Priced at $329 (starting) the OnePlus 2 promises flagship specs and features with unmatched affordability. Checkout our review if the OnePlus 2 (64GB ROM with 4GB RAM variant) has surely lived to its slogan as the 2016 Flagship Killer.
Table of Contents
Design and build
At first sight, the OnePlus 2 doesn’t excite much. You wouldn’t know it’s a flagship device until you hold it.
The front holds the 5.5-inch FHD LTPS display below down is a capacitive home key that serves as a fingerprint reader too. A navigation key is placed either on side of the home key, they lit up once you touch them. On top is an earpiece and 5MP front-facing camera while the light sensors are quite hard to notice.
Built with magnesium alloys, the sides of OnePlus 2 is big departure from the plastic OnePlus One. It’s anodized grey which is few shades lighter to the SandStone back. Both the volume rocker and power buttons are also made of metal as well as the notification toggle at the left.
OnePlus 2 brings a UBS type-C port, in terms of speed or number it doesn’t offer any speed bump compared to a typical microUSB type-B except on the reversibility feature. The USB port is located at the bottom sandwiched by two speaker grilles. Only one speaker grill serves as loudspeaker while the other is made for symmetric design while it hides the microphone. Similar to metal-clad devices, there is antenna gates too around the metal frame which is colored grey. Lastly, the 3.5mm audio jack is located on top.
The backside is almost as is from the predecessor except on few subtle changes particularly on the camera plate placement and the addition of laser focus assist. It’s important to note that the back is swappable. OnePlus offers varieties of finishes such as wood and kevlar.
In spite of removable back, the only access you will get is for the dual-nano SIM tray. Sadly, the 3300mAh battery is not user-replaceable.
The feel of OnePlus 2 in my hands feels solid and comfy, thanks to the cool metal treatment and chamfered corners which don’t dig up into my palm. Weight is just alright but the size is perfectly good for a 5.5-inch device. Though the OnePlus 2 is solidly built from few premium materials, the overall design doesn’t standout in flagship category.
Perhaps what OnePlus could do to make the next OnePlus flagship a standout is through incorporating more premium accents like brighter metal options.
Display
Nothing much has changed on the display on the OnePlus 2 except the new 5.5-inch 1080p FHD LTPS (still utilizing IPS) display has Gorilla Glass 4 protection and quality has bit warmer color reproduction compared to One. Brightness and viewing angles are great and bringing the device outside on a sunny day is not a problem. But be sure to put your screen brightness to auto mode.
OnePlus opted for 1080p resolution instead of stepping up to 1440p QHD, and quality-wise, detail on screen are pleasingly sharp. Though it is still hard to notice the difference between a FHD and QHD in the same 5.5-inch screen size, OnePlus should have at least have went to the QHD to convince us with their “2016 Flagship Killer” slogan for OnePlus 2.
Camera
With 13MP camera, OIS and laser focus assist, most images are sharp and have spot-on white balance. Color accuracy is top-notch too on OnePlus 2. We compared the camera to the Zenfone 2 (a true contender in camera phone department), and found that the OnePlus 2 offers slightly better exposure and color accuracy. The sharpness is very close, Zenfone 2 being a notch better.
For video mode, the camera can shoot 2160p UHD or 4K video at 30fps and backed up by OIS or optical image stabilization. Detail-wise, the video we took at 1080p 30fps showed decent resolved detail and color accuracy. Dynamic range is rather low but we like how clean the video is; video noise is minimal.
The interface of the camera shows clean and easy to access on-screen controls. Shooting modes for still include: Normal, Video, Photosphere, Timelapse and Panorama. There are three effects for still: Beauty, HDR and ClearShot. Only SloMo effect is available in video mode which gives you a max 120fps at 720p resolution.
We like the 5MP front-facing camera of the OnePlus 2, images we took have spot-on colors and white balance while sharpness is not overdone with beauty effect off.
Software and experience
On top of Android 5.1 Lollipop OS is Oxygen 2.0. Experience is very near vanilla Android, OnePlus only touched few areas in the OS leaving an overall stock Android feel.
Home screen and notification slider are very typical as to the stock Lollipop devices only that OnePlus added a customisable screen at the left most part. The company calls it Shelf where you can customize it through with widgets, most used apps and frequent contacts.
