OnePlus 5 vs OnePlus 5T

OnePlus has launched an updated version of the OnePlus 5 and, like it did with the 3T, the new model is called the 5T. We explain what’s changed and whether you should upgrade to or buy the new model instead of the old.

Price

There’s no difference in price, which means the 6GB / 64GB model costs £449 and the 8GB / 128GB version is £499.

As it’s not yet on sale, we don’t know if the old model will drop in price, or whether the new model will costs more on contract than the old one. Currently it costs £41 per month from O2. 

You can  pre-order the OnePlus 5T from O2 with in-store orders starting 17 November. Sales  direct from OnePlus will begin at 2pm on 21 November.

Features and design

Quite obviously, the 5T has a larger display than the old, and this comes with very little change in chassis size: it isn’t the same, but in terms of design there’s hardly any difference at all, except for the fact it’s only available in black with no option for a grey model. See our round up of cases that fit the new OnePlus 5T size.

• OnePlus 5: 154.2 x 74.1 x 7.3mm, 153g
• OnePlus 5T: 156.1 x 75 x 7.3mm, 162g

It’s a 6in screen, half an inch larger than before, and it has a 2160×1080 resolution for a pixel density of 401ppi. It uses the same AMOLED tech and has the same DCI-P3 wide colour gamut.

Essentially, it just adds 240 pixels of extra height on top of the OnePlus 5’s Full HD screen.

Those 240 pixels take the place of the fingerprint scanner and capacitive navigation buttons, so the 5T has on-screen nav and, yes, you can customise it to swap around the back and app-switching buttons.

The fingerprint scanner is now on the back as is the case with most new phones: they’re bezels are simply too tiny to accommodate a biometric reader.

It’s fast, as you’d expect, but there’s a new way to unlock the phone: facial recognition. It doesn’t work like the iPhone X’s Face ID by building a 3D scan of your face with infrared beams. Instead it gets a 2D image which isn’t as secure – this is made clear when you set it up.

Still, it works in a split second: so fast that you don’t even see the lock screen after pressing the power button.

There’s still a headphone jack – praise be – but also still no waterproofing. The speaker remains on the bottom edge, there’s still the mode slider and, as with the OnePlus 5, it charges using Dash Charge over USB-C.

Internally everything is the same: a Snapdragon 835 processor, a 3300mAh battery and the same Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and NFC.

Cameras

Something slightly odd has changed with the 5T’s cameras. OnePlus just says there’s a new secondary camera, with a 20Mp sensor and a new f/1.7 lens which matches the main camera.

That sound great, since the telephoto lens on the OnePlus 5 has an f/2.6 lens. However, look at the specs carefully and you’ll see both lenses have the same focal length of 27.22mm. This means the secondary camera no longer has a telephoto lens.

It still has a portrait mode which works in exactly the same way as it does on the OnePlus 5, using the second camera for depth sensing. We’re yet to use the cameras enough to say whether photo and video quality – including portrait and telephoto shots – are improved or worse than the OnePlus 5 but in the main things should be either the same or a bit better.

That won’t apply to zoom photos, of course, since it’s merely digital zoom. But the updated algorithms could mean there’s less of a difference than you might expect.

Software

Oddly, the 5T runs Android 7.1 rather than 8.0 Oreo out of the box. However, OnePlus has said that a beta version of Android Oreo will come to the 5 and 5T before the end of the year, so there’s not long to wait.

There are only minor differences in software between the two phones: the 5T adds a feature, which like the similar function on the Asus ZenFone 4 and Huawei Mate 10 Pro, allows you to be logged in to two separate Facebook, Dropbox and Skype accounts.

Related: Best OnePlus phones