why they didn’t make it stereo ones. May be it effects loudness. Since 2 speakers are in place , it could be fixed by software. Anyways you can only feel stereo if its a htc style speaker or listen stere-iocally(I place on the neck LOL)
Only bugging issue is yellow band . Hardware wise there should not be any flaws. Like the ‘antennagate’ we don’t want a ‘yellow gate’ . Hopefully that would be fixed if opo realize and fix it on later builds.
Still the best phone around for the ‘time-price’.
Glad you enjoyed it 😀
@yudhir:disqus, the dual mono speaker connections are hard wired. Not that the output matters, but this is not something that can be fixed through software.
Would have been so nice that way!
Interesting review Andi. Clearly you don’t know your way around CyanogenMod,you would be much happier with it. The best thing about CyanogenMod is the options. Want to rearrange your notification bar icons? Its in the settings. Want theme A’s lockscreen but theme B’s icons? Go right ahead. Want to side scroll your app dock on the bottom of the screen, there it is in settings. You can switch off,rearrange or completely hide almost anything. Some custom ROM’s go even further with this (Like PACman) but you should really go into the settings and do some more clicking around, you’ll be amazed. This is contrast to the preset and ready to go nature of MIUI
Secondly, CyanogenMod,unlike your preferred Chinese ROM’s MIUI and Flyme,actually looks like android. Now you might say “android looks dull” but here’s the thing,the CODE also looks like Android. Hence,you’ll have excellent stability (nothing is broken from being moved around) and all ANDROID features are present and accounted for. Sounds silly yeah,but for years of using Huawei phones (hence Emotion) I downloaded an app to toggle between 2G and 3G networks. It is also missing in ColorOS. With CyanogenMod I just found myself installing fewer of such type of small apps,because its already in the ROM (under settings -wireless incase your wondering) Android 4.4 supports screen recording with apps like Rec. Try getting that to work on Funtouch. Lets not forget the fiasco with ColorOS and Gameloft games not working. Or Huawei phones changing the screen timeout when you dial a USSD code like *123# (such that the screen goes off immediately the code replies) None of that in CyanogenMod
Thirdly, a byproduct of the above is the fluidity. You can actually see “project butter” at work. The stark contrast was much more obvious between CM7 and Gingerbread Touchwiz but it remains true even today. Its just silky buttery smooth everywhere. Nothing pauses abit before opening when you click,nothing moves a second later after you swipe. High amounts of RAM help hide it these days, but once in a while,ir happens on a stock ROM and it pisses me off enough to install CM or another custom ROM
Lastly, just because it looks dull, does not mean it should stay that way.Its more of a “blank page” to decorate how you choose. Once you install Themer,change the boot animation, some fancy widgets etc the options are endless,and none of it works properly on chinese roms
My advice,poke around more,it might change your mind about CM
Interesting review Andi. Clearly you don’t know your way around CyanogenMod,you would be much happier with it. The best thing about CyanogenMod is the options. Want to rearrange your notification bar icons? Its in the settings. Want theme A’s lockscreen but theme B’s icons? Go right ahead. Want to side scroll your app dock on the bottom of the screen, there it is in settings. You can switch off,rearrange or completely hide almost anything. Some custom ROM’s go even further with this (Like PACman) but you should really go into the settings and do some more clicking around, you’ll be amazed. This is contrast to the preset and ready to go nature of MIUI
Secondly, CyanogenMod,unlike your preferred Chinese ROM’s MIUI and Flyme,actually looks like android. Now you might say “android looks dull” but here’s the thing,the CODE also looks like Android. Hence,you’ll have excellent stability (nothing is broken from being moved around) and all ANDROID features are present and accounted for. Sounds silly yeah,but for years of using Huawei phones (hence Emotion) I downloaded an app to toggle between 2G and 3G networks. It is also missing in ColorOS. With CyanogenMod I just found myself installing fewer of such type of small apps,because its already in the ROM (under settings -wireless incase your wondering) Android 4.4 supports screen recording with apps like Rec. Try getting that to work on Funtouch. Lets not forget the fiasco with ColorOS and Gameloft games not working. Or Huawei phones changing the screen timeout when you dial a USSD code like *123# (such that the screen goes off immediately the code replies) None of that in CyanogenMod
Thirdly, a byproduct of the above is the fluidity. You can actually see “project butter” at work. The stark contrast was much more obvious between CM7 and Gingerbread Touchwiz but it remains true even today. Its just silky buttery smooth everywhere. Nothing pauses abit before opening when you click,nothing moves a second later after you swipe. High amounts of RAM help hide it these days, but once in a while,ir happens on a stock ROM and it pisses me off enough to install CM or another custom ROM
Lastly, just because it looks dull, does not mean it should stay that way.Its more of a “blank page” to decorate how you choose. Once you install Themer,change the boot animation, some fancy widgets etc the options are endless,and none of it works properly on chinese roms
My advice,poke around more,it might change your mind about CM
Just bid it!
http://www.ebay.com/itm/121401487605?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649
Just bid it!
http://www.ebay.com/itm/121401487605?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649
Some People report screen touch problems on oneplus forum, look some divices coming with ghost touch… And they dont get none support response about That. I give up. I dont want but it anymore.
Some People report screen touch problems on oneplus forum, look some divices coming with ghost touch… And they dont get none support response about That. I give up. I dont want but it anymore.
anyone got an invite? i wanna get my hands on the 64gb version
anyone got an invite? i wanna get my hands on the 64gb version