OnePlus 8 review: Less bang for more bucks - hugheypastachis

Michael Simon/IDG

At a Glance

Skillful's Rating

Pros

Fantastic speed and bombardment life.
Very polite design with an excellent display
OxygenOS continues to impress

Cons

Not much of an melioration over the 7T
5G drives the Leontyne Price up with little profit.
Starting price is $100 higher than the previous model's

Our Verdict

The OnePlus 8 is a very good phone, but with the same screen and very similar camera, it's hard to justify the $100 premium ended stopping point yr's 7T.

Best Prices Today

$699

In a topsy-turvy world where Apple is releasing $399 iPhones and OnePlus is making $999 superior phones, the OnePlus 8 should be the perfect foil to the OnePlus 8 Pro. After all, OnePlus built its reputation on showing heavenward the high-priced Galaxies and Pixels of the world with exchange premiu-specced Android phones for pennies along the buck. IT's only fair that it does the same for its own cardinal-figure phone.

Update 9:40am ET: The OnePlus 8 is available for purchase finished Verizon for $800Remove non-product link in an exclusive Polar Silver coloring material with the carriers 5G stigmatisation connected the back.

In some ways, the OnePlus 8 delivers on that prognosticate. It has a great screen, the newest Snapdragon processor, 5G, and a triple-camera array at a Mary Leontyne Pric lour than the Pixel 4 and Galaxy S10. But when you zoom in on what the OnePlus 8 offers for its price ($699 from OnePlus), which is $200 high than last year's 7T (presently discounted to $499 from OnePlus), it becomes clear the while it's a very good phone, information technology's non quite the killer bargain OnePlus wants the States to think it is.

Design: Same familiar

The OnePlus 8 is clearly cut from the same fabric As the 8 Pro, but it's not a mere smaller version. While information technology has the same hole-punch camera cutout and vertical camera array, there are distinct visual differences.

oneplus 8 screens — The OnePlus 8 (left) has a similar wait to the higher-priced OnePlus 8 Pro.

Near notably, the 3D presentation isn't rather as upcurved as IT is on the 8 Pro. That substance the 8 has thicker, more visible side bezels. It also has fewer accidental touches, so it could embody an improvement depending on your screen preference. The top side and bottom bezels are very similar along both phones, however, and the two displays are spectacular in their possess right: The 8 Pro edges out the 8 only in head-to-head tests, due to the latter's lower resolution (402ppi vs 513ppi) and slower refresh rate (90Hz vs 120Hz). Whites are glimmering, blacks are deep, and colors are vivid even in bright sun.

Equal the last few OnePlus models and the 8 Pro, the 8 has an in-display optical fingerprint scanner instead of 3D facial recognition operating room a nates-affixed physical image scanner. While it's decidedly improved over the original version on the 6T, it's smooth very finicky and nowhere left the unmindful process of Typeface unlock of the Pixel. I love the continued inclusion of the W. C. Handy alert slider, which lets you silence the ringer with a flick. And I besides love the haptic engine, which straddles the line between too-little and too-so much vibration.

oneplus 8 bottom — From the bottom, the OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro are isotropous.

The OnePlus 8's slightly little size makes information technology easier to handle than its larger sib, while allowing for a firm grip on its somewhat smooth case. Because the glass back has a glossy polish in contrast to the 8 Professional's frosted matte veneer, however, you'll in spades pick up fingerprints throughout your day. And with same little to distract your eye strange than a relatively small camera array, smudges will definitely personify obtrusive, particularly on the mirrorlike Celestial body Glow option.

Features and glasses: Feels like a 'T'

If the OnePlus 8 were $100 cheaper, the design and reveal would make it an easy recommendation along their own. But at $699, the OnePlus 8 draws inevitable comparisons to the entrance-stratum iPhone 11, shining a harsh promiscuous connected the things it lacks, namely wireless charging and IP-rated water resistance.

oneplus 8 v 7t camera — The OnePlus 8 ditches the doughnut-shaped tv camera raiment for a semi-erect one.

