[OnePlus 8 Real Life Review] alan sh:
My review of an OP8.

OK - here's my 4 day review of my OnePlus 8. Just FYI, I had (and still have) a OnePlus 5, whic I will probably give to my Father.

Day 1. The box arrives. I ordered one of the PopUp boxes which has in it two extra backs (green and black) as well as a transparent one. It also comes with the OpenPLus Z headphones. It's a large box and came in an even larger cardboard box with padding.

I unboxed it and checked - it had 51% charge, so I deemed it OK to start installing. It connected to my network and immediately did an O/S upgrade. All the normal Android stuff then proceeded and I was up and running.

I used InePlus switch to get all my apps and data across from the old OP5. The only thing it missed was all my WhasApp history - but that may be because I installed it first.

Day 2. I'd fully charged it during the day and I left it unplugged overnight. It lost 5%. Considering it's a new device, I thought that was OK. So, out for a walk to check the GPS (my OP5 would not work properly) and see how the camera was. GPS still suffered and I was considering sending it back. See Day 3. Camera is lovely. Just having OIS is a vast improvement and the quality is well acceptable for a phone (I'm a camera nut and have some quite good ones). I'll play more later. I ordered a 5G sim.

Played with the OP Z headphones. They are nice but a bit bassy. So, as I use VLC and that has an equaliser, I turned the bass down a bit - and that made all the difference.

Day 3. Decided that OnePlus can't have screwed up GPS that badly. So investigated. I found that GPS was set to 'advanced' which meant it pulled in location information from phone masts and wifi. Not sure how that makes it advanced, so I disabled it. Went out for another walk with my tracking app - no issues. Humm. I wonder if my OP5 would have done that?

Played with panorama mode. It's interesting, but I'm not sure I'll use it much as it curves everything around the horizon which is not what I expected. Tried out the slo-mo mode. Yes, I can see some uses for that.

Played around with the screen. Decided I don't like curved screens that much as the edges (where it tails away) are hard to press and that's where odd things are that you need to press. But I guess I'll get used to it. Tried my Kindle app. It went over the camera. OK - set it so the screen doesn't include the camera, but it would be nice if that could be done pn an app by app basis rather than all or nothing. OnePlus decided I needed yet another O/S upgrade, so I let it do that.

Day 4 - Out for another walk, this time with a couple of Garmin devices. GPS is still OK - a bit optimistic (it gave me 2.6 miles where Garmin gave me 2.5) but that may be the app. Had my OP Z headphones on - very comfy. Played more with the camera. The macro is really good. 2x is OK, more than that, I won't bother.

Tried my Readly app (magazine reading) whic doesn't really suit the phones aspect ratio. Oh yes, tried making phone calls. Call quality is superb.

I've ordered a flip case. Should be here by the end of May (has to come from China).

Overall? If I'd know what I know now, I'd probably have ordered a 7T but only because it has a flat screen, and I'd lose out on the 5G (which we have in my area). The PopUP version gave me £100 worth of freebies which was nice.

Comments and questions welcomed.

Alan