The OnePlus 2 Review
by Brandon Chester on December 14, 2015 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
- OnePlus
- OnePlus 2
GPU Performance
While general performance on the OnePlus 2 ends up being quite disappointing, when focusing on GPU performance we can hope for a much more appealing outcome as Adreno 430 continues to be one of the best GPUs you can get in a mobile device. While I don't expect there to be a large deviation from the performance of other Snapdragon 810 devices, given the unexpected difference with JavaScript and general CPU performance it's worth running the OnePlus 2 through our standard GPU benchmarks to confirm that everything is performing as expected. As always, we start off with 3DMark, followed by BaseMark X and GFXBench.
Snapdragon 810's Adreno 430 GPU is still very fast, and it achieves a very high score in 3DMark's graphics test. As usual, the physics test score basically just scales with frequency and number of cores in use, and with the big cores on the SoC throttling down we see a fairly low result there. I don't usually care much for the overall score, but since it's a weighted average we see the OnePlus 2 sitting near the Nexus 6, although in workloads that mainly stress the GPU you'll actually see a much larger gap between the two.
The OnePlus 2 performs very well in BaseMark X, tracking slightly behind the Mi Note Pro which we previously noted may have some level of additional optimizations at the driver level compared to the other Snapdragon 810 implementations. The improvement over the OnePlus One with its Adreno 330 GPU is quite large, with there being nearly a doubling in performance in the Hangar benchmark.
GFXBench's off screen performance results show that the OnePlus 2 is again a bit slower than the Mi Note Pro. In any case the performance is still very good and only really beaten by Samsung's Exynos 7420 devices, and the iPhone 6s. Since the display resolution is only 1080p you actually get better performance in games that run at native resolution than the Mi Note Pro and Galaxy Note5.
Adreno 430 has always been a good GPU, and in general the GPU performance of Snapdragon 808 and 810 hasn't really suffered in the same way the CPU performance has. At $400 the OnePlus 2 definitely gives you a lot of GPU power, and it's something that differentiates it from what's available at lower prices, and even other devices at the same price like the Nexus 5X.
NAND Performance
NAND performance is becoming a greater focus in mobile devices. To improve performance, vendors like Samsung and Apple have turned to solutions outside of the eMMC storage that is typically used in mobile devices. However, the vast majority of products still use eMMC NAND, and in some cases the performance of that NAND can be low enough to introduce noticeable performance issues when using a device. The OnePlus Two uses a Samsung CGND3R eMMC 5.0 NAND solution, which is the same as the one used in the Mi Note Pro.
Random read speeds track closely with the Mi Note Pro. Random writes end up being quite a bit slower, and this occurs even with repeated tests so I'm not sure exactly what's causing it.
As expected, sequential read and write speeds track almost exactly with the Mi Note Pro. While the results are nothing ground-breaking, they're in line with what you get from an eMMC 5.0 NAND solution. In most cases another component of the phone will likely end up limiting performance before one runs into issues due to NAND speeds, but you won't see some of the benefits that you get with extremely fast NAND such as extremely quick app installation times, faster media transfers, etc.
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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 :(