Display

Within the past few years, smartphone displays have improved immensely. Color rendition, peak brightness, contrast, resolution, viewing angles, and power draw have all improved since the first modern smartphones that appeared in 2007. Of course, while it was once possible to judge relative quality in displays by subjective comparison, most smartphones no longer have TN displays or poor maximum brightness. In order to better test displays, we turn to SpectraCal’s CalMAN 5 with a custom workflow.

Display - Max Brightness

Display - Black Levels

Display - Contrast Ratio

In the basics, we see that the OnePlus One has a reasonably bright display and acceptable display contrast, although there's room to improve in both. OnePlus has also done a good job of making sure that their display gets dim enough for night time reading, as minimum brightness is around 4.2 nits. Viewing angles are also great. While contrast with viewing angle changes isn't as good as AMOLED panels, I don't see any color shifting with viewing angle changes. This seems to remain an advantage of IPS panels for now.

Display - White Point

Display - Grayscale Accuracy

In grayscale, we see that the white balance is just a bit blue, but there really isn’t a big issue there. The OnePlus One sets a record for grayscale accuracy. I would like to see a bit better color balance at the higher scales, but it's really just nitpicking. Specifically, red needs to be bumped up to be in line with green and blue. It's understandable why this is done though, as the display's backlight will be the weakest in red in general.

Display - Saturation Accuracy

In the saturation sweep, OnePlus has done a great job to make sure that colors are as accurate as possible. The only issue here is that the red, magenta, and blue is a bit weaker than it should be. Some extra saturation would definitely tighten up the accuracy here in addition to making the display more appealing than it is now. However, the display is still incredibly well-calibrated, and will be more than accurate enough for general use.

Display - GMB Accuracy

The strong showing in the saturation sweep helps carry the OnePlus One through to do well in the ColorChecker. For the most part, we see that much of the error comes from the issues previously discussed with grayscale. The display overall is great, and while it isn’t perfect, it’s really just nitpicking at this point. The OnePlus One manages to display colors more accurate than almost everything on the market. The only real issue I've noticed with this display is that there's a bit more IPS glow than I'd like when shifting viewing angles.

Introduction Battery Life and Charge Time
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  • tipoo - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link

    That last part wouldn't make sense either, the M8 and 6 Plus have longer battery life during the test too.
  • tipoo - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link

    Oh yeah, and I'm pleasantly surprised this phone is getting a review at all, having much less mass consumer knowledge than some others despite a strong enthusiast following (yay, us!).
  • JoshHo - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link

    Compared to S801 devices the OnePlus One throttles relatively little.
  • tipoo - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link

    Ah, thanks for explaining. Any idea why this is? Just a big chassis, or the heat spreader on it, or software?
  • jjj - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link

    You need to at least specify what NAND the iphone you tested are using,
    All the iphone 6 and 6 plus numbers are compromised by Apple's usage of both MLC and TLC. You got major NAND perf and RAM usage differences and that should impact pretty much all the numbers.
  • ziangc - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link

    thanks for the review :) that mentioned, would a comparison with the Oppo Find 7 yield a similar review conclusion? being a user of the Find 7, i would be interested to hear your 2 cents' worth on it as well.
  • jjj - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link

    "the first to kill the concept of a 650 USD"
    Hilariously how little you know and understand the market.
  • tipoo - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link

    Go on? If you're thinking subsidized prices, you're still paying for that one way or another. The cost of the phone is included in the bill. Besides that, most carriers will take some percent off your bill if you bring your own phone. And besides *that*, some carriers just have plain crappy phones.
  • tipoo - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link

    Also for someone like me, I like having a smartphone, but since I'm in a wifi zone for so much of my life I don't bother paying for data. Bill is so much cheaper.
  • Flunk - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link

    That's funny, I thought I bought a Nexus 5 for $350 without carrier of any kind last year.

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