OnePlus launched their first smartphone last year which was called as “Flagship Killer – OnePlus One”. The device was highly appreciated because of its high end configuration and amazing performance, at budget price. Now they came up with the next Flagship of Oneplus series called, OnePlus 2. It is a fast performance phone that comes for Rs.25000 if you go with the 64GB version. Also it has 3GB / 4GB RAM. The device has amazing design, good screen quality and a decent hardware that let you use a variety of different applications and games.
So far we have seen OnePlus releasing one phone in a year. It looks the company emphasize in giving maximum time of better product quality.
Due its price factor the device falls somewhere in the mid-range devices. I will not say that it is a very high end or an entry level model. It brings a mixture of multimedia features, camera and performance together. But on the other side cons lies in the battery output. That needs a bit of improvement. Overall almost all high end and mid-ranged phone are having issues with optimum battery output. Now, here is the detailed review of OnePlus 2 but before that, we must take a quick look at its highlights:
OnePlus 2 Highlights:
- Oxygen OS based on Android 5.1 Lollipop OS
- Dual SIM
- 5.5-inch Full HD IPS In-Cell display, Corning Gorilla Glass protection
- 1920 x 1080 pixels resolution
- Octa-Core Snapdragon 810 64-bit processor
- Adreno 430 GPU
- 3GB LPPDR4 RAM / 4GB DDR4 RAM
- 16GB internal storage/ 64GB internal memory
- 13 megapixel rear camera with dual LED Flash, Laser Auto focus, OIS, 1.3um pixels, f/2.0 aperture, 4K video recording, slow-motion at 120fps
- 5 megapixel front camera
- Fingerprint scanner
- USB Type-C
- 4G LTE, WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth 4.1 and GPS
- 3300mAh battery
Design & Packaging:
OnePlus 2 is a revamped edition that is lot better than its predecessor. It looks decent from all angles. The phone has an impressive body design. At the front the device offers you a 5.5 inch Display screen with a home + fingerprint scanner at the bottom center. There are no other keys with these.
It has a 5 Megapixel camera on the front side. Power and volume keys are on the right side. Sim try is provided on the left side. Speaker and Micro-usb port is on the bottom and audio jack is on the top part. The backside offers a 13 Megapixel camera with flash at the center. OnePlus 2 has a unibody design. But you can place different back covers.
Personally I can say OnePlus 2 is very nice phone with classy look. 5.5 inch screen does make it a large model but it is not affecting the overall build quality. The best thing you can do is buy separate back covers and add them to make your phone look more different. The back panel offers a nice grip while using the device. Touch quality is fast and smooth that let you easily operate the device with single hand. OnePlus 2 also has curved edges so that you can place them quiet easily in your pocket. If you find the back panel slippery on wet hands, then you can buy separate replaceable covers for it too.
Display / Screen:
OnePlus 2 has a 5.5 inch LTPS LCD display. LTPS means Low Temperature PolySilicon LCD. It is a brighter screen compared to other display technology available in the market. The screen offers a max resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels @ 401ppi. The touch quality is quiet amazing due to the hardware of the device. For a phablet the touch quality matters a lot.
To give an extra protection the device offers a Gorilla Glass Protection. So that it would help you to operate the phone with less worry. It is not really necessary to add any screen guard on the same. It will work well without giving many issues. The display offers vibrant image quality with nice video output. Viewing angles are also fine.
Operating System & UI:
OnePlus 2 runs on Android 5.1 Lollipop operating system. This is the latest update all devices had received. The device has a custom skin , OnePlus’s called Oxygen OS. Almost all major manufacturers are offering custom skin over the stock Android operating system in order to avoid bloatware and better output.
Mostly based on Android, Oxygen OS is much lighter. You can customize your device more easily through simple settings. The UI adds a new feature called as Shelf that lets you to access your most frequent contacts through a side panel.
Camera Output:
OnePlus 2 has a 13 Megapixel primary camera with flash at the back and a 5 Megapixel camera on the front side. The front camera offers you HD recording and produces decent pictures. You can also use it well for video chatting.
The back camera instead is supported by dual-LED flash. That adds more brightness to the picture and videos. You get a video of 4128 x 3096 max resolutions. Optical Image stabilization helps you to take firm pictures when you are moving. The camera output is great, no-doubts.
Here are some Camera samples captured with OnePlus 2:
Hardware & Performance:
OnePlus 2 runs on Qualcomm MSM8994 Snapdragon 810 Chipset. This adds a dual quad core processor on the Smartphone. There is a Cortex-A53 CPU Quad core with 1.8 GHz Cortex-A57 CPU. This two dual processor handles all app performance pretty well. With this, there is an Adreno 430 graphics that also give you decent graphics in HD Games.
The device has 4GB RAM that is quiet high and makes this phone a better performer compare to all other high end and mid ranged phones available in the market. There is also a 3GB RAM variant. The device offers amazing gaming output but with that it also heats up when you are using the same for too long. For storage, it offers you maximum 64 GB. Remember, there is no expandable memory card slot.Even the 16GB variant has no SD Card slot.
Battery Life:
OnePlus 2 has as 3,300 mAh battery. This is a big battery size. If we talk about a phablet then a big battery becomes an important part of the device. Or else it would slow down the phone and won’t give out optimum performance. The resolution here drains up a lot of power. Keeping the brightness low will help you to get longer battery output. There are ample of optimization settings that can help you to preserve power.
Conclusion:
OnePlus 2 is no doubt a good phone. Calling it Flagship Killer won’t be wrong. The pone cost around Rs.25,000 for the 64GB version in India.In other countries, it is available for $389 / £289. There would also be a 16GB variant but it will not be available, probably until couple of months.However, the price of 16GB will be $329 / £239
OnePlus 2 is a high performance device that comes with good display quality, amazing hardware and also with a huge price tag. That is acceptable as this devices carry heavy import duty. The phone is having a nice but not great battery life and it also does not give NFC. Design limitation has caused removal of SD card slot that limit the expandable capacity.
Pros:
- Amazing Build and Dsign
- Great Display
- Very good performance
- Very well functioning Fingerprint scanner
Cons:
- Battery backup not upto the mark
- No expandable memory
