OnePlus captivated consumers by producing one of the top phones of 2014, after ticking us off with the silliest invite system ever. Wait, I promised my therapist I would move on. Anyway, users and reviewers wondered could OnePlus achieve success again in 2015, with a multitude of amazing devices launched by the likes of Apple, Samsung, LG, and Motorola, just to name a few. Well, I am here to say OnePlus again stole my heart. Once you get past the self-proclaimed and overpromising Flagship Killer moniker, you realize this company possesses a firm gripe on what consumers want. This shows evident the OnePlus 2. In my opinion, arguably one of the best phones of the year and well worth purchasing.
TAKING THE TOP OFF: THE UNBOXING
Unlike last year’s OnePlus unboxing, the OnePlus 2 provides a more suitable, albeit still electrifying experience. Differing from last year’s pull-out jacket approach, this year we are greeted with a simple but stylish pull-off design. In their signature red and white stylization, we are met by a rectangular box with adorning lettering, and an impressive etch-on I can only describe as company’s new “infinity” logo. On the back, we observe the normal FCC, IMEI, and Company information regarding your particular phone identifications. Once again, the idea of simple but still very stylish comes to mind.
Upon removing the top covering, we are greeted to the phone in all its glory, enclosed in a protective plastic sleeve with the wording “ONEPLUS 2”, “NEVER SETTLE”, and the button layout indicator etchings. Underneath the device, we come upon a red jacket and inside we will find our normal array of Quick Start Guides and Manuals, which we all can’t wait to read thoroughly. Just joking! Below the manuals, are the white cutouts housing our USB type-connector cable and power adapter.
As previously stated, this unboxing experience shows OnePlus understands stylish does not need to be extravagant to enjoy. It was simple but definitely not understated.
THE ENTREE: HARDWARE, SPECIFICATIONS, AND DISPLAY
Getting back to the device, we see a gorgeous all black 5.98” overall size, with a premium looking dark grey metal band surrounding the phone frame. We find our standard 3.5mm headphone jack on top with a noise cancelling microphone and antenna, our volume up-and-down buttons with accompanying power button to the right. On back is the 13MP camera with dual-LED flash and laser optical sensor, the newly embedded fingerprint sensor/home button positioned below the display, and two grills on the bottom serving as our speaker and a secondary microphone, along with the USB Type-C port. On the front of the device we have our earpiece, ambient light sensor, LED notification light, and 5MP front camera. But one of the newest, and in my opinion, best features added is the alert slider on the left side. I know Android has software inclusions to turn notifications on or off, and also enter the phone into a silent mode, but having a dedicated button for such activities was an admirable add-on. I hope we see this in many future OnePlus devices, as well as other manufacturers should consider this a necessary inclusion. I only used it a handful of times during my testing period, but still, a very welcome addition. Much as other reviewers mentioned, no NFC is present, so this puts a damper on possible use when Android Pay and other electronic transfers becomes norm. It was not a big deal to me, as I very seldom use it anyway, but in a supposed flagship killer, there really is no excuse for its omission.
Powering the OnePlus 2 is a Quad-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 (version 2) chipset (four Cortex high-powered A-53 and four low-powered A-57), coupled with an Adreno 430 and 4GB of RAM for the 64GB variant and 3GB of RAM for the 16GB variant. A little off topic, but it fascinates me manufacturers produce 16GB variants. Really? 16GB? What am I supposed to do with 16GB? Really! In my opinion, 16GB, with no SD card expansion, should be a crime against humanity! I digress, though. Also included is GPS/GLONASS, all bands of 802.11 Wi-Fi are present, Bluetooth version 4.1, USB Type-C, dual-SIM card tray (nano-SIMs). I found the performance to be more than expected for such a reasonable priced device.
Multi-tasking was a breeze with no aggressive app closings, thanks in part to the 4GB of RAM, and I enjoyed an overall fluid experience. There were a few hick-ups in daily usage, but much of that can be attributed more to flaws in the Oxygen OS software we will discuss in the next section. All-in-all, I was pleasantly pleased with the functionality and found my self enjoying web browsing, playing games, viewing videos, even writing articles, and using GPS to get around town. Without a doubt, I would give the hardware a solid “A”. Additionally, the fingerprint/home button was such a welcome addition. It is quick and easy to setup, and very responsive in its dual function. I found myself playing with it because how fascinatingly cool it was. I would not say it’s the fastest, I would give that honor to either the iPhone 6s or Nexus 6p, but the OnePlus 2 possesses one of the better ones. I also found the overheating issues of the infamous 810 chipset to be very minimal. Did the device get hot? No. Did it get warm? Sometimes when doing when heavy multi-tasking or playing graphically intensive games, but I applauded OnePlus for turning a con into a pro. Kudos! Call quality and reception were also high points as calls sounded very clear with little to no distortion, and speaker levels were well above acceptable levels. The speaker quality showed very capable during my testing period. I will never be an advocate for bottom speakers as too many shenanigans can happen (i.e. covering while playing games or videos in landscape) but the volume was on-par with other quality devices. Kudos once again, OnePlus!
