The OnePlus 2 Review
by Brandon Chester on December 14, 2015 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
- OnePlus
- OnePlus 2
Final Words
After using the OnePlus 2 for quite some time and going over the results of my testing, I can't say I'm thrilled with how things turned out for OnePlus's second smartphone. There are a lot of really odd regressions from the original, and when that's accompanied by an increase in price it makes me wonder why someone wouldn't seek out a OnePlus One, or a smartphone from a different vendor entirely. There were definitely some improvements over the OnePlus One as well, some of which are due to the changes in software that have been made since that time. Before making any conclusions, I'd like to go over the major aspects of the OnePlus 2 and see how they hold up to both the OnePlus One, and the rest of the competition in the increasingly competitive smartphone space.
Unfortunately, the OnePlus 2's display was one of the first things I realized represented a regression from the OnePlus One. Right when I started using the phone it was clear that the color rendition was not in line with what I have seen on recent smartphones. Measurements of the display confirmed that it's far too blue, and not accurate beyond matching the primary colors of the sRGB gamut. The substantial changes to the display characteristics that often come with OTA updates never actually improve the display in any meaningful way, and the fact that the accuracy is such an enormous regression from the OnePlus One is just completely unacceptable.
Performance is another area where the OnePlus 2 is extremely disappointing. Snapdragon 810's issues are well documented at this point, but the OnePlus 2 ends up being the worst implementation that I've seen, with the Cortex A57 cores never being used at all in circumstances like web browsing or when navigating the UI. It makes the phone feel like a Moto E, which is something I remarked on before even realizing exactly what was wrong with the CPU's behavior. When considering the performance of the OnePlus 2, it's more accurate to think of it as buying a quad core Cortex A53 device than a 4x4 Cortex A57 + Cortex A53 device.
Thankfully, it's not all bad news. While the performance is certainly not what you'd expect from the advertised specs, the phone gets pretty great battery life as a result. The construction of the phone is also quite good, with very few visible seams due to the type of back cover attachment method OnePlus has used. I'm still not a fan of the back cover material, but I recognize that as a very subjective feeling and so I wouldn't consider that as an aspect that is necessarily positive or negative. As for the camera, OnePlus has put some significant effort into improving their image processing, and there's no longer any issue with chroma noise across the frame even in broad daylight. I think OnePlus still has room to improve in this regard, particularly where noise reduction is concerned, but in its current state the OnePlus 2 produces fairly good photos considering its price tag.
Unfortunately, even with a decent camera, good battery life, and a nice chassis, the OnePlus 2 simply has too many flaws that can't be overlooked. Like the original, the OnePlus 2's tagline is "Never Settle". Unfortunately, the OnePlus 2 does make you settle in many ways. You have to settle for not having Quick Charge 2.0 support, and you have to settle for not having NFC which locks you out of Android Pay. You have to settle for a very poorly calibrated display which pales in comparison to the original. Most disappointing of all is that you have to settle for poor performance, when moving through the UI, browsing the web, and doing anything remotely CPU intensive. You have to settle for a great number of concessions, many of which didn't exist on the OnePlus One, and none of which should exist at this price point.
At $389, you can find much better smartphones, such as the Nexus 5X, or you can search for sales on phones like the Galaxy S6 or LG G4 if you're in a region where the Nexus phones end up being much more expensive than Google's price in North America. Even the OnePlus One would offer a better overall experience. Regardless of what your needs are when buying a smartphone, I think there will be better options available to you than the OnePlus 2.
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Allan_Hundeboll - Wednesday, December 16, 2015 - link
Some info in this review is wrong. OnePlus One do not have OIS but it does have a metal frame.jabber - Wednesday, December 16, 2015 - link
I was going to get the One Plus 2 but waited so long for an invite I just gave up and went on Amazon and bought a LG G4.The invite appeared the next day. I kind of thought it would. Too late guys. You lost a sale.
