OnePlus 2 Review—OnePlus cuts the wrong corners to stand out on a budget

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.

USB Type-C comes to smartphones

The OnePlus 2 is one of the first smartphones to ship with the reversible USB Type-C connector.

While USB 3.1 and the Type-C port were announced at around the same time, they are not an inseparable pair. OnePlus made the decision to go with the newer connector, but it uses the slower USB 2.0 protocol. The last time we ran into USB 3.0 on a smartphone (the Galaxy Note 3) it was a clunky feature that had to be toggled on and off and interfered with data while in use. Needless to say, we don’t miss it too much.

On laptops, USB Type-C is a big space saver over the old Type-A port, but on a smartphone, Type-C is actually bigger than the old micro-USB port that we’re all used to. It was kind of a shock when I first saw it—the port on the bottom of the OnePlus is absolutely cavernous. That’s not a knock against the OnePlus; we’re all going to have to switch to USB Type-C eventually, but the “medium-sized” port is a surprise given OEMs’ desire for ever-thinner cell phones.

On the OnePlus 2, USB Type-C’s only benefit is that it’s reversible, which is nice to have on a smartphone compared to micro USB. OnePlus of course includes a cable with a USB Type-C plug on one end, but then the company went the extra mile and created a reversible USB Type-A plug for the other side. OnePlus’ reversible Type-A plug basically takes a USB plug, removes the outer metal rectangle, and puts electrical contacts on both sides of the remaining plastic substrate.

There are a few oddities to this design. It’s still hard to put the Type-A end into a USB slot, because now rather than having to figure out the rotation, you have to figure out if the smaller plug goes in the top or bottom half of a regular port. The custom Type-A end also looks pretty weird—even when using the OnePlus cable with the OnePlus charger, there’s a visible air gap caused by the USB port being much bigger than the custom reversible cable.

While USB Type-C is an inevitable transition that we will all have to do some day, the practical result of being an early adopter means you’ll have to carry around a special cable to charge the OnePlus.

Software

An enthusiast phone needs an enthusiast software build, and OnePlus definitely delivered in the past with a Cyanogen-powered device. The two companies had a very public and very dramatic breakup, forcing OnePlus to have to develop its own Android skin. It hired prominent members of the “Paranoid Android” ROM, which is probably the second-most prominent community ROM behind CyanogenMod. The group then created “Oxygen OS” for the OnePlus 2—a skin that is very close to stock Android but focuses on filling in the gaps left in the stock distribution.

The OnePlus 2’s software is excellent. Oxygen OS is the ideal situation for an OEM Android skin, and we wish other manufacturers would use it as a blueprint for their own software. The things that should look like Android look like Android—all the icons look the same, the layouts are preserved, and everything supplied by Google is pretty much left alone. OnePlus extends the existing OS with hardware-specific features and extra software bonuses. You get lots of features and extra checkboxes, but it’s seamlessly folded into the stock Android interface.

Again, this is what an Android skin should be. OnePlus takes stock Lollipop and adds fingerprint reader support (which was at least partly ripped from Android M), app permission control, a dark theme, customizable quick toggles, tap-to-wake, lock screen gestures, an equalizer, a file manager, and a custom camera app. The crapware situation looks good, too. Our device came with a single added app—SwiftKey—which unfortunately isn’t uninstallable. It can be disabled, though.

Like Xiaomi, OnePlus has brought a permissions system to Lollipop. For OnePlus it only works on non-system apps, so while you can block Facebook from accessing your data, you have no control over the Google apps. Google is working on a permissions system for Android Marshmallow, and apps will be aware of it, allowing them to react accordingly when they don’t have the permissions they need. On Lollipop, apps have no idea about the permissions system, and if you block them from the wrong thing, they’ll just crash or stop working. The danger is that non-technical users could mess up an app and then not know why, since there’s no notice that the permissions manager is blocking an app. (We doubt OnePlus has very many non-technical customers, though.)

OnePlus’ dark theme changes the app drawer, settings, file manager, and a few pop-up messages. Notification backgrounds are still white, a compromise that was probably made because some apps hard-code their notification messages to be dark, and dark-on-dark text would be a bad idea. In the dark mode you can even change the accent color the OS uses for settings icons and switches, replacing the standard blue/green color with something else. Weirdly, you can’t change the accent color in the white theme.

One of the nicest parts of Oxygen OS is how extra features are quietly integrated into stock Android. For instance you can edit the Quick Settings panel via a small “edit” button just below the user profile icon. Tapping it puts the page into a special “edit” mode, which allows you to hide icons and rearrange the page, all on the normal Quick Settings interface that you’re used to. The Overview page is customized, too, but with blink-and-you’ll-miss-them “X” buttons in the corner of every thumbnail and a “clear-all” X button at the top. OnePlus customized the interface without rebranding it, and that’s a breath of fresh air in a world full of ugly TouchWiz clones.

The OnePlus bootloader is unlocked, so if other ROMs are developed for it, or if OnePlus decides to release beta builds of the OS, you can flash whatever you want! It’s also easy to root the phone.

The rest of the OS is, well, stock Android. There isn’t a lot to say, and that’s a good thing. It’s a beautiful, standardized interface that you can just pick up and jump right into. The software is easily the OnePlus 2’s best quality.

