It’s Here!
I finally got my hands on a invite and immediately bought the phone. This was last Tuesday and after two days it was already shipped. One of the most anticipated phones of 2016 was finally here.
What’s in the box
The box is very nice (picture at the end). In the box you find:
- The phone (it has a screen protector installed at the factory)
- Power Brick
- USB-C cable (the power brick/USB end is also reversible)
- Basic use guide etc
So again no headphones. Many have questioned why, but you have to remember the price point of the device and providing headphones would increase the price and knowing OnePlus, they don’t want to provide some bad “Samsung like” headphones just because of headphones.
Build quality and feel
The device feels superb on hand when first lifted from the box. The phone feels really sturdy thanks to the metal edges (like in Galaxy S6 and other premium phones). The device is heavier than it’s predecessor. Build quality is not a problem on this phone. The new StyleSwap covers are now easy to take off and install (pretty much the same as for example on Note series back plates) and there is a hole in the bottom for easy uninstall. I bought the Kevlar and Black Apricot StyleSwaps with the phone and the hard part is to decide which one to use. I am starting to like the Black Apricot one better.
Software
So no more Cyanogen, but is this a bad thing? Hard to say really at the moment, also my opinion might be little biased as I pretty much hate anything coming from CM. So as said the phone comes with OnePlus in-house ROM called OxygenOS which has now a matured to 2.0 stage.
As I have had the phone just few days I won’t be saying much of the OxygenOS yet, but I have to say that at this stage I would have expected more. The ROM is pretty basic vanilla Android with few tweaks like Dual Sim support (more on this little later) and a Dark UI mode etc.
Coming from a custom rom/CyanogenOS world this a step backwards if you like customization features. OnePlus has said that there will be an OTA update soon to bringing more stuff and fixes, so we will see. Haven’t found any big bugs yet but the camera app is also pretty basic and doesn’t have lot of options. But I haven’t used the camera much so I won’t judge it yet
Snapdragon 810 – hot or not
I tested the “boiling/overheating” with a little gaming session (nothing fancy or really heavy) with few small games (i don’t usually play games on my phone). The phone heats from the topside but for me it’s nothing to get worried about. I have seen same kind of heating with the S6 and other phones. But I will need to test longer and heavier games.
I haven’t run any benchmarks and don’t think I even will as they don’t show the “real world usage.”
Unique features
OnePlus 2 comes with few unique features that are not very common in flagship phones. I will go through few of them here.
Dual sim
OnePlus 2 supports Dual Sim configuration which is pretty big thing nowadays. Ok, it’s a feature that many propably won’t need all the time but it actually is a great feature. I haven’t had a dual sim phone before so I was pretty eager to see if it would have any value to me.
The phone uses Dual Sim Dual Standby mode (DSDS) and you can configure which sim is used for different tasks (mobile data, texts and phone calls). Text and phone call options can be configured so that the phone asks which sim will be used when you make a call or send a text. I have configured that texts and calls are from the SIM1 (my main sim) and mobile data comes from SIM2 as my main sim has a sloooow mobile data so I will use my unlimeted 4G data sim for the mobile data.
As I mentioned the dual standby mode that the phone uses means that if my SIM2 is using mobile data and I get a call to the SIM1 number the mobile data connection will be disconnected until i disconnect the call / reject it. Both sims can receive call but when there is a call coming to either on the other one will be “dead”. So if you are on phone call thrue your SIM1 and someone tries to call you to SIM2 number he will get a message that the number can’t be reached / call will be transferred to voicemail.
I think I am going to enjoy this feature as it gives me more room and will be good when travelling.
Fingerprint reader
Yes, OnePlus 2 has a fingerprint reader. OnePlus #hyped the feature a lot and even said that it will be better and faster than the one on the iPhone. Well, I have to be honest here. It’s not. The reader is pretty good reading the fingerprint but it isn’t as good or fast than the counterpart. Few times the phone hasn’t recognized my fingers at all and sometimes the home button (reader is integrated to the capacitive button) just doesn’t react to the finger at all.
There is also a setting that allows you top wake the screen and unlock it by just putting your finger to the scanner (like in few Huawei phones etc). This feature also works pretty well but sometimes the phone doesn’t wake-up when you put your finger on the scanner. There should be a OTA coming what should fix these things so let’s hope it comes soon.
Conclusion
So the initial impression? Brilliant device with few quirks and pretty basic software. The software part is the part which needs to come better and it should come soon. For me…well let’s just say that I will wait for the custom rom developers to bring their magic on this phone.
Oh, almost forgot. THERE IS NO NFC on this phone and there never will be. I don’t actually need it and when NFC is actually really really useful here (hint: Android pay) we will have the Oneplus 3 or even 4 already.
All in all, at the moment I am really impressed by the phone and hardware, but I want to see lot of improvement on the software side.
Thanks to @infffy for the guest post. We appreciate the contribution. If you would like to write a guest post please let us know and will be happy to feature your post here at Bane Tech.
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