OnePlus 5 review

The OnePlus 5 may not be as cheap as the company's previous handsets, but it's one of the best phones on the market right now. A great camera, phenomenal performance and a premium design combine to make this a fantastic buy for anyone looking for a more affordable flagship phone.

Update: The OnePlus 5 is out of stock on OnePlus' website in the US, UK and Australia, and it has been for a while - pointing to the imminent arrival of the rumored OnePlus 5T. However, for those in India the handset is still available via the firm's site.

The OnePlus 5 has some serious competition in the form of the smaller, cheaper Honor 9 - another handset attempting to be a flagship killer. Make sure you read our full Honor 9 review.

Looking at the OnePlus 5, it’s hard to believe that the company that made it is less than four years old. This is a phone that manages to hold its own alongside flagship devices from companies that have enormous pots of money to spend on research, development and design, and a decade or more of experience making smartphones.

Yet OnePlus has managed to make one of the best phones of 2017, and keep the price lower than most of the competition.

OnePlus has always made impressive phones at sub-flagship prices, but with this iteration the Chinese company has learned from previous mistakes, and built on its successes, to create an all-round fantastic phone.

OnePlus 5 price and release date

• Two versions: starts at $479 (£449, AU$599)
• Out of stock on OnePlus website in US, UK and AUS
• Still available via carriers

ONEPLUS 5 SPECS

Weight: 153g
Dimensions: 154.2 x 74.1 x 7.25mm
OS: Android 7.1.1 Nougat
Screen size: 5.5-inch
Resolution: 1920 x 1080
CPU: Snapdragon 835
RAM: 6GB or 8GB of RAM
Storage: 64/128GB
Battery: 3,300mAh
Rear camera: 16MP + 20MP dual lens
Front camera: 16MP 

The OnePlus 5 costs more than the OnePlus 3T. That’s the hard truth about this new phone, but it’s partly because OnePlus has decided to use more premium materials.

OnePlus has produced two versions of the OnePlus 5, with the base model coming with 64GB of internal storage and 6GB of RAM and costing you $479 (£449, AU$599).

The higher-end version, with 128GB of storage and 8GB of RAM, is priced at $539 (£499, AU$699) and that’s the device we’re reviewing here. 

Whichever version you buy, it’s a big price jump compared to the OnePlus 3T, which cost $439 (£399, around AU$580) for the 64GB model and $479 (£439, around AU$630) for the 128GB version.

And bear in mind that OnePlus had already increased the price for that phone release – the OnePlus 3, released in June 2016, was only $399 (£329, around AU$450). If you’re looking to upgrade the OnePlus phone you bought this time last year, you’re going to be spending quite a bit more than you may have anticipated on the OnePlus 5.

The official OnePlus 5 release date was June 27, but it's now out of stock on the OnePlus website it most countries, including the US, UK and Australia. 

Stock still remains with local carriers though, so if you want to get your hands on the OnePlus 5 all hope is not lost just yet - but you may want to hold off as the lack of stock directly from the firm suggests it may be getting ready to launch the OnePlus 5T.

Key features

• New premium design makes it the best-looking OnePlus phone yet
• Dual-lens camera allows for lossless zoom, like the iPhone 7 Plus

Looking at the spec list for the OnePlus 5, you might think this is a rather limited upgrade, but there a few key features the company is pushing to make this the next phone you’ll want to buy, first and foremost of which is the new camera.

This is now a dual-lens setup that allows you to capture some attractive-looking 'bokeh' shots with artfully blurred backgrounds, as well as boasting a 'lossless' zoom feature, which essentially means that zooming in on subjects will only result in a negligible reduction in image quality.

This feature works in a similar way to the shooter on the iPhone 7 Plus, but here you're getting it on a more affordable phone. The aperture on the main sensor here is also impressively wide, and it means you’ll be able to take some of the best smartphone photos possible right now.

