Love reading? This OnePlus 5 feature is something you can't ignore

Now we all know that the OnePlus 5 is officially unveiled globally and in India. While our team has done the OnePlus 5 review soon after the global launch, I got to spend some time with the device after it debuted here in India.

I tried to explore each corner of phone to be able to identify what makes it one of the much sought-after smartphone today. I was impressed with the level of refinements and features popped in the OxygenOS, but the one I loved the most is the new ‘Reading Mode’. It may look insignificant, but it found it pretty unique and useful.

What is Reading Mode on OnePlus 5?

It’s simply a display filter that imitates the e-paper display we see on the e-books and e-readers like Amazon Kindle. I used the word imitate because it doesn’t work on the same principles as the e-readers. When you turn this mode on, the display goes greyscale. To turn on the reading mode, you just have to go to the display settings and tap the toggle switch on Reading Mode.

How is it different from e-readers?

To understand this better, let’s take an example of Amazon Kindle. While both the display mimic paper-like appearance, the e-paper display reflects light just like paper. It lacks a backlight, and hence it requires an external light source in order for you to read anything. 

On the other hand, the OnePlus 5 has a emissive (with a backlight) display. So, it just adjusts the screen’s colour to greyscale and eliminates blue light. It is quite similar to how Apple uses its True Tone feature on the iPad Pro.

Is it really useful?

 Yes, it is for someone like me. I do a lot of reading on my phone and this feature is felt like something I was waiting for. Not just this, it also reduces the risk of sleep deprivation as blue light is said to be a major cause behind sleeplessness for many people. 

With so many devices around, we are readily exposed to multiple screens emitting colours and different shades of lights. We find ourselves staring at the screen in front of us –which could be a smartphone, a laptop or a TV. All this has led to several complications that were inexistent few years back. OnePlus makes an effort to fix a real problem and it looks great as yet.

So much so that I find it something that should be on every phone. Not because it helps in reading but it’s also about the fact that it alters the way you look at your smartphone. Once you turn this mode on, your smartphone automatically starts looking homely, and the level of distraction automatically goes down.

There are times when I jump into gallery to roll over pictures and videos or even playing a game. I was worried if I’ll have to turn Reading Mode on or off, especially when I want to use apps which require coloured screen, but OnePlus was smart enough to tackle this.

You can select the apps you want to use with the Reading Mode on. If you have switched on the Reading Mode for all the apps, there’s still some apps like gallery and camera that smoothly fill back the colour and again, this makes sense.

OnePlus had its shot to take the “night modes” on the smartphones a notch higher, and hits the bulls eye.

Sudhanshu Singh

Sudhanshu Singh have been working in tech journalism as a reporter, writer, editor, and reviewer for over 5 years. He has reviewed hundreds of products ranging across categories and have also written opinions, guides, feature articles, news, and analysis. Ditching the norm of armchair journalism in tech media, Sudhanshu dug deep into how emerging products and services affect actual users, and what marks they leave on our cultural landscape.
His areas of expertise along with writing and editing include content strategy, daily operations, product and team management.