Big phone! :) I thought the BlackBerry Z3 was big, this is bigger! But not in an uncomfortable way. Maybe it’s because of the Android UI, I don’t find the size that bad. In contrast when I tested the iPhone 6 Plus at a shop the other day I was put off by the size (mind you that could also be because all these shop demo pieces have an attachment at the back that pulls the phone down).
Performance is good though there are occasional lags. Not that I am complaining – I mean, for this price, wow! Just a bit surprising that a high spec Android phone still isn’t as buttery smooth as a last year iPhone (the iPhone 5S). The OnePlus One has 3 GB RAM and a 2.5GHz CPU I believe. In contrast the iPhone 5S has 1 GB RAM and a 1.3 GHz CPU. Sure there maybe other differences between the two which I am not aware of, still I sort of expected the two to be on par at least. I think it all comes down to the fact that Android uses Java and so requires more RAM, whereas iOS is simply more efficient. Anyhow, like I said it’s not a big deal and it’s only an occasional lag, so I am not complaining merely mentioning.
The camera seems to be fine. But launching it seems to take 5-6 seconds, and that I don’t like! Once launched it clicks photos fast enough though. And I can set the size to 9.7 MP to click 16:9 resolution widescreen photos. That’s cool!
I love the back of the phone. I absolutely love it! I got the Sandstone Black version and the back has this rough texture sort of thing. I love it because that gives me a firm feel of the phone. In fact, maybe that’s why the large size doesn’t affect me much – the phone feels more stable in my hand due to the material I think. I love it!
The back isn’t removable. So there’s no removable battery, no microSD slot. There’s a slot on the side for the SIM tray. The device comes with both a micro-SIM and nano-SIM tray! So I could put my iPhone 5S SIM into this. That’s very thoughtful of OnePlus to support both. (Disclosure: It looks like a nano-SIM tray. And I checked Google and others too report it as a nano-SIM tray. So I am guessing it is a nano-SIM tray. I haven’t actually put my nano-SIM into it yet. :))
What else? CyanogenMod is good. Already got a couple of updates since yesterday. And I like being able to tweak bits and pieces. The phone comes with hardware keys for the navigation panel – not physical click type keys, but LED keys that light up. That’s cool because the keys don’t take up screen space and are below the screen. CyanogenMod lets you disable these and use the regular Android soft-keys. CyanogenMod also lets you customize what long press, single press, double tap, etc does to these keys (not all actions are available to all keys). I like that. By default the key that one usually uses for the app switcher – like on Nexus phones – doesn’t behave like that. It behave like the open/ close menu button we have on Samsung phones and such, so I remapped that to the app switcher and set long press to open / close the menu.
The lock screen too can be customized. And the keys can be modified to launch the torch or play music etc. For instance, I can double tap the screen to wake it up. Or long press the home key to put it back to sleep.
I am trying the Yahoo! Aviate launcher on this. Once upon a time I was (still am) a huge fan of the Nova Launcher. Then I started using Action Launcher on my Nexus 7 tablet and slowly got using that on the Galaxy Nexus phone. I started off with Action Launcher on the OnePlus One but then thought of trying new launchers and so Aviate it is now. Spent a little bit of the morning customizing it to my liking.
That’s it so far I think! Once again, I am pleased with the big screen size surprisingly! Never thought I’d like it. Who knows, maybe I’ll do more InstaPaper reading on this phone.
Update: Turns out Aviate doesn’t do notification badges for non-default apps such as WhatsApp. Neither does Action launcher. I don’t mind these on a tablet as I don’t use WhatApp etc there. So I am with Nova launcher now. That has a plugin which does WhatsApp (and experimentally all other apps by monitoring the notification area). I am also using Fleksy as my keyboard now. I had forgotten how crappy the default Android keyboard is. Not only is it ugly, I keep making typos with it. Fleksy is awesome! :) Good themes too. Initially I was wary about using a 3rd party toolbar and them being able to snoop my private info, but soon I got over it. Had to! It’s all about trust after all. I am in a way trusting Google/ CyanogenMod/ OnePlus to not snoop with the existing keyboard, so why not trust Fleksy too.