It’s not just their price tags, but the new OnePlus 5T can easily fit into the Google Nexus 6P boots, a phone that many have found out that it’s close to impossible to replace.
The Huawei-made Google Nexus 6P was unveiled in 2015 and up to today, many who rock it haven’t even thought about the idea of replacing it. Yes, there have been significant cases of people whose Nexus 6P handsets have been giving them nightmares. Whether it’s the bootloop issue or the battery issues, the phone has had a fair share of problems. Some have been forced to move to the pricier Pixels while others have been forced out of the Nexus/Pixel ecosystem due to the new phones’ steeper cost.
As for those lucky enough to have never experienced any major issues with their Google Nexus 6P handsets, there’s truly no reason to start looking at the new OnePlus 5T. This is because at its best, the Nexus 6P is still one of the best phones you can own and even though the newer and more powerful hardware on the 5T easily blows it away, there’s more to owning a Google device compared to a OnePlus phone.
All said and done, the Google Nexus 6P is not immortal. At some point the thing is going to die and you’ll need to look around the market for an alternative that can fit the 6P’s shoe. If that time is now, the OnePlus 5T should be without a doubt your first starting point, unless you are okay with shelling out more than $650 for the Pixel XL, which gives you a similar software experience, but with slightly older hardware compared to the 5T.
The Google Nexus 6P launched with a price tag of $499. For this, the phone offered a 5.7-inch QHD AMOLED display screen, a Snapdragon 810 processor, 3GB RAM and 32GB of storage. The battery running the show is a decent 3450mAh unit that supports fast charging technology via a USB-C port. Although a single 12.3MP unit, the Nexus 6P’s camera remains to be one of the best to date, even when compared to the OG 5, which has a 16MP+20MP dual setup that has been retained on the OnePlus 5T, but the 20MP lens is now optimized for low-light performance rather than working as a telephoto lens.
The specs and features found on the Nexus 6P are the same ones that appeared on 2015 Android flagship phones, most of which were priced at $650 and beyond. The specs and features found on the OnePlus 5T are the same ones you’ll find on other 2017 flagship phones, most of which can be purchased for $700 and above, with others like the Galaxy Note 8 and Google Pixel 2 XL valued at close to $1000.
The only major difference between the OnePlus 5T and Google Nexus 6P is the software experience. Still, the former’s OxygenOS is one of the few skins that are close to Google’s take on Android and chances are that you’ll enjoy the minimal tweaks to the UI. Besides, like the Nexus 6P, it’s very easy to unlock the 5T’s bootloader and install a custom ROM of your choice. Since the two are years apart, the 5T is significantly more powerful than the 6P, which essentially means you’ll be paying the same amount you paid for the 6P back in 2015, but getting an insanely fast phone that will last more years than the 6P would have managed.
With the Snapdragon 835 SoC, at least 6GB RAM and 64GB ROM, OnePlus 5T will still be a beast of a phone two years on. Unfortunately, the company has said that even though the phone will receive Android 8.1 Oreo, Project Treble won’t be part of it. The good side of the story is that OnePlus has been showing good commitment towards software updates, which is why last year’s OnePlus 3 and 3T are the only non-Google phones to have received a stable Oreo OTA.