OnePlus 2 review: A great phone that will be sorely missed

The story of OnePlus is a heartening one in the cut-throat world of the smartphone. Over the past few years, when even big names such as Sony and HTC have struggled in the battle against Samsung and Apple, the success of the OnePlus One represents a beacon of hope in a market increasingly dominated by two global behemoths.

Time marches on, though, and what was once an incredible bargain is now…well…no more. Unless you’re looking to buy a OnePlus 2 second-hand, you’ll find it hard to get hold of this handset. Instead, check out the OnePlus 3T or its precursor, the OnePlus 3. Our original review for the OnePlus 2 continues below.

OnePlus 2 review: Design

OnePlus has certainly nailed the first part of its “flagship killer” promise. The 64GB model of the OnePlus now costs £249 inc VAT (the 16GB version is no longer on sale). Yet, somehow, it retains the tasteful design and high-end specification you’d expect of a far pricier phone.

Pick it up and it feels weighty and expensive. The buttons have a solid click to them; the magnesium-alloy frame doesn’t creak or bend when you twist it; and the finishes all feel impressively luxurious. I was sent the Sandstone Black version, which has a rough texture that I really like, but if that doesn’t tickle your fancy you can specify a different finish (the rear panel is replaceable).

There are four different finishes available: three in natural wood – Bamboo, Rosewood and Black Apricot – and one in Kevlar.

Below the touchscreen sits an inset, non-mechanical home button, flanked by capacitive shortcut keys, for Android’s back and recent apps functions. The only unusual feature from a design point of view is the three-way toggle switch on the phone’s left hand edge.

Just like the mute switch on an iPhone, it gives you a quick, easy way of silencing the phone, eliminating in one fell swoop all the irritations associated with Android’s Do Not Disturb mode. With the switch set to its bottom position, all notifications are turned on; the middle position selects the Priority interruptions mode; and pushing the switch to the top puts the phone into Alarms only mode.

The important thing about the design of the OnePlus 2, though – and this is critical – is that if you were handed a OnePlus 2 knowing nothing about it at all, and were asked how much it cost, your estimate would probably be a lot higher than the asking price.

OnePlus 2 review: Specifications and features

The specifications do little to dispel the notion that the OnePlus 2 is anything but a flagship handset. It has a 13-megapixel camera, equipped with laser-assisted autofocus – that’s normally a feature associated with £500+ smartphones, not mid-rangers at sub-£300.

It has the latest version of Qualcomm’s octa-core Snapdragon 810 processor (810 v2.1), developed specially for the OnePlus 2, and this is backed by 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage.

Elsewhere, you’ll find a 5.5in 1080p IPS display, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, a large 3,300mAh battery, a fingerprint reader built into the home button that works incredibly well, and a USB Type-C connector for charging and data synchronisation. The main benefit of the latter is that it’s more robust than the older micro-USB type, and reversible, so there’s no danger you’ll force it in the wrong way and break the socket. The downside is that, initially at least, the cable supplied in the box is likely to be the only Type-C cable you own, so you’ll need to take it with you wherever you go.

With all that taken into account, it’s easy to see why OnePlus’ invitation system was initially inundated by people desperate to get their hands on a OnePlus 2. It’s quite simply a stunning specification for the money. The cheapest, 16GB model is no longer available, but now that the 64GB is available for barely any more, it’s a stupendous bargain. 

There are some things missing from the OnePlus 2’s line-up of features. It isn’t water resistant, it has no microSD slot and the battery isn’t user-removable. Then again, the Samsung Galaxy S6 has neither of those things, and costs twice as much.

Perhaps a bigger miss, however, is the lack of NFC. That means, despite the fingerprint reader, that there’s no prospect of being able to use the phone to tap and pay for a journey on the London Underground, or for goods via a contactless terminal in a shop when Android Pay finally touches down.

OnePlus 2 review: Display

For many potential buyers, such a specification will be enough to get them to empty their wallets in short order, especially since the design is so exceptional. But is the rest of the phone up to scratch?

The display doesn’t make the best first impression. Its colours are a touch pale for my liking and it lacks vibrancy compared with the best smartphone screens I’ve seen. In testing, it reached a maximum brightness of 415cd/m² and covered only 88% of the sRGB colour space, which explains that lacklustre appearance. However, for most purposes, the OnePlus 2’s display is perfectly acceptable. It may not match the Samsung Galaxy S6 or iPhones from a technical standpoint, but it’s just about readable in bright sunlight, and there’s nothing critically wrong with it.

Even the apparently low 1080p resolution isn’t a problem. Despite the fact that most flagships released in 2015 have had pumped-up, quad-HD displays, you simply don’t need that many pixels in everyday use. Indeed, the only point at which most people are going to be able to tell the difference is under a magnifying glass, or if the phone is being used as a screen in a VR headset.

OnePlus 2 review: Software and speed

Performance, as you’d imagine, is perfectly fine. The OnePlus delivers benchmark results in line with most other Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 smartphones: that is to say, it’s very, very fast. In fact, it’s faster than you’re likely to need, even if you’re a mobile gaming fanatic.

In the benchmarks, it achieved single- and multi-core Geekbench results of 1,206 and 4,508, and an average frame rate in the GFXBench T-Rex HD test of 43fps – those results indicate that very little will be beyond this smartphone’s capabilities. It’s significantly faster than the OnePlus One and even OnePlus’ newest handset, the OnePlus X, and the only worry is that the top half of the phone gets very hot with extended gaming.

