Review of OnePlus One (16GB White, China). td;dr at end.

First, obtaining the device. I got this from a seller on LYN. He was kind enough to COD near where I stay. Thumbs up. He did reveal to me that the 64gb sandstone black version has stopped production due to material shortage, but didn't clarify whether is the material for the back cover or the 64GB eMMC. Take this info with a handful of salt.

The unboxing process is as seen on other sites. Fancy schmancy. The box is not as tall as what unboxing videos show, it is rather short in height. Charger was a US/China charger, so it is of no use here without an adapter. It's 2A though. The SIM ejector tool features a longer pin than usual (I know this because I went to Maxis to replace my SIM card, and the fella's own SIM ejector couldn't eject the SIM in the OPO).

Regarding the SIM card, the OPO uses MicroSIM. I decided not to cut the SIM card myself and went to the Maxis service centre in Sunway Pyramid to get it replaced. I heard you'll need to replace the SIM card to use LTE anyway. It cost me RM8.80 to replace my Hotlink SIM card, but they gave me back RM5 in the form of a top up coupon thingy. I heard it used to be RM25 for Hotlink, RM10 for Postpaid. Guess that changed. The SIM card has the word '4G' above the "Hotlink" branding. Also only after I got the SIM card that I know the LTE signal is only activated when you subscribe to the 1GB data plan. Booooooo

Stock OS is Color OS. It was kind enough to ask for system language before proceeding. I knew I wouldn't be staying with this for too long coz there's no Play Store. The thought to jumping ship couldn't come faster when I downloaded the YouTube app thru its built-in app repository and YouTube refused to launch due to lack of Google Play Services. lollllll

There's not much I experienced about Color OS. It looks MIUI-esque, as is all China ROMs. I am particularly impressed with the voice assistance on it. It is entirely in Mandarin, but has more features than Google Now. I forgot to take a screenshot of it, but it includes toggling system functions like WiFi, as well as several time killers like joke telling and quizzes (谜语) which are actually quite funny. I'm even more impressed that the voice assistant has text-to-speech for several Chinese dialects, including Mandarin, Cantonese, Sze chuanese and more.

Getting CM11S is extremely easy if you've tinkered with a Nexus device before, or any device that uses fastboot for that matter (Sony and HTC, IINM). The only hiccup I encountered was due to a flawed set of instructions on forums, which suggested the wrong button combination to enter recovery mode. The correct one is "power + vol down", but I kept trying the wrong method and kept ending up in fastboot. I gave up (should've Google-ed a bit first) and straightaway unlocked the bootloader, flashed TWRP and flashed the .zip. First thing I did upon booting into CM11S was activate on-screen navigation buttons lol.

My first encounter with the speed of this device comes in the form of eMMC 5.0, during the process of flashing CM11S. The flashing process completed much much much quicker than what I'd normally experience on the GalNex. Later on when I flash CM11 nightly, I'd experience a much much quicker process of creating a nandroid backup, like a 2GB+ one. Not sure if attributable to TWRP, have only used CWMR.

The reason I went to CM11S (based on 4.4.2) first and not CM11 nightly directly is because I wanted to see if it is possible to use it without rooting. After all I'm used to CM, and don't really recall granting root access to an app in the past few months. Also it's a good idea to see what are the differences. The double tap to wake is a feature I never knew I'd use so often. I got the feature hacked onto my GalNex few years back, but for some reason the thing wouldn't work properly after updating to 4.3. I didn't miss root at all. None of the applications I have installed currently requires root access at all. CM takes away the need to install Xposed. I don't like the CM11S Gallery app, probably because I'm too used to the AOSP one. This one tries to organise photos in a weird Sony/Samsung/HTC way. Too fancy. The camera app is very clean. I like it a lot. The system font is very pleasing to the eye, and gives Roboto (default Android holo font) a run for its money. I didn't bother to play with gesture shortcuts to activate apps on the sleeping display. Feels fiddly.

