OnePlus launched the much awaited and much hyped OnePlus 2 last year. It was touted as the Flagship Killer smartphone of 2015 by the company, and I decided to use this smartphone for few months before finally reviewing it.
So, in this review, I’ll be discussing the things I noticed about this smartphone that will help you in deciding if it’s a flagship killer or not and if it’s worth buying or not?
The OnePlus 2 comes in 16GB with 3GB RAM and 64GB with 4GB RAM memory variants, and I’ve got 64GB Sandstone Black color variant with me to review. I bought it from Amazon, you can check out the deal here.
Design & Build
I am starting the review by talking about the design and build aspects of the phone first.
The phone is beautifully crafted, and you can say that about it even at the first look. The finishing at the edges, curves, and corners is top class and clearly shows how much attention company has paid while building this phone.
The front houses the 5.5-inch display, up here we have 5MP selfie camera, earpiece, and LED notification light. And below the display, you’ll find two capacitive touch keys, the home key with built-in Fingerprint sensor – remember – it’s just a touch key and not a button that you can press, like the one we find in the iPhones. And it has a screen guard pre-installed on it, which is superb.
The outer frame is crafted from a resilient alloy of aluminum. The left chassis just has an alert slider. You can switch between sound profiles without turning the screen-on.
That’s a quick way to turn your phone silent, but I ended up pressing power button along with alert slider toggle key, now that is irritating sometimes.
Turning towards the right, it has volume rockers along with the power button whereas the 3.5mm audio jack and secondary mic are located at the top. And the speaker grills and USB Type-C port can be found at the bottom.
Moving to the back side of the phone, it comes with a removable Sandstone black back, but you can swap the back cover with different colors and style made available by the company and 3rd party accessories maker.
The 13 MP primary camera along with Dual LED flash and IR Laser Focus are located here and under the back cover, you’ll find the try to insert two Nano SIM cards.
These two metal points let the system recognize the StyleSwap and change the theme on H2OS, but of no use if you have OxgenOS on your OnePlus 2.
Weighing at 175 grams, OnePlus 2 is definitely not a light weight phone but the device seems rock solid and durable. I wouldn’t say it is super slim, yet easy to hold and operate.
Security is a major concern according to me, and while setting up a new phone, I always set up the security options first, so the OnePlus comes with a fingerprint sensor, let me show you how to set it up first.
I am impressed with the fingerprint sensor, and it is accurate and quick.
Go to the settings then fingerprint, it will ask you to add one, it will register all possible touch, and there we go. Your fingerprints have been saved and is all set to use to lock/unlock the phone.
I am impressed with the fingerprint sensor, and it is accurate and quick. Every time I used, it merely took a second to open the device.
Display: 5.5-inch IPS LCD 1080p FHD
OnePlus 2 comes with a 5.5-inch IPS LCD 1080p display that has the pixel density of 401 PPI and is well protected by the corning gorilla glass 3.
Well, it does have quality FHD display but not the best in the lot.
It has got 178 degrees of crystal clear viewing angles. That is great! Full brightness is also excellent, but colors and vibrancy look bit dull and muted. Though it outperformed many of the competitors when tested under sunlight, but again struggles with color reproduction and sharpness.
Well, it does have the quality FHD display but not the best in the lot.
Performance: Qualcomm Snapdragon 810, Adreno 430, 4GB RAM
Moving between apps, browsing everything looks perfectly fine. All thanks to 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 chipset 1.8GHz Octa-core Soc.
Paired with the Adreno 430 GPU and 4GB RAM, graphic intensive games and other demanding apps run smoothly. Also, you will not find yourself complaining about heating issues.
However, the top half of the phone got little warm when I played games for a longer period but never got too hot. The multitasking was also well-handled by the phone.
On the storage front, it has 64GB of ROM with no option for expanding memory using any external source. Well, the configuration didn’t leave any room for complaint here.
Software: Oxygen OS layered over Android 5.1 Lollipop
Talking about software, it runs OxygenOS forked over Android 5.1 Lollipop. Pretty neat and clean, without any ugly skin and bloatware, well that looks pretty close to stock Android.
You can customize toggles from quick settings how you want to see them. You can also use onscreen and off screen buttons from settings.
However capacitive touch buttons seem to be a bit confusing as they have the same design, but you can swap the order of recent apps drawer and back buttons from right to left or vice-versa according to your convenience.
If you like on-screen buttons, they can be enabled from the settings. But using on-screen navigation buttons make you compromise with viewing area of the display.
