[ONE General] SolarTrans:
I received my International OnePlus One in the mail yesterday, and after setting it up I've spent a lot of time with it over the past day (including putting my main SIM in the phone).

I'll go through my experience in chronological order from unboxing to fully set up. For each section, I'll point out positives, negatives, and other notables, along with giving an overall rating for each section.

Be aware that in this review I will not excuse things because of the wonderfully low price. I am very picky when it comes to mobiles, and I*will*nit-pick. This is a review that will pit it against $700 flagships,*because*this phone is so good it doesn't need excuses.

Here we go!

Unboxing & Accessories: 95%

Unboxing the OnePlus was, in all honesty,*the*best unboxing experience I've*ever*had.

This is not an easy feat, considering I've owned, unboxed, and later sold every iPhone and Android flagship from the past couple years.

From the red pull tab on the protective brown cardboard, to sliding out the bright red inner package out of its white sleeve.

Each layer brought even more sense of surprise as I came closer and closer to the phone itself!

The individual package for the charger was an excellent idea, and the included accessories just screamed luxury.

Although some have questioned the inclusion of a key ring attachment for the SIM remover, I found this to be perfect. Being one who switches phones often, having that sleeve on my keys makes it that much easier to find a remover when I need it.

The one issue I had with the accessories was with the charging cable. While the USB end is sleek, and the cable is a nice bright red, it just isn't practical.

The cable is so thick and bulky that it just looks out of place next to the thin black and white cables on my nightstand.

And even worse, is how short the darn thing is. iPhone chargers*were*the shortest cables I'd ever seen included with phones. And now, they're tied for worst. At three feet, the included cable with the OnePlus just isn't anywhere near long enough. I can barely plug it in at night, and good luck trying to use the phone while it’s charging.

I thought the six foot black Monoprice cable I'd been using with my M8 would make it an easy fix. It wasn't. For some reason, the stock OnePlus USB cable charges noticeably faster than any others I tried.

I give this section a 95% because the experience was truly something else, and if the USB cable was a useable length, it would have been 100% (or more). The lack of a proper-length cable was a disappointment, but the battery life is so good I'll never have to use it on the charger.

Build Quality+Quality Control: 85%

This is an insanely well-built piece of hardware. If someone told me this handset cost $700, I would believe them. It’s one of the sturdiest phones I’ve felt, and manufacturing defects were nonexistent (except for one thing).

And that one thing (the subtracted 15%) comes from the screen. First, the oleophobic coating on the screen is very poor, so the screen is a*fingerprint and dust magnet.*This probably doesn’t matter to most, but as someone who carries around a microfiber cloth in his wallet to keep his screens smudge-free, this is a pretty sizeable downside.

Second, I got a model with a slight yellow tint on the bottom. After seeing some others' screens, mine is extremely mild, and unless I look at a white screen I can't notice the shift. It's almost like the bottom half of the screen very gradually gets warmer (from the middle to the bottom).*I was going to include a picture of it, but it was so insignificant the camera couldn't see it.

Although I can barely see it, it's there. And the fact that these defects weren't one-off makes me have to deduct a few points.

OnePlus did a commendable job on QC for this device. Even the biggest manufacturers have launch glitches sometimes. Thing is, I take display issues more seriously than all others, so I had to give it an 85%.

Hardware: 90%

Wow. I said that out loud when I took this phone out of the box. The One is lightweight, stylish, sturdy, distinctive, unique, and a blast to use. It feels so good in the hand that I want to hold it just to hold it.

The first thing that stood out to me was the sandstone material on the back of the phone. It provides grip,*and*an astounding matte finish, all while being immune to fingerprints.

The front is equally as striking. With the screen raised from the bezel, there’s a handsome frame around the screen that makes it stand out from the crowd. There's even a tiny raised portion of black plastic surrounding the screen itself that will keep it from getting scratched if face down on a table, but is almost invisible to the eye (many reviewers have missed this thoughtful detail).

Speaking of the screen, while off, it blends in perfectly with the rest of the bezel. Although said bezel is a bit large to some, my long fingers have no problems navigating it all.

Speaking of “navigating”, that brings me to the hardware buttons. Coming from my M8 GPE, I thought such a different button arrangement would confuse me (Stock is Back-Home-App Switcher, and these are Menu-Home-Back), however I think owning a Galaxy S4 for eight months kept the muscle memory for this setup in my head. They’re very responsive, well-lit when on, and invisible when off. Not much more you can ask for.

As for MicroSD, I am ecstatic that OnePlus left it out on this phone. They made room for more battery, more onboard storage, more RAM, a better camera, better construction, etc.

As one who relies mostly on the cloud and never has much media, I’d much rather have a phone with no MicroSD slot and more onboard storage than a slot.

Plus, MicroSD is slow. And I’m fine paying a premium to get faster storage.

This is just my opinion, though, (as is the whole review), and If you carry around 5 MicroSD cards in your wallet that’s totally fine by me.

Why only a 90%, you might ask? The lack of a removable battery and water resistance. The lack of a removable battery isn’t too bad due to the great battery life (which, again, I’ll get into later), but it prevents it from being perfect so I needed to mention it.