The design of the new phone feels like a big step up for OnePlus. It's still using the same materials as the OnePlus 3T – the body is made of anodized aluminum – but this is the slimmest and most attractive OnePlus phone to date.

OnePlus also wants this to be the most powerful phone on the market – and the good news is it's succeeded, with our testing showing it to have the strongest benchmarking scores of any device on the market at the time of testing.

Design

• Thinnest phone OnePlus has ever made
• There's still a 3.5mm headphone jack for wired headsets
• Only available in two colors – dark gray or deep black

The OnePlus 5 is the best-looking device the company has made to date. When you pick this phone up you can tell right away that it’s made with premium-grade materials.

The new handset has a more rounded design than previous iterations, which means it sits comfortably in your palm. It’s also the thinnest phone yet from OnePlus at 7.25mm – almost as thin as the iPhone 7, which is 7.1mm

It feels light in the hand – it weighs 153g to be precise – but not so light that you feel like it may blow away in a forceful gust of wind.

OnePlus is talking up the placement of the antenna bands here. According to a spokesperson the color has been specifically designed to try and hide the antenna bands for an unspoiled full-metal look, and when you do spot them they don't detract from the design of the phone.

On the right-hand edge of the phone sits the power button, with nothing else to interrupt the clean lines. The left edge features the toggle for silent mode, as well as the volume rocker.

The inclusion of the silent switch is an intriguing one. It's something OnePlus has included on every phone since the OnePlus 2, and it's still the only major Android phone player to do so. 

Apple is the only other manufacturer that has persisted with the silent switch, but its inclusion on the OnePlus 5 is welcome. It makes it super easy to make the handset cinema, meeting and bedtime ready, and we like that.

There’s only one speaker driver, and that sits at the bottom of the phone, next to the USB-C port and 3.5mm headphone jack… yes, despite all the rumors OnePlus has decided to retain the legacy headphone technology for the OnePlus 5.

No awkward dongles required here (we're looking at you Apple, HTC and Moto), but Bluetooth is also on board if you fancy going wire-free.

OnePlus is also trying to sell us on what it calls the ‘Horizon Line’, the idea here being that half of the phone is cast in shadow while the other is in light. We're struggling to get on board with this, but it’s also easy to see that this is a beautiful-looking phone that feels elegant in use.

One shortcoming in terms of the design of the OnePlus 5 is that it’s not waterproof. A OnePlus spokesperson confirmed to TechRadar that it would survive a drop of rain if you need to use it outside, but it’s not IP-rated, and won’t survive a dunk like the Samsung Galaxy S8, Sony Xperia XZ or iPhone 7 will.

The OnePlus 5 is only available in two colors, and these are tied to the storage/RAM options. The 64GB/6GB version comes in Slate Gray, while the more expensive 128GB/8GB model comes in Midnight Black. 

So if you’re fussy about the color you want then you can’t be fussy about the power and storage you get under the hood, and vice versa.

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Review

Apple Watch 3 review

The two versions of the Apple Watch 3 impress - but the cheaper, non-4G version of the wearable delivers good value for money and top fitness capabilities from the wrist.

The Apple Watch 3 (or Apple Watch Series 3 if you're being particular) isn't just an evolution of the Watch 2 ... it's a direct replacement that's come curiously early, as Apple looks to keep momentum for its wearable.

The Watch 3 is available in two forms – one with cellular connectivity onboard, and one with just GPS. For both, there's an all-new chipset inside as well as  some key new features on offer here.

As the replacement for the Apple Watch 2

, this device is the flag-bearer for fitness and longevity, with run and cycle tracking on board and a water-resistant casing for swimming, plus the same heart rate monitor on the underside.

Like the still-on-sale original Apple Watch, the Watch 3 is running the new WatchOS 4, which is a significant and useful upgrade. However, despite the improvements to the software this latest Watch is  rather expensive, and it's landing in a world of increasingly impressive fitness-focused watches with smart capabilities.

Apple has been touting its place as the number one watch manufacturer in the world – so does the Apple Watch 3 offer enough to ensure it holds on to the top spot?