Complicating things for the OnePlus 8 is the fact that the OnePlus 8 Pro has both of those things, along with faster RAM, a higher-resolution exhibit, and a vastly superior television camera for just $200 more. The 8 is already the nearly expensive entry-level telephone set OnePlus has of all time made, but it also represents the biggest bounce in price finished the previous generation, especially if you don't ilk the default option Glacier Green refinement. If you want the 8 in the shiny Interstellar Glow version, you'll need to climb to the 256GB model with 12GB of RAM for $799.

The price hike isn't necessarily justified by the specification knock. Yes it has the newest Snapdragon processor, but other than that and 5G, the OnePlus 8 isn't all that different from the 7T, which just received what appears to equal a permanent price cut from $599 to $499. Here are the independent features of the OnePlus 8, followed by those for the OnePlus 7T:

OnePlus 8 (starting at $699)

Dimensions: 160.2 x 72.9 x 8mm
Reveal: 6.55-inch 90Hz, Full HD+ Organic light-emitting diode 2400×1080, 402ppi
Processor: Snapdragon 865
RAM: 8GB LPDDR4X
Storage: 128GB UFS 3.0
Front camera: 16MP, f/2.4
Butt photographic camera (triple): 48MP Wide, f/1.7, Office of Intelligence Support + 16MP Ultra-Wide, f/2.2 + 2MP Macro, f/2.5
Battery: 4,300mAh
OS: OxygenOS (Humanoid 10)
Connectivity: Wi-Fi 6, 5G (sub-6GHz)

OnePlus 7T (discounted to $499)

Dimensions: 160.9 x 74.4 x 8.1mm
Expose: 6.55-inch 90Hz, Full HD+ OLED 2400×1080, 402ppi
Processor: Snapdragon 855+
RAM: 8GB LPDDR4X
Repositing: 128GB UFS 3.0
Front man camera: 16MP, f/2.0
Briny television camera (triple): 48MP, f/1.6, OIS + 16MP radical-wide, f/2.2 + 12MP telephoto, f/2.2
Battery: 3,800mAh
Operating system: OxygenOS (Android 10)
Connectivity: Wi-Fi 5, LTE

Away cacophonic the difference toll-well-advised 'tween the $499 OnePlus 7T and the $899 OnePlus 8 Pro, the 8 establishes itself as a mid-point between super-value and super-premium, but it doesn't quite have the specs to equalise. The 8's display is exactly the same as the 7T's. Some the 8 and the 7T have a trio of rear cameras (compared to iv on the 8 Pro), but the 8 has a macro lens instead of a telephoto one.

oneplus 8 front camera — The OnePlus 8 ditches the 7T's nick for a hole-puncher selfie Cam.

The 8 is somewhat future-proofed, thanks to the inclusion of the unchanged X55 5G modem that's in the 8 Plus, but the benefits in that location wish depend greatly on where you live. Besides, the unlocked variation is really useful only for subscribers to T-Mobile, the electronic network that uses sub-6GHz 5G. Verizon customers will need to spend an extra $100 for an inner variation of the 8 that whole kit and boodle on its speedy mmWave network. In short, most people will be paying a premium for a characteristic they South Korean won't wont.

OnePlus 8 performance: Speed to save

The OnePlus 8 feels a touch slower than the OnePlus 8 Pro ascribable the refresh and the RAM, but it's nothing you'ray going to notice in a vacuum. In fact, bench mark wins were evenly split between the two, with the Snapdragon 865 hands down topping 10,000 in PCMark's Work 2.0 test. That's not As high as the S20 Ultra achieved with the same chip, merely the differences are largely academic.

oneplus 8 alert slider — Don't ever change, OnePlus alert slider.

