OnePlus 2, what’s been touted as their 2016 Flagship Killer by the company has finally been launched. While the specs of the phone fail to outdo some of the current flagships, at least in terms of sheer processing power, it’s right there with the best, and outclasses them with its monstrous 4GB memory. More importantly, OnePlus have focused on a snappy, seamless experience more than only specs. A “holistic product experience”, apparently is more important for the company than specs. “A great product should make its users forget about specs”, OnePlus believes.
While not the most blazingly fast handset out there, the OnePlus 2 boasts a refined balance between hardware and software, which would make it instantly popular among the fans, just like its predecessor. More than anything, we are happy that the good blokes at OnePlus have addressed the most common complaint about the OnePlus One – the camera. While the back shooter is still just 13 megapixels, the quality, as per the initial reports has shot through the roof and the inclusion of the LG G4 style laser focus makes the camera of the OnePlus 2 one of the fastest, most advanced electronic eyes out there. And we haven’t even mentioned the optical image stabilisation yet. Kudos, OnePlus, for keeping the faith of your ever increasing fan base.
So after creating a sketch of the phone for you, we would like to delve a bit deeper into its design, performance and specs, talking about various aspects one by one. Let’s get this in-depth analysis rolling with the design first
Design
The OnePlus One shuns the relatively plasticky shell of its forebear to adopt a metallic chassis. While that may have increased the weight of the phone by a small margin, there’s no denying the quality feel about the new model. It feels built-to-last and made with great care and finesse. Not that the OnePlus One was a lousily made product, but the One Plus 2 has a quality feel about it, which should leave the top dogs in the premium area mighty concerned.
Most of the new phone’s chassis is made of aluminium, though we were only happy to see the grey textured surface having been retained as one of the options at the back, which was a strong identity of the OnePlus One. It’s much easier to take that back cover off this time and OnePlus is offering a whole array of customizable back covers for the price of $27 each. Options include two brown and a black wooden back covers along with a Kevlar unit.
Talking of the phone’s design, and starting with the top, the phone features a 3.5mm headphone jack along with a microphone to register ambient sounds for noise cancellation. Facing the phone, the left side, which had the volume buttons on the OnePlus One, now has what OnePlus prefers calling the ‘Alert Slider’. What the toggle switch does is, let the user toggle between the predefined set of notifications they allow at any given point in time. Using the switch, one could choose between options like ‘None’, ‘Priority’ and ‘All’. The OnePlus One also had a somewhat similar feature which was accessible using its volume buttons, but the toggle switch is a welcome new addition.
At the bottom, you get the Type–C socket flanked by the speakers. Moving on to the right, the OnePlus 2 gets two buttons for power and volume control in place of the One’s err, one. All the buttons and the sidewalls of the phone are finished in quality metal, giving it a high-end, premium feel. The back cover can be easily removed to reveal the OnePlus 2’s new trick – a socket with provision to house dual nano SIMs.
The screen measures 5.5 inches with a 5 mp front facing shooter on top right and speaker in the centre. There is a fingerprint scanner at the bottom, flanked by touch sensitive buttons. The fingerprint sensor is a fixed unit and it doesn’t get pressed like the units on the iPhone 6 of the Galaxy S6.
At the back, you have the much talked about 13 mp shooter with LED flash and sensors to enable laser focusing. All three components are encased in a metallic strip, somewhat similar in appearance as the OnePlus One.
Overall, the OnePlus 2 boasts stronger, more precise construction and feels like a very well designed, high quality, premium phone.
Processing power
The key specs to mention are the Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor 1.8GHz Octa-core CPUs assisted by the Adreno 430 GPU to handle the graphics. Internal storage is non-expandable and is available in 16 / 64 GB eMMC V5.0 spec. The RAM on the phone will vary from 3 GB to 4 GB depending on the internal storage capacity you choose. The version with the higher internal storage gets higher RAM for obvious reasons.
While the said processor has been known to heat up when pushed hard, OnePlus have taken measures to ensure it runs cool. First, it is slightly under-clocked. Secondly, OnePlus have made use of graphite and a special gel inside the body of the 2 to ensure that the heat released by the processor is dissipated in the quickest manner possible.
Company’s very own Oxygen OS is also designed to work in tandem with the processor and ensure that there is no conflict, resulting in cooler operation.
Camera
This is one aspect which the OnePlus One didn’t absolutely amaze its fans with. OnePlus have taken great measures to address the woes of the brand’s fans this time around. The OnePlus 2 features a 13megapixel shooter which has gone up several notches in terms of quality and performance. The new unit makes use of as many as six lens units to do away with any distortions or colour aberrations. In addition, the new camera boasts an f/2.0 aperture and a 1.3µm sensor for great low-light results.
With optical image stabilisation, which should help reduce the shake in those gorgeous 4K videos, the camera seems as good, if not better than any other shooter available right now. We just have one complaint – while the 720p 120 fps isn’t too bad a range, we would have liked the 2 to get the capability to shoot 240 fps videos like the iPhone 6 Plus. Sure, we are being greedy, but the good blokes at OnePlus have told us to ‘Never Settle’
The newly incorporated laser focus tech, apart from helping the crispness of those images should also help the OnePlus 2 be faster at focussing, and this should be of great help while shooting videos. OnePlus is claiming an ultra fast (0.33s) AF time, but we’ll not take it on face value until we have tested the camera exhaustively ourselves
The Screen
The 5.5 inch screen on the phone doesn’t feature any higher density of pixels than the model it replaces. It’s still a crisp 1080p Full HD (1920 x 1080 pixels) screen with 401 PPI, which, honestly, is more than enough for all practical intents and purposes. What has improved, though, is the brightness, the colour vibrancy and the overall quality of the screen. The images on the screen look crisper and get rid of the relative dullness that the OnePlus One exhibited. OnePlus has worked really hard to strike a balance between the iPhone’s colour neutrality and the Galaxy S6’s vividness, and the result, we are glad to say, is great.
