Manufacturer OnePlus have outdone themselves once again. The OnePlus 2 is a flagship killer that is really really hard to get hold of.
The OnePlus 2 is one of this year’s best, and boldest, smartphones. It’s not just a radical designed phone, no sir, it’s the whole package. Quite frankly, it’s a remarkable device. It would have been this year’s best smartphone, price to value ratio, if it weren’t for that horrible invite system.
More on that later on.
The base model costs $329, and the next in line, which has more RAM and more storage space retails at $389. It’s a flagship killer because it simply destroys $700 smartphones like the HTC One M9 and the LG4.
Exactly like last year’s OnePlus One, the next gen device is ready for a fight.
OnePlus 2 Review
Amazing price to value ratio, it has an elegant and classy screen tone, a reliable fingerprint scanner and an almost excellent camera image quality.
The thing is, their invite system is just painstakingly horrible. Getting hold of the device means that you either a) have all of the Greek pantheon on your side, or b) you’re just incredibly lucky.
OnePlus 2 specs
- 5.5-inch 1080p screen;
- Snapdragon 810 proc;
- 3 or 4 gigs of RAM;
- 16 or 64 gigs of storage space;
- Dual SIM;
- Almost excellent camera;
- 3,300mAh battery.
OnePlus 2 Design
When you first lay your eyes on it, the OnePlus 2 won’t feel like anything special. Considering it’s manufactured by a company that is borderline unknown in the mobile industry, you could be prone that it comes packed with a design that shocks and awes.
The OnePlus 2 isn’t designed to be sold off of shelves. You can only acquire it directly from OnePlus and the odd importer here and there – Amazon also lists the OnePlus 2 but at a stupid-expensive price of $500 plus. Don’t spend more than $400 for the high-end model.
Anyway.
The thing is, you need an invite to be allowed to pay for the device. As I write, these invites aren’t that easy to receive.
Sure, it’s a strategy to increase its hype and anticipation by limiting stock. But consider the middle-man retailer here. If somebody else was in the middle, let’s say Verizon, you can bet your sweet tush that the OnePlus 2 would definitely not cost $329.
But enough with marketing.
When you hold the OnePlus 2 next to the HTC One M9 and LG G4, it isn’t overshadowed but it doesn’t necessarily excel. It’s just a phone that feels great in the palm of your hand.
The original OnePlus One was built out of plastic, mostly anyway. The next gen smartphone also has plastic bits and pieces here and there, but its sides are made out of magnesium alloy. It gives an aluminium feel, which makes it pretty cool to the touch.
Magnesium alloy is also slightly lighter than aluminium, but this doesn’t make the OnePlus 2 light. In fact, the phone weighs about 175 grams. That is 20 grams heavier than the LG G4. Nothing worth fussing over about.
Moreover, because after the initial weight-shock, and comments about how it’s meatier than most phones on the market, you’ll completely disregard its surplus and fall in love with what it can do.
If you have petite hands, just like me, then you’ll have some issues holding it with one hand, but not something that I consider to be a deal breaker. If you do have minuscule handsies, the OnePlus 2 allows you to tweak how reachable soft keys are – you can switch between hardware soft keys and software ones.
Also, you can easily relocate the back and recent apps keys.
However, if you’re looking for something really slim, then I don’t think the OnePlus 2 will satisfy your needs. It’s 9.9 millimeters thick.
OnePlus 2 Covers, Connections
Mostly, it resembles the OnePlus One, but it does have its random moments when it feels unusual. Mainly because of the magnesium alloy that gives it that weird, futuristic vibe. The back mirrors the OnePlus one – it’s fuzzy and a little rough.
It sports a high-friction build-material and I’m quite shocked that no other mobile manufacturer has adopted it – it’s been present since the OnePlus One. The thing is, sometimes, it feels like you’re holding a shaved puppy.
If you don’t fancy this, you can pick other covers for about 30 bucks a pop. Including kevlar and wood materials. I found the kevlar cover to be the best pick out of all of them.