Camera

The OnePlus 2 has a 13MP rear camera with optical image stabilization and laser autofocus. The Autofocus is a neat addition, and like on the LG G4 it works. Autofocus on nearby objects is lightning quick. It’s super fast on most phones though, so while technically interesting, it’s all the same end result.

Despite that addition, the OnePlus 2 camera could use some work. A lot of our pictures came with a pink hue, and in low light it falls behind even the OnePlus One. This is probably something that could be tweaked with a software update, but we can only judge what we have (which is build ONE A2005_14_150807).

Performance

Like most phones shipped this year, the OnePlus 2 has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 810. It’s a chip that can be quite fast, but it’s quickly prone to overheating and throttling.

For the OnePlus 2 we have CPU benchmarks at “cold”—a device at room temperature—and “warm”—a device that has been running a 3D game for a few minutes before running GeekBench. While the cold scores are pretty high, it’s easy to get the device to slow down to Snapdragon 801-levels of performance.

While it shouldn’t affect benchmarks too much, the version we tested is the more expensive model with 4GB of RAM.

Battery life for the OnePlus 2 is great. Like the OnePlus One, the software seems pretty optimized and snappy, and the lightness, combined with the sizable 3300mAh battery, shines in our battery life tests.

The big downside in the battery department is charging. OnePlus neglected to add Qualcomm Quick Charging to the device, meaning charge time will take 3 hours. We’ve seen some people blame this on the USB Type-C port, but Qualcomm’s FAQ says that USB Type C will work with quick charging, so the fancy port isn’t an excuse for omitting it.

Great hardware tarnished by a lot of question marks about OnePlus

We talk about the OnePlus 2 like it’s a flagship and compare it to devices like the iPhone and Galaxy S6, but the real kicker for the OnePlus is the price: $330-$390. That’s a fantastic price for these kinds of specs, even if you include other low cost firms like Xiaomi. Xiaomi’s closest offering is the Snapdragon 810-equipped Mi Note Pro, which, at 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, is still about $40 more expensive than the compatible $390 OnePlus 2. In that exchange, you do upgrade to 5.7-inch, 1440p display with NFC and Quick Charging, though.

The OnePlus has a lot of unique features: USB Type-C, a hardware notification switch, and dual SIM slots, but none of them are really must-haves. We’d gladly trade them all for quick charging and NFC. Judging by most of the comments when this was announced, OnePlus made a miscalculation when it decided which features were important to users. The result is a cheap phone that feels cheap—you can see where the corners were cut.

The best part of the device is the software. Oxygen OS takes stock Android and extends it, rather than replaces it, and that’s something we wish more OEMs would do. The skin seems to hit most of the common grips about Lollipop with a permissions system, dark theme, equalizer, and some customizability options. It’s also great to see a device with an unlocked bootloader.

Our biggest reservation with the OnePlus 2 is that it is made by OnePlus. The company has had a rough history that, for us, adds a lot of question marks and hesitation to an otherwise solid device. For many people the deal breaker will be how artificially difficult it is to purchase one. You must first prove your loyalty to OnePlus by dealing with its horrible invite system, which is currently almost 4 million people deep. On top of that, once you actually “win” the honor of giving OnePlus your money, the FAQ says it could take “up to 3 weeks” for your phone to actually ship.

If you want to just buy a phone now, OnePlus isn’t really an option, you have to earn it. We can only imagine what kind of buyer’s stockholm syndrome this instills in OnePlus’ customers. Could you imagine clawing your way up to the top of the invite list, waiting weeks for it to ship, and then being disappointed or getting a defective unit?

If you actually have a chance to buy the OnePlus 2, the other question you have to ask yourself is “How much do I actually trust OnePlus?” The company might have brought this on itself with its “enthusiasts-only” target market, but customers have complained loudly and frequently about the OnePlus One’s build quality issues. Reports of an uneven yellow tint in the display, defective touchscreens, and other problems were prevalent, and the RMA support from OnePlus was pretty bad. The number 2 post all-time on the OnePlus Subreddit is titled “Who else has an OPO that is perfectly functional, without any issues whatsoever?” as if that is a rare thing.

The other problem with OnePlus has been software updates. The OnePlus One took six months to get a Lollipop OTA, and—five months after the release—it still doesn’t have an OTA update for Android 5.1. OnePlus would no-doubt tell you it’s fixing all of these issues. The company claims it has improved its customer support in response to feedback, and maybe post-Cyanogen-breakup the software update situation will improve.

If a Snapdragon 810 and 4GB of RAM with stock Android for $380 sounds a little too good to be true, that’s because it kind of is. Xiaomi can’t match that price, but it also sells devices at scale, something which OnePlus has no intention of doing.

If you’re one of the lucky few that can get ahold of a OnePlus 2 sometime soon, then by all means, go for it. Most people won’t ever have the opportunity though.

Good

• An amazing price, $320-$390 for a Snapdragon 810 is one of the best deals out there.
• Oxygen OS nails the software experience and should be the blueprint for a customized Android OS. The parts that Google provides are left alone, and the OS is extended with extra features and hardware support.
• An unlocked bootloader, which makes it easy to root the phone or flash whatever you want.
• Great battery life. A light OS + big battery = lots of screen on time.
• A fast, accurate fingerprint sensor that works as well as the iPhone 6 or Galaxy S6.