Baiting with a click: Is OnePlus 5's camera a good reason to buy the phone?

Cameras in smartphones have gone from being average to great companions for avid photographers. If you take flagship smartphones such as Samsung Galaxy S8, Google Pixel, HTC U11, Apple iPhone 7 Plus and Sony Xperia XZ Premium into consideration, these phones have surpassed the average level of photography by leaps and bounds.

But high-end smartphones that offer great cameras come at a price, which is not affordable to many. For this reason, brands like OnePlus, Honor and Xiaomi are taken into active consideration, which challenge major smartphone leaders at considerably lower price tags.

As we are in the process of reviewing one of the most talked about smartphones of the year – the OnePlus 5 – there's some new information that is essential to those planning to buy the phone. DxO, which is popular for its photography benchmark – DxoMark, has finally published its review of the OnePlus 5's camera.

In March, OnePlus announced its partnership with DxO, but there was no DxOMark reference at the launch of OnePlus 5 last month, which was quite surprising. DxOMark scores for almost all the latest smartphones, ranging from iPhone 7 to Samsung Galaxy S8, are out, and Thursday's review of OnePlus 5 by DxOMark finally pits the so-called "flagship killer" against its biggest rivals.

OnePlus 5 has scored 87 for photos and 86 for videos on DxOMark review, which is impressive. This is achieved with OnePlus 5's dual camera featuring a 16MP sensor with f/1.7 aperture 24mm lens paired with 20MP secondary sensor with f/2.6 36mm lens. This setup also helps provide depth of field effects.

For OnePlus, cameras have always been a weak link, but its phones have always performed at par with major flagships. The launch of OnePlus 5 was expected to change that with top-notch camera sensors to maintain a perfect balance of colour and white balance in all lighting conditions.

DxOMark review of OnePlus 5's camera partially agrees to that, but highlighted some setbacks such as loss of details in outdoor and low-light conditions and occasional ghosting effect in outdoor conditions. But these are just a few cons as compared to several strong elements of the OnePlus 5's camera.

When pitted against rivals Samsung Galaxy S8 and Google Pixel, OnePlus 5 failed to impress on more than one occasion. In comparison, HTC U11, Samsung Galaxy S8 and Google Pixel score higher than OnePlus 5 at 88, 89 and 90, respectively. But OnePlus 5's score isn't too bad at all. It still managed to beat iPhone 7 and LG V20.

OnePlus 5 shares the same score as Huawei P10, Moto Z Force Droid, Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+, Sony Xperia XZ and the Sony Xperia Z5. Considering the phone's price and other top-notch features like 8 GB RAM and a Snapdragon 835 chipset, you cannot go wrong with this phone as long as you keep your camera expectations within OnePlus 5's bounds.

Here are a few sample photos we shot using OnePlus 5:

Source: DxOMark