You can also customize home button’s functionality as well; I chose to set it to open the camera. So whenever I double tap the home button, it instantly opens the camera, so I don’t have to create a shortcut on the home screen.
It also has few customizations for themes and colors as turning dark mode on will enable a dark background; you can also choose accent colors and even customize LED notification color indicator as well to differentiate notifications based on the apps.
On-screen gestures are also available that enables you to open flashlight by drawing “V” (even if the device is locked), “O” for the camera and swipe from up to down to plan n pause the music.
It also offers the list of your most frequently used apps and a list of your frequent contacts as well.
Well regarding preloaded apps, I liked audio tuner which can change sounds depending on your mode of use. You get default settings in here for games, movie, and music. You can also customize your music experience according to your preference.
There is also SwiftKey Store, and you can choose among N number of keyboard themes, different languages and, can customize your typing experience. Great stuff!
Camera: 13MP Rear & 5MP Front
Moving to the primary camera, it features a 13MP sensor with dual LED flash, IR Laser autofocus, and OIS.
The Laser autofocus allows the camera to focus automatically on any subject under viewfinder within 0.2 seconds, that’s pretty fast. Also, Optical Image Stabilization works pretty well and cancels out unwanted shakes.
The camera app is quite neat without many extra features and easy to use I would say.
You can shoot in three different modes: Clear shot, HDR, and beauty.
Swiping down or from the left brings in option for time lapse, slow motion, photo, video up to 4K resolution, manual mode, and panorama.
Swiping from right lets you view the already taken images. Also, you can adjust shot’s brightness from here.
Regarding quality of images, it produces standard quality images with excellent details and colors. Laser autofocus captures focused area quickly and take out best from it. The best part of the camera is its low light capturing capabilities which I found crisp.
The 5MP front shooter produced reasonable good quality pictures even in the dodgy light. You’d enjoy taking selfies with the front camera.
Camera Samples
Battery: 3300 mAh
A massive 3300 mAh battery which is quite apt for a 5.5’’ FHD screen and keeps it powered throughout the day on heavy usage. That includes FB, WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter, checking emails, browsing, and gaming too.
It took me over 2 hours to charge it completely that inevitably put a question mark on fast charging claims. There is no other battery saving mode apart from built-in battery saver mode. Pretty satisfied with the battery performance!
OnePlus 2 Sound Performance
It has twin speaker grill towards the bottom though it features only a mono speaker behind the right grill that produces the sound which is adequately clear and loud. The left grill holds the primary mic.
Volume is quite high, but you won’t feel any distortion if played at full volume. I am quite a music person, and I enjoyed the audio quality through headphones as well.
But when you hold the phone in landscape for gaming or watching movies or videos it will be covered by your hands consequently sound output would be muffled.
Connectivity Features
It is a dual-SIM device that simultaneously supports two Nano SIM cards with 4G LTE capability.
The phone doesn’t feature NFC, which can be a bit disappointment for some users. For me, it wasn’t a big deal as I sometimes use NFC to pair with portable speakers only and that can be done with the help of Bluetooth as well. Rest, it features standard Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.1, and USB Type-C cable for wired connectivity.
In-The-Box
- OnePlus 2 in Sandstone Black Phone Unit.
- Literature package that consists of quick-start guide and user guide.
- White color 2Amp USB wall power adapter.
- And a tangle-free red color USB Type-C cable.
Pros:
- Solid Build
- Good camera delivers quality pictures
- The loudspeaker is amazingly loud.
- Excellent gameplay experience and lag free performance.
- Lightning Fingerprint scanning speed with 99.9% accuracy.
Cons:
- A bit dull display
- No quick charging
- Doesn’t fulfill expectation as per hype.
OnePlus 2 Price in India
Earlier it was available to buy on an invite basis at Amazon.in, but it’s available to buy anytime. The 16GB with 3GB LPDDR4 RAM variant is priced at Rs. 22,999 whereas 64GB with 4GB LPDDR4 RAM variant comes for 24,999 INR. Price is a true bargain at the specs & build quality it offers.
The Verdict
OnePlus 2 nails it when comes to the camera, sound quality, fingerprint scanner, performance and stands up to the expectations while others somewhere remain a disappointment.
Overall the smartphone is great considering the price segment but doesn’t validate the statement “Flagship Killer.” It could have been even acceptable if the company had not created unnecessary hype and set expectation impossibly high.
What you think about the OnePlus 2, let me know in the comments section below!