The screen is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 4, to offer resistance to scratches and shatter, and also features capacitive touch sensitive buttons.
Operating System
After the debacle with Cyanogen last year, OnePlus decided to develop an in-house team for its operating system, functionality and GUI. The new team which brought together some seasoned professionals from some of the most respected companies did a great job of putting together OnePlus’ very own OS, based on Android Lollypop. Minimalistic, functional and bloatware-free, the Oxygen OS was like a gust of fresh air letting the concerned OnePlus fans breathe easy again.
The Android OS has been highly customized to create a unique, yet simple and clutter free environment for the user. Gestures like circle for initiating camera are unique only to the OnePlus. Even with its relative newness, Oxygen is one of the nicest Android based operating systems and has proved to be an asset for OnePlus. The OnePlus 2, powered by Oxygen, naturally benefits from all of that, offering the user a friendly, light and functional interface which is intuitive and light on resources.
Other important bits
- The OnePlus 2 gets 3300 mAh LiPo battery with enhanced circuitry for better power savings. While the battery by itself is larger, it probably wouldn’t last as long as the current gen version, that to more powerful processor and a more vivid, brighter screen.
- The battery charging would be slower on the OnePlus 2 as compared to the OnePlus One, owing to the new Type-C connector
- The OnePlus 2 is one of the very few phones currently available to adopt the MacBook style reversible Type-C connector for ease of use and a high speed of data transfer (upto 10 GB)
- Fingerprint scanner as fast as the iPhone, and the facility to store as many as five finger scans
- Weight, at 6.17 ounces (175 g) is slightly more than the OnePlus One, though the built quality and premium feel has gone up a notch or two
- The phone features Fingerprint, Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Proximity and Ambient Light sensors
- OnePlus 2 does not have NFC on its latest flagship, as according to the company, most of its users weren’t using it.
Price
The 64GB version will retail for $389 while the 16GB version will cost you $329
Positives
- Pricing is just spot on. At the price, the hardware that’s being offered is an absolute steal
- Quality and workmaship has gone up
- Great camera with laser focusing
- 4 GB of RAM is segment leading
- No real flaws, a fabulously balanced product
Negatives
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 chipset is underclocked – not the absolute fastest phone out there
- Battery charging is slower than the model it replaces
- You’d still be lucky to get an invite in the first lot.
Do let us know your thoughts about the new phone. Excited? Underwhelmed? Why, why not? Can this phone really last long enough to lay claim to being the 2016 flagship killer? Share your thoughts with us across our social channels. We’re listening.
Check out the exhaustive tech specs of the phone below, followed by an equally exhaustive image gallery
Basic Parameters
Color: Sandstone Black
Dimensions: 151.8 x 74.9 x 9.85 mm
Weight: 6.17 ounces (175 g)
Operating System: OxygenOS based on Android 5.1
CPU: 64-bit Qualcomm© Snapdragon™ 810 processor with 1.8GHz Octa-core CPUs
GPU: Adreno™ 430
RAM: 4 GB/3 GB LPDDR4
Storage: 64 GB/16 GB eMMC v5.0 (available capacity varies)
Sensors: Fingerprint, Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Proximity and Ambient Light
Battery: Embedded rechargeable 3,300 mAh LiPo battery
Max. SAR: Head: 0.729 W/kg, Body: 0.329 W/kg
Connectivity
Connectivity: GSM: 850, 900, 1800, 1900MHz
WCDMA: Bands: 1/2/5/8
FDD-LTE: Bands: 1/3/5/7/8/20
Wi-Fi: Dual-band Wi-Fi: 2.4GHz 802.11b/g/n and 5GHz 802.11a/n/ac
Bluetooth: Bluetooth 4.1
Positioning: Internal GPS antenna + GLONASS, Digital Compass
Audio
Speakers: Bottom-facing speaker
Microphones: Dual-microphone with noise cancellation
Camera
Sensor: 13 Megapixel (1.3um)
Lenses: 6 lenses to avoid distortion and color aberration
OIS: Yes
Laser Focus: Yes
Flash: Dual-LED
Aperture: f/2.0
Front Camera: 5 Megapixel – Distortion free
Video: 4K resolution video, Slow Motion: 720p video at 120fps
Multimedia
Audio Supported Formats: Playback: MP3, AAC, AAC+, WMA (v9 and v10), AMR-NB, AMR-WB, WAV, FLAC, WAV, OGG
Recording: WAV AAC AMR EVRC QCELP
Video Supported Formats: Playback: HEVC (H.265), H.264, MPEG-4, DivX, Xvid, MPEG-2, MP4, MOV, 3GP, AVI, MKV, ASF
Recording: AVC
Image Supported Formats: Playback: JPEG, PNG, BMP, GIF
Output: JPEG
Display
Size: 5.5 inch
Resolution: 1080p Full HD (1920 x 1080 pixels), 401 PPI
Type: LCD In-cell
Protection: Corning Gorilla Glass 4
Ports, Slots, Buttons & Indicators
Ports: Data & Charging: USB Type-C
Audio: Jack 3.5mm
Buttons: Power Button
Volume Rockers
Alert Slider
Capacitive / On-screen buttons
SIM: 2 slots – Nano SIM (DSDS)
Indicators: 1 LED notification light (multicolored)
In the Box
1x OnePlus 2
1x USB Type-C Cable
1x OnePlus 2 USB Power Adapter
