Several months since the release of the OnePlus One, the company released a special edition with new speakers designed by American audio electronics giant, JBL. The OnePlus One JBL Special Edition has a 5.5-inch 1920 x 1080 screen, a thickness of 8.9mm, support for TD-LTE and FDD-LTE dual-4G networks, a 5mp/13mp dual-camera, and the Snapdragon MSM8974AC chipset with Adreno 330 GPU. Here’s our review.

The OnePlus One JBL Special Edition’s package

The Front and display screen

       Perhaps it is because Liu Zuohu used to work for OPPO, but the OnePlus One JBL Special Edition looks similar to the OPPO Find series. The top and bottom ends are curved, and it also has a round back. Although it is comfortable, it’s a bit hard to handle a 5.5-inchphone like this with one hand.The front side of the OnePlus One JBL special edition

The phone’s front-facing 5mp camera

      Notice how the phone’s screen looks like it is “floating” on the silver chassis. This design probably serves to protect the screen as, if it falls onto the ground, the corner will be the first to hit the ground. This may prevent the glass from shattering. The screen’s size and resolution have also been upgraded to 5.5 in and 1080p respectively.

       Above the screen is the 5mp front-facing camera. An LED flash is located on the right beside it. There are three Android virtual buttons at the bottom of the screen with a background light. Even though it’s not very bright, it should work alright when you use the phone at night.

The back 

It looks like OnePlus did a lot of work on the chassis as there are ports and buttons on all sides. The dual-speakers are located at the bottom. Try not to hold onto the phone too tight or you may end up covering them. This phone comes with a micro SIM tray. Regarding internet connectivity, this phone has support for TD-LTE, FDD-LTE, TD-SCDMA, WCDMA, and GSM. The FDD-LTE and WCDMA networks only work abroad.

       Unlike the original OnePlus One, this version has the JBL logo at the top in the back. Its rear-facing camera is still 13mp and has dual-LED.

Color OS 1.2 

The OnePlus One JBL Special Edition uses the Android 4.3-based Color OS 1.2 which is a very simple user interface. Even though there is a secondary menu, there are only two pages of icons to see which is not bad. They are all flat.

Desktop/Weather wallpaper

There are so many themes and wallpaper available.

       This year, several products have already used weather wallpaper. This time, OnePlus went a step further by making these animated images look lifelike, even to the point that you feel like it’s actually raining on your screen. There are a lot of lock screen wallpaper and in the theme store, most of which are free. There is also the hand gesture menu where you can designate certain finger movements to different functions. For example you can make it so when you circle your finger on the screen, you can open the camera app.

Hand gesture feature

Software store/third-party apps

Web browsing experience

Anti-virus/battery conservation 

       Safety features like the anti-virus and battery consumption programs are very practical, and not a lot of third-party apps were pre-installed, making it less of a hassle for users to download them.

13mp camera 

       Let’s now take a look at the OnePlus One JBL Special Edition’s camera. It does not have a lot of features but the features that it does have are very practical. These include panoramic, beauty enhancement, etc.

Camera interface

A slow shutter/Raw-supported

Below are photos taken by the OnePlus One JBL Special edition in regular camera mode with no alterations.

Focal length: 4mm     Aperture: f/2.0   ISO: 200      Time of exposure: 1/50     Exposure compensation: EV    White balance: automatic

Focal length: 4mm     Aperture: f/2.0    ISO: 100      Time of exposure: 1/913   Exposure compensation: EV    White balance: automatic

Focal length: 4mm     Aperture: f/2.0    ISO: 400      Time of exposure: 1/30     Exposure compensation: EV    White balance: automatic

Focal length: 4mm     Aperture: f/2.0    ISO: 500      Time of exposure: 1/30     Exposure compensation: EV    White balance: automatic

Focal length: 4mm     Aperture: f/2.0    ISO: 100      Time of exposure: 1/120   Exposure compensation: EV    White balance: automatic

 Focal length: 4mm   Aperture: f/2.0    ISO: 200      Time of exposure: 1/100   Exposure compensation: EV    White balance: automatic

Focal length: 4mm     Aperture: f/2.0    ISO: 300      Time of exposure: 1/33     Exposure compensation: EV    White balance: automatic

 Focal length: 4mm   Aperture: f/2.0    ISO: 800      Time of exposure: 1/11     Exposure compensation: EV    White balance: automatic

       Overall, the quality of the photos taken by this phone is great. For the most part, the night shots are clean with a little bit of noise.

JBL E1+ earphones 

       Since this is the JBL special edition, it is no surprise if it comes with a pair of JBL E1+ earphones which are pretty good.

Music and audio 

       Among other things, users can listen to any music online with their phone’s music player via WIFI connection. The interface resembles a vinyl record being played. It also comes with a mixer which is practical for adjusting the sound quality.

Besides an online music player, it also has a video streaming program.

       We tested out the video player using 15 1080p videos. Other than the fact that two videos do not have sound and one has a slight pause, overall, they mostly worked well.

Benchmark scores/Conclusion 

       Here, we talk about the phone’s processor, the Snapdragon 8974AC which has 2.5GHz, as well as the phone’s Adreno 330 GPU, 3GB RAM, and 16GB ROM. Here are the benchmark scores.

Antutu

3D Mark

Vellamo

       Although there were no great improvements made on the OnePlus One JBL Special Edition’s hardware the Color OS 1.2 is very easy to use. Furthermore, the sound quality has improved with the inclusion of the JBL E1+ earphones. The OnePlus One JBL Special Edition goes on sale today.

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