I do not regret getting the G4. Great phone.
gg555 - Sunday, December 20, 2015 - link
This review demonstrates everything that I've always thought about OnePlus. It's all hype over substance.They do not make flagship phones (let alone flagship killers). They put a couple high end features in the phone, cut corners in many other places, try to distract and dazzle you with the high end features, and then sell you essentially a mid-range phone at a mid-range price, which is exactly what you should expect for the money.
They also have engineering issues and not so great quality control. How they can have taken the already hobbled Snapdragon 810 and reduced it's performance even more, to the level of a budget phone like a Moto E (as the review says) is beyond comprehension. But still, they made a whole big promise about how they'd handled the 810s heat issues. Handled it by making the chipset worse than far inferior chipsets.
If this is your budget range, you're far better off with a Moto X, which is a truly nice phone.
p51d007 - Tuesday, December 22, 2015 - link
Not to mention out right LIES."First to have a USB-C port"....yeah, the plug & jack are "USB-C" like, but the PORT itself is still USB-2. No support, buggy software, ghost touches.
The X is a MUCH better phone. If you really really have your heart set on the 2 (personally, I'd pass), wait a few months for them to eventually work out the bugs. The OnePlus One is now not really a bad phone, but it took them nearly a year to get most of the bugs out.
OnePlus, is nothing but the beta tester for Oppo. Every OnePlus phone, has a Oppo version that comes out later. The Oppo Find9, was SUPPOSE to be out at the end of this year, but feedback from the suckers who bought the OnePlus2, about the glitches with the overheating/underclocking, they've DELAYED the Find9 until next year and it will come out with the SD820 chip, NOT the 810 chip.
UtilityMax - Saturday, December 26, 2015 - link
I have OPO since February, and it had been running pretty smooth. Fantastic smartphone for the money. Even today, it sort of makes sense given the price dropped $50 to $300 for 64GB version. One amazing thing about it is not just the great screen, camera and battery life, but also the reception. I must be living in an area with a sh1tty LTE coverage since all of our other smartphones work barely faster than 3GB (including iPhones), but the OPO, zOMG! The signal is like 10dbm better at all times, which results in very nice data benchmarks often slaughtering the broadband connection I have (used to be 20Mbps, now 40Mbps with Oneplus One getting that much over LTE)UtilityMax - Saturday, December 26, 2015 - link
I'd disagree with your comment. Both the OnePlus One and OnePlus X were a home run, but with a few small reservations. OnePlus One was well rounded and was at least 90% as good as any flagship phone, but sold for about half the typical price. Even today the 64GB Oneplus One probably remains the best $300 (with a few reservations, such as the store shows they're out of stock). And Oneplus X is basically a Oneplus One, but in a form factor and build quality that really should have been in Oneplus Two, and at $250 in the US, again it's one of the best phone for that price. The Oneplus Two may have its issues, but guess what.. all of the current crop of Android phones using Snapdragon 64-bit 808/810 SoCs have those issues.Ashwith - Friday, December 25, 2015 - link
Seems like the reviewer does not have much experience in reviewing nor regarding smartphone. These days we get to see reviewers dime a dozen and sadly most of them sucks like this one. There is no phone which is perfect and oneplus 2 has its list of cons which are many. But for the prize of $389/- it will give a stiff challenge to all other phones in that range. Only when you use 5X you will get to see that it does not stand a chance with Oneplus 2 and along with goes the credibility of this reviewer. S6 on the other hand does better in all departments. Cheers!UtilityMax - Saturday, December 26, 2015 - link
One great alternative is still the old good Oneplus One. Sold for 250/300 for the 16GB/64GB version respectively. Even today, it's still probably the best $300 smartphone, which is a testament to how well it was made. The only issue though is that it's out of stock at oneplus store...blzd - Friday, January 1, 2016 - link
Your experience reviewing and regarding smartphones is clearly inferior to that of the reviewers. Maybe one day you'll review a smartphone and not just try and justify your purchase decisions. Cheers!Cloudane - Sunday, January 31, 2016 - link
Yikes... what a slating. I just ordered one of these having seen other reviews and thinking they were good, starting to wonder about cancelling my order now :(