The phone’s back can be easily peeled with your fingers. It won’t give you access to its battery, but you’ll have an open door for the dual SIM slots.
You won’t find a microSD card slot, so I recommend you go with the more expensive model that features 64 gigs of storage space. Also, the OnePlus 2 is not waterproofed.
You have one button on the left side of the phone that turns all notifications off except those who have priority. It’s an easy way to silence you phone, but at the same time, allowing phone calls to go through.
It doesn’t have a microUSB socket, instead, it features a USB-C slot.
The benefit? Everything is going the USB-C way. The downside? Throw out all your other cables because they won’t work with the OnePlus 2. You won’t have the Speedy Gonzales USB 3.0, and to be honest, I have mixed feelings regarding USB-C.
USB-C is reliable and I haven’t found its fault, but I don’t see its point.
OnePlus 2 Fingerprint Scanner
An impressive piece of hardware is the fingerprint scanner. OnePlus takes tips from Apple’s iPhone Touch ID sensor, and Samsung Galaxy’s S6 scanner. You’ll find it located just under the Home key, on the front of the device.
You aren’t required to swipe your finger all over the place. You just need to hold it there for a few of seconds and voila. Indeed, it is slower than what you would find in an iPhone 6 scanner, but it is as reliable. It can store up to five fingerprints.
OnePlus 2 Screen
It has a big 5.5-inch screen. It’s larger than the iPhone 6, HTC One M9 and the Samsung Galaxy S6. Display quality is excellent.
Screen type? The trifecta of excellency – LTPS, IPS and LCD.
Because of the LCD, the OnePlus 2 won’t have the same dark as night black color scheme as Samsung’s S6 OLED. Still, it’s above the decent standard. More so, the backlight and contrast are comparable with high-end smartphones.
In a normal darkened room setting, its quality becomes obvious – it can’t output the same backlight as the S6’s OLED. In a normal lit room setting, you won’t see a difference.
The IPS gives the OnePlue 2 incredible view angels, with just a few losses of brightness here and there. Colors are pleasant and full of life. I’m happy to announce that this device doesn’t have an overly saturated palette. I’ve seen some pretty nasty devices in my time.
Instead, it takes a more relaxed approach. There are no reds that pinch your eye sockets, and there are no weird shades present. I can honestly compare it to the iPhone 6. Pleasant and comfortable for viewing purposes.
The LTPS, which is another screen architecture, helps the phone cut down on how much power its display uses. This equates to more battery life.
Tones are warm, and colors seem natural. That’s what you must look for in a smartphone. It has a shocking 401ppi density that rivals the one, pixel by pixel, found in the iPhone 6 Plus. It’s 1080p display is just superb.
The LG G4 and Samsung Galaxy S6 are better and have a higher pixel density counter because they use QHD. Noticeable? Just barely when up-close. Remember, you’re paying under $400.
Corning Gorilla Glass 4 encompasses the display and brings top-notch brightness. The OnePlus 2 isn’t a fingerprint magnet, and because of GG 4, it’s somewhat scratch proof. This doesn’t mean you can smash it without consequences – please, behave yourself sir, or madame.
However, the auto-brightness setting needs a little bit more polishing. Maybe in the next gen OnePlus. It does work, well enough, but it makes the screen too bright when you are indoors, and it doesn’t react that well when you go outside.
Bottom line, the display is to die for.
OnePlus 2 Android, Oxygen OS
The OnePlus 2 is more than capable of running Android 5.1 Lollipop, and the following Marshmallow. It has the Oxygen UI on top of it all. What does this mean? Well, it’s just a custom user interface with lots of features – some more covert than others.
It will look, and feel, exactly like your usual Android 5.1 Lollipop, with a ton of new features for power users. It sports a Nexus-like style.