Personally, I don’t like the stock Android feel, same on the OnePlus 2. Although it offers flexible experience and top customisation level, I just still prefer LG’ and Sony’s UI. Both Optimus UI and Xperia UI include home-brewed multimedia apps such as gallery and music player which are far better than Google’s own plethora of apps in terms of functionalities.
The fingerprint sensor enables user to unlock the phone from sleep in an instant. Both navigational keys are customisable from shortcuts to back-lit period. However, we found that the fingerprint sensor from Galaxy S6 family scans a little faster over the one on OnePlus 2.
OnePlus 2 is also rich with gestures. You can double-tap-to-wake from sleep. Other gesture controls include drawing a V for flashlight toggle, O for camera and </> for back/forward in music. All these are accessible right from sleeping screen.
Performance and benchmark
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 chip paired with 3/4GB RAM is found in the OnePlus 2. The Snapdragon 810 is one of the fastest chip in the market right now, it is just few grades behind the Exynos 7420 of Samsung.
The OnePlus 2 offers incredible speed in overall usage. It handles the multitasking easily, running games and apps are very smooth as well as the browsing experience.
OnePlus configured the Snapdragon 810 at slower clock speed to avoid overheating issues. This technique proved to be effective, we didn’t experience alarming heat issues so far while maintaining fluid, lag free performance.
The OnePlus 2 is a top scorer in benchmark and speed tests. It garnered 50,675 benchmark score in AnTuTu. See the full results below.
OnePlus 2 Benchmark Results
- AnTuTu: 50675
- GeekBench 3: 1197 single core, 3870 multi core
- Basemark OS II: 1384
Battery
Despite having 3300mAh battery juice and 1080p screen, the OnePlus 2 only produced an average battery life of 1 day for heavy use while connected to the internet throughout the day (WiFi and Cellular).
Our moderate use resulted to 2 days of battery rating including whole day SMS, an hour to two of browsing the web and apps, and half an hour of voice calls and music.
The battery saver mode is an option if you’d want a longer standby time while limiting the phone’s functionality.
Speaker
OnePlus 2 has a loud mono speaker located at the bottom on the right side. In terms of sound quality, we found that treble is strong and clear while bass is somewhat underpowered. It bears mentioning that the speaker sounds a bit tinny most of the times.
Verdict and value
OnePlus has certainly overdone the slogan for OnePlus 2 as the 2016 Flagship Killer. Right from looking the specs and features of OnePlus 2 in paper, the company has surely missed breakthrough features such as QHD screen, faster and brighter camera, and standout hardware design.
What OnePlus 2 offers over the competition is the aggressive pricing. It’s the most affordable smartphone to offer Snapdragon 810 chip and fingerprint sensor for just $389 price (64GB ROM, 4GB RAM) or approximately Php18k (before taxes, shipping costs).
Surely, our review concluded that the OnePlus 2 is a true flagship, but not the killer that OnePlus has expected.
What we like on OnePlus 2
- Decent camera performance
- Solid build
- Aggressive pricing
- Speedy performance
What we didn’t like on OnePlus 2
- Average battery life
- Design doesn’t standout
- 1080p display is standard for 5.5-inch devices
OnePlus 2 specs |
| 5.5-inch 1080p LTPS IPS LCD display, 401ppi |
| 9.9mm thick, 175g weight |
| Gorilla Glass 4, magnesium frame |
| Snapdragon 810 octacore chip |
| 3/4GB RAM |
| 16/64GB storage, no microSD |
| 13MP camera, OIS, laser autofocus, 4k HD video, dual tone LED flash |
| 5MP selfie |
| Dual 4G LTE, WiFi ac, Bt 4.1, GPS, FM Radio |
| Android 5.1 Lollipop, Oxygen OS |
| 3300mAh |
| Kevlar, Sandstone, Black, Bamboo |
| $329 (P14.8k) for 16GB, $389 (P17.6k) for 64GB, Online stores offer P17-20k price in Philippines |
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can’t wait you make a comparison with xperia C5
We will. Do you prefer voice over narration on our video or the current one?
voice over narration will be nice
Thank you.noted that