OnePlus 8 first impressions - by an ex-OnePlus product guy
Before I start with the write up, it’s good to set expectations. That’s how my priorities look when it comes to smartphones:
Having that out fo the way, lets use the same categories that Marques has outlined:
Display
It’s vivid, it’s of a high resolution, it has some high highs and some low lows in brightness. It has 90 Hz, it’s smooth. What can I tell you; you don’t need anything better, unless you’re using your phone for some VR gimmicks.
Specs
If you know the brand, you know the performance gonna be unmatched. Apps are opening fast af, though I had some hick-ups with them being killed as a background process. Hopefully it’ll be sorted with machine learning kicking in and learn over time which apps I’m using more and which ones it can kill.
I’ve moved to the OnePlus 8 from an iPhone, and the only thing I’m missing hardware-wise is the lack of wireless charging. It was extremely convenient to just throw my phone in a designated place in my car and I really don’t care how slow that charging was — it worked.
Camera
It’s serviceable. Definitely good enough for the Gram without risk of being called out. If you’re one of the folks taking photos and then pinching to zoom to it’s limits looking for pixels and inconsistencies, probably go for the 8 Pro or just get an iPhone.
The app itself is improving with every iteration — it’s clean and simple, yet full of easily discoverable features.
Battery
Having used the OnePlus 8 for merely two days, I do experience a good battery life, easily taking me through the day and then some.
Hardware / Design
I bought the 8 over the 8 Pro due to size preference. I was super happy with the size of an iPhone 11 Pro, and I kinda trusted Ryan Fenwick’s story on how OnePlus 8 is as compact as thereof. Though the latter is over 10% taller, it does not feel bad in hand indeed. What still bums me though, is that on a much smaller iPhone I can fit 28 icons on a single screen, while on a frying-pan-sized OnePlus just 2 more.
I’m slightly disappointed in the haptics. Absolutely loved these on the OnePlus 7T Pro, as well as on an iPhone — these vibration did feel extremely satisfying (not a sentence I though I’d write). These on the 8 feel “empty-ish”.
It is so great to be back on the fastest out-of-the-box charing though — Warp Charging, you’ve been missed. Also, being able to use same charger for every piece of tech in my home is a very under-appreciated convenience.
Software
Very refreshing to be back on the Android from the iOS. I appreciated polished design and interaction experience of the latter, but the effort that Apple puts to close the ecosystem ruined my user experience.
There has been things I dig at iOS and I wish OnePlus / Google brought to Android:
Concept of notifications that you see on the lock screen once, and then you can check them stacked under “older notifications” section is fantastic and reduces some anxiety.
The other one is Recent Apps Menu. On an iPhone, after entering it from any app you’re in (in this case from Spotify), you see 4 available apps to pick from, with the most recent one on the side (because why would you want to enter this menu to primarily go back to the same app, right?). On OnePlus, you see 2 apps:
And yes, you technically have 5 app icons on the OnePlus one, which is a very welcome improvement indeed, but it takes 2 taps to access them unfortunately.
As we’re on a topic of smallest details, there are some minor inconsistencies in design of OxygenOS. On example of mentioned Recent Apps Menu, in the new design we have that nice and flat “CLOSE APPS” button. But in the Notifications screen we still dismiss the notifications with an old Floating Action Button:
Something that is quite conspicuous after having used an iPhone for half a year are animations. Focus on that Floating Action Button from a gif above and you’ll notice how it appears with an animation but disappears with just a blink — that’s one thing that iOS is acing and Android brands seldom get always right. Got to admit though, there’s been a lot of improvements on that at OnePlus, and knowing how few people works on the OxygenOS — kudos to my former colleagues!
Onto the positives:
I absolutely love how with the OnePlus Launcher you can make a transition from an iPhone seamless. Configure swipe up for searching (instead of down on an iPhone), remove the App Drawer and you got yourself a familiar experience.
Google Feed on the furthest left (communist?) screen instead of Shelf is probably the longest lasting user feedback we’ve gotten and I’m glad it’s been executed upon!
Caveat — this will be the most biased take, as that’s something my team worked on: I wish OnePlus users from outside of India could benefit from Work-Life Balance feature as well. Focus Mode is great, but having ability to not only pay more attention to work, but also being able to unwind after work is over and disconnect from mails and Slacks and what have you would be especially priceless during severe work from home periods, where boundaries between what is work and what is not are so blurry.
Overall, I believe OnePlus delivers on the promise of the Fast & Smooth Android experience, with adding some usefulness on top of Pure Android, instead of ruining that experience with bloatware and overwhelmingly cluttering features that no one ever asked for (looking at you, literally everyone else).
Marketing
Probably no one ever used “hey, look at my new OnePlus” as a pickup line, but then, who cares?
Final verdict
If you’re anything like me in your smartphone taste, then without a doubt for you the OnePlus 8 is the best phone in the market, period. The only runner up is the Google Pixel line of phones, but with their mediocre build quality and poor software optimisation, we gonna have to wait for Pixel 4A and then for the Google Pixel 5 to see whether they are a worthy opponent in a battle for Android fanboys’ hearts.