Every night, when I get in the shower, I so much wish for the ability to just set my phone down and listen to a podcast. Or watch a YouTube video. I understand waterproofing would be pretty unfeasible for a phone this size (as it would most likely become quite unwieldy), but this is actually a pretty big downside for me. If I’m going to give something 100%, it really can’t have big issues.*I’d give any other phone without water resistance much less score, but everything else is so good it gets less of a penalty.

Software+Performance (Cyanogen 11S): 95%

Rarely do I find software perfect, but this is one place where it is. I’m using the Google Now launcher (pretty much the same as the default “Trebuchet”, but there’s a Google Now homepage to the left and “OK Google” everywhere), the*L-Ready Dark*theme by Koulis, and the*Stark*Icon Theme by Kovdev. It looks like this:

Well, I’m a sucker for stock Android. I just prefer it to pretty much all the skins out there. My only gripes with it though are that there just isn’t enough without going through Play Store apps (which I generally stay away from doing, because the interface can get inconsistent). With C11S, just about every setting and customization you can want is available stock. Without root, even (I still rooted it for AdAway and /system access, though)!

This phone has the best specifications of any phone available in the US, and it performs like it. The HTC M8 is usually considered the fastest Android phone out there right now, and this matches (and in RAM, exceeds) it.*There are no hiccups, and after opening 10 or 15 apps and watching a YouTube video my Chrome pages didn’t even have to reload (and I opened those first).

There*is*one complaint of mine, but is pulled just enough weight to reduce my score. And it’s the slow update process (compared to stock). This deducted the 5%. Now I know you can’t expect any skin maker to have something ready faster than stock Android, but when my M8 GPE gets Android L right off the bat, I’ll be sad that the OnePlus One will still be a ways out.

The reason I’m not bringing it down any more is because of the theme engine. I bet I’ll have a damn near Android L experience quite shortly after launch due to all the customization options!

Screen: 90%

In this section, I’ll refrain from criticizing the yellow hue at the bottom as that is an unintended manufacturer’s defect, and it isn’t representative of the way the screen is supposed to perform.

This screen is just gorgeous. It’s huge, has outstanding viewing angles, superb black levels, and a great brightness range. It’s comfortable to use in pitch black as well as in direct sunlight.

At first, the overall warmth of the factory calibration was a bit weird. I much preferred the cooler tones of the M8. I’ve quickly adjusted to it, and skin tones do look good (as OnePlus claimed). There’s also a built-in manual color adjustment tool in settings to make it just the way you like it.

Touch latency is also incredible. Compared to the M8 (with 46ms), this feels about the same. That’s fast.

All in all, the display is impressive. However, it’s not quite at the same level as the Galaxy S5 (the best as of this review) or HTC M8, so I have to bump it down.

Camera: 90%

I’m not a huge mobile photographer, so really all I need is something to look nice on Facebook and Twitter. The HTC M8’s camera works fine for me. Oh, and I know OnePlus had to use a worse camera to keep the price down.

But this camera is much more than something for Instagram.*A "compromised" part of this phone is still great.

The app is great, the settings are simple but highly customizable, and the pictures are consistently sharp, in focus, and properly exposed.

Thing is, cameras like those found the Lumia 1020, and Galaxy S5 are still better.

However, in my usage, it’s been very comparable to the iPhone 5s camera. That isn’t an easy task.

Combine a relative inferiority with the lack of OIS, and I just can’t give it a better score.

I guarantee you won’t be disappointed with the camera, but everything here is being compared to the best of the best.

Sound and Call Quality: 85%

Now, every phone in existence pales in comparison to the HTC One M8 in terms of sound. I was somewhat excited to hear that there were stereo speakers on the OnePlus One, but after using them they really are nowhere near the class of those on HTC’s offering.*Pretty much, media playback is poor compared to the M8 (and M7/E8), but way better than every other phone.

Call quality, on the other hand, is quite good. Callers were clear, and I was clear to them.*The earpiece is a little quiet, and the microphone won’t pick you up unless you talk right into it,*but these are easy software fixes and I’m not concerned.

Battery Life: 100%

Battery life is up there with the best. 3100mAh for a 1080p screen is the best out there, and the ability to manually reduce CPU speed in the settings can stretch this out for even longer.

When the phone arrived, it had about 40% battery. After I set the phone up, downloaded all my apps, switched to ART, and signed into all my accounts, it had 15%. Also, the screen took up an astronomical 55% of the toal battery used. Enough said.

Overall Thoughts and Conclusion: 95%

All things considered, I give this phone a 95%.

Waterproofing, a removable battery, and better speakers would have made it 100%, but I think that*for many users, this is*the*best phone you can buy.

*

You have the performance and build quality of an HTC M8, the camera of an iPhone 5s, the screen size of a G3, the customizability of TouchWiz, the simplicity of stock Android, and the price of the Nexus 5.

But perhaps most importantly of all, it has the friendly support of a small business, with a community of an established one.

If that’s not a flagship killer, I don’t know what is.

If anyone has any questions/comments/criticism, feel free to contact [MENTION=5713057]SolarTrans[/MENTION] on Twitter!