Saygus V2 vs. OnePlus One: Spec Off

With the recent announcement of the Saygus V2 (V-squared) came a lot of talk around the internet. A new and relatively unknown smartphone manufacturer was going out of their way to make a device that had awesome specs at low price-point. Sound familiar?

The price of the Saygus V2 was announced the other day and it will start at $549. While that seems like a bargain when comparing it to current flagships such as the iPhone 6 or Galaxy S5, it may not  be as good as you think. While Saygus is unknown in the grand scheme of things, their real competitor shouldn’t be Samsung, LG, or HTC, but rather OnePlus.

While Saygus has a high-spec, low(er) cost device, OnePlus has one as well. The OnePlus One was released mid-2014 and it featured many of the same specs and business plan as the Saygus V2. The question is, who does it better? We’ll go over both the Saygus V2 and the OnePlus in this Spec Off.

Both devices are well designed and give off a premium feel, but come in different form factors. The OnePlus One is encroaching on ‘phablet’ territory with its 5.5 inch display whereas the Saygus V2 is most comparable to the Galaxy S5, minus a few millimeters.

The OnePlus One, although larger, comes in a thinner package than the Saygus V2 by 1.2 mm, which is quite considerable. At the end of the day, it all comes up to the users opinion; both devices are designed well, but feature drastically different aesthetics.

When it comes to performance, both devices are packing the same 2.5 GHz Snapdragon 801 quad-core processor backed by 3 GB of RAM, running on nearly stock Android. Performance should be a wash between these two devices, just that the Saygus V2 comes with a couple extra goodies.

Where the Saygus V2 exceeds the OnePlus One is in the memory and camera categories. While the OnePlus One sports a 13 megapixel rear camera and 5 megapixel front camera, the Saygus V2 crushes that. The V2 comes with a massive 21 megapixel shooter in the rear and a 13 megapixel shooter in the front. The kicker here is that they both have optical image stabilization (OIS). Having a front-facing camera with OIS is unheard of, but good for Saygus for going outside of the box.

In the memory category, the OnePlus One comes with either 16 GB or 64 GB of ROM. For the price, 64 GB of ROM is great, but the only thing it lacks is the ability to expand via microSD. That is where the Saygus V2 stands out as well. The Saygus V2 not only comes with 64 GB of ROM, but it comes with dual-microSD card slots, good for up to 320 GB of total storage… crazy.

These devices share more characteristics than they differ. While they have a majority of the same specs with some extra goodies going to the Saygus V2, at the end of the day, it all comes down to price. Both of these manufacturers are new or semi-new to the smartphone game, so they convey the same message: low price, high specs.

The Saygus V2 only comes in at $549 as of now (soon to go up) and the OnePlus One starts at $299. To me, there’s no comparison in which device wins, and it all comes to the price. If the Saygus V2 came with a newer Snapdragon 805, I might lean towards that device a little more. Not saying that the Snapdragon 801 processor isn’t good enough, but it’s 2015 and Android is moving towards 64-bit architecture. I just can’t justify the extra price for two larger cameras and more storage.

Below is the spec list of both devices.