There are two variants of the Apple Watch 3, one with LTE / cellular capabilities and one with just GPS onboard. 

The former costs £399 / $399 / AU$559 or £429 / $429 / AU$599 (for the 38mm and 42mm bands respectively), while the latter is a more affordable £329 / $329 / AU$459 or £359 / $359 / AU499.

Compare that to the new price of the Apple Watch Series 1, which is £249 / $249 / AU$359 (38mm) or £279 / $279 / AU$399 (42mm),  and you can see that you're going to need to really use the upgraded features on the latest model to make it a worthwhile purchase.

One welcome thing to note price-wise is that the GPS-only model has a much lower launch price than the Apple Watch 2 (which is now off-sale), yet brings an upgraded chipset and altimeter to the mix. 

It’s not a massive upgrade, but is great considering it's cheaper yet better than the previous model.

The Apple Watch 3 was launched on September 22 2017, and should be the most current model for at least a year, if not longer.

Do we need LTE?

• Connects pretty well, can be a touch patchy
• Extra cost to stream your data from the Watch

The biggest thing about this new Apple Watch is that it’s got its own cellular connection inside, so it can work independently of your phone.

Does that mean you can buy one without owning an iPhone? Sadly not… not by a long way. In reality it means that you can receive phone calls and some app notifications when your phone is at home, but otherwise it’s totally dependent on your handset.

In terms of notifications, if the app you want to use hasn't been upgraded to work in 'standalone mode' (as in, doesn't need a phone connection to function) then you won’t get updates and notifications even if the LTE connection is enabled.

The ability to connect to a cellular network is fine, but doesn't feel like the most crucial feature to add in - although some people have already reported it's saved their life.

The call quality from such a small device is really rather impressive – we conducted a phone chat with someone while running, and both the voice quality out of the speaker and the sensitivity of the microphone were excellent.

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It meant we could run pretty much normally and still hold a conversation without having to hold the Watch 3 to our head. In fact, it was so loud you’ll need to move quickly to stop people listening in.

It's less useful when driving - the ambient noise makes it harder to hear what's being said - but it'll do in a pinch and save you from illegally grabbing your phone.

We would question whether you really need the functionality – not least because you have to pay extra for it. 

It’s particularly galling that you need to spend between $5-$10 / £5 per month to have your data - that you’re already paying for - pumped to your device.

If adding data to the Watch was free and just naturally extended to the wrist, it would be fine, but the added cost makes it hard to recommend the LTE version for this reason.

40 million songs on the wrist

One recent upgrade is the addition of music streaming, something that was announced at launch but curiously wasn't there at launch.

This feature - if you've paid all the money to have the LTE-enabled variant of the Watch 3 and are paying out extra cash each month to have the data - is actually quite a good addition.

You're getting two things with the new Apple Music streaming capabilities: Apple Music directly, and Beats Radio. These are both accessed the most simply through Siri - you can tap through the Watch to get there, but it's very fiddly.

The easiest way is to ask Siri on the go to play the kind of music you want - whether that's by genre, a playlist you've already created but not synchronised, or just a certain song. 

It's not perfect - especially when outside and walking or running - but when it works it's a dream, a futuristic scenario where you command almost any song in the world via a chat with your wrist.

• How streaming music on the Apple Watch 3 made me listen to opera by a lake

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You definitely need to be embedded in the Apple Music system for this to work well - you can't browse playlists on the wrist, for example, and just asking Siri to 'Play some running music' results in some odd choices. However, a running playlist you've already created can be accessed in a second.

Well, we say in a second... far too often Siri would have a problem connecting and would tell us to 'Hold on... I'll tap you when I'm ready'. And then not connect for ages, forcing a retry.

The whole Apple Music streaming setup is brilliant when it works, when you ask for some music you'll enjoy and it plays something you enjoy. 

