<p><em>The OnePlus 2, like its predecessor, is out to battle the most expensive smartphones with specs that are as good <br><br><strong>by Mala Bhargava</strong></em><br><br>Confession: the first time I saw the OnePlus One a year ago, I immediately fell in love. With the cable. A brilliant red flat wire, all coiled up neatly and held by a tie… I took several photographs of it before I even turned my attention to the phone.<br><br>On the OnePlus 2, the cable is back again, looking as pretty as before, but now with the new USB Type-C connector, which first became famous on Apple’s newest MacBook. The connector means you can put it into the device any side up.<br><br><strong>The design of the</strong><br>OnePlus 2 is as distinctive as its cable though. On the back is that “sandstone” finish again. This time around, it’s rougher, like a man’s five o’clock shadow. Obviously, it gives the user a good grip on the device and it comes off easily enough to allow access to two nano SIM slots — but sorry, no memory expansion. There’s a 3,300mAh battery in there but you can’t take it out. It charged in about 2 hours 20 minutes but is less than stellar in the duration it lasts. I watched non-stop videos for about eight hours and coaxed it to last over a day with lighter use.<br><br>Customers really liked the way the OnePlus One was designed, but the OnePlus 2 beats it. It’s not just that you can change the back panel, it also has an immediate feel of value, of technology put together with care. That may or may not be the case, but it nevertheless feels it. There’s an interesting unique addition on the left edge of the phone: a three-stage button that lets you control the notifications you want to allow to disturb you — no notifications, priority, and all notifications. I rather like that you can change this setting quickly without even waking up the phone.<br><br>When it comes to waking up the device actually, there’s a home button that doesn’t push down but can be swiped. When the phone is sleeping, you can set fingerprint access. I found this worked very well except that you have to get used to how to set down your finger on the surface. The fingerprint scanner works quite fast. I didn’t think it was worth fussing with fingerprints all this time but the OnePlus 2 has converted me — with the obvious result that I’ll be annoyed not to see it on my other phones.<br><br>But moving on to specs, the display is a 5.5-inch 1080x1920 p with 401ppi pixel density. It doesn’t match those of the flagship phones it’s trying to outdo, but it’s still very good. Colours are fine, legibility is fine including in outdoor light, and viewing angles are good enough. Powering that is the controversial 64-bit Snapdragon 810, known to have some problems of overheating. I didn’t face that issue but certainly talked with reviewers who have, especially when gaming heavily. There’s a full 4GB of RAM to enable smooth speedy performance.<br><br>The camera is the one thing that is still differentiating the flagship phones from budget phones. The primary camera on the OnePlus 2 is a 13MP shooter with F2.0 aperture and optical image stabilisation. It doesn’t match up to the cameras on the cream of smartphones, but it’s nearly there with sharp photos and good colour representation in different light conditions. The front 5MP camera is also nice and clear and I actually found myself able to tolerate my selfies — for a short while. Annoyingly, there isn’t a gallery app and you have to head to Google Photos or look in the Files app for your pics. The camera takes 4K and 10-min slow motion video.<br><br>The OnePlus 2 is not without its omissions. There’s no expandable storage, as I said, but there’s also no NFC and no fast charging. There is a dual SIM slot though. On the software front, the OnePlus One was famous for its Cyanogen Mod system, but the OnePlus 2 comes with its own layer on top of Android Lollipop 5.1, Oxygen OS 2.0. It is what brings a whole lot of customisation features onboard, including drawing an O to trigger the camera from a sleeping screen, changing the function of some buttons, etc.<br><br>The OnePlus 2 is available online through its usual invite process as before. When initially asked whether I would recommend this phone, I held back, waiting to see what issues would come up, especially on the overheating and battery front. They don’t seem to be bad enough to de-recommend the OnePlus 2, but it’s difficult to guarantee that users won’t face these in this case. As reviewers we have received a number of updates to the device and I can’t be sure what a buyer is getting right now. But the whole point is, at Rs 24,999, you can surely take the risk. <br><br>(This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 21-09-2015) </p>