At this point I've used the device quite a considerable amount, so it's a good time to articulate my thoughts on the hardware. I need to preface this by saying that the Galaxy Nexus has set the bar extremely low in all aspects, so your mileage may vary regarding the degree of awesomeness I'm getting.

The device is of a Note 3 size. With the thing in your jeans pocket, it is impossible to tie your shoe lace without discomfort. The exterior shell feel sturdy. It feels like tough plastic with a matte finish, giving a premium feel, sorta like the Nokia Lumia but without the glossy surface finish. Close to the Nokia X, but not as matte. Maybe a corss between the Lumia and the X lol. The curved back profile gave it a very HTC One feel, i.e. slenderer than it actually is. The display is on par with the other flagships on the market. No weird jankiness, no discoloration (I heard 64GB version has display discoloratio/yellowing issues). The volume and power buttons are very clicky, almost too clicky. They actuate easily if your fingers are not positioned correctly, which is an issue when putting it into the pocket sometimes (might have exaggerated).

The GPS is fantastic, I can actually play Ingress inside a shopping mall's top floor like IOI Mall or Sunway Pyramid and the position is tracked quite precisely (I'll update this part when I get to play Ingress in Setiawalk, which is notorious for horrible mobile and GPS signal). The speakers are quite loud. I compared it to the Z2 and M8 in a retail outlet environment (SenQ), which has background sound sources around. I can definitively say that the OnePlus One is louder than the dual front speakers of the Xperia Z2. Only disadvantage would be the bottom-mount position of the OPO speakers. Versus the M8 though, it didn't fare very good. I'd say loudness might be higher by a few dB on the M8. Not definitive because I didn't test vs the M8 using the same sound files (I used the Themos ringtone on the 1+1 and Z2, while all AOSP sounds are non-existent on the M8 so I can't do that).

The camera is miles ahead of the Galaxy Nexus. I don't have other devices to compare to, so there's that. Side-by-side, the low light shots from these two device are like night and day (see what I did there?) The GalNex is an extremely low bar to cross, and the OnePlus One flew miles over it. The notification LED on the OnePlus One has a smaller aperture than the GalNex, but without a membrane-ish thingy covering it, so it's tinier and sharper than the GalNex (the notif LED on the GalNex would look bigger and fuzzier due to the dispersion effect of the membrane thingy). The placement of the notif LED at the top left corner made the device look asymmetric, versus the Galaxy Nexus at the bottom centre. OCD twitch-worthy right there.

One of the issues I have with the OnePlus One is the Google Now hotword detection. It requires extreme proximity to the mouth to even have a chance of detection (only 1 out of 4 attempts would result in the activation), compared to the GalNex that can be activated even at an arm's length. It's a known issue on the bug tracker, so I hope it gets fixed pronto.

The device feels extremely snappy. Again a low bar set by the GalNex. 3GB RAM allows no stutter nor lag to exist. Finally I get to experience TRUE multitasking. I will shove the Galaxy Nexus into the mouth of whomever that tries to convince me that Android uses memory efficiently and enables true multitasking. Screw you, it'll need 2GB RAM for that to even happen. Switching between just Ingress, Hangouts and Whatsapp will no longer cause Ingress to get killed. Also browser tabs stay open when switching apps, as well as many other multitasking chore that I didn't get to experience before this. The beast in this thing also gave me the chance to finally play games without lag. I can finally play Trial Frontier in real time. The timer finally ticks in real time and not in slow-mo. The graphics in this game is OMG wow.

The auto-brightness algorithm is too conservative. I need to manually set the brightness to max to be able to see the display properly outdoors during the day. Thankfully this is CyanogenMod, and you can customise the threshold to whatever you want. Perhaps the stock settings used to work for me on the GalNex because AMOLEDs fare better under direct sunlight?

