SMARTPHONE REVIEW:
ONEPLUS 5 AND HONOR 8 PRO
ONEPLUS 5
This handset packs in the
most current hardware with very practical features baked into its interface,
making it one of the best smartphones in the market.It promises and even
delivers more at this cost than other devices that are pricier. If you have the
budget, you can't go wrong with this one.
Build: The OnePlus 5 boasts
of an excellent build comprising an aluminium unibody with a Gorilla Glass 5
display that curves slightly around the edges.On the front, you get a home
button that doubles up as a fingerprint sensor; the right side carries the
power button; on the left, you get a volume rocker, as well as a three-setting
toggle switch for Ring, Do Not Disturb, and Silent modes. The buttons feel
firm, and the handset feels solid. As a plus, this device ships with a glass
protector screen over its display .
Display: Up front, you get
an AMOLED screen that's capable of rendering deep blacks, vibrant colours as
well as crisp text, images and videos.Visibility takes a very slight dip in
direct sunlight, but this can be easily rectified by increasing screen
brightness manually . Besides, you get a reading mode that turns the screen
into grayscale for better legibility. You can add apps to this mode and the
OnePlus 5 will automatically go into reading mode when they are opened and turn
off when they are shut down. For a customised colour palette, you can choose
between three profiles: sRGB, DCI-P3 or Custom (cool or warm) according to your
preferences.
Features: The handset runs
OnePlus' proprietary Oxygen OS over Android 7.1.1 (Nougat), but is devoid of
any bloatware that might slow the phone down.Instead, you get a host of
practical features that can be accessed from its Settings app. These include
gesture controls like flip-to-mute, three-finger screenshot, double-tap to
wake, as well as up to five custom gestures that you can assign to tasks. You
can add guest user profiles, encrypt apps under a PIN, and also assign
functions to longand doublepresses of the home, recent and back button. For
data security, you can also lock files and photos within a `Secure box' in the
File Manager app. All these features work well and enhance user experience.
Performance: Calls on the
OnePlus 5 are clear and it handles networks well. In other processing tasks, it
breezed through practically every benchmark test we threw at it to come out
tops. In real-world use, the device handles demanding games and Full HD videos
without a stutter. In short, if the OnePlus 5 cannot handle a game or app, no
other current device can. It's that good. Switching between apps is smooth and
lag free, and the fingerprint sensor worked consistently to unlock the phone
every time. Audio quality is quite pronounced at the mids and highs, but at the
cost of a rumbling bass in music playback.Still, headphone audio is clear and
you also get loud speaker output; it should be noted that this phone lacks an
audio equalizer, music player, and FM radio.
Camera: The dual rear
shooters on the OnePlus 5 come with a portrait mode that does a smart job of
softening the background behind the subject. For most part this works well, but
this is more of a software trick rather than a function of its lens so you
might get some shots where the blurring seems slightly off around your subject.
Still, portraits look better than what you would get from most smartphones.
Additionally , the camera app supports 2x optical and up to 8x digital zoom;
plus you can shoot 4k, time-lapse and slow-motion videos. Pictures can be shot
in HDR, and you also get a panorama mode. Notably , you also get a Pro mode
that lets you manually set the ISO, white balance, aperture, and shoot in RAW
format. The snappers are capable of detailed shots, and fare quite well even in
low light, with little grainnoise. The front shooter comes with a
beautification mode where you can chose the level of artificial enhancement
and here too, the handset delivers good results.
Battery: The OnePlus 5
supports “Dash Charging“, and comes with a 20W charger that juices up the
handset in an hour. On a full battery, you can easily get an entire day of
mixed use, including some gaming, phone calls, and web browsing.
HONOR 8 PRO
The Honor 8 Pro ticks all
the right boxes when it comes to looks and performance; you get an IR blaster
and almost two-day battery life to boot. If you're shopping within a budget of
`30,000, this is a handset well worth your consideration.
Build: The Honor 8 Pro's
metal unibody is fronted by Gorilla Glass 3; its power buttons and volume
rocker feels firm to touch and operate, and its build quality is on a par with
premium devices like the iPhones and the OnePlus 5. That said, it does not
feature a physical home screen button. All navigation is via onscreen
capacitive controls. A fingerprint sensor on the back panel lets you unlock the
screen.Overall, the device feels sturdy, and looks good.
Display: Its Quad HD
display renders crisp text and punchy colours with deep blacks and excellent
contrast. You get the option to tweak the colour profile by picking between
warm and cool colours from its colour circle that can be found in its Settings
app. You also get an “eye comfort“ mode to cut glare while using the phone in
the dark, but it doesn't come with as many options as the OnePlus 5 in this
regard.That said, we did not face any legibility issues in direct sunlight.
Features: The handset runs
Honor's proprietary Emotion UI--over Android 7.0 (Nougat)--that boasts of quite
a few user-friendly features. For instance, it allows you to enable a floating
dock to navigate its large screen without reaching for the touch controls at
the bottom; you can clear background tasks and lock the display with a tap; its
“twin apps“ feature lets you run dual instances of certain apps like WhatsApp
and Facebook with two different IDs; you get a screen recorder, which saves
whatever you do on the phone at HD resolution while its microphones do a great
job of recording voice inputs. Its fingerprint sensor can be customised to answer
a call, silence the alarm, and recognise gestures for direct access to the
phone's notification panel and photo gallery without registering a fingerprint.
You also get motion recognition features that lets you flip-tomute, answer a
call by raising the phone to the ear, and more. Plus, you get an infrared port
and a companion app to control your television, cable TV box and Blu-Ray player
from the handset itself. Then, there's a health tracking app and an SOS
emergency tool baked into the UI.
Performance: Call quality
and network handling is easily one of the best in smartphones, and audio
playback with earphones sounds balanced, complete with low bass lines, crisp
mid ranges and pronounced highs. On the downside, the music player app doesn't
include any audio presets or a graphic equalizer to fine-tune the output. The
Honor 8 Pro works without any hiccups despite all the customisations over the
Android Nougat OS. It is kitted with a top-of-the-line in-house processing chip
and 6GB RAM, leaving it with a lot of headroom to run high-definition videos
and intensive 3D games like Modern Warfare 5, Real Racing 3 and Flight Pilot
without a hitch.
Camera: Its dual rear
cameras one is equipped with a monochrome sensor for detail while the other
captures colour are quick to focus and snap photos that contain a
considerable amount of detail, with natural colours. A depth of field effect
lets you decide on the subject you want to focus on even after taking a
snapshot. However, this software optimisation occasionally leads to
over-the-top blurring of objects.Pictures taken in low light are also
impressive, retaining detail with minimal image softening. You get multiple
shooting modes like monochrome, night, panorama, time-lapse, slow-mo, light
painting for creative shots. The handset even has a manual mode, for granular
control over focus, aperture, shutter, exposure and white balance. The front
snapper takes decent selfies against bright light. Like the OnePlus 5, you
cannot adjust light exposure for better selfies.
Battery life: Despite its
high-res display and processing muscle, the Honor 8 Pro is capable of providing
well over a day's worth of service before requiring a recharge. You also get
multiple power management modes and the ability to automatically lower the screen
resolution to conserve power.
Ashutosh Desai and Savio
D'Souza TOI12AUG17
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