Smartphone Comparison- Apple iPhone 5S vs OnePlus One
The iPhone 5S, a flagship device coming from tech giant Apple, had no problems in proving itself to consumers, becoming a market leader. The OnePlus One, on the other hand, has a lot to prove, as the Chinese manufacturer’s phone comes from behind promising to be a great device. A unique thing about the OnePlus One is the marketing campaign and the limited availability of the handset. You could have gotten one either by knowing someone, or by competing in a pretty unorthodox contest, where you had to destroy your old smartphone on video. Nevertheless, the matter at hand is that we have two smartphone devices competing against each other in this comparison, so let’s see which is better and why.
Design and Display
The two devices take on separate roads right from the start, as the displays of the two phones are nothing alike. First, we have the Apple iPhone 5S, wich sports a 4 inch display, with a maximum resolution of 640 x 1136, as well as a 326 ppi pixel density. On the other side, the less-known Chinese device, the OnePlus One, comes with a 5.5 inch display that operates at a 1920 x 1080 resolution and a 401 ppi pixel density. The cool thing about the One’s screen, is that it managed to offer a better pixel density even though the size of its display is a lot larger than the iPhone’s. The Apple device catches up with in terms of thickness, as its 7.6 mm take the lead over the One’s 8.9 mm. The high-end building materials used for the iPhone 5S are the reason behind Apple managing to squeeze all the hardware inside such a thin body, as they are able to manipulate the quality metal into a thinner end result than they would be able to if using cheaper plastic, like the OnePlus One.
Hardware
After the quick little win of the iPhone over the OnePlus One from the thickness and weight point of view, it’s time to get back to the Chinese device taking the lead, this time, for RAM power. The OnePlus One offers no less than 3 GB of RAM, while the iPhone 5S only brings 1 GB of RAM to the table. It is obvious that the OnePlus One has more RAM than its competitor, but keep in mind that Apple is known for optimizing their software to such extent that they actually manage to keep up and even outclass higher-RAM devices due to this. Nonetheless, the fact remains that it has less RAM than the One.
Moving on to the processors, the OnePlus One offers a 2.5 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 quad core processing unit, while the iPhone offers only a 1.3 GHz dual core A7 processor. Once again, it might be tempting to say that the One has the advantage due to its obvious superior hardware, but, just like with the RAM, the little details can be game-changing. Even though the One’s processor is stronger, it is a 32-bit chip, while the presumed lower processing unit is a 64-bit chip, which makes it better than the One’s unit, or any other 32-bit unit for that matter. The iPhone also packs a secondary, auxiliary processing unit called the M7 motion processor, and it takes a load off the A7 unit by taking care of the gyroscope, compass and accelerometer sensors and monitoring their data. The M7 works in the background and saves a pretty important amount of battery, as the A7 doesn’t have to constantly work in this. The high sensitivity of the M7 processor means that your phone will know if you are walking, running, sitting or driving. This is good news for those of you who like fitness apps, because now they will more efficiently record and track your movement.
Operating System
The iPhone runs, of course, the iOS operating system, namely iOS 7, which has received generally positive response from consumers praising its stability, speed and overall functionality. There are over a million apps you can choose from in the official AppStore, and you can rest assured that the software is pretty secure.
The OnePlus One, on the other hand, runs a modified version of Android 4.4, developed by CyanogenMod, namely CyanogenMod 11S. It offers the full customization functionality of Android, with some added touches on the design part.
Battery and Memory
The iPhone 5S comes in standard 16, 32 and 64 GB of internal memory storage space variants, while the OnePlus One only provides 16 and 64 GB version, skipping the middle class variant, which is the favorite variant people seem to choose from, as the smartphone necessities of today start to make 16 GB be less than what is needed in terms of memory. Although it is an Android powered device and could have taken the lead on this one by implementing support for a microSD card, sadly enough, the One did not, making the iPhone 5S the winner of this category.
No worries though, as the OnePlus One bounces back quick, and comes in strong in the battery department. The battery unit packed by the One has no less than 3100 mAh, while the iPhone 5S had to make use of its significantly smaller battery of only 1560 mAh. The iPhone 5S promises at least 10 hours of talk time, but that is relative, as we don’t use our phones for just calling anymore. The high capacity battery of the One may balance out the fact that it has a larger display and that it comes with CyanogenMod, which isn’t very well optimized for saving battery.
Special Features
Although it isn’t that special and unique for quite some time now, being implemented by a long list of devices powered by Android, the NFC capabilities of the One are something the Apple handset lacks. NFC can be used for quick file transfers or quick pairing with other devices that support the NFC technology. Apple’s iPhone 5S, on the other hand, has a cool feature called TouchID. It is basically a fingerprint scanner that allows users to safely unlock their device and purchase apps from the AppStore. Both functions are limited in terms of what they are capable of doing, because there isn’t really a lot of support for these features coming from third party apps (Not yet, at least).
Connectivity and Sensors
In this department, there really isn’t anything that could set these two apart, as they both feature the same standard options like Bluetooth, Wifi and all the other connectivity options we see on pretty much every smartphone these days, like 3G, 4G, GPS, etc. The same gyroscope, proximity and light, and accelerometer sensor are made available for both hamdsets.
Camera
This is where the One truly shines over the iPhone 5S, offering a stunning 13 MP rear camera and a 5 MP front facing shooter, alongside 4k video recording capabilities. The iPhone 5S can’t help but helplessly watch as it’s left behind, along with its 8 MP rear camera and 1.3 MP frontal lens. The iPhone 5S can shoot 1080p video with the rear lens, and 720 p with the frontal one.
Conclusion
The iPhone 5S costs a lot more than the OnePlus One, but you can see your investment in the excellent, high end build quality and design of the Apple device, and the features it has, and lack from the One. On the other hand, the OnePlus One clearly has a larger and better screen and a better camera, so it’s pretty much up to you and what your preferences are.
On Amazon.com, you can get the iPhone 5S for around $670, while on the same website, the OnePlus One costs around $450.
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