It's a little too glitchy at times to fully feel like you're constantly connected to so many songs - and you'll generally have your phone with you, which is a far better way to access songs, but it's a nice feature and one that will only improve.

Despite the Apple Music streaming capabilities, we still can’t really see a good reason to recommend the LTE variant of the Apple Watch 3, as the notion of not needing your phone to go running was taken care of by adding GPS to the watch with the second-generation model. 

Do we want another time when we're always connected? Isn't a workout a time to switch off? And are you willing the pay the much-larger price premium to have the capability to listen to music or use apps away from the phone?

With that in mind you should only consider the Apple Watch 3 LTE variant if you’re worried about not being contactable when out exercising, or inexplicably leave your phone in places.

Design and screen

• Almost identical design to previous models
• Screen is still vivid and bright

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The design of the Apple Watch has become pretty iconic, in the way that people just know you’re wearing the iTimepiece. When you see a footballer wearing a Fitbit you'll have to peer to see which model it is, but with the Apple Watch it's  instant recognition.

Unlike the iPhone, we don't see the need to upgrade the design that much with a watch, and Apple's done pretty well to keep the chassis almost identical given that it's now packing in a new chipset and cellular connectivity in the two sizes of device (38mm and 42mm).

It's done so by integrating the antenna into the screen, which is an innovative way of saving space... although the Watch couldn't have stood to be made any chunkier, such is its square, curved design.

There has been a slight upgrade in the manufacturing process though, as  clicking the Digital Crown or the power button feels firmer than on the Apple Watch 2.

This is subtle, but it's something we've noticed every time we've used the Watch 3. Apart from that, the only key difference is on the Digital Crown, which now sports a red dot to signify it's the new model. 

It's nothing major, but we did get a question about it when wearing the Watch, showing that people are interested when a new Watch appears.

It’s elegant and light, and while some have yearned for a circular display, the 1.65-inch display (on the 42mm version) is certainly the optimal size and shape for displaying more data – and as mentioned, Apple has brute-forced acceptance of its watch design into the market.

The screen itself, which uses OLED technology, has always been one of the most attractive on the market. It’s clear, vivid and bright, and we never had an issue with not being able to see it when out and about.

Well, that’s not entirely true – the screen does switch itself off to preserve battery when needed, and that means you have to flick your wrist to see the display.

While this is far from ideal, Apple has tuned the algorithm to such an extent that even a tiny little flick will fire up the display – and while this isn’t always as accurate when running, for example, it’s a lot, lot better than we saw with the first version of the Apple Watch.

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Review

LG G6 review

The G6 is a great phone from LG, one that pushes the brand back to the forefront of the smartphone pile in terms of design and screen. However, lower-spec performance and not upgrading the camera in a meaningful way while still charging a huge premium make this a tough sell.

With the LG G6, the modular design of the LG G5 is gone in favor of a more traditional phone, one that takes multiple elements from the top handsets around, blended together to make a more prosaic (but still intriguing) handset.

The G6 is a much more conservative design than its predecessor, taking the form of a sealed unit that drops the removable battery, replacing it with a larger-capacity power pack and waterproof shell.

Surprisingly, this phone isn't using the latest chipset from Qualcomm, so you won't be getting the full grunt of the Snapdragon 835. However, LG maintains this was a decision to benefit the consumer – using a chip it had expertise with rather than an unknown entity it couldn't test fully.

Instead, it's going with a Snapdragon 821 option, which LG told us was a better option given it had more experience working with the chip and could thus extract more performance rather than using an untested engine.

The screen is, really, the only place where innovation is still present on the G6, with the longer 18:9 display giving more screen real estate to play with, and introducing some clever little changes to the user interface to exploit the extra pixels.

Beyond that, there's not a lot that marks out the LG G6 from the rest of the competition – and that's a pretty good thing.  

Having used the LG G6 for a couple of weeks, it's easy to see that this is a 'grown-up' handset from the South Korean brand. It just feels nicer in the hand, more solid and refined, and we really haven't missed anything from the LG G5 at all.

