OnePlus X: Dinky little Android smartie with one or two minuses

"It's a far cry from the richer CyanogenMod that burnished the OnePlus One – but OnePlus has had to rebuild from scratch." confuses me: could the article author explain *why* OnePlus had to rebuild from scratch?

> there's 16GB of storage, expandable to 128GB with a microSD card

Actually, it's 16GB if storage, expandable BY (up to) 128 GB.

You don't loose access to the build in storage if you add a microSD card.

(In effect, I have 11.54GB + 120GB, according to Android.)

NFC on Moto G?

Are you sure about this? I have read a few reviews of the Moto G and I don't think it does have NFC.

moto g 3rd gen

doesn't have nfc

Compact and pocketable is really good, unfortunately for me it's just another Android which is the deal breaker.

I am still waiting for a decent phone OS to appear on the market, alas I think it will be an eternal wait while people keep tolerating the shit we get dished up.

Have one and love it

I bought one of these in the USA. For me the capacitive keys are important. More efficient than on-screen keys which requires two gestures to complete an action. Why did Google make many tasks require more gestures in 5.x versus 4.x? I'm not playing a damn game when using the phone, I am trying to get something done as efficiently as possible!

The one comment I would add: if you do like the capacitive keys, consider the white variant of the phone. It is much easier to see the keys on the white phone than on the black phone. I prefer black phones, but without back-lighting they are pretty darn difficult to see on the black face.

Given the price, USD 250, I am VERY happy with the phone. I'm selling on an iPhone 6s that cost me almost 4x as much as this phone. I don't like how iOS does notifications. Virtually useless if you want to use the calendar for reminders, and have those reminders "stick" on-screen until manually acknowledged. Thus, it's back to Android. (No, I don't want two iOS apps: one for calendar events and one for the artificially categorized "reminders.")

Tempting! I wouldn't have to disable NFC, or buy USB-C adaptors. And it has uSD ! And you can get to the battery fairly easily!

i am still happy with the CUBOT H1 £110 and you get 2-3 days battery life (i get 2 on mine as i use mine more than others)

"Dinky little"

"Compact design"

The title got my hopes up there, and then...

"5 inch".

... smashed them to pieces.

Why is it so hard for me to find a phone that fits in one hand?

While OnePlus broke up with Cyanogen Inc because Cyanogen were a bunch of dicks to put it lightly I don't get why OnePlus don't just bake their own Cyanogen Mod.

Surely it would be easier to just fork Cyanogen Mod then create your own entire fork from AOSP.

Does anybody know why they didn't go down the Cyanogen Mod fork?

Please note Cyanogen OS != Cyanogen Mod. My understanding is that Cyanogen OS is the 'commercial' version of Cyanogen Mod. But I was under the impression that Cyanogen Mod was FOSS thus fair game for a company to fork for their device.

I got one to replace my day 1 white iPhone 4 (yes I hold onto usable tech for a long time).

After installing and uninstalling a lot of apps and receiving a few OTA updates my Oneplus X battery life was totally miserable (~14 hrs normal usage). Reset to stock, did the latest OTA, let Google Play do it's thing and only install the apps I wanted = battery life is triple what it was at purchase date. I can now get a day and half's normal usage out of it.

Awesome phone for the price, the 1080p screen is truly beautiful, nothing else near 200 quid renders virtually Stock Android so nicely. Oxygen OS is so vanilla it's refreshing, I've never turned on the 'shelf feature' I like close to stock. Much nicer than any others manufacturer skins / custom launchers.

Buy a case with the phone though, it slips off of anything that isn't dead level, I really mean absolutely anything, think butter in a hot pan, thats how slippery it is. The free cover is ok but the kevlar one is an excellent design (especially at the corners where it grips the phone and also where you need the most protection).

The camera quality was terrible before the latest OTA now its a lot better + battery life is miles better. Roll on the marshmallow update for even better battery life and proper SD card storage merging.

Seems like good option, until you consider the alternatives

Like Wileyfox...

OK for US/EU but won't suit those in the southern hemisphere

I'd like to support oneplus, and more independant manufacurers in general, but LTE band support is very lacking in this segment.

In particular those of us living in the southern hemisphere need band 28 support, unless your living in a major city and your carrier has loads of 1800/2600 to throw about. For rural areas though, and for getting inside buildings in areas of low tower density, LTE 700 is critical and in most of Asia and South America that means band 28.

Unless your china and can put up millions of cell towers anywhere, they can use high band LTE without any worries.

Having owned a Wileyfox Swift since Xmas ...

My shopping list for a new phone is:

1) Dual SIM

2) No carrier/manufacturer bloat of any description

3) No network lock

4) removable battery

5) MicroSD slot

I arrived at this list, after my son lost (another) phone, and going through my box of 12 *working* phones, not a single one could be used. (The most annoying was a little 5 year old Orange phone bought for £10 that refused to work with an EE SIM - EE wanted £35 to "unlock" it).

So, I'm rocking a Swift with 2xgiffgaff SIMs. But, if I decide to change networks, I will.

Wrong Information all around...

* I currently own a OnePlus X, just having switched from a Moto G 3rd generation.

First off the OnePlus X is $250 and not $285 and that includes free shipping.

The Moto G 3rd Generation does not have fast charging or NFC and is $70 cheaper than the OnePlus X, and having owned one I can tell you that its display is not easier to read, and is actually much harder to. I would also not consider this a better option as it does not feel as good in the hand, is bulkier, and the OS feels very sluggish. You also have to be careful to remember that this phone is Water Resistant and not Waterproof as the author used the terms interchangeably. Water Resistant means the phone can deal with splashes but not submersion while Waterproof means it can deal with submersion and splashes. It also has a Snapdragon 410, Adreno 306 and 2GB of RAM which is a major downgrade compared to the OnePlus X's Snapdragon 801, Adreno 330 and 3GB of Ram. I would rather work the few extra shifts to buy the OnePlus X.

With the Hauwei Honor 5x its 3000 mAH does not last much longer that the OnePlus X's 2525 mAH battery due to the fact that the Snapdragon 801 is much more energy efficient than the 616. The Honor 5x's Fingerprint scanner is good but I would personally rather had a better display because you use the screen all the time. Where the Honor 5x falls flat on its face is its OS, which does not have an app tray. If you do want to install a custom launcher and gain the interface becomes insanely laggy. Its also has a major downgrade spec wise, only running a Snapdragon 616 and 2 GB of RAM. The only good thing is the upgraded GPU to the Adreno 405.

The OnePlus X does have a plan to upgrade to Android 6.0 Marshmallow which will most likely be early Q2 2016.

Overall this article was poorly written with very little correct information.