OnePlus 5 vs. Galaxy S8: All the power at half the price?

Specs

Both the OnePlus 5 and the Galaxy S8 are packing Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 processor, which is powerful, efficient, and fast. The glaring difference that immediately jumps out from the spec sheet is the RAM. The Galaxy S8 makes do with 4GB of RAM, while the OnePlus 5 comes with 6GB or 8GB of RAM. In theory, the higher RAM should mean that more apps can be held in active memory, so if you switch between apps, they won’t have to be reloaded.

Winner: OnePlus 5

Design, display, and durability

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It’s not easy to distinguish the OnePlus 5 from Apple’s iPhone 7 Plus when you look from the back. Those antenna lines, the dual camera placement, and the prominent camera hump are all familiar – though, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The OnePlus 5 is certainly not an ugly phone. Whether you like it or not will come down to personal preference, but there can only be one winner in this category and it’s not the OnePlus 5.

Samsung’s curved Infinity Display, along with the unusual 18.5:9 aspect ratio, maximizes your screen real estate, but packs it into a smaller body that’s easy to manage one-handed. The design is innovative, it looks gorgeous, and it feels great in the hand. By comparison, the OnePlus 5 looks a bit dated.

The screen is another big win for Samsung. At 5.8 inches, with a resolution of 2,960 x 1,440 pixels, it is bigger and much sharper than the 5.5-inch, 1,080p display in the OnePlus 5.

If that wasn’t enough, the Galaxy S8 is also more durable than the OnePlus 5, scoring an IP68 rating for dust- and water-resistance, which means it can be submerged in up to 5 feet for water for half an hour without sustaining damage. You’ll need to keep the OnePlus 5 dry. Both will probably require a case to survive encounters with the sidewalk, however.

Winner: Galaxy S8

Battery life and charging

On paper, there isn’t a great deal between the Galaxy S8 and OnePlus 5 in the battery department. The S8 has a 3,000mAh battery, while the OnePlus 5 has a slightly bigger 3,300mAh battery. They have the same power-efficient processor, but you may reasonably expect the S8’s superior screen to guzzle a little more power during the course of an average day.

Thankfully, both support speedy charging via USB Type-C ports. You can fully charge the S8 in around 90 minutes with adaptive fast charging. OnePlus’s Dash Charge system allows you to recover 60 percent of the battery in half an hour, but still takes around 90 minutes to fully charge.

The S8 supports wireless charging in the Qi or PMA format, which is a handy extra that you won’t find in the OnePlus 5, and enough to scrape the win in this category.

Winner: Galaxy S8

Camera

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Samsung stuck with a 12-megapixel camera in the S8, with an f/1.7 aperture that’s great for low-light photography. The OnePlus 5 kicks thing up a notch or two with a dual main camera that combines a 16-megapixel lens with a 20-megapixel telephoto lens, both by Sony. This helps to create the same depth effect that won the iPhone 7 Plus camera so many plaudits. The OnePlus 5 camera also has an f/1.7 aperture. Around the front, both phones have perfectly capable 8-megapixel shooters. We’ll need time for a proper comparison, so we’re making this a tie.

Winner: Tie

Software

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The S8 and the OnePlus 5 are running Android Nougat, but the newer OnePlus 5 will ship with the slightly fresher 7.1.1 flavor. We expect the S8 will be updated soon. Over the top, we have Samsung’s TouchWiz, compared to OxygenOS on the OnePlus 5.

Samsung’s restyled user interface is slick, attractive, and packed with a wealth of choice. Extras include iris scanning, a deep wealth of customization options, and the artificially intelligent assistant, Bixby, though we’re not entirely convinced of its usefulness over Google Assistant (you can still use Google Assistant). You’ll find some handy features in the Oxygen interface, too, but it has a more minimalist feel that’s closer to Google’s stock version of Android. Which one is better really comes down to personal preference, though OnePlus offers more system-level customization.

OnePlus is also more reliable with version updates — the OnePlus 3T and OnePlus 3 were among the first smartphones to receive Android 7.0 Nougat last fall. For this, it takes the win.

Winner: OnePlus 5

Price and availability

You can buy the Samsung Galaxy S8 from all major carriers and a wide range of retailers, but it’s going to cost you $750 if you buy it upfront. Most people will opt for monthly payments, in which case you can walk away with a new S8 for $25 per month and no money down, but that does mean signing up to a 30-month contract.

The OnePlus 5 is much cheaper, with a starting price of $480 for the gray version, which has 64GB of storage and 6GB of RAM. It will work just fine on AT&T, T-Mobile and other GSM networks in the U.S., but not on Verizon or Sprint. If you want the black version with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, then you’ll need to pay $540. You’ll have to buy directly from OnePlus and pay the full amount upfront.

The OnePlus 5 takes the win here because it is significantly cheaper than the Galaxy S8, but the lack of support for some networks and the fact you have to pay the full price upfront definitely muddies the waters.

Winner: OnePlus 5

Overall winner: OnePlus 5

The OnePlus 5 held its own and narrowly excelled. It brings the raw power of the Galaxy S8, but at a fraction of the cost. When picking an overall winner, we must go with the phone we would want to spend a lot of money on — and the OnePlus 5 offers a lot for under $500. If design and display are important to you, then you should think about the Galaxy S8. You might find that the OnePlus 5 performs slightly better, or fall in love with the dual camera, but the S8 is no slouch in either department. As a complete package, the OnePlus 5 just provides more bang for your buck.