Otherwise, though, there’s little to complain about, and since there’s little in the way of bloatware and extra services running on the phone, it feels incredible slick. Although OnePlus has ditched Cyanogen OS for this edition of its smartphone, its replacement – OnePlus’ own Oxygen UI – retains the “mostly pure” Android ethos of the first phone. It runs on a base of Android 5.1.1 (Lollipop), and its Android modifications are few and far between.

You get a recent apps/contacts screen – called the “Shelf” – accessible with a right-swipe from the homescreen, plus a series of gestures you can draw on the screen when the phone is in standby to launch the torch, camera or pause/play/skip music tracks, but apart from that it’s squeaky clean.

Transitions from homescreen to app drawer, and from notifications pulldown to settings menus are accompanied by a satisfying snap of animation, rather an unsatisfactory slug of delay. The fingerprint reader recognises your prints quickly and accurately, and can be used to unlock the phone in around a second.

The one exception to this is the camera app. Despite its laser autofocus system, which locks onto subjects with unerring accuracy and uncanny speed, there’s always a momentary pause between hitting the shutter button and capture. You simply don’t get that on an iPhone, a Samsung Galaxy S6 or an LG G4, and it could mean the difference between capturing an important moment and missing it entirely.

The good news is you can switch out the camera app for the default Google camera app – simple, but effective – or one that allows you to take more control. I recommend you give Camera MX a go. It doesn’t give you manual controls, but it’s quick and its live effects are excellent. 

OnePlus 2 review: Camera quality and battery life

Still, when you do manage to grab the shot you want, it’s likely to look pretty good. The OnePlus 2’s rear 13-megapixel does a largely excellent job of choosing the correct exposure for each scene, and even when it doesn’t, there’s an on-screen exposure compensation control to help you get it just right.

Photos generally look sharp and punchy, undoubtedly helped by the camera’s optical image stabilisation (OIS) system and wide, f/2 aperture. As always, when examined closely, some flaws become apparent, and the principal one here is that the OnePlus 2’s photos have a tendency to look blotchy, which can gives your subjects and scenes a rather strange, unnatural look – but it’s only visible in certain shots. OnePlus’ image processing algorithm also beefs up contrast a little too much for my liking, resulting in dramatic, but occasionally over-dark, images.

Slightly more serious is that the OnePlus 2’s low-light performance can’t match its image quality in good light, with a good deal of noise obscuring detail indoors – and the fact that the aforementioned blotchiness tends to get worse as the light dims. Still, the dual-LED flash does at least ensure that flash-lit subjects don’t look too ghostly if you have to resort to artificial illumination.

The only other thing I take serious issue with is that the camera app lacks a proper manual mode, although the OnePlus 2’s next update, which is expected to roll out to users from September 22, is set to add the feature.

That’s good news because there’s currently no way of quickly tweaking the ISO, shutter speed or white balance. All you get is control over resolution, plus a number of novelty modes, including panorama, timelapse, slow-motion, HDR, beauty and “clear image”.

The final aspect of performance to comment upon, aside from call quality, with which I had absolutely no problem whatsoever, is battery life. Alas, it isn’t the best. Despite its large 3,300mAh lithium-polymer battery, the OnePlus 2 lags behind rivals, consuming battery capacity at a rate of 4.9% per hour while streaming audio over 4G (with the screen off), and 8.8% per hour while playing video in flight mode and the screen set to 120cd/m². It isn’t disastrous – the OnePlus 2 will get you through a day no problem – but it’s beaten by the Nexus 6, the Motorola Moto G (2015), and numerous other handsets.

OnePlus 2 review: Verdict

The OnePlus 2 is not quite a flagship killer in the strictest sense of the phrase. It has weaknesses, not least its battery life. However, its flaws must be viewed in the appropriate context.

I’m judging it here against the strictest criteria, the most expensive smartphones on the market, with the most features, the biggest marketing budgets and multinational companies behind them prepared to spend millions developing their products. Once you take that into account, this sub-£300 begins to look like an unbeatable bargain.

This is not a phone that will ever be mass-market. Even though OnePlus has now suspended the invitation system in favour of a permanently open sale, the fact that you can’t buy one on contract will ensure most people won’t encounter it when they venture down to their local mobile phone store. That’s a shame, because OnePlus 2 is the biggest bargain in the smartphone sector right now.

OnePlus 2 review: Price

Update: The OnePlus 2 is no longer available. You can instead check out the OnePlus 3T or its precursor, the OnePlus 3.

	OnePlus 2 specifications
Processor	1.8GHz/1.6GHz Octacore Qualcomm Snapdragon 810
RAM	3/4GB
Screen size	5.5in
Screen resolution	1,080 x 1,920, 401ppi (Gorilla Glass 4)
Screen type	IPS
Front camera	5MP
Rear camera	13MP (laser autofocus, OIS)
Flash	Dual LED
GPS	Yes
Compass	Yes
Storage	32/64GB
Memory card slot (supplied)	No
Wi-Fi	802.11ac
Bluetooth	Bluetooth 4.1
NFC	No
Wireless data	4G, Cat9 and Cat6 (up to 450Mbits/sec download)
Size (WDH)	75.8 x 6.9 x 154.4mm
Weight	175g
Operating system	Android 5.1 Lollipop with Oxygen UI
Battery size	3,300mAh