OnePlus 5 vs Xiaomi Mi 6 vs iPhone 7 Plus vs Samsung Galaxy S8: Price, Specifications, Features Compared

OnePlus 5 is the new flagship from the Chinese startup that has become a household name and seen its fan base growing ever since its first smartphone - the OnePlus One - hit the market. The new flagship was officially unveiled on Tuesday, and it will going on sale later this month in several markets including India where it will go on sale from Thursday. The OnePlus 5, much like its predecessor, packs some top notch specifications, including the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 SoC and up to 8GB of RAM. It also boasts of a new design approach, and the overall package appears to match several rival flagship smartphones.

With the higher price tag, OnePlus 5 will be pitted against some of the other popular premium smartphones. To put it another way, the OnePlus 5 looks set to offer performance comparable to the Xiaomi Mi 6, iPhone 7 Plus, and Samsung Galaxy S8 with top notch specifications and a premium package. We compare the four smartphones.

Price
The OnePlus 5 will be going on sale in the US and select European regions at a starting price of $479 (roughly Rs. 31,000) and EUR 499 (roughly Rs. 35,900) respectively for the 6GB RAM and 64GB storage variant. The 8GB RAM and 128GB storage variant has been priced at $539 (approximately Rs. 35,000), and EUR 559 (about Rs. 40,000) in the US and the select European markets, respectively. The Chinese company is yet to announce the India pricing for the OnePlus 5 but we can expect our wait to be over on Thursday.

The Samsung Galaxy S8 was launched in India at Rs. 57,900 (MOP) for the 4GB RAM and 64GB storage model. iPhone 7 Plus was launched in three variants, 32GB, 128GB and 256GB, priced at Rs. 72,000, Rs. 82,000, and Rs. 92,000, respectively. However, in the recent spate of sales by Amazon and Flipkart, the prices of the three variants have dropped down to roughly Rs. 57,000, Rs. 65,000, and Rs. 80,000, respectively.

Coming to the Xiaomi Mi 6 price, there are two variants at different price points. The Mi 6 variant with 64GB storage and 6GB RAM has been priced at CNY 2,499 (roughly Rs. 23,500), while the model with 128GB storage and 6GB RAM costs CNY 2,899 (roughly Rs. 27,000); both variants come in Black, White and Blue colour options. The company is yet to officially announce the smartphone in India.

Design
The Chinese company at the global unveiling talked about how the OnePlus 5 was cast out of the anodised aluminium and it does indeed look premium from all angles. We, however, have to confess that the OnePlus 5 indeed sports an iPhone 7 Plus-like design, especially the rear panel. The front is more or less mimics the predecessor, the OnePlus 3T, though the rear entirely looks inspired by the iPhone 7 Plus.

The Samsung Galaxy S8 (Review), on the other hand, brings an all-new design strategy, with the display taking the centre stage. The phone was unveiled earlier this year with 18.5:9 display aspect ratio, instead of industry standard 16:9. Coming to the Xiaomi Mi 6 (First Impressions), it's very similar to the Mi 5 in terms of shape and size. The Xiaomi flagship looks more refined and premium with four-sided curved glass on four sides, and a frame made of stainless steel. Considering the design is a very subjective matter, we feel that the buyer is the best judge.

Display
OnePlus 5 features a 5.5-inch full-HD (1080x1920 pixels) Optic AMOLED display which supports sRGB and DCI-P3 colour standards, and also sports 2.5D Gorilla Glass 5. The display on the OnePlus 5 brings many improvements over the OnePlus 3T. However, this might turn out to be the phone's biggest weakness considering that it will be compared to Samsung Galaxy S8, which has a bigger screen with higher resolution. On the other hand, iPhone 7 Plus relies on the Retina display for sharpness, and features such as 3D Touch, Night Shift, and Display Zoom to distinguish its LCD panel. It's worth pointing it out that both the OnePlus 5 and Mi 6 cost much less than those smartphones.

The Samsung Galaxy S8 sports a 5.8-inch bezel-less 'Infinity Display' with 1440x2960 pixels screen resolution. The iPhone 7 Plus features a 5.5-inch full-HD (1080x1920 pixels) ion-strengthened display with oleophobic coating and wide colour gamut.

