OnePlus X Midrange Smartphone: Pluses, Minuses and Surprises

The OnePlus X may look like a few higher-end devices on the market, but some cost-saving compromises will keep it well within the midrange market segment.

There’s no debating that the OnePlus X is a nice-looking smartphone. The device has all of the features that would make it appealing to consumers of all types, boasting a slender design, sleek lines and a prominent screen that isn’t obscured by a large bezel. While the OnePlus X is a midrange smartphone, it looks like a high-end device.

Since the OnePlus X isn’t designed to be a high-end smartphone, OnePlus is able to save some cash and deliver the Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 in the smartphone. That chip will handle the vast majority of applications without issue, but it’s unlikely that it would be capable of running high-powered proprietary apps.

The Adreno 330 GPU is a solid option for some older and simpler video games, but it won’t necessarily handle all of the graphical processing customers would like to see in the latest apps. On the plus side, the Adreno 330 GPU works well with the Snapdragon 801 and won’t rapidly drain battery life. So, all in all, it’s the right choice for the handset’s design.

Surprisingly, OnePlus has skimped on the storage side. The company will be offering just 16GB of on-board storage and a microSD slot that can accommodate up to 128GB of additional storage. That is nowhere near enough for most smartphone users and could be an issue for those who don’t want to buy a microSD card.

The allure of buying a OnePlus smartphone is that it comes with the company’s OxygenOS operating system. That operating system is based on Android, but includes additional security features and a design that may be a bit more intuitive than the standard Android installation. That said, OxygenOS supports the same Android apps one would find in the regular Lollipop operating system it’s running atop.

Few companies today are willing to invest in smartphones with screen sizes smaller than 5 inches. It’s perhaps no surprise, then, that OnePlus has gone with a 5-inch screen in the OnePlus X. While in today’s smartphone world that’s not a giant screen, it provides enough real estate to view just about anything without trouble.

The OnePlus X comes with an interesting camera choice. The rear-facing camera is about what customers would expect from the device, boasting 13 megapixels and the ability to record video in 1080p resolution. The front-facing camera, however, is larger than expected, coming in at 8 megapixels. For those who care about front-facing cameras—and there are many people in that category—the 8-megapixel sensor will be a major selling point.

The WiFi chip built into the OnePlus X is a disappointment. According to OnePlus, the smartphone will only be able to connect to 2.4GHz networks and max out at 802.11n. Since the vast majority of smartphones now support 802.11ac, the lack of that integration in the OnePlus X is a glaring omission.

Dual-SIMs have become a staple for a number of smartphone models of late, and now it’s available in the OnePlus X. With dual-SIM integration, users will be able to connect to different networks. In the enterprise, it could also come in handy, since a single SIM may not work in every market around the world. Dual-SIM adds a level of portability that matters greatly to some customers.

OnePlus has an invite process for selling its products to customers. The issue, however, is that the invite process and pre-orders were bungled with the company’s earlier handset introduction, and this made the company look bad. OnePlus is once again planning to offer invites with the X. Let’s just hope that the company gets it right this time around.