The same goes for the battery. Whether the refresh rate is at 60Hz OR 90Hz, you'll comfortably construct information technology through a day of hard use, with a teeny left if you forget to plug it in. The lack of wireless charging is definitely a sore topographic point, but you coiffe get super-fast wired charging out of the box with the cookie-cutter 30W adapter that comes with the 8 Pro.

Helping the speed and the battery is OnePlus' fantabulous Oxygen Osmium, which is highly faithful to Google's Android with just enough personal touches. OnePlus has done comfortably to optimize and modernize its arrangement, but it's still not promising more than six updates a class connected a atomic number 83-monthly groundwork. When OnePlus phones cost $499 that was easier to neglect, peculiarly with a robust beta platform. But with Samsung and Google delivering a twelve protection updates each year in addition to bug fixes and feature article drops, it's another knock against a pricy OnePlus phone.

The camera: Minor upgrades

Happening paper, the Oneplus 8's camera isn't much of an advance over the 7T's setup, and as supposed, the 2 phones perform very similarly. Yet, spell the 7T's camera seemed impressive when it debuted for $599 phone in 2019, the 8's photographic camera doesn't serve plenty to excuse its much higher price.

For the most part, the pictures you choose with the OnePlus 8 will cost somewhat worsened than the 8 Favoring 's, and roughly the same as the 7T's. Portraits are good scorn the deficiency of a dedicated zoom lens, but I found edges to be more defined with the 7T. Details are a bit sharper and color is a trifle more accurate and little saturated with the 8, but unless you're comparison them incline by root, you're going to have a hard time clear-sighted between the two phones.

oneplus portrait comp — Without a telephoto electron lens, portraits on the OnePlus 8 (nigh) aren't as good arsenic they are on the 8 Pro (center) or 7T (right).

Moreover, the OnePlus 8 Pro's struggles—viz. with low white and motion shots—are accentuated on the 8. White balance was constantly an issue in tricky inflammation. Action shots were very demulcent and blurry smooth in good lighting. And closeup images, which should be the OnePlus 8's advantage thanks to a ordained macro lens, failed to impress me much. I think the 8 would have been way break served with a telephotograph lens, even if it meant keeping the exact similar setup as the 7T.

oneplus 8 comp macro — The dedicated macro photographic camera on OnePlus 8 (left) wasn't capable to capture particular any better than Super Macro Mode on the OnePlus 8 Pro or 7T.

Compared to separate phones in its reach—the iPhone 11, Pixel 4, even the Pixel 3a—the camera on the OnePlus 8 isn't bad. The job is information technology's not a lot better than the camera on the $499 7T OnePlus already sells.

Should you buy a OnePlus 8?

The OnePlus 8 is caught between a rock candy and a hard place. Connected one hand down, it's $200 cheaper than the OnePlus 8 Pro, which makes it a compelling option for someone connected a little of a budget. On the other hand, it's $200 more than the recently shriveled OnePlus 7T, with a start price that's higher than last class's OnePlus 7 Professional.

oneplus 8 full — The OnePlus 8 only has a Full HD test but it makes the most of every picture element.

Piece the 8 is definitely a speedy phone with good looks and a great screen, it doesn't feel all that much advisable than the 7T. Getting a 5G phone for this price might be appealing to some, but unless you're among the small percentage of users who will actually benefit from it, most people aren't going to care. Besides, OnePlus' claim as one of the cheapest 5G phones around will personify short-lived once a raft of Snapdragon 765-based phones arrives tardive this year.

If you need a phone right now, we'd recommend the $499 OnePlus 7T as a nice make-do. Between that and rumors of a OnePlus "lite" phone returning the brand to its mid-range roots, the OnePlus 8 precisely isn't enough phone for the damage.

Best Prices Today

$699

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Michael Simon has been coating Orchard apple tree since the iPod was the iWalk. His obsession with technology goes back to his start PC—the IBM Thinkpad with the heave-up keyboard for swapping out the parkway. Helium's still waiting for that to do hind in style tbh.