The Xiaomi Mi 6 has been also claimed to bring improvements to its display panel which will feature reduced glare for eye care. The Mi 6 features a 5.15-inch full-HD (1080x1920 pixels) display which is smallest among the four. Its maximum brightness is 600 nits, but the brightness can be reduced automatically down to as low as 1 nit to reduce eye-strain.

Specifications
The OnePlus 5 has been launched running OxygenOS based on Android 7.1.1 Nougat and supports dual-SIM with dual-standby. It is powered by the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 SoC clocked at four cores at 2.4GHz and other four cores at 1.9GHz. It will be available in 6GB with 64GB storage and 8GB RAM with 128GB storage options. The phone supports 4G LTE (with VoLTE), dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth v5.0, NFC, GPS/ A-GPS, and USB Type-C (v2.0). It weighs 153 grams, and measures 154.2x74.1x7.25mm.

The Mi 6 packs the octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 SoC clocked at 2.45GHz coupled with 6GB of RAM and Adreno 540 GPU. The company has ditched the 3.5mm headphone jack, and the USB port is USB Type-C.

iPhone 7 Plus is powered by Apple's custom A10 Fusion chipset (2.34GHz quad-core) backed by 3GB RAM, and runs iOS 10 operating system. The Lightning port does duty for charging, data transfer as well as music, and the battery capacity of the smartphone is 2900mAh. Its body is water-resistant, and the phone comes with a NFC chip for Apple Pay payments.

Samsung Galaxy S8, in India, is powered by a Exynos 9985 chipset coupled with 4GB of RAM and 64GB inbuilt storage with up to 256GB storage expansion. It runs on Android 7.0-based company's UX, and comes with a USB Type-C port. Samsung in select markets also launched the Galaxy S8 with Snapdragon 835 SoC (2.3GHz Quad + 1.7GHz Quad).

Cameras
OnePlus 5, iPhone 7 Plus, and Xiaomi Mi 6 are the phones that offer a dual camera setup at the back. The OnePlus 5 sports a 16-megapixel main camera (Sony IMX398 sensor, 1.12-micron pixels) with an f/1.7 aperture coupled with a 20-megapixel telephoto camera (Sony IMX350 sensor, 1-micron pixels) with an f/2.6 aperture. OnePlus is heavily marketing the fast autofocus, capability. The rear camera setup features a dual-LED flash module and boasts of 4K video recording with EIS. The dual cameras offer features like Bokeh effect and also deliver optical zoom up to 2x, and bumped up to 8x using a multi-frame software algorithm.

The Xiaomi Mi 6 sports dual 12-megapixel rear cameras, a setup reminiscent of the iPhone 7 Plus. The phone features a 12-megapixel wide-angle lens and another 12-megapixel telephoto camera for 2x lossless zoom. Its binocular stereoscopic vision imaging and depth learning algorithm makes edge recognition more accurate in the photos, says Xiaomi. The Mi 6 camera features phase-detection autofocus, and four-axis anti-shake functionality to ensure blur-free images.

iPhone 7 Plus boasts of a dual-camera setup, and offers Bokeh effect in Portrait Mode. As for the camera configuration, both the primary and telephoto rear camera sensors have 12-megapixel resolution, with f/1.8 and f/2.8 apertures, respectively. The camera is backed by quad-LED, dual-tone flash, phase-detection autofocus, and 2x optical zoom. As for the front camera, there's a 7-megapixel sensor with f/2.2 aperture, face detection, panorama, and HDR. The rear camera can capture videos 2160p videos at 30fps, as well as slo-mo videos.

Of course, the sensor resolution and lens aperture are not enough to determine photo quality. You will have to wait for our full review of the Xiaomi Mi 6 and OnePlus 5 after which we can give a verdict whether they offer better image quality than the Samsung Galaxy S8.

As for the front camera, the OnePlus 5 sports a 16-megapixel front camera while the Mi 6 sports an 8-megapixel camera with 1080p video capture.

The Samsung Galaxy S8 sports a 12-megapixel 'Dual Pixel' rear camera with optical image stabilisation and an f/1.7 aperture. It also offers an 8-megapixel front camera.

Let us know whether you are excited about the new OnePlus 5 via the comments section. Do you feel that the OnePlus 5 can compete against the Xiaomi Mi 6, iPhone 7 Plus, and Samsung Galaxy S8 in performance? Do let us know.