Thrilled to finally have a piece of the latest flagship killer smartphone from OnePlus? Here’s the ultimate guide to the best OnePlus 5 tips and tricks to help you conquer the beast in all its glory and make the most of your brand new phone. In a market that is dominated by tech giants such as Samsung, HTC, and LG, a young brand like OnePlus debuted in an unconventional way. The first flagship killer, OnePlus One was released to counter the Galaxy S5, but priced almost half of the latter, which encouraged the brand to sell more than a million units despite the plans to sell only 50,000 units in the first year.Fast forward to 2017 where the competition continues to be fierce, OnePlus 5 has made its mark within a week of its release. While the 2017 flagship killer isn’t as affordable as its predecessors, it still manages to beat the competing flagship Android smartphones by a couple hundred.Being marked as the fastest selling device ever made by the company, it's fair to say that plenty of customers are looking for the best OnePlus 5 tips and tricks to try out on their brand new device. From the brand new dual-camera setup to the optimized OxygenOS equipped on the OnePlus 5, here are some of the most useful aspects of the device that every user should try out.
When you tap on the screen while using the camera, you’ll also notice a slider with the brightness icon appear. This slider can be used to adjust the brightness levels of the picture and locked on for the perfect shot. You’ll also notice a circular “1x” icon, a single tap of which can be used to automatically achieve 2x “lossless” zoom featured by OnePlus.Finally, the Depth effect mode can be activated by swiping to the right of the screen, which helps you get a picture similar to the portrait mode on iPhone 7 Plus. This mode helps you put the focus on a particular object and blur out the background to get a DSLR-worthy shot every time.
From the main screen of your OnePlus 5, head over to the Settings app using the app drawer or the notification screen and scroll down to find “Gestures”. Simply hit the toggle next to the gesture that you want to activate. Furthermore, you can also use on-screen gestures to draw letters and jump directly to specific apps on your device.
From the Settings menu on your OnePlus 5, scroll down to find the “Display” menu and then tap on “Reading Mode” to get started. You can either choose to toggle the feature manually or configure to be automatically activated when using certain apps. To do so, simply checkmark the apps installed on your phone and the next time you open them, the Reading Mode will kick in automatically to make the visual experience comfortable.
While you get to choose your navigation style right from the setup screen, you can choose at any time by heading over to the Settings app. Under the Buttons menu, you can toggle on the “on-screen navigation bar” and get virtual buttons right away. Moreover, you can also use the “Swap buttons” toggle to change the position of the back and recent keys from left to right and vice versa.
To set preferences for the silent and DND mode, head over to “Settings->Alert slider”, where you can access the “Silent” menu to enable or disable alarms, media sounds, and vibration when in silent mode. Similarly, head over to the “Do not disturb” menu to set up exceptions such as calls and messages from starred contacts, repeat callers, events, reminders and more.
To get the night mode activated on your OnePlus 5, head over to Settings->Display and scroll down to activate the “Night mode” toggle. From the same screen, you can automate the night mode by enabling the sunrise-to-sunset feature or set the clock yourself to have the night mode kick in during the sleepy times. You can even use the slider to adjust the blue light filter to make sure that effect is just right on your eyes.
Using the Shelf screen, you get quick access to recent apps, recent contacts, notes, weather notifications and more. By using the “+” icon on the bottom-right corner of the screen, you have the freedom to add third-party widgets to any location on the Shelf and have a bunch of shortcut features and useful information just a swipe away.
Start off by taking a screenshot like you normally would by pressing the Power and Volume Down button simultaneously. As soon as the screenshot is taken, press the button that appears at the bottom of the screenshot and the phone will automatically grab everything on the screen and scroll down automatically until it reaches the end of the page.
Head over to Settings->Status Bar and navigate to the “Icon Manager”, which holds a list of all the elements that pop up on the status bar. From this menu, you can choose to select or deselect icons for alarms, mobile data, Wi-Fi, volume, NFC, VoLTE and many others from showing up on the status bar of your smartphone.
To get started with the tweaking, head over to Settings->Display->Screen Calibration where you will be able to see the Default, sRGB, and Custom color options. You can switch between the first couple of options and preview the changes, or use “Custom color” to make the colors warmer or cooler using the slider and find your visual sweet spot.
Just head over to the calculator app on your OnePlus 5, type in “1+” and hit the “=” sign. We’ll keep the outcome a surprise for you to try out for yourself and enjoy the little nugget of fun hidden in the OxygenOS by OnePlus.What is your absolute favorite software tweak or hardware feature that makes OnePlus 5 the official flagship killer of 2017? Did we miss out on any of the best OnePlus 5 tips and tricks that deserve to be on the list? Make sure to mention it in the comments below and start your very own OnePlus 5 discussion thread on the Updato Forum right now.
What's my model number?
There are several ways to locate your model number:
- Option 1
- On your device, go to Settings, then "About device" and scroll down to "Model number"
- Option 2
- Often times you can view the model number inside the device, by removing the battery
- Option 3
- Using Samsung's model/serial number location tool