One additional feature than you won’t find on your usual Android 5.1 device is Shelf. It’s basically an extra home-screen where you can add your most used apps, contacts, widgets and the likes. It’s not that great, but I got the feeling that OnePlus will update it in the following 12 months so you could actually use it without thinking it’s useless.
Oxygen gives users customization possibilities. You can make your phone fit you, not the other way around.
You can switch menu system color schemes, switch between software and hardware soft keys, or simply alter whatever icon sets there are for installed apps. This might seem overwhelming at first, but even a non-geeky user will find his way easily.
OnePlus 2 Performance
OnePlus 2 doesn’t fall short when it comes to performance. Android Lollipop also helps it run better in this area.
It runs smooth as silk with no lag issues.
The Snapdragon 810 proc, which is currently the high-end chipset from Qualcomm, ensures that the OnePlus 2 runs as as flagship phone. It has an octa-core CPU comprised of four 1.8GHz Cortex-A57 cores and another four, less powerful, Cortex-A53 cores. The Adreno 430 GPU makes the smartphone capable of running everything on the Play Store.
The main issue is heat. Complaints have arisen, mostly on internet forums, regarding the Qualcomm octa-core CPU. The consensus is that OnePlus should have gone with the weaker MediaTek Helio X10 chipset.
The OnePlus 2 gets quite warm without provoking it too much. Normal web browsing will make the top half warm, even if it’s for 10 minutes. Yet, OnePlus have put some safety nets in place so that their smartphone doesn’t reach molten lava levels.
The Snapdragon 810, while not the best regarded proc out there, is a good component that fits the OnePlus 2. It’s paired with 4 gigs of DDR4 RAM, which is just excellent. Most flagship smartphones use DDR3.
OnePlus 2 Camera
The OnePlus 2’s camera is super. The camera app? Not so much.
For 329 bucks, it’s quite shocking that it has a rear facing 13 mexapixel camera unit, and that the front one sports 5-mp. But you should never trust these numbers, because even the cheapest phones can carry a 8 megapixel camera.
The thing is, for this kind of money, the sensor is just excellent. It’s not even made by Sony, which makes the majority of sensors for smartphones.This one is built by Omnivision. Never heard of them until now, but its known as top-dog in China-made phones.
It features dual LED flash, later-assisted focusing and optical image stabilization. It doesn’t compete with the S6 or LG G4 in this department, but it outputs great quality.
However, the thing that most disappoints me is the awful camera app – which might just be a launch bug. Fingers crossed.
Why is it so bad? Because it’s based on the standard Android camera app that doesn’t have a smart UI. It lags a little bit and zooming isn’t well, working as it should. It feels lackluster when compared with everything else.
OnePlus 2 Battery Life
Huge amounts of stamina, insane amounts I might add. I found it to last approximately two days between charges. On a continuous 720p loop it reaches the half-day mark. Intensive use breaks it to 24 hours plus.
It’s somewhat similar to what you can find in a Samsung Galaxy S6. Also, it’s better than the LG G4 and the HTC One M9.
OnePlus 2 Sound, Call Quality
In this area you will find decent quality elements. They are not exceptional in any way. Call quality is clear, with random noise present. Good thing this isn’t often at all.
The call speaker is also clear, and the secondary mic found on the top edge provides active noise cancellation when you’re speaking to someone.
But it doesn’t have that sound that just punches your ear hole, like flagship phones sport.
You can find a single speaker on the bottom of the phone. It’s mediocre, with respectable high volume. It can cope in the kitchen or when you’re taking a shower. Listening to music or podcasts won’t offer an excellent experience, but not a horrible one either. It’s just mediocre.
OnePlus 2 Verdict
Should you buy the OnePlus2?
Yes. A thousand times yes, over and over again. For $389 it’s a steal. Price to value ratio is fantastic. The camera needs a little bit more polish, however, but that’s going to most likely be patched through an update by OnePlus.
You don’t have a microSD slot but you get 64 gigs of storage space.
OnePlus 2 Price – $329 or $389
Go buy it if you have an invite.
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