This isn't exactly an ideal solution, but it is a very fast one. Unlocking the 5T with my face was essentially instantaneous; most of the time, it felt like I was unlocking a phone with no security measures at all. Face Unlock's performance is as impressive as it is convenient, and that's exactly what the company was going for. You can't use your face to authenticate Play Store purchases or anything; situations like that still require you to use the more secure fingerprint sensor.

OnePlus also made some tweaks to its dual camera, though it's sometimes hard to tell. Once again, the 5T combines a 16-megapixel main camera and a 20-megapixel secondary camera, and that latter sensor got most of the attention. It now has an f/1.7 aperture to match the main shooter and is meant mainly to improve the phone's low-light camera performance. When things around you get dark, the phone switches into that second camera that combines multiple pixels into one, all in an attempt to make pictures look brighter than they otherwise would have. The difference is noticeable, but I wouldn't call it a game-changer.

So far, the photos I've taken with the 5T have been pretty good — I'm especially fond of some of the blurry-background portraits I've shot — but many shots are soundly outclassed by those captured with rival smartphones. Don't get me wrong, improved low-light performance is always a good thing and the 5T is occasionally capable of excellent photos. It's just that we've seen some truly incredible smartphone cameras this year. I'll need a little more time with the phone to see how well it stacks up against the competition.

Other than that, the 5T is almost identical to the phone it replaces. It's just a hair thicker, longer and wider than the 5, but these gains are so incremental they're completely unnoticeable. And yes, those eagle-eyed phone fiends were right: The 5T bears a striking resemblance to other devices, especially Oppo's R11S. OnePlus admits that it "leverages" the Oppo supply chain when it benefits the company, but insists that any similarities are purely coincidental. I'll let you be the judge of that.