OnePlus X review: Straight Up

Performance

The OnePlus X runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 chipset with 3GB of LPDDR3 RAM. On paper, this might not seem so exciting but again, this isn't exactly a flagship device. Plus we've seen the Snapdragon 801-powered smartphones to still hold high positions in our benchmark charts.

GeekBench 3 shows multi-core performance of the four Krait 400 cores is expectedly behind the competition, which relies on octa-core processors. The Galaxy A5, which has a quad-core Cortex-A53 CPU is the only inferior device. And while the OnePlus X has the same chipset as the original OnePlus One, its processors is down 200MHz and thus the score difference.

GeekBench 3

Higher is better

• Meizu MX5
  5110
• Sony Xperia M5 Dual
  3554
• Huawei P8
  3380
• Xiaomi Mi 4c
  3321
• HTC One A9
  3209
• Oppo R7 (retail)
  2683
• OnePlus One
  2663
• OnePlus X
  2297
• Samsung Galaxy A5
  1460

The compound AnTuTu benchmark puts the OnePlus X in the middle, right by the HTC One A9 side, which is also about right (Snapdragon 617). The top three devices offer much better and modern chipsets.

AnTuTu 5

Higher is better

• Huawei P8
  50876
• Xiaomi Mi 4c
  50875
• Meizu MX5
  48915
• HTC One A9
  40631
• OnePlus X
  39990
• Sony Xperia M5 Dual
  38786
• Oppo R7
  29452
• Samsung Galaxy A5
  21581

BaseMark OS II 2.0 compound test gauges lots of stuff including processing power, graphics, system, web and memory. The OnePlus X overall score is just as great as the S808-powered Xiaomi Mi 4i and the Helio X10 powered Meizu MX5. This clearly shows the S801 is still quite a relevant platform.

Basemark OS 2.0

Higher is better

• Meizu MX5
  1252
• Xiaomi Mi 4c
  1233
• OnePlus One
  1230
• OnePlus X
  1213
• Huawei P8
  1112
• HTC One A9
  944
• Sony Xperia M5 Dual
  860
• Oppo R7
  757
• Samsung Galaxy A5
  569

The CPU breakdown of the BaseMark 2.0 test clearly demonstrate the dominance of the Krait processor among the single-core performance, but it lags behind the octa-core setups when it comes to all-round CPU stress test.

Basemark OS 2.0 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi 4c
  5739
• OnePlus X
  5118
• OnePlus One
  5108
• Huawei P8
  3684
• Meizu MX5
  3262
• HTC One A9
  2753
• Oppo R7
  2452
• Sony Xperia M5 Dual
  2065
• Samsung Galaxy A5
  1861

Basemark OS 2.0 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Huawei P8
  23676
• Meizu MX5
  22976
• OnePlus One
  19625
• HTC One A9
  19160
• OnePlus X
  16983
• Xiaomi Mi 4c
  14276
• Oppo R7
  9755
• Sony Xperia M5 Dual
  7891
• Samsung Galaxy A5
  7492

Adreno 330 was considered a flagship GPU among the 2014 smartphones and it sure behaves fabulously under 1080p display, such is the case with the OnePlus X. It lacks native support for OpenGL ES 3.1, which makes the Adreno 330 not as future-proof as we would have liked.

Anyway, the Adreno 330 does very good on the offscreen and onscreen test, outdone only by the new Adreno 418 in the S808 (Xiaomi Mi 4c) and the PowerVR G6200 in the MediaTek's Helio X10 (Meizu MX5, Xperia M5).

GFX 2.7 T-Rex (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi 4c
  35
• OnePlus One
  28.3
• Meizu MX5
  27
• Sony Xperia M5 Dual
  23
• OnePlus X
  22
• HTC One A9
  16
• Oppo R7
  15
• Huawei P8
  10
• Samsung Galaxy A5
  5.3

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi 4c
  15
• OnePlus One
  12.1
• Meizu MX5
  10
• OnePlus X
  9.9
• Sony Xperia M5 Dual
  8.4
• HTC One A9
  6.4
• Oppo R7
  5.9
• Huawei P8
  5.4
• Samsung Galaxy A5
  1.8

GFX 2.7 T-Rex (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi 4c
  35
• OnePlus One
  30
• Meizu MX5
  27
• Sony Xperia M5 Dual
  24
• OnePlus X
  23
• HTC One A9
  17
• Oppo R7
  15
• Huawei P8
  10.7
• Samsung Galaxy A5
  9.6

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi 4c
  15
• OnePlus One
  12.9
• OnePlus X
  10
• Meizu MX5
  9.5
• Sony Xperia M5 Dual
  8.7
• HTC One A9
  6.7
• Oppo R7
  5.9
• Huawei P8
  5.7
• Samsung Galaxy A5
  3.9

BaseMark X is another GPU benchmark, which surprisingly puts the OnePlus X's Adreno 330 around the top of the chart. The OnePlus One is taking the first spot here, but its GPU is probably be running at a slightly higher clock and thus the difference.

Basemark X

Higher is better

• OnePlus One
  13129
• Xiaomi Mi 4c
  12096
• OnePlus X
  10572
• Meizu MX5
  10403
• Sony Xperia M5 Dual
  7780
• HTC One A9
  6617
• Huawei P8
  6307
• Oppo R7
  5382
• Samsung Galaxy A5
  1897

Finally, we ran the JavaScript Kraken bench and the compound BrowserMark 2.1 test on the Chrome browser of the OnePlus X. The device demonstrated great capabilities on both tests.

Kraken 1.1

Lower is better

• Xiaomi Mi 4c
  4506
• OnePlus One
  7008
• OnePlus X
  7295
• HTC One A9
  11069
• Oppo R7
  11257
• Meizu MX5
  11414
• Huawei P8
  11867
• Samsung Galaxy A5
  13083
• Sony Xperia M5 Dual
  25088

BrowserMark 2.1

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi 4c
  2113
• HTC One A9
  1562
• Meizu MX5
  1471
• Oppo R7
  1433
• OnePlus X
  1406
• OnePlus One
  1339
• Sony Xperia M5 Dual
  1203
• Samsung Galaxy A5
  1171
• Huawei P8
  764

The OnePlus X is actually quite impressive in terms of performance. Snapdragon 801 might seem long in the tooth now but being an 800 series chipset it still packs a punch and handily blows the Snapdragon 615 (Oppo R7), seen on some of the rival devices, out of the water. The phone worked smoothly and apps ran quickly. The overall performance during our review process was definitely impressive and assuming it is able to maintain that over a period it shouldn't be a cause for concern to anyone.