Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo



Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Specs at a glance: OnePlus 2 Screen 1920×1080 5.5"(401 ppi) LCD OS Android Lollipop 5.1 with Oxygen UI CPU Eight-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 (Four 1.8 GHz Cortex-A57 cores and four Cortex-A53 cores) RAM 3GB (16GB version)4GB (64GB version) GPU Adreno 430 Storage 16GB, or 64GB Networking 802.11b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.1, GPS Bands US Model

GSM: 850, 900, 1800, 1900MHz

WCDMA: 1/2/4/5/8

FDD-LTE: 1/2/4/5/7/8/12/17Europe Model

GSM: 850, 900, 1800, 1900MHz

WCDMA: 1/2/5/8

FDD-LTE: 1/3/5/7/8/20 Ports Micro USB 2.0 Type-C, headphones Camera 13MP rear camera with OSI and laser autofocus, 5MP front camera Size 151.8 x 74.9 x 9.9 mm Weight 175 g Battery 3300 mAh Price $329 (16GB version) $389 (64GB version) Other perks Fingerprint reader, 3-position physical notification mode switch, RGB notification LED, Dual SIM

As a company, OnePlus' most distinctive quality has always been its aggressive marketing strategy. Despite only selling about a million phones so far, the company's slow drip of launch info and any-press-is-good-press mentality keeps it in the news almost as much as companies that sell 100x more units. OnePlus has made a name for itself by aggressively targeting enthusiasts with a "flagship" level device priced at less-than-flagship prices. Its software strategy fully embraces the modding community.

The OnePlus One, like several of Google's Nexus phones before it, did a great job of being cheap without feeling cheap. Google has a ton of money to burn with a pricing scheme like that, but things appear different for OnePlus. It seems like reality has kicked in with the company's second phone, and you can really feel the cost cutting issues with the OnePlus 2.

In an attempt to stand out on a budget, OnePlus removed some "standard" features you would expect on a smartphone, replacing them with unique items it thought consumers would like. We imagine the company made a list of things users do and don't care about, which came out like this:

Important: USB Type-C, notification mode hardware switch, dual SIM, fingerprint reader

Unimportant: NFC, quick charging, wireless charging

How much you like the OnePlus mostly depends on how much you agree with the above list.

If OnePlus just skipped NFC, quick charging, and wireless charging, we could chalk it up to the phone being cheap and move on. But the company seems to have spent lots of time, energy, and budget on being one of the first phones with a USB Type-C port and one of the rare Android phones with an iPhone/Blackberry-style silence switch. Both are "nice-to-have" bonuses, but we'd much rather OnePlus take care of the standard features first and worry about the bonuses later. OnePlus is trying to stand out on a budget, but we really don't agree with the cuts it made to get there.

The omission of NFC is particularly rough given that Android Pay will be launching soon, and that's no doubt something that OnePlus' enthusiast customer base would like to try out. With the omission of NFC, though, they'll be left out of the party. Quick charging is also a sore point. Since it seems like manufacturers will never extend battery life, being able to quickly top up in the middle of the day had been one of our favorite features in the last few years. The OnePlus takes about three hours for a full charge.

OnePlus' marketing likes to position its devices as "Flagship Killers." To be fair, other than the missing features above, the specs are up there: a 1.8GHz Snapdragon 810, 3GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, a 5.5-inch 1080p LCD, and a 13MP camera with OIS and laser autofocus all for $329 (£239). There's also a $389 (£289) version that upgrades to 64GB of storage and 4GB of RAM. The slogan for the OnePlus 2 is "2016 Flagship Killer"—a completely ridiculous claim considering "2016" won't end for another 16 months. Plus, with the omission of the above features, we'd argue the OnePlus 2 isn't even a "right now flagship" killer.

Compared to the OnePlus One, this sequel simply isn't much of an upgrade. You get the same size and resolution screen, lose NFC, gain a fingerprint reader and USB Type-C connector, and change from a Snapdragon 801 to a Snapdragon 810.

Design























The back panel is removable, but there's no removable battery or Micro SD slot. Instead OnePlus will sell vanity covers for the back plate in various styles. Out of the box it comes with a black "sandstone" cover—a treated plastic that feels like a cross between felt and a roof shingle. It has a gritty, sandpapery texture, but since it's a soft plastic and not sand, it's not hard or abrasive. It's grippy and definitely unique, but it invokes a feeling of a work truck bed liner more than anything.

The back is ultra-thin plastic that peels off the device, just like an old plastic Samsung back. Remove the back to reveal a dual SIM tray, a huge slab of even more plastic, and not much else. Also like a Samsung back, little plastic tabs hold the back onto the device. Samsung's tabs have always been rather resilient, but we bent a OnePlus tab to the point of it not working after just three back removals.

On the side of the OnePlus 2 is a very unique three-position notification switch. It switches between the three Android notification modes: All, Priority, and None. There's really nothing else to it. Like the switch on an iPhone, you can ignore the switch position and change modes or volume levels in the software. That can put the position of the switch out of sync with the actual setting, so the position isn't a guarantee of silence unless you move it and move it back. With three positions and no labels on the positions, it's often hard to remember what the top and bottom positions do.

The worst design decision of the OnePlus 2 was the button configuration at the bottom. Google's official configuration for the system buttons are, from left to right, "Back, Home, Overview," while Samsung insists on "Overview, Home, Back." The OnePlus 2 has hardware buttons, but rather than pick a side, it remains neutral and goes with unlabeled hardware buttons—to the left and right of the home button there are illuminated white dash marks indicating where the button is, but not what it does.







In the settings (an added section labeled "Buttons") you can opt to keep the default layout of "Back, Home, Overview" or check the "swap buttons" option to switch to "Overview, Home, Back." Not having labels on the buttons makes it really hard to use, though—I just keep forgetting which order the phone is set to and end up guessing at where the back button is. If you stick to one device, this is probably something that would go away after a few weeks, but it just feels like an unnecessary cognitive load.

There's also the option on the OnePlus to ignore the hardware buttons and enable on-screen navigation buttons, like a Motorola or Nexus device. The combination of hardware and software buttons can freak out some apps though—we were unable to complete the setup for Google Search because the "next" button was obscured by the system buttons. You can also check the "On-screen buttons" and the "swap buttons" checkboxes and have on-screen buttons with the Samsung order. Crazy.

About that home button: it's not actually a physical, clicky button. The outlined home button certainly apes the look of Samsung's trademark hardware button, but this is a solid, capacitive button, just like the two configurable buttons to the left and right of it. The outline exists because the home button is a separate component from the screen—it contains a fingerprint sensor.

It wouldn't surprise us to hear that OnePlus sourced its fingerprint reader from the same place as Samsung. The fingerprint reader on the OnePlus 2 works exactly like the reader on the Galaxy S6, and it's exactly the same size and shape. Like that on the Galaxy S6, the fingerprint reader here is great! It's fast and accurate, and it makes reading a fingerprint quick and easy. Like the iPhone 6, this is a "touch and hold" fingerprint sensor instead of the clunky swipe readers that were prevalent on the Galaxy S5 and many Windows laptops.

The fingerprint reader can be used to wake the device, too. Just place your finger on the sensor when the screen is off, wait a second, and the phone will unlock.