OnePlus will be unveiling the OnePlus 5 tomorrow but the company is now not making any efforts to hide the phone. It already revealed the final design of the handset this weekend during the final of the Champions Trophy, and now The Verge has published a detailed insight into the OnePlus 5’s camera and an interview with Pete Lau.
Let’s get straight to the point here: the OnePlus 5 features a dual-camera setup similar to that of the iPhone 7 Plus albeit the sensors are of different resolutions. The primary sensor is a 16MP Sony shooter with f/1.7 aperture, while the secondary ‘telephoto’ camera features a 20MP f/2.6 Sony sensor. The company claims that this is the “highest resolution dual-camera system on a smartphone today.” Apart from offering a 2x optical zoom, this dual camera setup also allows the OnePlus 5 to offer a portrait mode similar to that of the iPhone 7 Plus. Since OnePlus does not have the same resources as other bigger companies, it had to leverage the ties of its sister company, Oppo, to get access to these components. However, Pete Lau confirms that apart from the hardware, everything about the camera of the OnePlus 5 is different from Oppo’s R11 which features the same camera setup. He says that 80 percent of the work on the OnePlus 5’s camera was to build its software. The company leveraged the powerful ISP inside the Snapdragon 835 chipset but has been continuously enhancing it and improving it to ensure the OnePlus 5 takes photos that can rival the likes of the iPhone 7 and Galaxy S8. There’s still a lot of work left to be done though. Early image samples that The Verge saw at the headquarters of the OnePlus in Shenzen made it clear that while the company’s portrait mode is still not as good as the iPhone 7 Plus, though the company is continuously iterating on it. So, why is OnePlus putting so much emphasis on the OnePlus 5’s camera this year? After all, the OnePlus 3/3T shipped with a decent camera and still did pretty well in the market. It is due to the price. The OnePlus 5 will be the costliest smartphone ever from the company. Priced upwards of $500, the company is hoping that it would be able to justify the higher price tag by including a stellar camera that can rival the likes of the Galaxy S8 and iPhone 7. Do make sure to read the full article from The Verge as it also provides an insight into the various designs that OnePlus prototyped for the 5 before deciding on the iPhone 7-like design for the handset. OnePlus will officially be unveiling the OnePlus 5 tomorrow.