Early prices were as high as $650/£649/AU$1000, but they're already starting to drop, and while it's still an expensive handset LG seems to have baked all the components together well, so at least you'll be getting a decent phone for the money.

It’s interesting that some reviews have called the LG G6 a 'return to form' - apart from perhaps the LG G2, the brand hasn’t had a stellar flagship device for years. Rather, it feels more like a ‘finally understanding what users actually want in a phone’.

(Update: The G6 isn't the only hot LG phone brought to market in 2017. We've recently reviewed the LG V30, which sits rather high up on our list of best Android phones. Unfortunately, it's so good that it has kicked the G6 right off the list. But who knows? Maybe the LG G7 will end up taking the V30's place.

We've added comparisons to the top phones the LG G6 is competing with, including the Samsung Galaxy S8, Sony Xperia XZ Premium and HTC U11, so you can get a clearer picture of how they differ and which is most worth your money.)

LG G6 price and release date

• Out now
• Costs around $550/£580/AU$1000 SIM free

OK - here's the curious thing about this phone. It's got a lower-spec in some areas, has prioritised things like design over an improved camera... and yet still costs far more money than we'd expect.

The LG G6 has an eye-watering £649 SIM free RRP in the UK, which is astronomical given we're used to seeing phones from this brand come in at almost half that cost after a few months of being on sale.

In fact, that might happen again, as many retailers have already dropped the price to a still-steep £580.

In terms of contract pricing, we're looking at around £38 per month minimum if you don't want to spend too much on the phone upfront, which again is rather high.

In the US, contract pricing is set at around $28 per month, which is in the region of Apple's iPhone 7 and the Google Pixel... both of which aren't considered cheap phones.

If you want to go for it SIM free in the North America, you're looking around $550 (down from a launch price of roughly $650), where it's AU$1,000 for those over in Australia.

For a limited time, you can trade in your old phone at Verizon to get the G6 for 50% off, which is a pretty tempting deal.

The LG G6 release date has already been and gone for most territories, with the UK one of the last to get its hands on the device - we're hoping that as it becomes more widespread, the cost of ownership continues to come down. 

Design 

• An understated and sophisticated metal and glass build
• Impressively small bezels
• Water and dust resistance

The LG G6 is covered in a mix of glass and metal, with two sheets of Gorilla Glass (although weirdly it's Gorilla Glass 5 on the rear, but only the much older Gorilla Glass 3 on the front) framed with a rim of aluminum.

What's most impressive is how little bezel there is on this phone – we've now seen the same kind of design from Samsung on the Galaxy S8, but the narrow bezels have been shrunken top and bottom to create an impressive effect when you turn the phone on.

Anyone aware of the LG G5's design will be surprised by just how… normal this phone looks. Gone is the dull plastic back of the LG G3, the odd leather of the G4 or the come-apart design of last year’s phone – the LG G6 is smooth and classy all the way around.

That will disappoint those who like the way LG has taken things in a different direction in the past, but honestly, the G6 design is a smart move. It’s the most classically understated and sophisticated phone we’ve ever seen from LG, and it’s the perfect platform for letting the internals shine through.

And it's got the features that matter, like IP68 certification for water and dust resistance - a common flagship feature that was missing from the LG G5.

The rear of the phone is smooth, with no protruding camera bump – we’ll get onto the snapper in a moment, but LG told us it chose slimmer sensors rather than more advanced camera tech to make the design of the phone sleeker.

It's a gamble, but last year's camera was fine, and LG can probably just get away without another change.

There are two sensors on the rear of the phone, above the round fingerprint sensor, which also doubles as a power button.  

The LG G6 is currently available in platinum, black and white, although it was strongly hinted to us that more colors will be popping up soon.

The platinum is the most alluring of the colors, with a metallic sheen under the glass that catches the light nicely. However, the white option, with two cameras and round fingerprint sensor below, makes the G6 look a bit like a surprised ghost.

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