Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsOnePlus 2: Not the Flagship Killer I Hoped For
Reviewed in the United States on May 20, 2016
As usual, the star rating has let me down, but if I had my choice, I'd give this phone 2.5 stars.
Overall:
OnePlus sells this phone as the 'flagship killer', with it's impressive display, camera, and low price point, it seems to hit the nail on the head. It seems as if OnePlus has truly tried to make a great phone, as technically there's no downside to this devise as opposed to many other flagships. Starting the phone up you immediately notice the display. It's sharp and crisp and appears bigger and better than most screens I've experienced. Unlike most modern phones, there's a pretty large gap between the top and bottom of the screen and the phone itself; however the symmetry of the gap makes it look sleek, not awkward. The buttons on the side of the screen feel good in your hand, as does the coarse matte-black back. The UI which comes preinstalled is one I was semi-familiar with, and the preset settings don't seem invasive. OnePlus touts the camera to be best-on-market, and I see no reason to disagree. The lens seems to zoom and focus precisely and quickly. Compared to other phones I've had (G3,MotoX,Nexus5), this camera takes the cake.
Once I started to use the device more, I became less and less impressed. Within the first twenty minutes of being activated, the phone froze. Sure, I was installing an app while running another, but with the "impressive qualcomm processor" I figured this would be little issue. This was a true freeze, as the phone got increasingly hot and didn't respond for 60-seconds, I was forced to restart. I concluded that maybe it was doing things in the background as well, having been just set up, and that I'll take it easy for a while and return to the task.
After setting up the phone to how I wanted it, I started heavily using the apps I always have. Many of them barely function at all, and prove a difficult task for the phone. Opening Snapchat freezes the phone for 20 seconds, some games immediately crash, and many things are slow or laggy. About once a day I have to force restart the phone because it froze switching apps or opening something. Additionally, because this is a '3rd party' phone, many apps are not optimized for it. the phone won't even load the GOOGLE WIDGET sometimes!!! The phone gets quite hot with just limited use. While the battery isn't BAD, it's not amazing either, and will not last more than a day, which is all that really matters.
Overall, I have to give this phone a bad review. I'd been using a LG G3 for about two years and besides the screen, there's nothing the OnePlus does better. While the hardware seems to be stunning, it doesn't run smoothly and isn't taken advantage of in a way the user can admire. The screen freezing and slow performance compared to friends phones are insanely disappointing. I was so ready to show this phone off to all my friends and be a member of the $350 club, but showing it off, they all remarked on the same things I did (slowness, freezing, heat, awkward interfaces with the UI) within five minutes. We'll have to see what OnePlus can bring to the table next, but I was in no way impressed with this version.
Pros:
$350 price point puts it much cheaper than some of it's competitors
Screen is beautiful, lights up nicely
Looks great and feels amazing in the hand
Camera is one of the best on the mobile market
Neutral:
Large space between the screen and phone border
Battery life on-par with competitors
General call/antennae quality quite good
Cons:
Freezes under heavy workload, even as new device
Many apps/widgets don't seem to work within the UI
May act particularly buggy/slow within many apps
Phone becomes quite hot with prolonged use
