Essential Phone vs Oneplus 5

[Caitlin550]

Removed.

 

[alukarulz]

Difference is $460 phone vs $700 phone. End of discussion.

 

[OcazPrime]

Too many gimmicks on that device. Its a 300 dollar phone at a 900 dollar price tag. I dont see the point in accepting this newcomer. Gotta figure Rubin "left" for a reason. I doubt this thing will catch on. If Huawei cant in the us i doubt this thing can worldwide

 

[liam_davenport]

If Essential provide sources and keep it quick it could be the phone to go for regardless of the price, After owning a OP3 for a year the software and sources have been hit and miss.. closest we'll get to a Nexus atm but Essential could be the new nexus since they provide the same support as Google on the software side, OP however it could be abandoned any time.. Let's hope Essential hit it right

 

[ab7casper]

I laugh when people complain of no headphone jack. Instead of spending money on new headphones cause the wire shorts or some crap. Buy an actual decent pair of Bluetooth headphones and problem solved. Once you do this, you too will laugh at all the "no headphone jack" comments.

I have no interest in buying the Essenial phone, and I am happy with my. OP5.

Although the essential is pretty, and the modular system sounds cool, in theory. It is usually never implemented well but let's see what ole'Rubin has up his sleeves.

 

[lordneopt]

A friend of mine got a essential phone for review.

The screen is dull, not comparable to oled, can't care less for screen resolution, it's a meh screen in person. Okay, has no bezels and all but even so. If you see it in person it's no different from an s line or even some cheaper models on the market with almost no bezels. Rubin bet on the wow factor and forgot oled going with ips, bet wrong imo. Not wow, just meh.

Also the camera is a piece of crap, worse than the op5 (I think because I don't have one). Takes average photos during daytime and scary ones during poor lighting conditions.

Battery life is average.

Fingerprint reader is on pair with everything else out there.

The phone is incredibly pretty and feels like a wonder in the hand despite having a boxy design.

Can't comment on the rest, modularity is a gimmick to me.


If it was on the same price point would be a better buy imo just for the feeling and possible software support over op. However due to the current pricing they are not even comparable, no exceptional features make it cost that much more.

 

[Devhux]

Ask LG how the modularity angle plays out when you only have one module announced at launch. In other words, gimmick. (Moto had several useful add-ons available, and there's more coming) .

I think that's a sign of what's to come with Essential. Nothing more than a flash in a pan.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A5000 using Tapatalk

 

[Wotta]

Caitlin, your message tone is a coming off a bit jerky. Perhaps it's a cultural barrier, but so much of what you write is just plain wrong. For example, the flaws in OnePlus weren't due to "cheap", but rather due to the additional hooks, insufficiently secured, that they added to provide flexibility of operating systems and upgrades. That's an example of value added, not reduced cost. And then you bring in Sony, home of quite a few serious security flaws across their properties, most famously Sony Pictures, which, let's face it, was not for going cheap.

And of course, your hero, Andy Rubin, must know what he's doing (your words.) After all, he shipped at the promised time, with the promised camera quality! Or did he?

I'm not going to lie but anything can go wrong with your post that you're suggesting.

1) 'That has nothing to do with the OnePlus being a "cheaper" device.'

^^ It does have to do with being a 'cheaper' device.

2) 'It's part of the compromises made for a very developer-friendly phone'

^^ Really? So you're saying that Sony also have bootloader vulnerablities? That's incorrect.

3) 'I'm sure if the Essential's bootloader is easily unlocked, people will find some vulnerabilities with it as well. '

^^ I don't really think that will happen. I'm pretty sure Andy Rubin (Android creator) knows what he's doing.

Look at Google Pixel / HTC for example. Bootloader can be unlocked but no one has found any vulnerablities yet.

---------- Post added at 07:52 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:17 AM ----------

Caitlin, try to be fair. You left off...

• OnePlus has an OLED, Essential has an LCD. Those "accurate colors" actually look pretty bad on it.
• OnePlus has an actual headphone jack, useful for those of us who fly a lot (both for not dealing with "airplane mode"/bluetooth and because we need wired headsets for the movies) and for plugging into random speakers.
• Not sure why you claim Essential has better speakers. Both suck.
• OnePlus has a physical silence/ring/vibrate switch, similar to iPhone (but with an additional position.) Downside may be that you can't override the silence mode switch with a software setting, but just leave it in normal then.
• Essential has a larger (though uglier - see above) display... but it's not used well by software, e.g. playing a movie results in huge letterboxing around the notch. (Essential acknowledges this and says they're working with developers of popular apps, so don't bother challenging it. It does reduce the value of near-stock Android if you need custom apps!)
• Essentials fingerprint reader is not working well for a lot of people.

Neither one is great. Both lack my preferred features: Good speakers, microSD support, water resist. Their strengths are that both are rootable (a requirement for me that rules out Samsung), the OnePlus headphone jack and Bands 29/30.

Here's why you should go for OnePlus 5:

1) It is cheaper than Essential.
2) OnePlus community base is very developer friendly.
3) Dash Charging (aka. charge your phone from 0 - 100% in just 1 hour 10 minutes)
4) OnePlus 5 has 6 GB / 8 GB RAM models
5) Does not void your warranty if you root your phone.

Here's why you should go for Essential Phone :

1) Has better resulution & high accuracy colours.
2) No jelly effect
3) It runs pure android meaning faster updates
4) Titanium (frame) + Ceramic (back)
5) It has a better front camera & back camera.
6) Base storage is 128 GB as supposed to OnePlus 5's 64 GB base storage.
7) Has better mono speakers
8) Bigger screen (5.71 inches)
9) No camera bump
10) Notification LED is much brighter and bigger than the OnePlus 5

 

[partylikeaninjastar]

Putting the two side by side, I can't see any compelling reason why anyone would want to buy the Essential over the OP5. Their specs are essentially the same, more or less, and the Essential doesn't provide an additional $200+ in value.

Like someone else mentioned, they're going for the "wow" factor, but I can't justify paying a few hundred dollars more for wow. The attachments are a gimmick. If all they have to show for it is some camera attachment, I'm not sold. It's their job to convince consumers it's worth investing in, not the other way around.

The biggest selling point of the Essential is its physical design, but that's still not worth $200+. It might be a wee bit easier to handle, but not by much and you're not getting much additional screen real estate with the bigger screen, especially if you're using capacitive buttons on the OP5. The bezel of the Essential goes all the way to the top of phone with no real benefit to the user. You get a smidgen more screen real estate from where the status bar would normally be, but it's not a meaningful amount of space added

 

[Caitlin550]

Removed.

 

[pb1379]

I have both devices with me, and the OnePlus is definitely my favourite. The Essential has three advantages over the OnePlus: nicer build materials (not quality, the OnePlus has splendid build quality, too, just not the fancy materials), smaller, monochrome camera sensor. In every other aspects the OnePlus wins hands down (display, speed, battery, reliability, features... you name it).


Sent from my ONEPLUS A5000 using Tapatalk

 

[Snowleopard86]

I bought an Essential phone but returned it unopened - I found out the earpiece is cloth and couldn't find any decent screen protectors / cases for it

 

[Caitlin550]

Removed.