Battery life proved an inconsistent aspect of an otherwise fantastic experience. I know other reviews report solid but not spectacular battery life, but I have to dispute those. My usage was hit-or-miss, with typical usage of 3-1/2 to 4 hours of moderate on-screen usage being close to normal. I did get over 6 hours of talk time (on a full charge); and yes, I am a teenage high schoolgirl from the 80s who still likes to talk on the phone for 6-plus hours. One interesting aspect of an inconsistent feature was I did get outstanding standby times. There was a Monday; I put the phone away to test another device, accidentally leaving it on after full charging. I did not even know it was on until that Thursday afternoon I heard the “low-battery” chirp. Really impressive if you ask me, but overall, I would give battery life a “C+” for inconsistency. Software updates to either Oxygen OS, or an upgrade to Android Marshmallow may rectify this problem, but be wary, for now.
Moving onto the display, I have but three words to describe it, “de-lic-ious”, I’m done. We observe a gorgeous 5.5” IPS display with a stunning 1080p (1080 x 1920, 401 ppi) resolution covered in Gorilla Glass 4. Kudos once again to OnePlus, as this display is incredible. When first observing, I honestly thought it was a Quad-HD display because of the vividness and great color rendering. I was dumbfounded when a colleague corrected me, but you see the point. Essentially, it is the same display used on the OnePlus One, but the designers did a marvelous job adjusting internal brightness and saturation levels. Looking at such a great display made the daily tasks that much more enjoyable. Kudos all around!
TELL ME MORE: SOFTWARE AND CAMERA
After the public and confusing breakup between OnePlus and Cyanogen, OnePlus was left to produce their own in-house software overlay. Queue Oxygen OS for its grand unveil! In general, I was pleased with the skin as it offered several usable features devoid in stock Android. Upon first use, it had some minor glitches including force closes of the installed messaging app, periodic non-responsiveness of the fingerprint reader, and the occasional sluggishness of memory intensive apps, to name a few. The reason these did not deter my overall satisfaction is OnePlus has been diligent pushing software updates out regularly to improve performance. So what started as often buggy and frustrating quickly turned into delightful.
If you are like me, you like to change the look of your device daily. If so, you will be elated with this mamma-jamma. Much like its predecessor, the OP2 includes several software options to change the theme, stylizations of the keyboard, adjust hardware button layout and operations, adjusting the design in the settings menu, and those are just a few tweaks. I say this seriously, if it on the phone, you have the ability to tweak it, and I really enjoy such options. It goes without saying, but I never had a dull moment playing with the customizable options. Truly, it felt like using a new device each day.
As I mention in every review, I am not much of a camera aficionado, so take my review of the camera lightly. In great lighting, I was quite impressed with the solid contrast and great detail. Additionally, the focusing proved a high point, thanks in part to the laser autofocus. Taking a shot was incredibly fluid, simple and relatively fast. Low light shots were okay with the dual-LED helping out. In general, picture quality was a solid “B”. Video was also impressive, but I did find myself frustrated by the constant auto focusing. I am not sure if this was something I was doing wrong or if it just a software issue, but I did get a little annoyed. Quality of video was actually nice. You definitely won’t make J.J. Abrahams (cheap Star Wars plug) jealous because of the quality, but the videos will be crisp and pleasurable to view.
My biggest gripe focuses around video ease of usage. There is far too many swipe up or swipe in gestures, which are similar to initiating other application functions. Often, I would swipe up or in to change a camera/video function, and all of a sudden my notification drop-down would show up, or the settings menu would initiate, little things like that. Nonetheless, I feel with continued usage, this would turn from a minor annoyance to skillful mastery.
BRING IT ON HOME: CONCLUSION AND FINAL THOUGHTS
In concluding this review, let’s look at the facts about the OnePlus 2: upper-end specs, great design and build, solid software experience, great hardware and software customizations, and a thoroughly appealing price tag. Without a doubt, this is one of my top 15 devices of 2015. Is it future proof? More or less. Is it a flagship killer? Nope. What it does achieve is it is a great device, with a great price point, you will not regret you purchased. As I always answer “…who is this for…”, and I can honestly say I would recommend this to anyone. There really is something here everyone will like with few sacrifices. Unless you just require a phone with all the top-notch bells-and-whistles, you will be very pleased. Much like the OnePlus One, the OnePlus 2 walks a marvelous line of providing a great experience and impressive specifications with a minimal price tag.
JA3Tech 