OnePlus’ claim to fame the very premise of offering a premium smartphone experience at half the price of flagship devices. It took everyone by surprise when the relatively unknown startup managed to sell more than 1.5 million units in a year’s time.
Riding on the success of its first ‘flagship killer,’ the company has now launched the OnePlus Two, which boasts of a better build, a bigger battery, faster processor, and a fingerprint sensor among other improvements.
OnePlus calls its new smartphone the ‘2016 flagship killer’ and says it competes with next year’s smartphones. We spent some weeks with the new OnePlus 2 to find out if its a worthy successor to the OnePlus One.
The OnePlus 2 for sure looks more refined compared to its predecessor and exudes a premium feel thanks to its aluminium-magnesium alloy frame and stainless steel chamfered edges. The all-black front panel is dominated by a 5.5-inch full-HD (1080x1920p) IPS LCD In-Cell display.
The phone’s fingerprint scanner is placed slightly below the display and the shape is similar to the Home button we’ve seen on the Samsung Galaxy S6 and HTC One M9+ but it’s slightly indented; it’s actually not a push button though it can sense touch and even wake the phone from sleep when it comes across a fingerprint it recognises. You can also choose to activate two capacitive touch buttons that are placed on the two sides of the fingerprint sensor and deactivate the on-screen buttons. In that case, the fingerprint sensor also doubles up as the Home button.
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The back of the phone is slightly rounded and just like its predecessor, the 64GB variant comes with a back panel that sports a sandstone finish. However, the big change is that the back cover is easily removable. You’ll see some OnePlus branding and a metal strip that houses the dual-LED flash, 13MP camera lens and a laser-focus system (in that order). Yes, unlike most phones, the flash is placed above the camera lens. The metal strip is not flush with the phone’s back and slightly protrudes out.
The back cover can be removed through a small opening at the right edge but it’s secured well with a number of clasps and requires some effort. The battery is sealed but you’ll notice a small tray at the top. If you pull it out, you’ll expose the two nano-sim card slots. We feel it’s a good move and if like us, you swap sim cards frequently, you’ll not need the sim-eject tool! The other good part is that OnePlus now offers fancy back covers in four different finishes – Bamboo, Black Apricot, Rosewood and Kevlar. If you get bored of the sandstone cover you swap it easily, changing the look of your phone.
The metal alloy frame looks really solid and includes four small strips that act as an antenna. The right edge features the volume rocker and power keys. Made of metal, the keys offer good tactile feedback. The left edge houses a unique three-position, slider key to control notifications. It’s interesting how OnePlus feels the function is critical enough to have a dedicated button. We’ve seen the mute toggle on the iPhone but are not sure if notifications control is as important. The 3.5mm headset jack sits at the top while the USB Type C connector is at the bottom edge sandwiched between two rows of drilled holes that act as the speaker outlet.
We have to say the OnePlus 2 is one of the most gorgeous looking mid-range phones we’ve seen. Despite its big 5.5-inch display and 175gram weight, the phone offers a good one-hand use experience thanks to the optimum screen to dimensions (151.8 x 74.9 x 9.85mm) ratio.
The brighter One
The phone’s 5.5-inch full-HD (1080x1920p) IPS LCD In-Cell display is sourced from JDI and comes with Gorilla Glass protection to guard against minor scratches. OnePlus claims the display is one of the brightest at 600nits. We found the display to be brighter than the OnePlus One. The display looks crisp and bright with wide viewing angles and good sunlight legibility. Touch response was excellent.
It may seem that OnePlus has made some compromises by not including a QHD or 2K resolution display but we feel that it’s a prudent decision as it won’t drain the battery and a lot of people won’t really find a major difference in sharpness.
Oxygen OS
The OnePlus 2 runs Oxygen OS based on Android 5.1 Lollipop. It looks very similar to stock Android but includes some additional customisation features including a dark mode, app permissions, gesture support and a new homescreen feature called Shelf that features list of frequently used apps and accessed contacts.
You can draw certain letters on the screen to launch apps or perform specific actions and also enable double tap to unlock. There are a number of customization options including the ability to program the navigation buttons and fingerprint sensor with different actions for double tap and long press, custom colours for LED notifications and advanced permission settings for individual apps.
The only pre-loaded special system apps that come with the phone are Files (a file manager), Audio Tuner (for customised sound profiles powered by MaxxAudio) and Camera.
We feel OnePlus could have included a Galley app as well. It uses the Google Photos app for picture management.
Overall, we like how OnePlus has chosen not to skin the OS aggressively and still leave some room for customization.