I'm actually surprised none of the review sites mention this, but the vibration motor on the OnePlus is significantly weaker than the GalNex. Maybe it's a different motor that is used because the vibration signature (lol hand of god here can discern vibration signature) feels different, like the vibration is more rounded off and subtle. Contrast this with the GalNex which has a sturdy vibration. Like, if the keypress vibration duration on the GalNex is 20ms (my sweet spot), the OPO needs about 45 ms to match that, even that the vibration signature isn't the same at all. This is one aspect I miss about the GalNex. It could be possible that other OEM devices also have similarly weak vibration motors, just that I have not experienced them.

There's also a pertinent issue where mobile signal just drops completely from time to time. It doesn't happen very often, but when it does it's very annoying. The initial signal acquisition upon boot up is also unusually longer than my GalNex. WiFi signal however is normal. No issues whatsoever.

At this point, being frustrated with two main issues (backlight algorithm and Google Now hotword detection), I decided to get on the nightly build. My fears about losing the customised software features when jumping to CM11 is unfounded, as ALL of the software features are there. Double tap to wake, sleep screen gestures. Even though the camera interface is back to the conventional AOSP camera UI, the features are still in it (scene modes and stuff). This pleasantly surprised me because I'd imagine Cyanogen Inc would want to keep the marketable parts of the OPO to itself, but it didn't. The one thing missing is the CM11S theme. I can't find a way to install/obtain the theme back, even though the CyanogenMod Theme Showcase can be installed thru the Play Store.

Making the jump to the 4.4.4-based CM11 nightly build also brings a few extras. Along with it comes the Heads Up notification, as well as performance profiles. Before this the user chooses the CPU governor (ondemand, performance, interactive, etc), now the user chooses between preset profiles (power save, balanced, performance). There's also the per-app checkbox, which is probably the feature that was highlighted on AndroidPolice earlier that whitelists benchmark apps to make the device appear to have a higher performance than its normal performance.

Making the jump to CM11 however, did not solve the backlight algorithm and Google Now hotword detection issue. The algorithm is still the same, and "OK Google" still doesn't activate unless I shout at it like a moron. I can deal with the algorithm, just need to tweak the thresholds a bit. I am properly frustrated at the "OK Google" issue because I use it quite a lot.

Didn't get to use the device as a phone (lol, right?). The once or twice I answered a phone call it took me a while to position the earpiece properly to listen properly. My impression is that the volume, although cranked to max, sounds tinny. Might need more tests.

Lastly, battery life. Because I've been switching between ROMs, and only just entered the 3rd full day of using the device, the results are inconclusive at best. Preliminary assessment puts it at 5 hours screen-on-time at 10% battery. SOT assessments are extremely subjective, but to put it in perspective, the Galaxy Nexus only gave me 1.75 hours SOT (again, a very low bar to cross). I've read that by today's standards, 5 hour SOT is not fantastic, so there's that. I reckon I'd easily survive the entire day with 20% battery level without touching the charger, if it weren't for Ingress.

Overall, ignoring the price I paid for this thing, I'd say it's a good option among the other OEM flagship devices. Comparable specs, classy design, sufficiently good parts. If it weren't for supply and availability issues (the OPO is not launched in Malaysia, meaning you can't get it shipped to Malaysia when the international version finally launches), this device would definitely be the device to buy for 2014. I paid RM1380 for this thing, which is an RM100 premium above the price one pays on Aliexpress/Oppomart for the China version, or an RM250 premium (excluding shipping) for the 16GB international version (if and when it launches).

An obvious comparison considering the price would be the Xiaomi Mi3. That thing just got price slashed to RM769 recently. One can almost get two Mi3 with the price I paid for the OPO. I'd have gone with the Mi3 if it had CyanogenMod support. The Mi2 has only just gotten CM nightly support. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it, considering the kernel source code for the Mi3 hasn't even been released yet. The only link I can find that remotely refers to a kernel source release is the XiaoMi forum thread requesting it, with the last post on June 26th still asking for it, meaning it still hadn't been released yet. I've heard good things about the Mi3, and would definitely give it a try when given the chance.