The OnePlus 2 is the 2nd handset launched by the OnePlus company. Like the OnePlus one, the two was also launched with the latest hardware and with an attractive price tag of ₹24,999. This handset is powerful, comes with an excellent camera, has got a finger print scanner and dual SIM slots with 4G support.

Box Pack
The box pack is smaller as compared to one that the Oneplus one came packed in. The OP2 box pack is all red!. Inside you will find the OnePlus 2 handset, user guide, quick start guide, data cable (USB to USB Type –C) and travel charger 5V ~ 2A. SAR Value – 0.795 W/kg (head) and 1.447 W/kg (body). Earphone is not included.

Design, Display and OS
The OnePlus 2 is using a metal frame with a nice grayish matte finish and shiny silver border. Build quality is excellent. I got the review unit with the sandstone back cover – similar to as seen on the OnePlus One handset. The back panel can be removed and there are some colourful panels available (additional accessories).

OnePlus 2 review and unboxing

Weight with built-in battery is 175 grams and dimensions are 74.88 x 151.12 x 9.87 (mm). Handset feels strong and because of the curvy body gives a comfortable grip. This is a dual SIM handset, remove the back panel to access the dual SIM tray, you will need to slide it out – there are two nano SIM slots and both these slots support 4G LTE.

OnePlus 2 dual SIM card slot

Power button and volume rocker are placed on the right side, audio jack on the top and USB Type-C port at the bottom along with two vents. This handset comes with a single speaker phone and dual Mics for noise cancellation. On the left side there is a special dedicated button for quickly setting the Notifications (3 options) – Alarm only, priority notifications and all notifications.

The 2 sports a 5.5 inch LCD In-Cell screen supporting 1920 x 1080 pixels resolution. Colour reproduction, viewing angles and touch response are very good. The screen also comes with gorilla glass protection but it is not mentioned on the box pack, the screen does look like scratch resistant to some extent.

OnePlus 2 5.5 inch FHD screen

There is LED notification and you can customize the colour. Native video calling is not supported. The OnePlus 2 comes loaded with following sensors accelerometer, light, proximity, hall, magnetic and gyro.

Memory, Storage and OS
The OnePlus 2 (OP2) came loaded with 4GB RAM and 64GB storage, there is no micro SD card slot. OP2 with the same configuration is being sold in India. On the first boot you will get about 54GB free space and 2.7GB free RAM.

OP2 is running Oxygen OS based on Android Lollipop 5.1.1. This is a 64 bit OS and it blends very well with the 64 bit hardware.

Could not check OTG as the handset is using the latest USB Type-C port, you will need a special cable for connecting OTG pendrives.

OnePlus 2 speaker vents and USB Type-c port

Performance
This handset is using qualcomm snapdragon 810 1.5GHz 64 bit big.LITTLE (MSM8994) octa core processor (4 x core A53 quad core + 4x Cortex A57 quad core) – 20nm coupled with Adreno 430 GPU. Handset does not heat up much, battery temp is well under control – the maximum temperature I encountered was 44 degree when using 4G LTE outdoor for more than 15 minutes.

OnePlus 2 review

Benchmark

Benchmark App Score
Quadrant 28938
Antutu (64 bit) 1st – 56292 , 2nd – 53153
Nenamark 2 59.9fps
Multi touch 10 point

Gaming
I installed the Asphalt 8, set it to high visual quality and the game play was amazingly smooth, no lags, high quality graphics and better gaming control. The hardware no doubt is very powerful and it can play many high end games in high quality mode.

Camera
Op2 comes with 13MP (12.4MP) camera with OIS on the rear and 5MP (4.8MP) on the front. Rear camera comes with dual LED flash and laser AF support. Focusing is accurate and pretty fast. Camera quality is excellent in good lighting conditions.

OnePlus 2 13MP laser AF camera with LED flash

You can control the exposure however there seems to be some issue with the exposure as there was not much of a difference when I tried to manipulate it. The night shots are good, though with the exposure issue fixed it will do better.

The camera UI is also pretty basic, more feature and manual controls are needed. You can shoot still images, videos, slow motion videos at 30fps without sound, time-lapse and panorama. Rear camera can shoot 4K videos.

Check the sample images and videos at the end of this review.

Others
Loudspeaker sound is loud however the default OnePlus ringtone Tune is too soft. In-call sound is very good. No issues found with 4G, 3G, Wi-Fi, GPS (instant lock) and Bluetooth.

The dedicated navigation buttons do light up and the menu button doubles up as the finger print scanner. This is a touch based finger print scanner, you need tap your finger on the button, and hold it for few seconds.

It will take some time getting used to it. Finger print recognition is accurate but takes about 2 seconds to decide.

Now coming to the USB Type-C port, it is USB 2.0 so you cannot achieve high speed data transfer rate. Also since this port is new, make sure you carry the data cable where ever you move (it’s a unique cable) and to connect with power banks you will also need to use the Type-C cable.

Battery
There is 3300 mAh non-removable battery. Though the handset is using the USB Type-C 2.0 port, you can charge the battery to 100% from 9% in just about 2 hours. Battery backup is decent but not really that great.

OnePlus 2 3300 mAh non-removable battery

For normal mixed usage battery will last for just over 24 hours. Moderate user can expect almost 24 hour of backup and for heavy users the battery is going to drain faster – expect less than 24 hours depending on usage.

For my usage I am getting on an average 25 to 27 hours of battery backup from a single charge.

OnePlus 2 battery performance..

Performance Time Battery drop % Battery Max Temp
Benchmark 13 Minutes 6% 37 degree
Gaming (Asphalt 8) 23 Minutes 12% 40 degree
4K movie play with full brightness + Wi-Fi on 20 minutes 7% 37 degree
Wall Charge (on standby) 1 hours 59 minutes 9% to 99% (wall charge) 35 degree

Verdict
The OnePlus 2 has got a premium look, performance is great, handset does not heat up much and camera is excellent. This dual SIM smartphone supports 4G on both SIM slots and packed with excellent specs – snapdragon 810 64bit, 4GB RAM and 64GB space.

Normal to moderate users can expect battery backup of 24 hours to just over 24 hours but for heavy users the battery backup will be less than 24 hours.

Nevertheless for the price the OnePlus 2 is an excellent smartphone to own.

Rating [4.5 out of 5] – (Rating box limitation, cannot add decimals).

OnePlus 2 can be purchased from Amazon.in for ₹24,999 (if you have the invite).

Update (13th September 2016) – OnePlus 2 will get VoLTE support via OTA update in Next quarter.

Image Gallery


Rear Camera Sample


Front Camera Sample

OnePlus 2 video review

By Rajeev Rana

Founder and Chief Editor - gogi.in